little blue hen » garden

garden update: june 1

Stacy — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 05:53:31 +0000

How was your Memorial Day weekend? It was wonderful to spend it back in Minnesota where it was lush and green and full of friends and family. We crammed a lot of fun and a little sleep into our trip and now we’re back in time for “June Gloom” as they call the cloudiest month of the year here.

Happily while we were gone my garden figured out that it’s warm and sunny enough to get moving! It’s been a while since my last update, so here are a few highlights.

I couldn’t resist starting a few more seeds figuring that the long growing season here is more forgiving. On the left is one of a few sprouted Hungarian Yellow Wax Pepper, on the right is a sprout of marjoram.

After sprouting these cherry tomatoes from seeds I transplanted them all figuring a few wouldn’t make it. Ha ha ha. They were pretty small less than a week ago but seem to love the sunny spot where their pot is. Wow. I moved my other tomatoes to that area of the patio.

The last cilantro I had I bought sprouted from the garden center and it didn’t last long before bolting. This is slow-bolting organic heirloom cilantro, so I’m hoping I’ll get a bit more mileage out of it.

I couldn’t resist a buy-one-get-one-free sale on organic peppers last month so we ended up with two. This is a jalapeno destined to mingle with those tomatoes and cilantro for pico de gallo. It’s got several flowers already.

That pico de gallo will also need some lime juice and there are definitely flowers and tiny limes on our lime tree. It’s been a bit chilly and quite windy this spring so a lot of the tiny citrus get blown off the branches. Poor baby limes.

The other half of that pepper purchase was a banana pepper, just for variety. There’s an awesome pizza we used to get in Minneapolis that had banana peppers on it which I am hoping to recreate.

Last but not least, two rounds of lady bugs and an aggressive pruning seem to have saved my lovely hibiscus and it is blooming again. I’m pretty sure the hibiscus is the plant I brought home with the aphids that infested the rest of my garden, and it was so saturated with the pests that I had to cut off all the buds and blossoms to save it. Thankfully it seems to have worked and I’m looking forward to a summer of flowers!

A few of my kale plants are still doing decently, we have basil and mint, I’m treating some mold or fungus on my tarragon with cinnamon which I think is working, and the lettuce and arugula are a bit touch-and-go yet. My hopes are high.

What’s growing in your garden?

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garden update: march 31

Stacy — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 03:03:44 +0000

This week’s weather forecast has higher temperatures in the Midwest than in SoCal. Oh, irony.

However, my little garden patch carries on. Mostly.

On the sprout front:

The tomatoes are still doing well. Now that the real leaves are developing I’m going to need to thin and transplant them soon. We were gone for five days so I was worried that they would wilt or not have enough light, but they seem fine.

The arugula sprouts…. not so much. I’m going to blame a lack of water and a lack of cat discipline. Just my guess. I will likely plant more.

Time to head outside!

This is the Italian flat leaf parsley I grew from seed in the fall. It has survived the winter and is now starting to flourish. I look forward to using it in the kitchen.

The Lacinato kale is still alive but still has some aphid problems. The ladybugs didn’t do as well with the kale and its small curly center leaves make it hard to access the pests. I’m still working on it, though, and have high hopes. Kale is a cool weather green so I’m hoping it won’t wilt too soon.

I’m pretty excited about this little bud. When I brought home a gorgeous hibiscus for the patio, I had no idea it would become the bane of my garden. The flowers are beautiful, but it was the carrier of the aphids that have plagued my little garden all winter. In an act of desperation I lopped off all the hibiscus flowers that were just covered with bugs. It’s been a naked little shrub all season and is finally budding again!

The lime tree has so many flowers right now! You can see a few aphids in this photo, too. The ladybugs actually did a really nice job clearing them out, but it only takes a few survivors to make trouble again. I’m trying to combat them without buying more ladybugs, but we shall see.

In spite of the aphid problems, I do anticipate a good amount of limes coming from our tiny tree. One early developer is almost the size of a ping pong ball!

To add some color to the winter we put together two pots of snapdragons, purple pansies, and white alyssium. The snapdragons are white, pink, and this beauty:

(Sorry, the photo is a little too close, but it was windy when I was taking pictures.)

My favorite flower currently in bloom, however, is amusing to me. We have a bird feeder hanging from the balcony. The first time we filled it we used normal birdseed mix. The little finches that flocked to the feeder (much to the interest of the cats) are picky, however, and just ate the sunflower seeds, spilling the rest of the seeds all over the patio. Messy and wasteful, we decided against the mix and just got sunflower seeds after that.

Well, they’re still a bit messy, and one seed managed to find its way into the pot with the lime tree. Since it’s not exactly a weed we didn’t pull it up, and now we have:

It’s cheery and I like it.

My next garden project is going to be preparing pots for my tomatoes, and I think I want to grow more peppers, too. My jalapeno from the fall has some regrowth after being chopped back due to aphids, but it may be better just to sprout (or buy) new ones. Hmm.

