Journal Archive: 2004
So what have I been up to recently?
December 29, 2004 - The depression is lifting. It felt like it never would, but when I got the Territorial catalog on Christmas Eve, I found I was actually looking forward to going through it. I'm thinking idly about what I want to fit into the layout for next year, and how I need to weed and rip out the old setup. I've noted that the peas are flowering, and the beets seem to be surviving; I even took a stab at weeding the garlic a little bit ago. And I'm realizing that in a month or so, I may actually be interested in sowing veggies and keeping them under lights. Not yet, but eventually.
It was a very rough year, in a lot of respects, and I lost my taste for gardening and haven't regained it for months. There's still some bitterness, but there's also hope, and some confidence in new techniques. I think I can get much better results this next year, barring disaster (of course, I can't do much worse, but even doing this badly again would be horribly disheartening).
So, this in mind, I found myself eyeing the trees at the hardware store. I didn't buy any, but I was checking the foliage and trunks of the cypress and juniper trees, and noting that they were $20 each. Not bad... then I happened to look to the side of the door as I was leaving the store. Living Christmas trees, the 2' tall kind, marked down to $6.50 apiece... and I was caught.
I got myself a stone pine (Pinus pinea) that looked good, and some 8" tall cuteness that ColorSpot was calling a "European tree" (thanks). $12 for the pair. Now, having done a little poking around, I think the "European tree" is a smooth cypress, one of the cypresses in the Juniperus genus rather than true Cupressus... it has the sharp needle-scales of an immature juniper, so that fits, and the growth habit is similar. Junipers bonsai well, at any rate, and there's so much growth on this sucker that I'm sure I can find something interesting in it. It was buried up to its neck in peat moss, so I need to dig down to the crown and repot it, poor thing. At least this species is listed as liking hot, dry weather.
The pine may not like it quite as well, but it's in better shape, and stone pine (aka umbrella pine) is supposed to be hardy in zone 9, so it's not restricted to high mountains. I think I've seen a few of these around Walnut Creek, for example. It's also the source tree for pine nuts, something I hadn't been aware of... I don't think I'll ever get any cones off a 20" bonsai, but it's a fun fact nonetheless.
It's getting to the time of year when I need to replace the wiring on Little Tree (my valley oak) and see how well it's faring... maintenance for my bonsai comes around during normal pruning season, which is January. So I'll be checking my stocks of copper wire, maybe getting some 16-gauge to go with my 22 and 12, then wire and prune. I now have four to take care of -- Little Tree, the maple I got last spring, and these two evergreens. The maple will get its first real eval, beyond the simple "yeah, that looks good" that goes on when buying them, and I'll have to figure out what to do with it and the juniper. I haven't decided what I want to do with the pine yet either, in a broader sense... I could keep it as a Christmas-tree-like object for later years, or I could shape it as a mature umbrella pine. Choices, choices...
At least Little Tree is looking good, and should make a wonderful miniature of the grand old oaks around here. I studied the heritage oak down the street when I was shaping it, and I think I have the twisted, trailing effect down. I need to see how it's filled in over the season, but I saw some useful buds when it was leafing out. Its trunk is expanding much faster than I would have expected, too, given that it's still in a 1-gallon... many growers swear that the only way to get a good trunk and root base is to plant it out for five years, but I'm getting some good development and a few decent roots, too. I may put it in a 5-gallon this year to see what happens.
I'm rather proud of Little Tree, really -- I love Quercus lobata to start with -- and I'm enjoying the challenge. Eventually, I know, my biggest problem is going to be selecting a pot which flatters it -- that's my weakest skill, really, and so few places sell pots around here.
November 24, 2004 - I just poured boiling water into a bucket of peat moss. Once it's cool enough, I'll drain off the excess water and mix in perlite to make starter mix.... hell, maybe I should have added the perlite before sterilizing, but I was worried that all the perlite would float on top. So I may just have to cross my fingers and hope.
