Hydrangeas
Posted: May 23, 2012 Filed under: garden, spring, yard 6 Comments »
We have a wildly successful group of hydrangeas growing in front of our house. They were pretty strong for the last two years, but I haven’t trimmed them back at all so this year they’ve exploded.
I think the location helps them do so well. The front of our house really only gets partial sun throughout the day. Most hot afternoons they tend to get droopy, but always perk back up overnight.
In an attempt to eventually create some balance, I picked up three new hydrangeas this year from Stanley’s Greenhouse in South Knoxville. I got two big plants that looked similar to the type of plant thriving on the other side ($32 a pop). And one smaller white hydrangea that was being sold already blooming in a smaller pot for the $15.
Should’a stuck to what I know. Because the white one crapped out almost immediately after I put it in the ground.
The other two are doing good though.
I was hoping I could buy some that would bloom with that vibrant blue color. But the kindly plant man told me that if I’ve already got pink ones on one side, these will also bloom pink. Turns out that the color of the hydrangea flowers is 100% based on the makeup of the soil they’re planted in.
Some brief research has made me want to try some techniques next year to adjust the soil enough to produce those brilliant blue flowers. It sounds like the key is to lower the pH of the soil by using compost, then adding a solution of aluminum sulfate around the base of the plant.
You might notice that the big one has a few purple-ish flowers around the front edge. This is definitely more blue/purple than in years past. I’m thinking that this could be due to the mulch that I put down a few weeks ago across the whole front bed. I really only wedged in a little bit around the front of this massive plant, but it’s interesting that the front is where the blue flowers are sprouting up.
Hydrangeas are also awesome for cutting. They don’t last all that long in water, but they sure do look nice while they’re there.
Last sumer I also experimented with drying hydrangeas, and I’d like to try that again this year. They seem to hold up to be very sturdy when dried, versus other flowers that just kind of crumble when you touch them.
Has anyone else ever tried to change the color of your hydrangeas? Is it worth a try? Where the hell do I even get aluminum sulfate?
2012 Vegetable Garden
Posted: May 13, 2012 Filed under: garden, spring 1 Comment »I learned a lot from last year’s highly ambitious garden. Namely that I ought to work within the existing raised beds we have because tilling up fresh ground was a colossal waste of time.
When you look at this picture (taken yesterday) there’s not a trace of evidence that there was a huge patch of tilled ground in between the two beds. The grass has completely taken back over.
But it’s all good. I also realized last year that I let a lot of space in the large raised bed go to waste. It’s probably in my best interest to pack the bed with as many veggies as possible,
So what have we got in the big bed this year?
- 4 tomato plants (Cherokee Purple, Roma, Mr. Stripey, and Sweet 100)
- 4 pepper plants (2 sweet and 2 hot)
- 1 eggplant (Black Beauty)
- 1 mound planted w/ zucchini seeds
- 1 mound planted w/ cucumber seeds
- 1 mound planted w/ yellow summer squash seeds
- Scattered okra seeds along the edges and in the gaps
I originally started with purchased seedlings for the zucchini, squash, and cucumbers, but those little bastard rabbits got in there and ate them down to almost nothing. So I bought a few seed packets, planted ‘em yesterday, and hoping for the best.
As you can see, there are already a hell of a lot of weeds. Once the squash and cucumbers take off, their big leaves should cover a lot of ground and keep the weeds down on this side of the bed.
For around the tomatoes and peppers I’m trying out the landscaping cloth for the first time. Turns out one roll doesn’t go that far. It’s supposed to be compost-able so that you can till it back into the soil next year. I’m still real skeptical, though. I think the weeds are just going to bust right through it before long. They’re already trying to.
We have another existing bed back here, but this one is long and narrow, and the wood is pretty much fallen apart. Nonetheless, I planted it with corn and green bean seeds that are just starting to come up.
I also have a few containers planted up on the corner of the deck. This is where I grow my summer basil stockpile, as well as some parsley and cilantro.
I also decided to plant one more tomato up here in the big half barrel planter. It’s the Bonnie “Patio” hybrid, and it’s received the honor of bearing the first fruit of the year.
