Au Revior Peonies!

Unfortunately the sudden and stiffling heat got to the peony blooms over the weekend, the gorgeous fluffy light blooms crumpled in the face of the oppressive heat. I ended up pruning them back for this evening's work in the garden. I adore peonies and am always sad to see them go, but I will see them again next year and they will be giving others pleasure next year too as I will be dividing some of the larger plants up for friends!

The passing of the Peony is bittersweet, while its beauty is only a memory now, it foretells new and countless bounty in the garden now that the warm weather has finally arrived!

Happy Gardening!

What to do with spent bulb foilage?

I love the look of my spring flowering bulbs in full bloom, but they can start to look a bit tired and skanky once the bloom is gone, but what can you do with spend bulb foliage?

You might be tempted (as I have been) to cut back the foliage as soon as flowers are spent, but hold the shears!!! The fading foliage is the food source for the bulb’s production of blooms next season, if you cut it back, you will see fewer and fewer blooms each of the following years if you see flowers at all. Wait until the foliage is completely yellowed and died back before cutting it back or mowing it to the ground.

If you are really worried about the look of the spent foliage, you could braid it or bend it down and tie it with degradable string to keep it contained.

Happy Gardening!

I know my enemy, and his name is Squirrel

I'm with Carrie Bradshaw on this one, she states that Squirrels are simply rats with cuter outfits...and while I would never harm an animal in the garden, I do have to figure out ways to encourage them to spend time elsewhere.

I have a bird feeder that isn't squirrel proof and I have a tasty vegetable garden....the temptations for the little buggers is too great and it is having an effect on the amount of bird food I have to buy and they have damaged some vegetable plants.

First, I am going to get a squirrel proof feeder very soon and I have to come up with a more effective reppellent, the garlic oil works a little, but not enough to drive them off....any suggestions?

Happy Gardening!

We are still here!

Well since my post rapture looting of the Saks Fifth Avenue shoe department was cancelled, I decided to get some gardening in over the weekend. The weather has warmed up a bit over the last couple of weeks with average night time temperatures above 50 degrees. That makes the soil warm enough to plant some summer crops.

I planted a new variety of beans this year. Traditionally French Fillet beans (Haricovert) are bush varieties, but I don't have room in my small garden to grow bushes of beans. Thankfully Renee's Garden has a variety of French Fillet that grows like pole beans. I was delighted to plant these (two to three inches deep and 6 inches in between) along the trellis against my garage. The sun will be filtering through the small forest of asparagus ferns, but will be plenty of sun for these beans!

I also planted a variety of cucumbers called English. These are the long cucumbers you see at the market. They tend to have fewer seeds than traditional cucmbers and are excellent in salads or for making pickle chips!

And of course things are always moving in the garden, the last of the spring radishes came out of the garden this weekend and were replaced with carrots and a rainbow variety of swiss chard.

The garden is really kicking into high gear now that May is drawing to a close.

Happy Gardening!

Transplanting in the Rain, what a glorious feeling...um, NOT

I, like many central ohio gardeners are both grateful and resentful of the large amounts of rain we have recieved here in April and so far in May. It definitely filled my rain barrell and has made the job of watering nearly non existent. But, it has also slowed the growth of a lot of spring crops....I could complain, but frankly our dear Mother earth will do what she wants regardless of my opinion :-)

Yesterday since all the seedlings were put in the garden already, I spent time changing some things around. I extracted about another 100 daylily bulbs from one of the perrenial borders that will be given to my friend Amanda for her burgeoning garden then transplanted several Salvia plants into that space. While Salvia is a leggy perrenial that can look sloppy when overgrown, the bees and butterflies absolutely love them and it brings many many little pollinators to my yard so I am grateful for the plant. I also relocated a couple of Hosta Plants within the perrenial herb garden.

And while I didn't do a Gene Kelly dance in my yard, I was extremely grateful for the rain yesterday and today that will help these transplants establish themselves in their new homes.

Happy Gardening!