Tomorrow is April 1st! Have you started any garden projects?

garden update: tomato sprouts

Stacy — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:07:02 +0000

Remember way back on February 24th?

Oh, the anticipation of freshly-planted seeds.

Then came February 28th, an auspicious day in the lives of my tomato seeds. The same could not be said for my poor arugula, but enough dwelling on the past.

They’ve moved from the counter to a small table near a window that gets indirect sunlight, then I’ve set up a fluorescent light that I turn on when the sun sets to extend their day. Another four days gets us to this:

With seedlings, the trick is to keep the soil moist but not wet. The temptation is to water them too often. This can encourage “damping off,” and your seedlings can wilt and die.

Hopefully they will continue to flourish and many tasty tomatoes will be in my future.

container gardening for people with long attention spans

Stacy — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:37:04 +0000

Want to start your own container garden but think it’s too much work?
Check out my new post at Homemakers Who Work and tell me if you make it through the whole thing.

Geez, I’m chatty lately. Maybe I’ll go make granola.

spring seeds

Stacy — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:59:58 +0000

Remember these?

Now they’re these:

I used a small flat that used to hold some snapdragons to plant my tomato seeds. It’s still a little cool, so they’re living on my kitchen counter until it warms up and they’re big enough to harden and move outside. Because of the short growing season in Minnesota, I’ve always purchased my tomato plants as 3-4 inch plants. I’m hoping my first year of growing them from seed is successful!

This, on the other hand…

I planted arugula seeds in November. Though they sprouted they’ve been languishing as tiny little plants, not even big enough to count as microgreens. This is particularly vexing because I looooooooooove arugula. Love. It.

So the other day I brought the arugula back inside and planted more seeds. I added a little compost, some water, and in a few days:

Sprouts! We are lucky to have lots of windows, so I’m leaving them on the counter assuming it will be enough light until the plants indicate differently.

A lot of the ladybugs have flown away, but some are sticking around and the aphid population seems to be lower. I’ll give them a little more time and check in again.

I can’t believe it’s almost March. Is anyone else starting seeds this year?

invasion of the veggie-snatchers: february garden update

Stacy — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:35:25 +0000

Isn’t it strange to have an actual garden update in February? Bizarre. But according to the current survey results, possibly from snow-bound readers, there is actual demand for garden posts. Vicarious? Maybe, but I will oblige.

Yesterday I made a quick trip to the garden center. Normally I wouldn’t run errands on a Saturday since I can avoid it, but after it rained all morning and my husband was at work at all day, the sunny afternoon lured me outside.

I came home with a few gems:

Well, future gems. I realize that it’s not a huge pile, but I am limited to a patio and the pots I can fit in the sun! They’re all either heirloom or organic. I anticipate getting tomatoes from the CSA as well, so the combination should let me try to preserve a few.

We did buy a small bunch of cilantro a while back, but cilantro bolts (starts flowering, going to seed, then dying) quickly. The seeds are to sew new batches throughout the season to provide a continuous source of the herb. We sometimes get cilantro from the CSA, too, but that just means more salsa, right?

It’s still weird to me that I have had plants on my balcony all winter. Er, “winter.” Wanna see? Of course you do.

Here is the newest patio resident:

This lovely tulip was a Valentine’s Day gift from my husband. We weren’t doing gifts, but he was having trouble resisting. I said he could buy me flowers so long as it was a plant and not a cut bouquet. I need to re-pot them, but saving them from the cats was the first priority.

My greens were sprouted from seed in the fall and have been making slow progress. On the left is a lettuce mix, on the right is an arugula sprout that has been languishing at that size for a while. Both are seed packets from Botanical Interests, just like the tomato seeds.

I’m pretty proud of this one:

Italian flat-leaf parsley is supposed to be notoriously difficult to start from seed, but I didn’t read that until after I sprouted it. It has survived so far and has had a nice growth spurt lately. The basil I planted at the same time is still alive, but tiny. We’ll see…

This mint has to have its own pot (it’s very invasive and will take over your other herbs/veggies/yard if allowed), so it currently resides in a 64-ounce yogurt tub. I trimmed it back a bit and it’s looking pretty good.

Above is my lacinato kale, also started from Botanical Interests seeds . I started them in medium yogurt containers then transplanted them into the pot in mid-January. They’re loving this cool weather.

I also have two small basil plants and some French tarragon that aren’t huge, but they’re there.

What makes me both the most excited and the most dismayed, though, is this:

Oh, hello little lime. You keep on keepin’ on. There are more, too.

But…

What’s that? Something is eating my plants!?!?

More?!? They’re in the cilantro, too?

I hate aphiiiiiiiids! *shakes fist at sky*

They’ve also gotten to the fennel bulb I grew from seed, and even the kale pictured above (see the yellowing on them?).

It’s particularly annoying because they came home on the gorgeous hibiscus I bought a few months ago. The hibiscus was so covered in them that sprays were ineffective, I finally had to snip off all the blooms and buds (the aphids feed on tender new growth), but they managed to spread to the lime tree and now the vegetables.

