My garden this week

The asiatic lilies that I purchased on clearance last year have bloomed and they are gorgeous.  I just wish that they lasted longer. The nice thing is that each year there will be more and more.

The ground cover is looking beautiful. 

The lettuce did really well.  The carrots are so yummy.  And this year is the first time I have harvested garlic scapes.

I added them to my roasted potatoes and it was a perfect addition.

They are delicious and by harvesting them from the garlic plants the garlic are supposed to get bigger. 

Putting the romaine lettuce under the floating row cover made for more tender and bug free lettuce. 

The snow peas were so sweet.

The Summertime lettuce is small but very tasty.

And Kiwi is enjoying the snow peas and making the biggest mess of my windows. I clean them every couple of days.

Harvest Monday - 18 June 2012

We arrived home after a last minute trip for Father's Day weekend.  A friend let us borrow their raft and so we took our children for a 7 mile float trip down the Green River on Saturday. And we also ran up to Dinosaur National Monument on Friday since we were already there. 

When we got home Sunday afternoon I had no idea what I was going to make for dinner.

One of the things we don't do is go shopping on Sunday.  We also don't do big chores on Sunday.  We do make beds and wash dishes but no scrubbing or washing clothes, etc. 

So I ran up to the garden and grabbed some snow peas which took 3 minutes.  

Then I peaked in the square foot garden and some of the Little Finger carrots were ready and they were delicious. No more trying to grow carrots in the clay.  These were ready faster and less bitter.  I will be planting more of those now.

I love the taste of fresh snow peas.  I pounded out 2 chicken breasts and cut them and made stir fry with all these veggies over glass noodles.  

And some tiny green bunching onions. I just never transplanted them.

And the last baby bok choy. I think next time I will grow the real stuff. Probably starting August 1st for a fall crop. 

Harvest Monday

Kiwi helped my in the garden tonight. We took off the walls of water and placed them under the drip line for quick access if needed.

And he kept me going.  Not a great photo of me but the scenery and Kiwi are great.  We spent Memorial Day hiking up to White Pine Lake in 6 inches of new snow with both kids in tow.  No makeup, man t-shirt on, ponytail, and then covered in dirt from working in the yard.  Well, you understand.  I feel it's okay to be very real when I blog about my garden. And this was just what I looked like tonight - I didn't even retouch the photo or enhance the colors.

We finally got the mix for the square foot garden.  It's call the Garden Box Mix from Millers in Hyrum. Buy it in bulk not the bags. On Saturday's in the spring it's on sale for $80 a yard otherwise it's about $105 which is still a bargain because you don't have to mix anything - it's already done for you.  The pH is checked and all the nutrients and micronutrients. This was half full and it took a yard to fill it the rest of the way.  It is 4 feet by 16 feet by 10 inches.  

It has coconut husk instead of peat moss (Utah peat moss is full of salt because of old Lake Bonneville). And it has pearlite to increase the water holding capacity since we live in the desert instead of vermiculite which helps with drainage. It rained yesterday which brought the perlite to the top and I smoothed out part of it today which is the darker part.

You can see my other square foot garden here:

I love the rock around it and plan to add it to all of my flower beds. It's $59 a yard and so that is probably going to be a fall thing and only part of the flower beds at that. Slowly but surely things are taking shape. Need to edge again. 

My Summertime lettuce which is a head lettuce is taking shape.  I can't wait to try it.  And my romaine lettuce is starting to look good too.  

And my spinach is starting to grow.  I need to harvest some of it soon. Maybe I'll put some on my homemade gluten free pizza with alfredo sauce, chicken,  and chopped tomatoes.

See that weed at the very bottom of the photo below.  It's called Morning Glory by most people in Utah except this is really Bind Weed.  Terrible stuff and it will kill anything it gets its tendrils on. It's gone now, sort of, stinkin' rhizomes. 

My Big Daddy onions are doing well, and those in the back are from last year and are going to seed - which is what I want. It is pretty and it will give me plenty of seeds to share.

This is my hard neck and soft neck garlic row.  

I planted a row of Jade Bush green beans.  Hands down my favorite green bean ever.  I will be planting some in the big square foot garden along with yellow wax beans.

My tomato plants are starting to get a little bigger.  I have 2 Cherokee Purple, a few pink brandywine and red beefsteak, and 6 early girls, oh and not pictured are the 3 romas next to the house -they do much better on the hot side of the house. I need 4 more cages - still ...

And my snow peas.  I can hardly wait.

Another view of the Early Girls.  I did buy the plants. I just had a terrible time trying to grow them from seed this year.  I am going to throw out the seeds and start over with something new next year. I put collars on a few.  They help keep out the tomato horn worms.  I just cut two toilet paper rolls and put them around the base of the plant and put a little dirt around them.

You can see here that last year I planting the garlic and the onions before I knew where the NEW drip line would go.  These are the only two rows that are off.  I am going to have to move the onions next to the line - just the small ones.

