The Back Yard Gardener

2012-05-16T15:27:00.000-06:00

I have been out wandering...

I heard the call of quiet,

of sun warmed rock and cool shade,

of softly moving leaves and the sharp glint of sun

on hidden creeks.

I heard the call of birds

of soft spring earth, new life, new sun.

I have been out wandering...

Surprises

2012-05-10T09:24:00.001-06:00

Beautiful ! Our garden is full of surprises this year. The yard was neglected for years, and as I go thru and dig everything out the plants are so relieved, and start growing again. Love it !

2012-05-07T18:24:00.002-06:00

Mmmm, tonight we enjoyed handmade pizza with fresh spinach from the garden. We love the Artisan Pizza in 5 minutes a Day recipe. The key is to pre-bake the crust a little. I do feel a little guilty though, I went off the vegetarian bandwagon and ate sausage on mine. Oh well!

2012-05-07T18:21:00.000-06:00

Ahhhh! What is that!?! I am being invaded!

2012-05-04T15:07:00.001-06:00

My bed of shame! I added way way too much manure to this bed, and nothing grew. Shame on me! Now to go buy some dirt...

2012-05-04T15:05:00.000-06:00

My Husband built me an elaborate tomato trellis, complete with built-in sprinklers! He was building the trellis with PVC piping, a great inexpensive material, and he thought to himself, why not add water?
I hope this works out, the idea is we are going to force the tomatoes on to the grid of the piping, and hopefully be able to gather the fruits from underneath.
This raises the most important question of our generation, 'why can we send a man to the moon but not build an tomato cage that works?'. Hahahaha!

So here are my little plants all ready to grow. Soon they will be monsters and I will wonder, 'why did I ever think they were small?'

This year i planted Brandywine, Roma, Viva Italia (a type of Roma), and two experiments, Sweet Million, a cherry tomato, and Moscow, a variety that I keep seeing in the nursery.

By the way, can you see my honeysuckle in the background? Its a beautiful variety called Pink Lemonade, the blossoms are yellow and pink. Its so beautiful and it smells divine!

2012-04-26T09:02:00.001-06:00

Not all weeds are evil!

Jelly

2012-04-14T13:44:00.000-06:00

So in the interests of being a localvore I try to make as many things we eat as possible from scratch. This week Lexi and I went on a jelly making rampage! We made orange marmalade, strawberry, strawberry balsamic, and grape (from juice from my friends grape vines). Yum! As a side note, in the past I have had trouble with my jelly solidifying , and after some research I tried using the low sugar pectin. Apparently it helps to use that if you are canning at a high altitude. Works great! Our next project is lemon marmalade. Sounds great right?

2012-04-13T08:58:00.000-06:00

So last week I was very ill with the 'death flu' as we have dubbed it, and I was laying around watching my food documentaries on Netflix. Lexi sat down and watched "Fat Sick and Nearly Dead" with me, which is the one where he goes on a juice fast for three months. She was very struck by what she saw there, and asked if we could go vegetarian for a week, which we have been. I thought it was going to much more difficult than it has been since I am hypoglycemic. Actually it has been great, we had tons of things to make for dinner, the only real problem has been lunches for us. I seem to need a lot of protein in the middle of the day, so I have been eating lentil soup in addition to a sandwich or a potato. Of course I feel great, veggies don't make you sick! We may have to keep this up!
Recommended Reading: The Food Matters Cookbook by Mark Bittman

2012-04-13T08:49:00.000-06:00

So here we are at the beginning of a new season, always exciting. I have already planted three quarters of my beds, as we are having a dry warm year. Last week I put in three colored pole beans, mustard green, smokey fennel, Italian fennel, broccoli, hot peppers, sweet peppers and some icicle radishes. I already had spinach, garlic and lettuce in the ground. I still need to plant tomatoes, and I have herbs patiently waiting to go in the ground. Oh, and I planted some of the local red potatoes from my pantry that were sprouting like crazy. I have never grown potatoes before so this is largely an experiment and I would be happy to listen to any advice you may have for me! My goal this year is to have a large variety of veggies instead of a large quantity of a few varieties. Happy planting!

2011-05-08T20:23:00.000-06:00

This is the week! In Utah it's time to plant after Mothers Day, and the nurseries are full of veggies! I bought my tomatoes and peppers, and I am soooo excited! I got Brandywine, Beefsteak (always my favorite), Better Boy, Roma, Sweet Million Cherry, and Yellow Pear. I meant to buy Early girl, but somehow i ended up with Early Doll, which i have never heard of. I also got several hot peppers, jalapenos, Anaheim, and ancho. Last week I planted some carrots and green beans, Blue Lake variety. I should be swimming in veggies in a few months!

I also planted my dahlias today, both the new ones I ordered, and the ones I dug up last year and divided. Dahlias are definately my new favorite flower to grow, last year the bloomed prolifically and they are super easy to grow. talk about bang for your buck! My mom bought them for me last year and said, Trust Me, you will love them, and she was right.

2011-05-08T20:15:00.000-06:00

Too cute to eat! Yeah right...

Lettuce, Radishes, and Peas

2011-04-25T08:37:00.000-06:00

Here's my baby lettuce!

And the radishes and peas! I don't think the peas are doing too well, we just haven't had enough sun this year. My brilliant plan was to plant the peas early enough so they were done by May 15th, so I could plant the tomatoes in that bed, because tomatoes do well in a bed that formally had peas or beans in it. Oh well! The best laid plans of mice and men...