Here’s hoping for another delicious produce season in our backyard.
Check out my gardens of the past: 2011, 2010, 2009 (I’ve come a long way in 3 years!)
Mailbox
Posted: April 22, 2012 Filed under: repairs, spring, yard 2 Comments »
I loathed our old mailbox. Here it is two years ago, looking shitty and crooked in the foreground.
That ratty vine growing around it made some pretty purple flowers for about one week of the year. The rest of the time it either looked like this or an overgrown rat’s nest that covered the entire mailbox. Some strong storms this winter made it even more crooked, and eventually knocked it over entirely. I rejoiced when I came home one day to see it completely overturned, because there would be no more excuses to put off the task of replacing it.
So I away I went to gather supplies. The gentleman working in Home Depot said they were all sold out of mailbox posts but I could “easily” make one for about $8 in supplies. I politely told him that that would never happen and drove over to Lowes.
I also needed to pick up some concrete to pour in the hole to make sure this thing never falls over again. So with a standard pressure-treated post, oversized white steel mailbox, mounting board, and 60lb. bag of Quikrete, I spent about $52.
We dug a hole about 2 feet deep, put the post in and tightly packed the dry Quikrete in the hole around the post. Then we dumped a bucket or two of water in there on top, letting it soak in.
At this point it’s already very stable, but it’s your last chance to make sure it’s level. We did pretty well to eyeball it though, it was almost exactly level already.
Then finally the next day we could add the new oversized white steel box on top.
Oooooohhhhhh. It’s so classy. Like those stylish numbers? They’re from the aptly named ModernHouseNumbers.com. A little pricey at $17 for two sets (4 digits on each side of the mailbox) but so lovely.
Now when people drive by they’ll understand that we appreciate nice fonts. Right? Wrong, this is north Knoxville, they’ll probably hit it with a car or BB gun.
The next weekend I cleaned up the rocks around the base and planted some flower-like things. I honestly forget the type of plant this is already, but it should bloom with little purple and white flowers soon. And they should not grow into a wild tangled vine that engulfs the entire mailbox.
I’m in love with it. I never had a regular mailbox growing up in Columbia because the hippies thought it would foster a better sense of community to have industrial steel group mailboxes at one central point on the block. I think this is a lot better.
Garden Expansion
Posted: May 15, 2011 Filed under: garden, spring, yard 4 Comments »2011 will be the third full summer for us here in Knoxville, and thus my third foray into vegetable gardening. 2009 was just some containers out on our back stoop, which was a good vegetable primer even if tomatoes were the only edible thing to come out of it. 2010 was our first year in this house and when I cleared out and planted the existing raised bed in the backyard. It worked out pretty great last year and made me want more.
So for this year, we decided that an expansion was in order.
We rented a tiller from Home Depot and ripped up the grass (AKA weed carpet) from the spot adjacent to the raised bed. Danny manned the tiller, so I can’t speak to that actual process, but it only cost $35 to rent it for 4 hours and it clearly did the trick. I had the duty of crawling through the dirt on my hands and knees sifting out all of the grass and weeds to make the dirt pretty.
We also ran the tiller through the raised bed since it was already overrun by weeds by late April. And that little separate raised-ish bed needed to be completely dug out by hand because there was years of messy growth going on in there. That was not fun. Here’s what that little beauty looked like before:
We also decided to put up a wire fence around the main garden area this year to keep out the varmints and stop the dogs from trotting all over my hard work. Chicken wire is way more expensive than I would have thought. At least we’ll be able to roll it up and use it again next year.
So what will be on the menu this summer?