The planting trays have been washed with bleach, as has the kitty-litter pan I put them in. I'll use the sterilized mix. And I'll put them outside, until I can wash down my whole light rack with bleach too. Maybe that will put an end to whatever disease kills all my seedlings, every time... it ain't damping-off, it's that odd disease that causes jigsaw-puzzle flat areas on the leaves that then turn brown and die. Dr. Raabe couldn't culture anything off of the infected plant I gave him, but I'm almost convinced it's fungal. No idea whether it's soil-borne, but sterilizing things can't hurt.
The upshot of this inconvenience is that I'm weeks behind getting the broccoli in. For most people it wouldn't be an issue, but the sleeping Horde will wake up soon, and the winter garden didn't get the full effect of the nematodes this spring. I've been trying to start everything before Thanksgiving to give the plants a head start, but the broccoli, kohlrabi, and spinach have yet to be sown and the chard has yet to make an appearance. The beets are all looking fabulous, though I hope they put out true leaves soon.
Ah, well, I'll always have the garlic, and the onions can be put in at any point during the winter; those got shot to hell too, dying en masse in the trays. So those get resown, as does the spinach. I need to turn the bed once more before I direct-sow the kohlrabi. Then I should be set -- if anything goes wrong after that, it's beyond my power to correct.
The peas are doing well, so is the garlic. I'm expecting frost any day now -- maybe tonight -- then the tomatoes will get torn out and the last popcorn harvested. Oh, and the peanuts.
On my list to do over the next few days, maybe tomorrow, is to rake leaves into the paths of the summer garden and run the reel-mower over them. That should shred them and cut the weeds both, so that I can keep the paths from turning into jungles... if there are weeds in the beds I don't mind so much, as I'll just mow them and till them in come spring. So long as I mow the whole mess often enough to keep the seeds down it should work; given the reel-mower, which deals with wet grass easily, I think that can be arranged.
It's so easy to get discouraged sometimes, especially when I'm depressed already due to other things. I just have to keep trying, and eventually I'll get what I want out of all this.
November 9, 2004 - The election's over, and it's the time of year that I feel I can legitimately turn my back on the summer garden, so I'm getting back into the swing of things.
My latest small victory was digging the sweet potatoes. Nine plants gave me about five pounds, a quite respectable armful considering I had never tried them before. Most of them are the small but substantial size I like as a single serving, too.
So those go back into the plan for next year, having been successful on a small scale... they like more water than I was led to believe, and need some nitrogen -- and a deeper bed. So I'll give them all of those and a corner to spread out in, and they may do better yet. Nothing like a little success to encourage a gardener.
This year was my first experience with corn smut. Now I understand why so many gardeners are weirded out by it... I had a bit on my strawberry popcorn, and took care to throw it all in the garbage rather than the compost. No point in encouraging it.
I've come to the conclusion that the soil we have is really bad. The texture is great, drainage and water retention are marvelous, and even the rock content isn't prohibitive. It tests off the scale in phosphorus and potassium, which is reflected in the size of what root crops I can get to grow (4" Walla Walla onions are nothing to sneeze at). But I'm trying harder and harder to get it to keep some sort of nitrogen, and it just doesn't seem to want to take. I've added organic material, added nitrogen-rich amendments, and all it does is squirrel it away somewhere. I'd love a dump-truck load of compost or manure, but I have no money to do that. Sigh.
So I guess I'll stick with alliums and beets, and corn, though I can't for the life of me figure out how my corn thrives while my potatoes starve... rely on those, and keep fighting to get a decent tomato crop and maybe even melons. I haven't worn out my welcome at the brewery yet, and alfalfa for tea is cheap, so I'll pile on mash until the plot is half-grain and see how things do.
The broccoli, spinach, and onions are under lights right now, and I keep meaning to sow kale, chard, and kohlrabi out there. The beets are already sown (having a metric ton of seed helped, I could just broadcast it and rake it in), and I think I have enough of a head start that I'll get a crop before the earwigs come out in force. I think the trick is to plant everything before Thanksgiving to give it a fighting chance. Oh, and I just put up a trellis for the peas, and trained them onto it -- another week and I think it would have been very difficult to disentangle them and train them upward.
The leeks are doing well, surprisingly so as they were all from bulbs and pearls rather than from seed. I probably need to sow the next batch soon, and sow some parsley for transplanting. The last of the basil is thriving, and I need to put it away as pesto before frost hits... I expect that to be early this year.
