I love Alliums

The purple alliums on the west side of the house are starting to go to seed. They are actually really cool to look at with the bright green against the purple.

This is my Globe Master allium - I have 3 and they were almost $6 each.  They weren't worth it.  The 65 cent allium bulbs are actually prettier. 

 This one is just starting to open.

And I loved this view from above.

And with the boulders in the background this one really stands out.

And yes, I still have tulips.  

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!

I've started dehydrating my Big Daddy Onions.  They were huge and I have plenty more to dehydrate and even more to still chop and use fresh. It's a fantastic storage onion and I think it would make amazing onion rings.  One day I'll be brave enough to make a gluten free onion ring to munch on but I'd be the only person in my family to eat them and well, I'm not in love with frying anything, just never have been. Anyway, I'll show how I did my dehydrating soon and a few tips I've learned.  I just love using the dried minced onion in certain recipes but since this is my first time trying this I have a lot to learn. And I adore this lens - depth of field makes dried onions in a jar look even better.

The peppers are looking great.  They are in the Very Tender category and around here with all the freak hail storms we get the first part of June, I think I'll wait until June 15th to move them outside.  This is the first year I've had grow lights. And that made a world of difference.  

 I learned one thing, next year I will start my Serrano Peppers in January and not keep them so wet.  Here are the 4 Serrano Peppers that I purchased at Anderson's Seed and Garden because I could not get mine growing.  I do have two little sprouts right now with 2 tiny little leaves and they've been in the peat pots since March 1st and were even on a heat mat. Hmmmm

I have had great success with my Bell Peppers and Jalapenos and Cayennes. I really am looking forward to putting them in my garden.  

The first Harvest of 2012

This is the very first thing I have harvested this year. Correnta Spinach

 I'm getting used to the floating row cover and my veggies are doing well shaded under it.  The black PVC hoops are the perfect height.  And with the amazing amount of butterflies I am glad that my cabbages and such are protected. Anything that doesn't need to pollinate to grow can go under it.

And here is my second harvest of the year.  It is the first time I've grown baby bok choy. And you can see that the stalks are pretty skinny but it was starting to bolt.  Maybe now that I'm not having to baby a lot of the stuff under my grow lights I can dedicate a little time to studying up on how to do a better job at growing these. 

Today I weeded between my tomatoes with my parrot on my shoulder.   Once he decided to climb on my head it was time to send him inside with my children. We got 3/4 of an inch of rain on Friday in just a few hours which is rare around here in the high desert so I didn't get the rows tilled that are full of weeds and haven't been planted.  I did put some nitrogen on the corn patch.  I'll till before it rains again next week and then plant the corn - popcorn - and if it doesn't grow, I will not plant corn again. If you live nearby please tell me who to buy sweet corn from this summer.

Flowers for Mother's Day

My family gave me flowers for Mother's Day.  This is a Profusion Crabapple.  I can hardly believe any petals were left after the driver over here.  Five new trees were delivered today.  2 Profusion Crabapple and 3 flowering Pear.  I will have to get the tags tomorrow but the exciting thing about the pear is that it not only flowers in the spring but the leaves turn bright red in the fall.  So now every Mother's day I will have beautiful flowers to enjoy thanks to my husband who dug the holes and kids who filled them back in.

pet lover ... how'd that happen?

I love this first photo because it is a great image of Kiwi, our yellow sided green cheek conure. It just reminds me how fast my children are growing up.  He just looks so grown up here.  And confident.  Kiwi bit his ear when we first brought him home and it took a little while for him to warm back up to Kiwi.

And this one is darling - he was laughing because Kiwi took a big chunk out of the carrot and then hopped onto it. I have a series of photos and this was the best.

 And just a fun angle and use of a shallow depth of field.

And this is just precious.  I love that Kiwi trusts my son and that my son is calm and quiet around Kiwi and wants to take good care of him.

You'd never know my son was terrified of Kiwi two weeks ago.

Kiwi now does The Bat where he hangs upside down and he is starting to let us lay him on his back but he still holds on. He loves a good head scratch when things are calm and quiet.  

Gardening in the spring

I'm going to be teaching gardening to the Relief Society ladies at church on the 10th.  Any of your best gardening tips would be great - especially cutting costs when gardening. Link me to your posts in a comment or leave a comment here.

I've tried to kill off my basil a number of times already.  There was the time it was on the deck and it reached 80 degrees and well, imagine what the dark brown deck must have been.  They started to will and dry out.  I ran them inside to the air conditioning and gave them a cool drink of water.  

Then I left them out overnight when it got down to 34 degrees.  So I brought them in to warm up and gave them a warm drink of water.  My mom taught me that if I left them out and it got too cold you must bring them in before the sun hits them.  You might be able to save a few by letting them warm slowly.  

If the sun hits them they are goners.

Isn't it interesting the difference a few items in your garden can make?

For example, the row cover.  I purchased it and cut it and sewed it and added string through the ends so I could tighten it and tie it off on the ends.  I put it on my square foot garden nearest my master bedroom.  I have great spinach this year.  The large one I started indoors.  The smaller by seed.  Much easier to start off outside!

And all of my romaine is alive and most look really good after transplanting.  Some are smaller but they are all outside looking beautiful and I'm happy about that. 

And the dutch cabbages are all doing really well. 

And this Michihili chinese cabbage is doing great.  I had to pull 2 that went to seed.  I'm going to plant the seeds directly in the square foot garden with the cover and see how they do. 

My carrots are looking good. I thinned them after this photo. It's easier for me to thin them when they are tiny and don't quite look like a carrot.

And my big daddy onions are doing well.  I made a Tri-Tip roast this week and added in a bunch I had sliced and frozen from last year.  I will be making french onion soup with the beef stock and onions along with my Udi's gluten free bread as the crouton.

This is my Summertime lettuce.  It's starting to form a head.  My son informed me he thought it was a weed and was going to pull it out.  I'm so glad he didn't.

And my baby bok choy is looking nice as well. 

And out and away from the square foot garden I have my peas in my row garden.  

The nice thing about having the ball valves on each line of the drip line is that I can just water my onions and peas and garlic right now without watering the rest which means fewer weeds and less compacting of the soil before planting the rest of my garden.  It's a cold wet day today or I would be outside killing Bind Weed for sure. (It looks like morning glory) You can see a few sprouts next to the peas. It's also about time to thin the peas.

Our last frost date in May 16th but we usually get a good hail storm the first or second week in June.  I plant my pumpkin seeds on May 16th and have always had great success.  Corn can go in the same time. But things like pepper plants don't go out until the 3rd week in June.  Tomatoes go out but are covered.  Most are doing well.  Only one looks a little stressed out.  Squash, Zucchini and green beans get planted June 1st.

My garden

Well my tomatoes were safe and sound in their little walls of water.  It was 80 last week and 40 this week.  Can you see all the new snow on the mountains. We even got snow grains here in the valley.  You can even see my new drip line set up with just the right amount of space.  

Just before the temperatures dropped I planted 6 more heirlooms outside.  2 are Cherokee Purple which I've never grown before but many of the gardening blogs I watch rave about them.  

In fact, here is the smallest one: