Forty days and forty nights

Lordy, we could use some sunshine!  I've been happy to have an actual spring this year - something I haven't seen since I was a child - but enough rain is enough rain.  (Yes, I'll be complaining in a few weeks about how hot and dry it is.)

The plants don't like it any more than I do.  They can't get green without sun. And if they can't get green, they won't grow.

Poor little cucumbers.

And the basil!  Oh my.

Peppers are no better off.

All the warm season crops look very sad indeed.  I sprayed them with a fish emulsion solution to give them a nitrogen boost, and side-dressed them with epsom salts for better nitrogen uptake.  They look a little better.

Basil

Pepper

Celery

However, the lettuce and arugula, both cool season crops, don't mind at all.

I haven't even set the tomatoes out yet.  They look pathetic.  I didn't have a greenhouse set up this year.  Everything had to go outdoors and under a row cover tunnel.  There just wasn't enough heat or sun for the tomatoes.  They look like they have herbicide damage, but it's just the cold.

The first year of my garden, I put the tomatoes out too soon, and the cold did this same damage.  I thought it was herbicide damage from the nearby field so threw them away and started over.  This year, since they weren't anywhere near the field, I realized this is what happens when it's too cool for them.  I'm expecting them to shape up when we finally get summer.  I hope I'm not disappointed, because I'm not starting any new ones.

Even the shirley poppies are unhappy.

But let's quit looking at all the sad stuff and turn to the flowers that ARE happy.

Foreground: Oriental poppies (red), 'Jade Eyes' allium, Spanish poppies (orange)

Background: 'Caradonna' salvia (dark purple) and orange thyme (light purple ground cover)

Mountain lily (Chionodoxa)

Japanese iris

Copper iris (Iris fulva)

The whole shebang (click the picture to enlarge)

Go on out there and do a sun dance, if you don't mind.

'Til next time.

Planting fever

This is the first year in the seven I've been  back in Missouri that we've had an actual months-long spring.  What a joy.  Planting conditions have been perfect for several days in a row.  I've now got everything in the ground aside from the tomatoes, which are still too small, and a few flowers.

This is what I started with:

My last attempt at propagating roses has failed.  'Poseidon' was the last holdout, and I thought it was taking hold.  

Alas, this method of pinning a branch to the ground in hopes it would sprout roots eventually failed, just as all my attempts at rooting cuttings and air layering.  I think I'll give up.

My late timing this year has robbed me of grass clippings for mulching to retain soil moisture while plants are getting established.  So I had to resort to other things, like scissor-chopped cilantro on small patches...

...and chopped up fall leaves from 2019, which didn't last through the next morning's winds, even though I thought I had watered them down enough to hold at least some of them.  This isn't the first time that's happened.  I may have to give up on that method, too, unless I chop them much more finely using the lawn mower.  That worked out pretty well one year.

The overwintered lettuce has gone into the fetal position.

While this year's tender babies are coming on strong...

One of the free seed varieties I got from Baker Creek this year was 'Russian Red' kale.  It's pretty.  I haven't tasted it yet.

'Calima' French style green beans are up.  This is my first year planting green beans.

Basil transplants are in the ground all in an arcing row.  I've planted several varieties this year: 'Cardinal' and 'Purple Ruffles', which I've planted before, and three new to me varieties, 'Amethyst' (a purple variety), 'African Nunum', and 'Mammolo', both green (as is 'Cardinal').

Cucumber transplants are in.  I stuck with my standard 'Marketmore'.  I thought about running string from the plants to the top of the wagon wheel for them to climb, but I'm afraid, unlike tomatoes, cucumber stems are not strong enough to hold the weight in that method.  I'll have to install a wire fence piece, I think.

Pepper transplants are in and mulched with a humus/manure mixture. There are yellow and red bells from saved seed of grocery store peppers, 'Quadrato D'Asti Giallo' bells that I planted last year as well, a kind of neon gold/red variety, chilis, snack peppers (also saved seed from grocery peppers), and Tam jalapeños. I never have very good bell peppers, and I'm hoping some extra fertilization will make a difference.

So far, the garden is coming together nicely, with herbs and rhubarb already large and bushy, and the grapevines with oodles of tiny little flower buds...

Finally, here's a nostalgic look at the garden in the beginning...

 

What surprises me most is how much the mimosa tree (left side of the picture) and smaller of the two redbuds in the background have grown!  I didn't realize they were that much smaller seven years ago.

Enjoy your spring...we're bound to be feeling the heat soon.

Late post

I've been neglecting my posting here, so in order to catch up a little, this one will be essentially a picture dump from last month (again - I'm falling into a habit here).

February was a horror. Not just for Missouri, but all over the states. Even Texas froze, leaving millions of people without heat or water for days (that's another story about corporate greed and political unpreparedness). It was miserably cold here, and finally March gave us a break from the freezing weather. The early plants started coming up, and just as it has done every year for decades, a late March freeze snapped at them.  And as if that weren't enough, another freeze in late April (!) went at them again.  Against all odds, nothing suffered damage - not even the magnolia.  

December and January were relatively mild, and a number of plants stayed green, if not growing heartily.   

And then came February.  The only things that made it through that were weeds (of course), lettuce and, surprising to me, the 'Phenomenal' lavender in the rose garden...

...and the perennial poppies.  This is how they looked mid-March:

But then came the rains, and I found another low spot in the garden, next to the tulip beds.  Seems like every year I find a spot that needs to be built up.

Spring bulbs (alliums, hyacinths, daffodils, tulips, crocus, bluebells, muscari, mountain lily) all started coming up the first two weeks of March, along with the rhubarb.  And now (the first of May) things are looking up.

First, though, here's a picture from Easter when a baby squirrel decided I was at least better company than none.  

It followed me around for two days and then disappeared.  I hope it found a new home and not a predator.

The new tulips were beautiful during the month of April.

'Guinevere'

'Guinevere' and 'Red Matador' with 'Thalia' narcissus

'Tom Pouce'

'Slawa'

'Shogun'

As were the previous year's daffodils...

'Orangery'

I planted peas along a trellis in the same spot as last year.  I don't usually plant things in the same plot two years in a row, but I had put up that trellis and thought I'd go ahead and use it.  Besides, last year's pea crop was a bust because what the moles didn't eat as seed, the deer ate when they sprouted.

And...guess what?  The same exact thing happened this year.  I got something called TomCat Mole Killer and plan to pre-flood this area next year before planting anything.  Only I tried flooding it this year, and the water never stopped running, so I'm assuming the run is very, very long.  

I've never heard of anyone having much luck with mole baits or traps, but I'm desperate.  There are acres of yard for them to tunnel - and they do.  I just want this little plot of garden.  Is that too much to ask?

A decent bit of lettuce overwintered through that frigid February when the ground was frozen, along with walking onion and wild garlic, so I've had salads for weeks.

And, speaking of frigid weather, we got a late freeze (and snow) in late April, so I had to bring all my seedlings indoors for two nights.

Amazingly, the only plants to be damaged by the freeze were the potatoes, but they've come up from different "eyes" since.

I also cut a bunch of tulips and daffodils thinking they'd freeze anyway.  

The ones I left weren't even fazed, so I could have left them all and enjoyed them outside longer.  Oh well, I enjoyed them inside.

I saw a recipe for dandelion jelly a while back, so, having a bumper crop of dandelions (as every year), I thought I'd try it.

It was way too much work for something that tasted only of the lemon zest in it, and sugar.

Lilacs, magnolia blossoms, and dandelion jelly