In a little bit I'll hit the graphs and figure out what I want, and where, for next summer. I've been away from the Tomato forum for some months now, but as frost hits the rest of the country I'll head back there, secure in the knowledge that winter erases all the sins of the past and allows us to dream for next year.
October 1, 2004 - Well, something came in right. The tomatoes didn't perform much better than last year, but the popcorn has really done well.
I probably won't do the three sisters thing again next year; it's too hard to balance the needs of the beans and squash against the corn, particularly in water levels. Most of the squash didn't make it (I can see one Jack Be Little out there) and the beans look anemic, at least on the older set... the popbeans look good in the new plot, but we'll see how they do.
The corn grew tall, though, and gave me lots of ears -- the strawberry popcorn is covered in silk right now, and very green and lush. I picked a bunch of ears off the Cherokee Long-ear and stripped the husks, and I like what I see. Lots of variation, from almost-white ears to one that has all shades of purple, and a few thoroughly mixed. The ears aren't all big, but I suspect that will improve if I put the plants in standard spacing next year.
They've had a few problems -- some of the ears seemed to be too small for all the kernels, and so had a lot of split kernels, and somebody drilled through the husks to eat the tips of some of them. I found a beetle I suspect was the culprit, but I need to check that. All in all, if I can beat the beetle and keep the growth rate steady enough that I don't get split kernels, I should have a dynamite harvest next year.
Popcorn is the way to go, I guess... we didn't eat a lot of the sweet corn this year. I may plant a few sweet corn off in a corner next season, but most of my corn will be popcorn. It stores well, I can give it away as gifts, and we need to eat more of the stuff (it's good for you).
I planted garlic yesterday, five primary varieties and two for seed stock. I need to go out there and spread some bulbils for garlic chives and green garlic; I reserved a square foot just for Killarney Red bulbils. I'll thin them out come spring, and I may get some rounds for planting stock out of it.
The monarchs aren't quite done yet; I saw a fat caterpillar making its way up into the Earl's Faux plant, and we have more hatching out every day. I estimate we must have had twenty or so in my garden, and I'm pretty sure I didn't have more than one monarch pair visit. I'm pretty happy about an increase like that, and they all seem to be big and healthy at hatching.
At any rate, I need to can up the pears I prepped last night, part of my mad dash to put away all the Bartletts I can before they're out of the stores for the year. I was so busy last month I barely had any time to can them, and I have to have pears down in the cellar, even more than tomatoes. Soup is probably the most important, but I have enough cock-a-leekie to last until the next crop of leeks matures.
August 2, 2004 - All I have to say is that if, indeed, the worse something smells the better it is for the garden, I'll have an award-winning plot next year.
It started with the Witches' Brew, of old highly-fermented alfalfa tea; I was going to pour it on the neediest tomato plants. Then I figured that a slug of fish emulsion wouldn't hurt. Then I threw in this month's portion of Aunt Flo's Compost Tea (don't ask) and gave the whole mess to everyone in the worst three rows. Two weeks later I'm seeing quite a lot of growth and signs that even the worst ones are looking to pull out of a stall, so I'll do it again in two weeks.... at least drenching them smells better than misting fermented alfalfa tea with the sprayer. Shudder. (If you want a clue, think of the worst halitosis you've ever had the misfortune to encounter -- then double it.)
Today took the cake, maybe the whole bakery to boot. I collect six-gallon buckets of brewer's mash from the nearby brewery; it's the cooked barley, hops, and yeast from the brewing process. When new, it smells like hot cereal, or at worst like beer. When it sits for a little while it ferments to smell like buttermilk or something a bit stronger. I made the mistake of not only letting it sit for six weeks.... but leaving the lid ajar.
I will not leave the lid open again, that's for sure. The population of the bucket was quite daunting, though the top layer had been decomposed enough not to smell like much; they were all working toward the bottom, slowly. It was not the most appetizing moment of my life to empty it out -- and then the undecomposed bottom layer met the open air.
