Category Archives: Garden

Garden, Writing

Novels In Vitro

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48  bar rises 29.83  1mph NW dewpoint 38  Beltane

            First Quarter of the Hare Moon

Once again the papers and books pile up while I focus on the task du jour, getting the garden planted, cleaned up, preened, weeded and planned.

Significant news on the hydroponic front.  The heirloom tomato plant I’ve kept inside has flowers.  That means tomatoes sometime in the near future.  Most of the early work with the hydroponics has come to fruition, literally.  I eat a salad from it at least every other day and the tomato plant flourishes.  Three tomato plants, four cucumbers, six basil and four morning glories have gone outdoors. 

Phase II starts soon.  Phase II will see cherry tomatoes, peppers and eggplant first as seedlings, but then as plants to continue growing indoors.  If this works well, we might expand the hydroponics to include flowers and more plant starting for outdoors.  We’ll see.

I have two or three novels in various stages of development.   Two of them, one about werewolves and the other about witches and magicians, both set in Minnesota have promise, but I’d have to get back to work on them full time.  Again, I don’t seem to do it.  Thinking about this because there are so many bad werewolf movies and books out there.  I did, though, mention Sharp Teeth here, I believe.  This one’s a keeper.  Done in blank verse.

Garden, Politics

Country Gentleman with Corn Rows

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61 bar steady 29.69 0mph WSW dewpoint 47 Beltane cloudy, cool

              First Quarter of the Hare Moon

“When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.” – George Bernard Shaw

Love it, or leave it the bumper stickers used to say.  I bleed red, white and blue.  These colors don’t run.  WWJD?  George Bush and Dick Cheney keeping the world safe for democracy.  Shaw is a genuine prophet, witty and ascerbic.  We don’t have his equal today, at least none that I know.

The Country Gentleman corn fit neatly into three rows, three feet apart, running east and west.  All the little onions are now in a bed by themselves, tucked in for the growing season.  The garlic looks great.  It’s a strange crop.  Sow it in the fall, reap in mid-summer.  We have peppers, tomatoes, onions, corn and beans planted.  A perfect garden for mexican cuisine.  We also have some beets and  carrots. 

I like these day where we work in the garden in the morning, then it rains in the afternoon.  Perfect.

Garden

The Gardening Curve

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64  bar steep fall  29.75  2mph W dewpoint 37 Beltane Sunny

               First Quarter of the Hare Moon

Painted brush-b-gone on the stump of a honeysuckle.  I foolishly planted it where it blocked two beds from the sun.  It will not return now, as it has in the past, a Lazarus plant that would not stay dead.  Planted Guatemalan Blue and Table Queen squash along the fenceline. 

Tomorrow onions go in and I’ll get started on moving daylilies yet again, though I believe this time their movement is final.  I’m taking them out of the garden environment and putting them along fences and at places where I need a friendly plant barrier to invasive wild species. I’ve discovered, at last, the proper place in our landscape for these hardy specimens.

I’m a Celt and a Teuton.  I inherited the Teutonic love of scholarship and the Celtic imagination.  I also inherited a Celtic skin.  Being outside for very long leaves me a little woozy.  I also take a couple of medications that create photosensitivity.  Another reason to work in the garden in the early morning, a couple of hours at a whack. 

We are ahead of the gardening curve for the most part.  A little late on some vegetables, a little early on others.  May is a busy month with clean up and  planting, bed preparation.  I’m lucky Kate’s got a week off now and can help.  She’s a sturdy, stay at it gal.

The dogs love gardening.  They come out where we’re working, flop down on the grass and watch.  When that gets too tough, they go to sleep.

Family, Garden

Hidden Gardens

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60  bar falls 29.93 3mph S dewpoint 33  Beltane sunny and windy

                  First Quarter of the Hare Moon

The new bed for corn has a bag of composted manure mixed into the soil.  Debarked elm trunks went around three sides to bolster rotting logs from the creation of this bed 10 or so years ago.  The only plants remaining are a few stray Siberian Iris.  I like them and I don’t think the corn will mind having them there. 

Kate and I went into the woods and settled on a place to put the playhouse for the grandkids.  It will face the firepit, midden heap park that I’m currently constructing.  I’ll have to clear buckthorn.  A few smaller oaks need to come out anyhow for thinning.  After that we’ll level the site and begin putting the structure together.  We plan to add a small deck and a fence.   I’ll plant a shade garden and native understory shrubs around it to blend it into the woods.  Kate also wants to string lights in the trees, a magical spot.

Black landscape cloth now covers a large arc of ground underneath the three oaks that stand beside the near garden shed.  The idea is to kill off the nettles underneath, which will prepare the way for a hosta, fern, and other shade lovers garden there.  It’s not too visible, but I like the idea of hidden, pocket gardens around the landscape.

All this outdoor work wears me out.  Off to a nap, then perhaps some more work outside.

Art and Culture, Garden

I Am Still Learning

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52  bar rises 29.91 6mph dewpoint 33 Beltane

           Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

Short note.  Checked on the hydroponic grown tomato plants after their first night outside in mother earth.  They look ok, though the first one I transplanted might be a little droopy.  When I moved it out of the pot filled with lava pellets, I sheared off the long root system below the pot.  On the other two I used a different method and maintained the root structure intact.  The better way, I learned.

Hate missing the cool morning for work outside, though I have two tours today that should be fun.  A group from Winnipeg for a highlights tour and another Weber public tour.  Gotta be off for those.