Preparing my Last Vegetable Bed

2011-04-25T08:27:00.000-06:00

I finally got a free day, so my husband and I set to work on the yard! He trimmed and mowed, and dug up two entire beds for me, one for flowers, one for veggies. This is my last vegetable bed. First we dug up all the grass and removed it, then I laid a medium bale of peat moss on it (which is enormous), and next I am going to dig in some manure. Also I am adding two bags of top soil to the lower end of the bed since it was so rocky. I don't know if you can see it, but I closed off the lower end of the bed, because last year I had a problem with water running out. Its so dry here I flood the beds twice a week to deep water the plants. Don't sprinkle the leaves with water, they like their leaves dry and their roots quenched!

Tulips!

2011-04-25T08:14:00.000-06:00

2011-04-16T08:15:00.000-06:00

What a cold spring we are having! The Tulip Festival opened this weekend, but the website says the weather isn't cooperating, and many of the tulips aren't opened yet. Sad! I guess they are extending the festival a weekend more to compensate. I know my tulips are getting ready, but most of them are still big green buds.

My seedlings are doing alright, especially the sunflowers, which are monsters, and the cucumbers, so they should be ready for May's planting. I still need to prepare my last garden bed, I am lagging behind, but its been a busy month here!

2011-04-10T20:48:00.000-06:00

So apparently I need to apologize for not blogging for awhile! I have gotten some complaints! But the weather has been COLD and rainy, and I have been crabby! I want to go plant some more! Soon...

I will say my peas, lettuce, spinach, carrots and radishes are just coming up outside. They came up 1/2 inch or so, and seem frozen in place. Waiting for warmth no doubt!

The weatherman said its a La Nina year, which means wet wet wet. Ahhhh! I hope its not too bad, I am planning to plant a ton of tomatoes. My garden is on the south side of our house, so hopefully that will help it out.

2011-04-10T20:41:00.000-06:00

Baby Chickens! These are my friend Alisha's chicks, I am so jealous! They are darling! I just read that scientists at Pennsylvania State University found that eggs from pasture raised hens have 2 1/2 times more omega-3s and twice as much vitamin E as the eggs you buy at the store. I am gonna go find me some cage free eggs!

2011-03-20T20:31:00.000-06:00

Did you know that ladybugs aren't necessarily ladies, and they aren't bugs?

Sure Signs Of Spring Despite Awful Weather

2011-03-19T11:43:00.000-06:00

Sucess!

2011-03-19T11:40:00.000-06:00

So far my Cilantro, Basil, and oregano have sprouted, and in spite of the dire warnings on the creeping thyme package, the also have sprouted!

Onions,Garlic,Spinach,Radishes,& Lettuce

2011-03-15T23:07:00.000-06:00

The weather has been amazing here in central Utah, and according to the charts its time to plant the cold crops. There are cold crops, like onions, garlic, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, that cannot tolerate heat well, and need to be planted in the cool weather. Other crops like tomatoes, squash, and peppers are warm weather crops, and need to be planted once the danger of frost is over, which is around the middle or end of May here. So this weekend my friend and I planted an absurd amount of onions, both red and yellow, in her backyard, and I put the remaining onions, and some garlic, in my yard. I also planted green onions from seed, spinach, two kinds of radishes, and some lettuce. Now I am a little worried about the lettuce, since I might be a few weeks early on that, so I am going to have to keep my eye on that to make sure it doesn't freeze.
As a side note, when I planted the things from seed, I didnt plant rows, I planted whole 'squares' (rectangles really). Thats a tip from Mel the Square Foot Gardening guy. There is no room in a typical backyard garden for rows of veggies, and there is nothing wrong with seeding a 12"x12" area, or even bigger. Rows actually are a waste of space, and most plants adapt really well to the 'square foot' method. You should have seen how many tomatoes plants i crammed into a small area, and they grew enormous and produced a ton of fruit! Honestly, I put 1 beefsteak plant and 6 Romas in a 12" x 5' space! Sounds crazy but it works. More on that later.

Here is a link to a planting chart for Utah:
www.co.utah.ut.us/Dept/Exten/Data/vegetableutah.pdf

2011-03-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

Did you know that if you use any kind of insecticide on your plants you will kill all the earthworms in your soil? Try something else! I use a shallow pan of beer to attract and kill slugs (hey, they die happy!) and mild soap and water spray for bugs on the leaves. Other than that, I learn to share, a little food for the bugs, a lot of food for me!

Starting Seeds

2011-03-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

Today I tried something I have never tried before, starting seeds inside several weeks before the last frost date. A packet of seeds costs around a dollar, and produces an absurd amount of plants, so I figured it was worth a shot. So in this picture you can see my little starter pots( i got them at the Dollar store, 10/$1), and filled them with 'starter mix'($4 from Kmart), not potting soil. I have read repeatedly that starter mix is better because seeds themselves contain all the nutrients they need for the first few weeks of their little lives, they dont need fertilizer or amendments. Cool, right? So in went the seeds, in the picture is cilantro, I barely covered them with soil, and put them in my warm front bay window. Seeds need to be around 70 degrees to germinate. You can even put them on top of the fridge until they sprout! And now we wait a few weeks and see what happens!

2011-03-10T19:18:00.000-07:00

You know what the great thing about having a bad memory is?

Life is full of surprises! Apparently I bought a ton of tulips last year and put them in the front! Why do I have no recollection of this?!! I remember the daffodils...