- Green beans (in the little raised bed, seeds planted directly in the ground, as many plants as will sprout)
- Banana peppers (at the end of the little raised bed, one plant purchased from nursery)
- Bell peppers (in newly tilled area, started from seed indoors, 4 plants)
- Potatoes (in newly tilled area, seed potatoes purchased from Lowes, 20 hills)
- Okra (in newly tilled area, 4 plants purchased from nursery, 2 started from seed indoors)
- Corn (in newly tilled area, seeds planted directly in the ground, as many plants as will sprout)
- Tomatoes (in raised bed, 3 plants purchased from nursery, 8 started from seed indoors)
- Zucchini (in raised bed, 2 plants started from seed indoors)
- Yellow Squash (in raised bed, 2 plants purchased from nursery)
Most of the seedlings I started indoors are pretty sorry looking. I managed to keep 4 peppers and 8 tomatoes alive long enough to put them in the ground. I don’t have very high hopes though. They just look so weak and tiny. Note to self: next year not worth the effort, just buy the plants from the store.
The only things that were really worthwhile to start inside were the squash and zucchini. The yellow squash were looking really good, but after putting them in the ground there were several violent storms that must have killed them (along with 7 poor little okras). The zucchini is doing amazing, though.
You may also notice that there’s a fresh bed of mulch surrounding these lovelies. Yes, I heeded my own advice from last year and mulched the raised bed. The weeds in this thing are just out of control. So I laid down newspaper on top of the dirt then mulched over the top. It took 5 bags of mulch to cover it (just barely). It better work.
I’ve also heard now from several sources that Marigolds are good at keeping the bugs away. And I also thought that I had left a heck of a lot of open space around the edges of the bed. So I bought a flat of orange marigolds and planted them around the perimeter. There were also a few perennial herbs (parsley and chives) that I left growing around the edges.
I’m not going to the lengths of mulching in the newly tilled area because the weeds don’t seem to be as bad so far. Plus some of the things we planted in there are kind of an experiment, so I’m not quite as concerned about it. I’m really interested to see how the potatoes come up, and our few little corn stalks look strong so far.
I’ve heard people say that corn is hard to grow in a backyard garden because the bugs get into the corn before they grow big enough to eat. So we’ll just have to wait and see.
And all of the herbs this year are up on the deck in pots, and they too are doing fantastic so far.
Now that all of the hard stuff is done, we just have to sit and wait for our food to grow. If all goes well, I plan to plant a few fall veggies late in the season as some of the early stuff finishes up. I’d like to try kale and butternut squash. Or maybe spinach or acorn squash, I guess I have plenty of time to decide.
Starting the Herb Garden
Posted: April 17, 2011 Filed under: garden, spring 3 Comments »I decided that this year I would only plant herbs in containers on the deck. It’s more practical because it’s closer to the kitchen. And since they’re smaller plants, they’re less likely to be eaten by varmints or overrun with weeds up there than in the ground. So today I gave it a start.
I actually planted the large half barrel planter two weeks ago with rainbow swiss chard seeds. The chard seeds I started inside were looking weak, and there were a bunch more in the seed packet, so I just threw them in there, and they started sprouting within a week. After some harsh rainstorms, they look pretty strong.
I like how you can already tell some of the stems will be red, yellow or white. Chard is my #1 fave green. It’s delicious and versatile. And I can trick Danny into thinking it’s spinach (one of the 4 vegetables he’ll eat).
In these three, I just planted some new seeds of italian parsley, basil and cilantro.
But back in March, I started a few seeds of each of those herbs indoors. They took a while to sprout up inside, but this past week they started looking pretty good. So I put dill, cilantro, parsley, and basil seedlings into these neat little window box planters I mounted to the deck railing.
I’m hoping they look impressive when fresh herbs are spilling out of them in a few months. For now they’re just adding a nice frame to my gratuitous puppy photos.
I also gave the ol’ college try on this overgrown garden bed in the back. We didn’t touch it last year, resulting in this:
After about an hour and a half of backbreaking labor like last year’s bed clean-out, I got about two thirds of it weed-free and tilled up.
Why didn’t I just suck it up and do the whole thing? Because it’s nice out, and I wanted to sit in the sun and drink a beer.
I’m planning on planting green beans and sugar snap peas in here, per the definitive garden plan ’11. So I better get on it. Some people are telling me that sugar snaps should have been in the ground back in February. But I also think a lot of people jump the gun on their planting. I have zero experience in growing sugar snap peas, so lets hope my arrogant optimism is right.