Garden

Garden Illustrated

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59  bar falls 29.80 1mph NNE dewpoint 27 Beltane

           Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

A few illustrations from today in the garden, showing various beds.

    prajaparmita400.jpg

               A Cambodian statue from Artisans D’Angkor

    digging400.jpg

                             The blue and the green

    spading-fork.jpg 

            My favorite spading fork (favorite spade above)

Garden, Great Work

2008 Gardening Season Is Underway

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59  bar steady  29.83 3mph WNW dewpoint 31  Beltane

         Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

Hemerocallis (the daylily) is a sturdy member of the plant kingdom.  Every time I plant, no matter where I plant it, nor the care I give it, the daylily spreads and grows happily.  That’s why years after the fact the foundation outlines for many rural home are still obvious, tiger lilies continue to grow and bloom just like the house was still there.  Today all the daylilies in the first raised bed we ever had, made, as all of them, by Jon, got moved. 

Jon also put in a cedar rail fence and last year I deconstructed it down to the original cedar fencing. We had him add wire fencing to keep out nuisance animals–our dogs.  An older me saw them as less of a problem, Kate agreed, so down the wire fence came.  The daylilies have gone from the bed to the edge of the cedar rail fence.  Two peonies have likewise made the transition, but they went into a tree circling bed that is about a quarter finished.  We have a young, sturdy elm on the fence line.  I removed the fence around it and will soon complete digging out a circular bed around its dripline.

The former daylily and peony bed will get sweet corn.  I’m also going to try the Native American method of planting climbing beans at the base of the corn stalk.

Three tomato plants grown from seed to 1 foot + under the lights are now in place, too.  They went in the former lily (Asian and other true lilies) bed.  I’m taking a chance planting them directly outside with no hardening off, but I wanted to try it, see how it works.  If they die, we’ll buy a couple of tomato plants.  If they don’t, I can skip a step in the future if I watch the weather carefully.  Which I do.

Also had a brainstorm for what to do with the hill that has succumbed to raspberry canes.  Moss.  This is a shady area and I read an article about how to convert lawns to moss.  It won’t work for our front lawn yet, but it should work on this slope shadowed by the seven oaks at the top.  Gonna try it.  The result can’t be worse than what we have.

While I dug and transplanted, Kate made a trip to the Greenbarn, a nursery and garden store up near Isanti.  She bought a number of things:  impatiens, onion sets, Coleus, sphagnum moss, small onion sets already well underway, some seeds as well as other things.  Anyhow all this means the 2008 gardening season is off and growing.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Garden

A Lot of Growing Around Here

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52  bar rises 29.78 0mph W dewpoint 34  Beltane

A very beautiful Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

More garden work tomorrow.  It feels so good to be back out there.  Kate planted Ireland Creek Annie and Cherokee Trail of Tears and Dragon Tounge beans today.  Also some mixed gourds. 

A cool evening, a warm day.  Perfect.

Tomorrow I’ll dig in three tomato plants.  These are plants I’ve grown from seed.  They’re now about a foot high.  It will be nice to see my babies go into the soil.  I’m keeping one back for my kitchen garden which will have tomatoes, lettuce, basil, cilantro, peppers and egg plant.  The latter three I’ll start from seed sometime soon.  Kate’s gonna pick up some seeds at the Green Barn tomorrow.

Got a nice note from Jon saying they’ve turned Gabe’s lights off and taken him upstairs to his room.  I passed on the e-mails and comment from Tristan’s mom, too.  We’ll gradually weave a web of support around them and the little guy so he can grow up to move on and do what he needs to do in this life.

A lot of growing be done around here right now.

Faith and Spirituality, Garden

A Pessimist

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54  bar steep rise 29.73 7mph NW dewpoint 39 Beltane

              Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

“Scoundrels are always sociable.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer insisted that reason alone would not explain the human reality.  He added passion and instinct to the neatly circumscribed world of the Enlightenment.  As he did so, he became profoundly pessimistic about the overall human condition.  He did, however, add a bit of solace to the world of us introverts in the quote.

Cool today so I’m headed outside to continue transplanting daylilies.  I’m also going to plant vegetables since the near term forecast doesn’t have anything remotely approaching 32 at night.  Generally, if we can make it past May 15th, we’re in good shape for the growing season.

Too nice to stay in and write.  Out I go.

Garden, Memories

SuperMemo

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62  bar falls 29.71 0mph SW dewpoint 57 Beltane

                  New Moon (Hare)

It rained and the temperature dropped 13 degrees.  Mother nature at work.  In the cool moist air after the rain I planted onions, beets, lettuce and carrots.  I also transplanted 3 daylily clumps out of the flower bed I’m converting to vegetables.  Cool cloudy, preferable moist days are perfect transplanting weather.

The earth smells rich, a loamy scent that arises only after a rain.  My Dad’s Aunt Rella, an early cancer patient, took an atomic cocktail and said it tasted like “the air after a June rain.”  An image that has remained with me all these years.

I just started using a new program called SuperMemo.  It showed up in an interesting article in Wired.  This Polish memory researcher has developed this program that times repetitions of material you want to learn.  This fits some neurological model of the brain.  He guarantees 95% retention if  you use the program faithfully.

I plan to use it learn art history, Chinese characters, horticultural information, folk tale and world history.  And probably, over time, other stuff, too.  This kind of thing excites me.