Tag Archives: homegrown

Ye Olde Garden

Consequences of Overspray

I aggressively sprayed the backyard with vinegar solution yesterday. This morning’s review of the backyard beds reveals the hideous consequences of vinegar overspraying on plant foliage. I believe that because this corner bed in particular was down at the bottom of the slope from where I began spraying, it incurred a lot of foliar damage.

Unfortunately this bed is host to new-to-my-garden plants such as Butterfly Gold buddleia, purple coneflower and salvia blepharophylla. Bronze fennel, blackfoot daisies, Nepeta Picture Purrfect, salvia reptans, Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum muticum), agastache and Mexican tarragon also bore the brunt of the damage

It seems most of the damage is concentrated on the south end of the yard. It may be that winds of 10-15mph swept towards the south side of the yard, carrying the 20% vinegar solution with it.

Most other beds including my raised grow bag garden appear spared most of the damage.

Ye Olde Garden

Plants I Wish I Had Started (Sooner)

Now that we are entering summer, I find myself reflecting on what I could have done better this year in terms of starting and growing plants. I’ve compiled a list of seeds/plants below that I hope to get started for next year.

Herbs:

  • Basil
  • Dill
  • Common chives
  • Variegated berggarten sage

Flowers:

  • Marigolds
  • Zinnias
  • Cosmos
  • Nasturtiums
  • Mexican hats ratibida columnifera and pinnata
  • Scabiosa
  • Coneflower

Veggies:

  • Peppers
  • Tomatoes
  • Eggplants
  • Romaine/leafy greens
  • Onions
  • Garlic

Other ornamentals:

  • Salvia
  • Variegated lantana
  • Mexican oregano poliomintha
  • Skullcap
  • Asclepias
  • Yarrow achillea
  • Gaura
  • Variegated society garlic
  • Stachys coccinea pow wow or mountain red

I’m sure to amend this list throughout the year.

Ye Olde Garden

Cuttings and Seeds Spring Edition

It’s been a busy week sowing seeds and taking cuttings, not to mention putting new plants into the ground and all around maintenance. Weather has been mild enough to promote outdoor yardwork. Hey, it’s spring!

Potted lavender needed haircuts, so the White Anouk and Lavender Lady got pruned down to the base. I kept some Anouk cuttings to see if I could get them to root.

Other cuttings include silver thyme, golden sage, variegated berggarten sage, and catnip. I sheared half the catnip bush sitting in the Rogue Bed to give the Silver Fountain gaura some room, plus propagate more plants for the catkids, who are delighting and rolling in all the pots that house them. This particular catnip has a very lemony fresh scent, one that I hope to make more child plants out of.

As for seeds, I’ve indoor sowed mirabilis jalapa, Thai long green eggplant, lemon bee balm, Korean hyssop and Sirius blue sage. I’m also giving the habaneros another go, and started some Fish Pepper as well. I hope that starting in soilless sterile mix plus 80F+ temperatures will produce better germination rates in the habanero peppers. My previous success with ornamental peppers did not prepare me for the stubborn nature of the spicy hot ones.

For outdoor sowing, I decided to chance the mild weather and broadcast flower seeds directly into the flower beds: lemon bee balm, marigolds, cosmos and zinnias. The majority of these were from my stash of Botanical Interests seed packets that I received earlier in the month.

Ye Olde Garden

Will It Live? Veggie Edition

Finally got around to cleaning out the stock tank beds of dead plants and withering leaves/stems. It looks like some veggies are extending their stay.

Pre-cleanup

Brussel sprouts, red russian kale, kohlrabi, some Parris cos and red lettuce are being joined by some broccoli specimens. The wasabi radish turned out inedible, soft and mushy after sitting out on the counter. I’m not sure if the remaining specimen is salvageable, but I will leave it in-bed for now.

I lopped decaying tops and removed decaying leaves/debris to give the new offshoots some space and light.

Post-maintenance

In addition, I installed seedlings in the vacant square foot spaces, mostly lettuce starts and 9 chinese broccoli seedlings. I had to throw out my spinach and bok choy seedlings due to heavy infestations of aphids.

Instead, I direct sowed all my bok choy seeds into the stock tanks, along with some Tokyo White bunching onion seeds. Let’s see how these do.

New plantings along with direct sowing

Next time, I may have to buy a bag of ladybugs and a fine mesh cloth to clean up my beds, as suggested by my instructor from StartOrganic class.

Another useful tidbit I learned from garden class: certified organic means no applications of fertilizer/compost within 90 days of harvest.

Ye Olde Garden

Countdown to Spring

The hard pruning and clean up continues. I’m thinking of penning a series of “Will It Live” posts to focus on some of the plant specimens I’m hovering over.

Variegated ginger got a haircut

All the tomatoes got potted last week and they are working on their indoor tan for now.

Potted tomato seedlings stretching out their legs

Finally cleaned out some of the trash from the stock tank beds to get a closer look at the veggies. Looks like kale, kohlrabi, wasabi radish and brussel sprouts are sticking around. They’ll need their tops lopped off however.

Weird and alien discovery. I just happened to find this yellow slime at the base of my Acoma crape myrtle…it looked like dog vomit. It hadn’t been there the previous weekend, so it must have popped up sometime later. Come to find out, it really is aptly called dog vomit slime mold, fuligo septica, a fungus that springs up from mulch.

Dog vomit slime mold at base of Acoma crape myrtle