It was around dinnertime and I was very very glad that the cool weather meant Art was probably not out in his backyard barbecuing. That gave me enough time to hastily fork the stuff into the bed, as Nick wandered the garden trying in vain to escape the smell. He described it as beer made from manure; having had a bit more farm experience (only a bit) I thought it was like fermented chicken manure. I was happy to let the dirt dampen the smell, and even the slight whiff when I watered the bed down afterward was better than having it out in the open.
I started planting leeks there, then stopped, thinking about the four raccoons we have around here and what they'd make of the grubs and other larvae I turned out of the bucket. If they do tear the place up I'll lose only eight leeks now; I'll wait a week before planting the rest.
I should get extra credit for dealing with this stuff. Or maybe just a clothespin for my nose. I'll leave the bucket out in the sun for a day before bugging Morgan for more mash, and I'll use all of that within a week. Really. If the rest of the allium bed doesn't take it, I'll fork up a portion of the fall garden just to turn this stuff under... or water the compost pile and throw the mash in.
I just keep thinking of the four-and-a-half inch onions I pulled today, and I have to wonder what this stinktastic stuff will do to the leeks.
July 25, 2004 - The tomatoes are coming in. Finally.
I've reached the "wait" stage in the garden, finally, so I may be able to post here a little more (rather than spending all my days out there). I'm working to set aside a little time from my blog-reading and other household projects to keep up my site, especially now that it's public.
At any rate, the cukes have started to trickle in, the tomatoes are ripening, the corn is going strong, and the summer squash is about to go nuts; the okra is about to bloom now, too, something I'm really looking forward to. I ate the first slicer today, though, which really says that summer is here.
It was a Vorlon, something which surprised me; I hadn't expected it to be quite so prompt. Then again, it's been strong from day one, and it almost tied Sudduth Brandywine, so maybe my earlies were just all stunted. (I've been getting fruit from Sungold, Dr. Carolyn and my crossed Chello, but cherries don't count.) Not all the fruit the Vorlon set have developed, which is I suppose how it dealt with the overload. Not much BER -- at least, compared to Rutgers, which has yet to ripen but has given me over half a dozen BER greenies.
So I ate the first Vorlon (very good, by the way, a definite winner) and picked the second one -- which may not be quite ripe, but I managed to notice a crevice next to the stem, and picked it before the critter could do any more damage. You know, corn earworms can be rather strikingly marked, something which I noticed as I prodded it in hopes of interesting the paper wasps.
It was, unfortunately, turning into evening, and the wasps were settling down... it took about five to ten minutes of guiding the worm into crawling toward the nest when one wasp finally took exception on the third invasion. A wrestling match ensued, the wasp picked itself up and essentially straightened its attire, and went back to the nest to tell the others. I suppose they can pick up the dead earworm tomorrow for breakfast.
It felt good, though. One fewer earworm to mess with the tomatoes and corn.
Leeks and hollyhocks are waiting until tomorrow evening to get planted, when it should be cooling down; I'll pitch my other four cukes in the bed at the same time. Ah, yes, and one of the popbean varieties is flowering and setting pods. Not all are daylength-sensitive, apparently.
Welcome to summer.
June 25, 2004 - I've learned a few things about growing potatoes. After harvesting a small armful from my 40 square-foot patch, I feel prepared to do battle again, hopefully to get a better crop. I just need to get some seed spuds to sprout.... The next set of fingerlings seems willing, but I don't think those are enough to fill the whole patch.
I was just out looking at the tomatoes; most of them have small green balls on them, and I've already picked a couple of BER greenies from Vorlon. That plant is covered in blossoms, is setting most of them, and will be so loaded with fruit... assuming they don't all rot because it's too ambitions. Carolyn assures me it knows what it's doing, but I'm not sure a four foot plant can handle over 50 eight-ouncers at once.
At any rate, I was out there, and I was joined by a paper wasp doing its thrice-daily patrol. They seem to keep a very close eye on the tomatoes, weaving in an out of the leaves, checking them over. I have no objection whatsoever -- I know who's responsible for vanishing the hornworms when they're still tiny. Paper wasps love caterpillars to munch on, and they're quite docile too...