My Spirit Bush pumpkins have all sprouted.  

Here is a view of the garden from the back south east corner of our 1/2 acre lot.

As you can see we are surrounded by alfalfa.

And here is our lonely little trex deck that is not shoveled in the winter and in the dead of summer it is just too hot to step on.  One day it will have a pergola that will be beautiful and shade the south side of my house.  In the meantime I am pinning every cool pergola on Pinterest that I can possibly find. It's under my Landscape Architecture board if you want to see what I've pinned so far.

And let me tell you I love Natural Guard.  Anderson's Seed and Garden recommended it because this upper tier was so dry all of the time and looked awful.  One treatment along with a serious dose of fertilizer made all the difference. 

See, gorgeous green - oh and that lonely ash tree will get some friends eventually.  We need to put in about 6 more trees along the upper side of the rocks. Which will also help shade the south side of the house.

Can you see why we finally got trees on the west side of our house? Shade.  And that got the ball rolling for us.  Thankfully.  The bushes you see here are Honey Suckle compact bush and Dwarf Burning Bush which will turn bright red in the fall. They are growing quickly and it's already helping a little. The trees on the west side of the yard are Improved Canadian Choke Cherry and the branches are already starting to grow after 1 year. 

So thankful.  Do you see that massive air conditioner? 4200 square feet of house is expensive to cool.  Although I must say that it's a good thing that 2600 of it is in the basement. 

I remember my landscape architect teacher telling me that one well placed tree can take reduce the need for air conditioning by 1 hour a day. So I hope that 3 well placed trees will make a big dent in the air conditioning bill in a few years when they get big enough.

Harvest Monday- Tilling up the Garden

It looks like the warmer temperatures this year mean that my drip line timer can go outside already.  It will crack if it freezes. I have it on every other day.  Best product I even purchased for my garden! I could attach another hose to it but that side is manual only and I mostly only use it to mix the fertilizer with water in a pail.

So as you can see I spent the morning tilling up my row garden.  I love my Honda mini-tiller.  A friend said she has a Mantis and can only use it part of the season and then it's too hard too use.  While I admit even my Honda has a hard time with rock hard soil baked by the sun, it has no problem with weeds or grass and when there is a little moisture in the soil.  The tines are bent inward in an L shape and this allows them to cut off the roots and dig down deeper.  Love that little tool.  

So last year I started doing these trenches around the drip line. The emitters are 12" apart.  And some plants don't have to be spaced that far apart.  This allows the water to get where it needs to be without watering everything.  And that helps control weeds.  The last thing I want is more to do than I have the strength for.  With the ground all tilled up it was super easy to rake in place.  Only a few drip lines are on right now thanks to the new ball valves.  Even more weed control! I'll be adding the rest of the seeds soon. It looks like tomorrow is the last cool day.  It's 87 today and tomorrow it will be 60 and windy.  After that I'll be able to plant anything I want.

I dumped the water out of the walls of water so they don't burn up my tomatoes.  After the wind tomorrow I will remove them all together.

I need 4 more tomato cages. 

I love how pretty and full they are starting to look.

This is the Cherokee Purple that I started from seed.

And I really must start my Early Girls earlier next year.  I don't know why I had such a hard time with them this year.  

The ball valve on OFF.

My garlic is looking good.  It will be ready the end of July. 

The green bunching onions on the side of the house are going to seed.  And there is a little ant visitor on it.  If you want some seeds in a few months, please let me know.  There will be plenty to share. 

My basil had a rough start but most of it survived and it will eventually be planted between the tomatoes.  I hear that it wards off tomato horn worms.  Last year I only had 1 surviving basil plant and it was right next to my heirloom tomatoes which had no pest problems while my romas on the other side of the yard with no basil plants had the biggest horn worm ever.  Yuck.

I need to get this square foot garden filled up.  My mom and dad gave it to me last year and it's 4x16 feet.  The voles have already been underneath the weed mat.  I may still put wire mesh down. Chicken wire isn't strong enough for voles. Hopefully this coming weekend will be a chance to get all that done.

The snow peas are looking okay.  I need to get the other trellis back over here but right now it's protecting my new Gala apple tree from the deer. I need about 8 feet of fence to finish it all off around that tree.

And this cattle panel piece is for my lemon cucumbers.  I'll be planting those seeds today and taking my kids to the lake.

My spirit bush pumpkins have all sprouted now.  I really need to get the rest of my pumpkin seeds planted out front.

And the strawberries are looking good.  We have a tiny patch.  And something has already eaten a few and left parts of them in the grass.  

And finally my grape vines are starting to grow.  I was seriously starting to wonder. I have 3 seedless red grapes next to my propane tank.  It looks like maybe this year we'll be able to trellis them. Which means I need to get two 8 foot 4x4s and watch this video again. They've been in the ground 3 years - this will be their 4th summer here.  They were bare root as well.  

Check out all the other garden links at Daphne's Dandelions!