OK. If you’ve been keeping up with my posts – here are the pictures I promised you. Hang on to your garden gloves ! They’re a bit scary at the moment, but somehow I think they’re going to turn out quite nicely with about 2 weeks of hard work.

The first two shots are of a perennial garden I planted several years ago when my parents were about to sell their home of almost 20 years. They told me to take whatever plants I thought I would want and that I had approximately 30 days to do it in. Well, when I first planted the dozen or so plants – it worked out perfectly. My 20′ x 20′ square garden was perfect. However, over the years they have multiplied and spread to such a degree that it is more than past time to thin out the crowd and move them to other locations.

Since school will be over tomorrow, my plan is to get out there and weed out as much as I can. This way I’ll know exactly what I have to work with when it comes time to transplant.

The good news is that a clematis that I was certain had died over the winter has come back stronger than ever so I’ll need to put up a trellis to keep that from wrapping itself around the wild roses (alreadying happening) which continue to “thumb their nose” at my efforts to kill them. UGH!   As pretty as they might be in full bloom – they are equally invasive to my “neck of the woods” and I can’t wait to dig the roots clean out of there.  It will mean removing a rather rickety looking fence that I put up 6 years ago to keep the deer out. In the meantime, my son has managed to run into it a couple of times with his dirt bike and I’ve clipped the corners a bit too tight with the riding mower as well. Ah well, just add it to my “DO IT” list, right?

The next big project is to take the plantings (mostly lilies of one kind or another, some hostas and Italian chives) that I have thinned out of the 20′ x 20′ perennial garden and plant them into a foundation garden which has a good start but then sort of fizzles out. This garden will extend about 12 feet past the foundation of the house and down a small slope where it should receive ample sunshine. At the moment it has a shape to it that is no where near big enough to house the plants I think I’ll need to move so I’ll be taking some white spray paint and a hose and deciding approximately how much bigger I’d like to extend it. To make sure the soil stays where I need it to be, I’ll have to erect a small retaining wall on the backside of the extension and that, my friends, is the next project I’ll need to tackle.

Here is what it looks like currently.

This next picture shows the garden extending off to the left. As you can see, it needs some work and I’ll be pulling the brick away from that area and forward from the foundation – then extending it down the slope the dozen or so feet I mentioned above.

So, there you have it. I’m hoping to get started on this very soon and will keep you up to date on my progress.

Happy Gardening !!

I’m still waiting until the actual school year is finished before I can spend the kind of time I really need in the yard. Switching from one 500 square foot garden to a circular 24 foot plot has proved to be more of a challenge than I had originally thought.  The circular garden plot has a 1 to 12 inch pitch down to the septic field of our yard. In order to make sure that all my seeds don’t run to the lower yard, I will need to build up the lower end and erect a retaining wall.

Once the garden is level my next challenge will be to clean up the debris left from burning for 9 years in this area. I know that the ground is fertile since there have been at least 6 volunteer daylillies that have appeared in the last 2 weeks or so.  After a soil test – I’ll know for sure.

I’ve already started 3 kinds of tomatoes and 2 kinds of peppers. I have onion sets ready to plant and am planning to transplant purple sage and oregano. I also thought I would have thyme to plant, but it appears that the sage and oregano have overtaken the small 2 foot by 1 foot plot that had originally been home to one of my favorite spices to use in cooking. Thanks to a local garden center I know I’ll be able to replant a fresh crop.

Stay tuned. I’ll be posting pictures soon as well !!

In the past few years – despite my best efforts- most of the plants I’ve planted in the vegetable garden have experienced little growth and the yields have been slight or filled with disease. After ten years of planting in the same plot, I’ve decided that it’s time to break new ground. I will be burning the remaining debris left from last year’s garden area and starting fresh. The new area used to be a circular piece of ground where we would have bonfires during summer nights. I’m hoping that we will be able to let the former garden plot sit for awhile and in a few years replant there.

The new area receives at least 6 – 7 hours of sunlight a day so this move should be a good one and I should be able to continue to plant warm weather crops around the end of May or beginnng of June. I’m really quite excited about starting over in a new area and will be taking pictures to keep a journal of my progress. In the meantime we will need to remove metal, and other non organic matter before planting. Since we live out in the country and deer are plentiful we will probably need to figure on some sort of fencing as well.

In addition, we’ve decided to spruce up other areas of our landscape. There will be several different projects which will probably take more than a year to complete. Retaining walls and raised beds along with the planting of some shrubs and other flower gardens are all in the plans. We’ll see how far we get.

Stay tuned for updates and happy gardening !!

Our weather has been anything but typical in Southwestern Wisconsin. Rain, turning to sleet, to freezing rain, to snow and back again. As much as I love “typical” winters, this one has been a little hard to swallow. We’ve had more “snow” days at my school than I’ve remembered for the past several years and yet one thing remains constant. I can always rely on the postman to bring the seed catalogs.

I spend hours “oogling” over all of the new hybrids, the old heritage lines and the way these companies combine plants and flowers to give new and old gardeners alike a fresh idea for their next project. To say that these catalogs save me from the winter blahs is probably a BIG understatement. It is hard not to be able to get into the yard and start planning and planting. But, I do enjoy the seasons and wouldn’t ever give them up. It’s kind of like a forced rest, but like all rests, I come into spring refreshed and ready to try something new.