Their nest is attached to one of the lawn chairs hung up on the side of the shed. It was between two chairs, sheltered, until my dad took the upper chair down and found them. So last night I moved their chair to another peg, freeing up the other chairs behind it and getting them out of the way a little. I did this around midnight, carefully, and they barely moved at all. So I hope they stick around. Nice guys.
Sungold has given me four tomatoes and it's ripening up more, but it seems to have stalled a bit. I'm hoping a foliar spray will wake it up, and if not I'll give it a shot of Superthrive. Sungold shouldn't be skinny and small, it should be taking over.... we'll see what I can do.
The melons are doing fantastically, so is the corn, which is silking. I have summer squash growing well (still small, though) and the calypso beans seem happy with their new home. I planted popbeans next to them and need to water them 'till they sprout. The coriander in the patches failed, and I got more seed and tried again in the bucket; it's finally coming up. The garlic is all drying. The sweet potatoes are in and starting to vine, and the runner beans are blossoming again, though something has managed to kill half of them. The onions bulbed up very well -- so much for skeptics who said we were too far south to plant long-day onions.
There's still lots to plant -- herbs and flowers, the peanuts when they decide to sprout in the flat (I'm transplanting them, sigh), leeks, and Peter's Aussie capsicum if they ever come up in my little incubator. My other peppers are doing well, and the Anaheim is flowering. The Yellow Wisconsin 55 tomatoes, two of them, are doing very well, and I'll clone them in a bit; the suckers for the red version I got from Bruce are showing sign of what might be fusarium, so they won't be planted out until I'm sure they're not infectious.
Oh, and we got some catnip from Aunt Jenny, the amazing ultra-potent stuff. I need to find a good spot for it, then put the wire basket over it for protection.
Just another day in the garden...
May 8, 2004 - I grew lots of carrots. *grin*
Last post I was gloating over the monster carrot. Today I took a dig around the carrot isolation bucket and decided it was time to thin back to two-inch spacing, so I might as well pull up the tiny ones between. Imagine my surprise when they come out fully half-size, at about six inches long and 3/4" wide. Seventeen of them!
I've heard of baby carrots, but never grown them. I always wondered why people went for them, considering how small they must be... now I know. I offered a couple to my neighbors, then crunched one myself -- and discovered that the wonderful fragrant potting soil has a lot more taste than plain old dirt. Not a good flavor, either. So I scrubbed the next couple, and enjoyed them hugely.
Definitely a success, and I look forward to the remaining full-size carrots in the bucket. They're a fast crop, and can be grown year-round, so I'll just keep that bucket in carrots for a while, I think. The beets in the other one are starting to size up too, and that'll be a treat. Wow, this gardening stuff is pretty neat after all; all I have to do is beat the slugs and earwigs!
Now I'm waiting for the cilantro in the last bucket... the third one is sown with popbeans, which are coming up now. Two of the eight, the darker ones, have lovely green leaves with red veins; I really hope these work out, even if they wait until September to flower.
In other news, I planted the rest of Nick's mom's garden today; five tomatoes (Sungold, Eva Purple Ball, Dr. Wyche, Cherokee Purple, and Druzba), plus the extra two mounds of Eight Ball and Horn of Plenty summer squash. That makes four, enough for any household. I also straightened up one of the corn plants, and planted Kentucky Blue beans around the front row... we'll see how those do. The corn was already two feet high, so the biggest concern is whether the beans are ready to compete.
She said she feels like a real gardener now, and I have to admit it's looking pretty good. The potatoes are finally emerging -- she got so impatient that she planted more, so now there are three rows of taters in a 3'x10' bed. Sigh. Well, she said she likes small potatoes...
I've given in and started to make my tomato grow list for 2005. So far it seems to be over half reds, not counting the pinks. No purple, one black, one green, and a few yellow. Sigh. Ah, well, more will come along and I'll get a bit more of a variety, I'm sure -- none of those on the list are repeats, and I'm sure I'll get two oranges at the very least (Kellogg's Breakfast and Sungold).