Yesterday, along with the seeds, I bought something else, a new weapon in the war against aphids. We tried simple homemade sprays, then tried an organic pesticide to no avail. It was time to call in the cavalry.

Hopefully the aphid buffet will prove tasty enough to entice these bad boys to hang around for a while. That and the mesh bags currently enclosing the ladybugs with the infested plants. There are a lot of them, enough that I had to recruit my husband into releasing them. The beetle-y mass creeped me out a bit. The worms I can handle. That many legs? Ugh, no thanks.

Last month we did try to attract some beneficial bugs by luring them in with some flowers. We bought a few small flats of annuals and put them in pots. I’m not sure if they attracted any bugs, but at least they’re pretty.

garden center visit

Stacy — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:37:58 +0000

We share a car, so this morning I dropped my husband off at work and popped by the garden center, land of danger and mystery and lovely things. On my list: citrus fertilizer for our lime tree and mint and basil plants. I did plant basil seeds, but they are not yet big enough to harvest and we are hungry here. I’ve also been missing fresh mint more than I thought I would — it makes awesome tea, too!

What I ended up with: basil, French tarragon (!?!), and spearmint…

… and …

… this hibiscus.

The lime tree looked lonely, so I got it a friend. It’s an “Untamed Heart,” with gorgeous deep red blossoms. I will keep track of this one and post more when it blooms. So excited!

new growth

Stacy — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 06:24:54 +0000

My last update was on Wednesday, but I was amused and had to post again.

It looks like my two tiny herb pots that have sprouted are basil and now fennel:

No sign of parsley yet, but it can take up to two weeks to sprout if it grows at all. It is, apparently, notoriously difficult to grow from seed. I will persevere, however.

Not hard to grow from seed? Kale. Tuesday, I planted some kale seeds. Thursday, they sprouted. Today, they look like this:

It’s a good thing I like kale!
My two favorite kale recipes:
Olive Oil and Kale Mashed Potatoes at 101 Cookbooks
Kale Salad with Pecorino and Lemon from TheKitchn

I’m not sure how long it will take the amusement of being able to grow things in fall and winter to wear off. We’ll find out!

getting in the zone

Stacy — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:40:35 +0000

When we moved, we left a hardiness zone 4 for a hardiness zone 10 (find your zone here). It’s taking a little work for my brain to transition from putting the garden to bed or bringing pots inside to …. planting seeds. Last fall, I brought my tomatoes inside to eke out a few more ripe ones, and my rosemary and parsley survived the winter indoors.

Not all of our pots are here yet, so we bought a handful for the patio. For seeds, I started some mixed lettuce, basil, fennel, parsley, and kale. The lettuce sprouted in four days! So did this herb (I didn’t label them, so it’s a surprise):

I love this little trio of pots we got from IKEA. Too cute! The sprouts will outgrow them quickly, but that’s ok.

The plants we bought at Armstrong Garden Center included tomatoes (Early Girl, Roma, and Balconi Red) and a jalapeno. We’re trying to grow salsa.

The tomatoes are either flowering or producing fruit already since we’re sort of between seasons right now. It’s probably an odd time to be buying plants, but we didn’t have a place to put them several weeks ago!

We also want to get some flowers to keep near our front door. I will probably end up growing them from seed once we decide what we want and I get back to the garden center. We don’t really know what does well here, so everything takes a bit more forethought and planning.

And, of course, there’s our lime tree.

Be careful, it’s sharp!

I have a few more seed packets but no more pots. It’s so strange to be planting seeds now, but I am excited to have fresh herbs and greens! Once I have the space, I’ll plant arugula and scallions, too. Yum.

Anyone else have a fall garden? Indoor, outdoor, herbs, veggies, fruit, what-have-you?

home is where your tree is?

Stacy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:48:16 +0000

Sunday I spent the day unpacking while the hubby was at work. When he was done, we packed up the last of the hotel room and officially moved! Of course, the first available appointment for internet installation wasn’t until Wednesday morning. And here we are!

We are settling in. A handful of boxes are still in Minnesota, so we’re missing an odd assortment of items: a pizza pan, my shoes, the bathroom rug, etc. They’ll be here in the next month or so, however, so we don’t want to run out and replace them, either. Before I left, I also sold some of our furniture that needs to be replaced, and we now have a two-bedroom apartment instead of one. It’s a balance of finding what we need quickly, but not sacrificing finding what we want for speed and ease. Oh, and we don’t know where any stores are in town.

The stores we did manage to find: IKEA, Home Depot, and Armstrong Garden Center. From said stores, we have acquired a desk, a drill, and a dwarf lime tree, respectively (and among other things).

It’s a little strange to us to plant seeds in late September, but we’ll have a fall garden. And this lime tree (pardon the terrible photo, it was NOT my photography day) should be just fine on the sunny corner of our patio! Once I can manage to take some less-terrible photos, I’ll have a little garden update.

Don’t worry! I have some baking coming up this weekend, and some cooking before that can happen. It will get more interesting, I promise!