I hope that you have experienced the same rest of which I speak. Watch for the crocus to pop through the snow – that’s my cue !!

This last week or so has come with a highly unusual weather pattern. Warm temperatures bringing rain for 30 hours straight. Then a period of dropping temperatures which formed a thin crust on the snow that was leftover. Add to that another 2 inches of snow and you have the most unique form of insulation for the plants below the surface. As harsh as the winter may seem to those of us above ground, Mother Nature in her infinite wisdom has created an intricate plan for those plants and animals that hibernate during the winter months.
As I sit here writing this post, I can see out of my window 2 tiny birds with feathers all fluffed up who are grazing on the bird seed that fills the feeders outside the kitchen window. Down below on the side of the hill with the sun going down are a doe and her offspring who are hunting for food wherever it is available. And to the lower side of the wooded area I see a host of rabbits darting in an out of a fallen tree. Their strong instinct to seek food and shelter is a form of entertainment for me and yet I know that this is a form of survival for them.
Even now I am anxious to supply them with food and shelter and will do what I can to help them through the winter. When Spring finally arrives and I can get into the soil, I will plant extra for these creatures and the cycle will continue.
I am reminded that it will be time to start seeds in less than a month by the arrival of seed catalogs in my large mailbox at the foot of our drive. Planning, planting, weeding, harvesting – the cycles of life are calling.

When school started in the fall, my ability to get out into the gardens withered like the tomatoes on my vines. Our summer had been very rainy and cooler than usual, which, as you know is not the ideal condition for warmth loving plants like tomatoes. It is sad to think that towards the end of the growing season my tomatoes developed a fungus on them and even my most arduous attempt at peeling away the bad stuff couldn’t even amount to enough for one bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.

Once I was able to get out and survey the full extent of the damage, I knew I would need to pull the diseased vines from the garden and throw them onto our burnpile for a late night winter bonfire. I am fairly certain that a 200 foot distance between and a hot fire will deter those nasty spores from returning to the garden next year. This will probably be the last year we use the bonfire or at least its present entire size. Future plans would be to make it into a berry patch with strawberries and a few red and black raspberry plants. Freshly picked fruits from the gardens are so delicious and you can’t beat the convenience for freshness.

As I get older and more family come around I’ve also tossed around the idea of making the old bonfire spot into a pumpkin patch where the grandkids can carve their names into the skin of the pumpkins when they just start to turn orange and then come out a few weeks later to see if they can find their “personalized” jack-o-lantern. Well, time will tell what I decide to do. Just having the space to garden is such a pleasure and also serves as therapy for me – the kind where you don’t need a referral, an appointment, or a large wallet to cover the benefits.

While the garden rests over the next four months or so, I will inevitably start the process all over again and come into spring refreshed and ready to try something new again. For this I am VERY thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving !!

If ever a growing season has had its ups and downs, the Summer of ’09 has got to take the prize. Cold, wet, rainy whether dominated May and June and we haven’t had a 90 degree day in July YET! This is definitely not the growing season that will go down in history as a great one by any means.  This past weekend we experienced a storm packing 80 mph winds, baseball sized hail and heavy gushes of rain falling sideways. Our roof will need to be replaced as well as one whole side of the house’s vinyl siding and 3 windows.

As bad as the damage was to the house, my poor tomato and pepper plants really took a beating. Now all I can do is look at these poor plants struggling to make it through what’s left of our season. The wonderful crop of apples on our two trees have been left on the grass below as food for the deer. Ears of corn in the local fields have been stripped from their host stalks and lay sideways indicating the path of the storm.

As bad as all this sounds, the resilience of our plants is still quite evident and I know that the hosta, which look more like Queen Anne’s Lace at the moment, will come back stronger than ever next spring.   Nature has an ingenious way of healing itself by adapting to the conditions and returning even stronger than its original sprouts. It’s what keeps me coming back morning after morning just to see what has happened while I slept. Hopefully, these little surprises of nature will continue to thrive despite our adverse whether conditions.

Here’s hoping that wherever your garden is growing – you have as much to learn as I have this season.

Happy Gardening !!

It has been a long time since I’ve been able to get into my garden.  Cold and wet weather has kept the growing season to a minimum. This is anything but a typical summer growing season here in Southwestern Wisconsin. The tomatoes are doing well despite the cooler nights and an inordinately large amount of moisture we have had. My peppers are still in the containers from the nursery and waiting to be put into the ground. Bags of mulch are piled up outside the garden fence waiting to be put around the tomatoes and onions. My poor strawberry plants are in shock and haven’t produced any fruit for 3 weeks.

Despite all the adverse conditions, my perennial garden is doing well. The lilies continue to blossom and the yucca blooms have stayed on for over 2 weeks until last night’s pouring rain stripped the stalk. The one thing that we have been able to count on is that the grass still needs mowing every week like clockwork. My guess is that about the time I get back to the school year, my tomatoes will be heavy on the vine and I’ll be up ’til the wee hours of the morning canning for the winter.

It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced a summer growing season such as this, but I look at it as a challenge.

I’m guessing it’s a sign telling me it’s WAY past time to do some long overdue housecleaning.

Stay tuned !!