My SSE yearbook order came, giving me tomato seed for "One Ball" (looks just like a billiard one ball, let's hope it doesn't taste like one) and "Woman's Name Starting With A", a red. That was the closest I could get to something with my name on it. So those are on my grow list; I keep looking at Soyuz and Vorlon (growing that this year) and Star Trek and NASA, and thinking I could do an entire space-themed tomato patch.
I did get to plant peanuts, and I'm waiting for them to come up. Never grown those before, and I'm wondering how they'll work out. I've put the watering in for the herb patches, my regular basil is out hardening off, and I have seed to re-sow the Thai and salad-leaf basil that has crisped in the sun waiting to be planted out. Sigh. Just watch me manage to grow coriander in the patches, when all efforts to do so have failed to the extent that I devoted an isolation bucket to it!
Ooooh, I need to sow my cukes. The melons are ready to go as soon as I make sure there aren't any earwigs in the vicinity; I'll plant out Boule D'Or and Charentais, my sacrificial melons, to see. If they get eaten I can replant, but I don't want to risk my few seed of Orangeglo or Moon and Stars watermelons. And risking Ogen is just blasphemy. *grin*
May 2, 2004 - I grew a carrot.
Perhaps not the most beautiful carrot -- it was split -- nor the sweetest. I like a bit of "carrot" flavor, not just sugar. But it was big. An inch and a quarter across, seven to eight inches long. I picked it just before it sent up a flower stalk.
This may not be much to other gardeners, but to me it's a real achievement. Carrots don't grow well here, in our hot dry summers and rocky adobe clay. It's taken me a while to find the right season, the right variety, make the right soil. And this one was grown in the ground, not in the pot I currently have carrots in... heavy soil, amended with organic matter and fluffed with a tiller. Many seedlings got eaten, many roots got savaged by slugs. But I've harvested a few now, and this was by far the best.
If I can grow carrots, it's possible to grow just about anything here... it's just a matter of finding the right environment. It gives me hope for the broccoli that always buttons, the kohlrabi that bolts, the cilantro that won't take hold no matter how many seed I sow. I just have to keep working at it.
May 1, 2004 - I've been up to a lot. Most of it's been in the garden area -- how many hours that can swallow at a time is boggling -- but I've been tackling other things as well.
The roses still need to be cleared out and pruned, particularly since I didn't do their winter pruning in January... they're now up to seven feet tall, blooming, and a few have lots of black spot. Ah, well, this is a demonstration of why I do prune them, and maybe I'll trim them a bit after this flush of flowers. I can at least feed them.
The neglect of the roses is being made up for with the fig tree. I have made huge inroads on the weeds and lily-of-the-valley vine underneath our 50 year old Black Mission fig, and it's showing its appreciation in the lack of mosaic-deformed leaves this season. I actually have two-thirds of the base down to bare, raked, dry ground, with hopes of keeping it that way with weekly hoeing... it will discourage the vine, improve the tree's vigor, remove an eyesore, and devastate a habitat for slugs and earwigs. Now I just have to complete the job and keep up the maintenance. I'd particularly like to be able to rake up fallen fruit to control the dried-fruit beetle this year, so that we can actually give away figs.
All that organic matter can't go into my compost -- too many grass seeds -- so I put down a pallet beside the rock pile and made The Heap. I have enough for a second one, now, and by the end I'll have a third, full of weed seeds, rocks, and small sticks, none of it chopped up. But so long as I water them, and let them sit, they might decompose into something useful; the mix of green vine and brown grass is about 1:1, after all. It may even sprout the grass seeds, at which point I'll turn them under. What do I have to lose?
The garden itself is looking better. The beneficial nematodes got sprayed in early April, and by the 22nd the Horde was gone. I went out at night to take stock, and saw maybe four earwigs in the entire garden... while the potatoes, mulched with straw and lacking nematodes, were crawling with them. I'd say it was a roaring success... even now, I'm finding a handful or so, few enough to trap and spray for control. The Horde lives on in the other plot and surrounding areas, but I've broken their hold in the current garden and I hold the key to their eventual defeat. All I have to do now is set up a dry-ground dead zone between them and my beds, trap the few that make it in, and I can have cucumbers and beans again. Hallelujah!
