Blackberry Winter = FROST!

Seriously!? Frost is in the forecast? What kind of crazy spring is this? So much for Mother's day being our last day of frost in this part of VA. To deal with this blackberry winter (that's what my grandmother always called it when we got a late cold snap while the blackberries are blooming), I've covered my little seedlings in the garden with newspaper. They're calling for frost again tonight, so I'll take pictures of my little hobo garden. One or two sheets of newspaper lightly draped directly over the plants is enough to protect them for just a night. If we were going to have long term (a week or more) cold, I might invest in some floating row covers, but for just a night or two, I can get away with newspaper.

Garden frost protection falls into two categories: those that can be left on during the day and those that need to be removed. And those categories change as the daytime temperatures rise.
Those that can be left on include:

• Milk cartons with their bottoms cut off and their lids left off. This is great for a few prized tender plants in the garden (Basil, Eggplant, Peppers to name a few). But if your daytime temps are going to be above about 70, you should remove these to keep your plants from baking.
• Floating Row Covers. Some folks leave these on their crops all summer to prevent pest damage too.
• Water Walls. These little guys go around each individual plant and can stay there all season if you wish, but most folks remove them. The cheap way to do this is to fill multiple water bottles and surround the plant with them. Again, only cheap if you've just got a few plants. I've got 24 peppers and 38 tomatoes.... not an option for me.
  

Those that need to be removed: Basically anything that can cover the plant and keep the frost from forming directly on the leaves but that won't allow sun and air to the plant for days on end.

• Bed sheets - cover a lot of space quickly
• Newspaper
• Pots turned upside down over your plants
• Straw or other loose mulch

With any luck, these cold nights won't last long and my little plants will be just fine with a little protection.

Planting day!

Mother's day weekend turned into the garden weekend to beat all garden weekends. I planted in two days all of the following (a star means it's near a trellis for future support):

Tomatoes - 38 Total
7 Cherry:

• 1 Blondkopfchen* (Little Blond Girl)
• 2 Black Cherry*
• 1 Camp Joy*
• 1 Hawaiian Currant*
• 1 Gardener's Delight*
• 1 Ghost Cherry*

17 Paste

• 6 Roma
• 11 Early Annie (odd number, I know, but I sold more plants than I intended

14 Slicing

• 3 Mr. Stripey*
• 4 Mexico*
• 3 Cherokee Purple*
• 1 Brandywine*
• 3 Eva Purple Ball*

Lots of Beans

• October Beans (for beans and greens and cornbread, quite possibly the most perfect comfort food ever!) - 8 square feet
• Bush Beans - Early Contender - 8 square feet
• Pole Beans* - Kentucky Wonder - 10 linear feet, about perfect for fresh eating and some sharing
• Soybeans - Beer Friend (for edamame) - 18 seeds - these will be succession planted over then next 8 weeks so that we can have a tasty treat every few weeks this summer.

Squashes a plenty

• Cucumbers* - Burpless and White Pearl - 8 seeds - this will give us enough to share!
• Yellow Crookneck Squash* - 3
• Spaghetti Squash* - 3
• Pumpkin Lumina - 3 (I know, I'll kick myself later for not trellising these)
• Zuchinni - 2

Eggplant - Black Beauty - 2

And 24 Peppers

• 5 Jalepeno
• 5 Banana
• 7 Sweet Bell
• 7 Garden Salsa

I also replanted some volunteer Cilantro, a pot bound Thyme, and some hostas that a friend gave me. Oh, and Marigolds everywhere. Oh, and some sweet alyssium for a pop of color. Oh, and zinnias for more color. Oh, and the alpine strawberries that I started from seed. (I think that's everything.)

In the Front Yard, I also planted 80 Gladiolus, several handfulls of zinnia seeds near the house, and I made a little zinnia patch near some mailboxes that aren't ours.

Quite an exhausting weekend! Pictures of all of these will follow in the coming days. For now, my poor hands are a little chapped from playing in the dirt (I try to remember gloves, really I do.) And my hamstrings are definitely feeling toned after all of that squatting and standing! Gardening is my favorite work out.

Herb Garden

My cowboy has been hard at work!


It has been my dream since we moved in 2007 to have an herb garden close to the kitchen door. Here it is, less than 10 steps from the door in a small sunny spot that gets full sun about 7 hours a day! The old barn beams were sealed with a non-toxic bug proofer last fall and they've been sitting, weathering, waiting for warmer spring days and a thawed out ground. I love that the beams are large enough to sit on while harvesting seasonings, and that they will make such a lovely backdrop for all manner of leafy yummy goodness. He dug down to make sure that there was enough dirt around the beams to keep the bed in place and used a gargantuan drill bit to drill holes for rebar to further reinforce the beds. And now it is my job to plant it full of herbs! YAY!

Cheerfulness Under the Tree

My all time favorite bulb, cheerfulness.


I love the way it looks, smells, waves in the wind, everything about it! Really, this little flower reminds me of a spring break trip I took in high school to England (the one and only time I've been across the pond, so to speak). A friend and I were roaming the streets and stopped at a flower vendor. A lovely lady with a thick English accent told us that they all grew on her farm a few miles out of town and my friend and I just couldn't resist a 3 pound piece of English countryside. She chose red tulips and I chose cheerfulness. So here they are, my planted memory. I love the fact that the tulips and cheerfulness came up at the same time! What memories have you planted in your garden?

Damping Off!

The plague of every start from seed gardener has finally hit me. I've started seeds for 3 years now and never had this problem before, but this year, I've lost most of my lavender, thyme, and alpine strawberries to this awful fungus condition! Brought about by top water, not enough air movement, and slightly too cold temperatures in the basement. Damping off (insert link) is not just my problem, but washing seed trays (or egg cartons in my case) in hot soapy water every spring will help stave it off, as will consistent bottom watering instead of top watering with a mister. Now I've learned my lesson. Anyone else have this problem this cold spring?

Raised Beds

My cowboy has been hard at work!

I love craigslist! I found some Trex boards there last fall for less than half price from a fellow about 15 minutes away that had overbought for his porch. And now my hardworking cowboy has made them into more raised beds! For these, he is determined that they will be level, so the process is methodical and steady (just like my man). Check back after the rain stops for the unveiling of the raised beds so far!

Wildflower Alley

One of the first things we did in the Maple Tree Garden was kill grass. There's a section of right of way that has an awful hill to mow and it's outside the fence and right next to a road. So grass there is pretty much pointless. So we killed it, tilled it, and planted wildflowers. I think our neighbors thought we were nuts.... until they saw this


We had folks slowing down to look at the flowers, which is a really good thing because it's kind of a blind corner and lots of kids walk back there. We even had a few people come up to the front door and knock to tell us how pretty the flowers were. And this spring we were out there pulling up baby maple trees (story of my gardening life) and folks were stopping to ask if the flowers were coming back.

It looked a little hopeless and weedy in mid March

And then a little better in Early April

Mid April was filling in.

End of April it is looking much more like a flower garden.

The evolution of the wildflowers is so neat to me. I love how last year there were so many annuals (I'm actually going to reseed annuals this year. American Meadows has great seeds!) and this year the perennials are starting to show their combinations. If the rain will ever stop, I'd love to post another wildflower alley update, it has changed even more from that photo! Now doesn't that look better than grass?