Planting Day and a Peek at the garden so far

It is planting day here in the garden!!! it is a big day for spring planting. I put in the tomatoes, eggplant, squash plants (some) along with more herbs. I also wanted to give you a glimpse of what has been going on in the garden so far this spring.

The forest of Asparagus is just beautiful. This is the second season for it so I did not take any of the spears this spring, but next spring I will be able to harvest for about a week...then progressively longer each spring! The beautiful Monet's garden lettuce mix I planted is just about to have its first harvest...yummy salads are in my near future!

You can also see the potato pot and the progress of the peas, herbs planted earlier this year and the beginning of the second full spring of the dwarf apple trees, they are really coming along nicely!

Today is a great day to get out and plant your garden!

Happy Gardening!

New Gardens!!!

I know this might come as a little bit of a shock, but here goes....I love to garden....whew, I said it...now if you can pick yourself up and continue reading :-)

I love working in my garden...flowers, vegetables, herbs all bring pleasure and energy that is simply unmatched...but I absolutely love helping friends work in their gardens too.

Recently, my dear friend Alan and I were talking about gardening and he mentioned that he would like to put one in at his house. Alan and his partner Phil have a beatuful house and have done a marvelous job renovating it as well as creating a beautiful landscape. The vegetable garden was going to have to work within that vision as well.

So last weekend we put in the beginning of what I hope will be a garden that brings them both pleasure and reward like mine does for me.

As you can see, the raised beds are not framed, but simply mounded...this is an inexpensive way to get started and frames and much or gravel can be added later.

To begin, we took a trip to a local garden center...it is dangerous to put the two of us in any sort of shopping situation, but I think we did alright and did not spend the national GDP on garden things :-)...soil, compost and peat were all tilled into the native soil then mounded. Alan surrounded the beds with landscaping fabric to prevent weeds as well as provide a base for future gravel or path mulch. We also purchased some starter plants. We planted Tomatoes, thyme, rosemary, basil, peppers, onions as well as asparagus crowns. Alan will add beans to the trelis area later in the season.

Organic vegetable gardening is catching on all over! Good Luck Alan

Happy Gardening!

Making More Room

What does a crazy gardener do when they run out of space? Well make more of course :-) A friend of mine is returning from the Netherlands with 85 euro of bulbs and the perrenial border was chock full of plants from the last 8 years of gardening...definitely running out of space.

Rather than not adding more plants (because that would be really a crazy concept), I decided to widen one of the perrenial borders (I will be expanding a couple of other smaller beds to accomodate bulbs and some new plants I acquired this year.

I am not a big believer in power tools in the garden, I think it is a waste of precious resources (electricity or oil) to run a tiller. So I broke down the small rock retaining wall, used a construction spade to mark out and break up the grass, then used a hand cultivator to remove the grass as well as mix in the soil ammendments (peat, compost). I then added a small garden edge that only came to the ground level then backfilled the bed. I rebuilt and reconfigured my rock wall.

Voila! a perrenial border that was once only three feet wide is now six feet wide! Room for bulbs, new perrenials and I even made room for some annual chinese brocoli since I didn't have room for it in the formal potager!

Happy Gardening!

Plant Sale!!!!

This is the wrong place for plant addicts!

I had the opportunity to go to the Chadwick Arboretum and Learning Garden's Plant Sale this morning, it was fantastic. The Arboretum and Learning Gardens are located on the campus of The Ohio State University and they are intended to provide an educational environment to advance the knowledge of students in their horticulture studies and to be a resource for learning about plants for the campus community and general public. The annual plant sale generates a large part of the funding for the arboretum for the year and I was so pleased to attend the sale this year.

It is also a peaceful place for respite..and shopping it turns out. My bounty is currently sitting on my back deck absorbing what little sunshine we are getting today. I will plant some of the flowers this weekend, but I will save the vegetable seedlings for another week (bringing them outside in the day time and back in at night) so the average daily temperatures get a little higher before I put the delicate seedlings in the ground.

If you are in the local area, the plant sale is also tomorrow (Saturday May 7th, 2011). Get some gorgeous flowers and vegetables and help out a great place right here in Central Ohio!

Happy Gardening!