The nematodes (Steinernema carpocapsae) aren't low-maintenance; actually, they're a royal pain to keep up. I was out there watering every day and sometimes twice daily, and the slugs were having an utter field day. But in three weeks the Sc. did the job, I'm letting things dry out, and Nick is cleaning up the straggler mollusks with zaps from an ammonia spray bottle. Looks like pillbugs are my only remaining nuisance. I will definitely recommend these critters to anyone having trouble with Forficula (European earwig), root-knot nematodes, and all the various listed pests they take care of. Biological warfare at its best.
I'm going to break my back on all these rocks. I have an ocean of rocks in my pathways, and I can't throw them on the rockpile during the daytime without burning my hands. So meanwhile I'm stumbling over, tripping over, and burning the soles of my feet on these mounds of rocks, and wishing I could clear the paths and make the place look like the north end. It will, I know, I'm just impatient.
On my list of things to do: finish the fig tree, clear the rocks out of the main path, rake up Three Sisters mounds in the last garden bed, set out Horde-vulnerable plants like beans and melons (carefully), sow cukes, sunflowers, peanuts, et al, and set out more watering lines. Oh, and attend to those poor roses. Somewhere in there I'll be studying chemistry and baking bread, I hope.
So much to do... but seeing the results is worth it.
April 2, 2004 - I just spent about an hour spraying beneficial nematodes on my garden areas -- preparing, spraying, and watering them in. Man, I hope this works.
Steinernema carpocapsae is a microscopic worm, a parasite of several pest species. It's related to S. feltiae, a nematode commonly used to control flea larvae in lawns. S. carpocapsae is listed as effective against a huge list of soft-bodied pests, grubs, and ground-dwelling insects.
It is not listed as a control for earwigs; very little is listed as a control for European earwig. But I found reference in two places -- one of them the agriculture department of New Zealand, I believe -- that nematodes provided good control of European earwig, specifically when using S. carpocapsae. So I found a supplier, spent $30, and just used half of them. The other half is slated for the other plot when I get it mowed.
This is really my last hope. I shouldn't say that -- if these don't work, I can try S. feltiae or H. bacteriophora, other parasitic nematodes which might like the taste of earwig. But S. carpo is my best hope.
I get to water the whole area (by hand) daily to keep it moist, for a minimum of two weeks; longer is better. But if I can cut the population I can even now see out there, little quarter-size buggers by the handful, then it's all worth it. All of it, even the nail biting and the daily waterings and all the weeding I'm going to have to do.
My biggest concern is that they may have frozen... the fridge was a little colder than I thought, and read 29 degrees when I pulled them out tonight. It would have been warmer during the day, though, and the dry sawdusty-suspension they were in wasn't too cold. My dad's doing a backup on his computer right now, otherwise I'd grab his "toy" microscope, dilute a crumb of nematode suspension in water, and look for wrigglies. I may do that tomorrow morning at the plant clinic; they have decent microscopes set up there.
My fingers are crossed and the clock is running... go, S. carpo, go!
January 25, 2004 - I just spent a half-hour or so out hoeing the front strip again. It seems endless, but I keep getting signs of progress, so I'll keep at it.
The idea is that I'm trying to get rid of the oxalis out there. It's still only about half the 70-foot strip, so it's not a huge area; I'd also like to put in some landscaping so the schoolparents don't keep wanting to park on it. Oxalis, of course, is one of the more noxious weeds familiar to most people -- its yellow flowers and cloverlike leaves pop up in the damndest places, and it's almost impossible to get rid of.
You don't want to pull it, because it has a small bulb (a corm) underground that doesn't come up. It also has a nasty habit of forming satellite corms along the root system; pulling it leaves those behind, and suddenly you have twenty. Solarizing works, but this is a shaded northern area; I also don't want to use pesticides, the last option.
So, thought I, what if I cut them down every time they come up, so they don't have time to reproduce?
Thus the endless hoeing. They seem not to form the satellites until they think about blooming, and I haven't let them get that big. I cut them down, they sprout again... but I've been seeing more and more of the big corms, the acorn-sized ones, turning into hollow shells. I've also noticed more tiny leaves, maybe a quarter- to a half-inch across, which is very small for these... and they seem to be taking longer and longer to reach the same size again. Very encouraging. I'm down to turning them once every two to three weeks now, which isn't bad at all.
I may actually manage to eradicate most of them by midsummer, and plant some annuals out there. I don't want to plant anything permanent until I know the weeds are gone, but I'm actually beginning to feel that it's possible now. I've been embarrassed by the streetfront area for a while now, and if I can whip it into shape it'll do worlds for my enthusiasm in renovating the property.
Next step: maybe carve a drainage trench along the edges. Parts of the front strip turn to swamp from street runoff, and that would help keep it a bit drier and discourage people from parking. I have no problem with them parking just off the street; we have a gravel swath, which is more than many of the neighbors allow. But when they go and park on the dirt behind the mailbox tree? Please. Landscaping will eliminate that, but the ditch will help too. Then I can turn my attention fully on thinning out the weed trees between that and the front lawn.
Speaking of neverending... sigh. So many things to do, so little time.
January 7, 2004 - I hate fruitless mulberries.
Oh, they're great shade trees, I'll give them that. They're so good at it they shade themselves out. Every two years I tackle the redundant, overextended, and dying branches. Every year each branch I cut generates two more (and I'm not doing the pruning in spring). Thirty-foot arched branches are nothing unusual, four of them layered on top of each other, all but one being shaded. Cutting those three so that we can have even shade grass survive below is a chore I dread.
I just hacked off a seven-inch-diameter branch. I have a six-incher where part of the twenty-foot length of it is over the power line to the shop.... be vewwy vewwy careful, says I. Armed with a pole saw with a brand-new blade, I'm still staring almost directly upward as my arms wear out, and I can't say how bad that posture is for my health (even if nothing does fall on me). I'm just glad I'm seeing my body-worker next week.
I'm allergic to the damn things, too. About the only thing I appreciate about mulberries is that they don't sucker or seed (thank god). Beyond that, I say rip them all out; there has to be a better-behaved shade tree out there. Like some of the locusts that don't sucker as badly as the black.
Barring that, give me a chainsaw and a steady ladder. I don't believe in pollarding, but cutting a third of the branches off every year sounds really good right now. Only on two of them; the other few aren't watered so much, and need only the occasional trim. They're shorter, too.
Gah. Two branches down, and it's getting dark. I can't say I'm unhappy about it, but that means tomorrow I still have the remaining branches to do, however many that ends up being.
On another note: I was just at the hardware store to get a blade, and thought to stop in at the garden department to see whether they had any asparagus crowns. I was directed to a Grow-Rite display, with its little cardboard boxes of plant sets; they're more expensive that way, but the potatoes caught my eye, and I looked the thing over. Potatoes were Red LaSoda, which did well for us last year, Cal White (yay), Russet Burbank, All Blue.... standard grocery-store fare. Artichokes, everbearing strawberries, aparagus... I thought to look at whether the aparagus was Jersey Knight or not, and then I discovered there was no variety listed, anywhere on the box. Instructions referred to it as "gourmet asparagus". Ha. Because there's only one kind of asparagus out there...
Needless to say I'll be going to a real nursery for crowns. Maybe Regan's in Fremont will have them when we go down for my rose.
January 4, 2004 - I'm looking at all the cleanup jobs out there... ripping out the old summer garden, cleaning and labeling the watering system from that, pruning the trees and roses, digging up the asparagus, weeding (oh the weeds)... is it any wonder I haven't been going out much?
On the plus side, the older compost pile has been resting, and when I poked into it today, it turned up black and crumbly, smelling pleasantly of mushrooms. My first compost! It should be ready well before planting around April Fool's. The other pile is growing, and may soon be to a size where it can stay hot. Talk about your minimal pile sizes... three feet on a side is barely enough, but how I would turn something larger I have no idea.
I pulled two leeks today from where they wait patiently by the old potato bed. One had a 12" stalk, the second was 9"... sure, they may have taken nine months to get to that size, but I'm glad to know I can grow these Burpee hybrids to their full potential. I have lots more at the pencil stage, and I'm looking for more ways to use them; I vastly prefer them to onions.