Outside

First Harvest

I harvested the first vegetables of the season on
Wednesday (6/18). I made a salad with the baby lettuce greens, snap peas and chives. I used the tarragon to make a sauce for pan grilled chicken breast. It was a wonderful dinner.

I'm wondering, though, why the lettuce is growing so slowly this year? I planted in early spring, and until this week we've had cooler than average weather - low 70's, mostly. I thought we'd be swimming in lettuce, but instead I just thinned it for the first time this week. Hmmmm, strange.

Local Garlic at the Grocery Store?

On Saturday, I bought two heads of hardneck garlic at the grocery store. So what, you say?

Well, since I've been shopping Lunds - a Twin Cities chain of grocery stores - for more than 15 years, I believe I have only ever bought one variety of garlic. You know, softneck grocery store garlic (either California Early or California Late - the two most popular commercial varieties). And since softneck garlic can only be grown successfully in much warmer climes than Minnesota (mostly California), there's no way that softneck garlic is local.

But on Saturday the big garlic bins at Lunds held these nice, purple, somewhat-smaller-than-usual hardneck bulbs. There was no mention of them being a different type, the price was the same as it's always been, but these were definitely hardneck garlic bulbs. (FYI - the thick, hard stalk in the middle of the head was the dead giveaway. Softneck garlic is all cloves, hardneck still has the stalk in the middle.)

So were they local? I don't really know for sure, but Lunds has really been pushing (and marketing) their local and organic products for the past few years, so I wouldn't be shocked if this garlic was from somewhere in the Midwest. And I think that's kind of cool - the idea that "buying local" was so not-a-big-deal that they just do it when the produce is in season and don't even make a fuss about it.

Purple Irises

These pretty purple bearded irises were pass-along plants - plants another gardener gave to me to plant in my garden. They started blooming about Memorial Day, May 26.

I actually didn't get them from another gardener - I got them from someone who had bought a new house and was going to cover over the previous home owner's perennial garden with a new garage. So I guess I they arrived in my garden through a rescue mission.

In any case, I certainly got lucky. When I went over to dig up the  plants, the flowers had already bloomed. I knew that they were irises by the leaves, but there was no way to know what color they were. Two years ago, they bloomed for the first time in my garden, and I was delighted to discover I had two types - these beautiful purple and white irises, and a slightly taller sunshine-yellow and white variety. The yellows bloom a few weeks after the purples. They haven't yet bloomed this year, but they will probably start in the next few days.

Since I'm generally not fond of pastel colors, I was so glad to discover these bearded irises were not pale pink, lilac or yellow. These beauties are just right for my garden. What luck!

Sprouting Potatoes

Two weeks after planting, tiny potato leaves have appeared in my garbage cans. Here is Carola sending up it's first shoots. I could have taken a picture of the Rose Finn Apple fingerlings in the other container, but I think one picture of the inside of a green Rubbermaid garbage can is enough for today.

Tomatoes Planted - Finally!

This past weekend was supposed to be the Weekend of the Garden, but work and life conspired a bit against me. I was only able to get outside for a few hours on Sunday afternoon. Luckily for me, Spouse was very nice and helped me out, so I ended up getting more done than if I were working alone.

The tomatoes were planted, probably a good 2 weeks later than normal. However, with the very cool temperatures we've been having, it was a good idea to wait, I think.



I still need to stake them then put up the fencing (I sprayed them with DeerOff to keep the rabbits away for the next week), but they're planted now.

Just like the last two years, I started the plants from seed and grew them under my improvised light system at work. This is our "dead computer" shelf - all the old monitors, CPU's and other junk waiting to be recycled. We don't have room at home, so hey - whatever works!

Bleeding Hearts

I love bleeding hearts. I have one in my vegetable garden area, and one in the front yard garden. The bloom is perfect right now.

 

Vegetable Garden Update; Potatoes Planted

On Sunday I was able to get my potatoes planted, and this year I'm experimenting with growing my potatoes in garbage cans.



On Sunday, 5/18 I planted two varieties - Rose Finn Apple, a fingerling I've grown for the past few years, and Carola, a white "keeper" that I'm trying for the first time this year. Both are from Seed Savers Exchange.

Here's what I did. I bought two 32-gallon garbage cans and drilled several 1/2" drainage holes in the bottom and up about 12" on the side. I lined the bottom and sides with leftover window screening left over from the past two years' ineffective attempt at rabbit fencing. I then layered about 8" of compost on the bottom, placed four evenly-spaced, sprouted potatoes in a circle, then topped off the whole thing with another 6" of compost. As the plants start to grow, I'll mound them up, either with compost or straw. I think I'll probably use straw for at least half of the container, as there is already about 50 pounds of compost in each can - filling them up with compost alone will make them immovable!

It's a fun experiment, and it gives me more room in the garden beds - and that's always in short supply!

Otherwise, the weather has been very cool all month. The spring flowers are blooming about 2 weeks late this year. I have tomatoes, peppers, ground cherries and basil growing under lights, but I don't think I'll even bother planting any of them out until May 31st or June 1st. This should be perfect weather for the cool season crops, though. The snap peas and greens are growing well - I can't wait for my first harvest.

Violets

There are three main types of violets growing in my yard. If I was a better blogger (or at least one with more time on her hands), I would look up their Latin names.

Instead, though, I think I'll just post their portraits.

Here's the yellow Canada violet. It's native to woodlands. This is, I think, my best violet photograph.



Here's the regular purple violet that everyone knows and loves.



The most populous violet in our yard is the white violet shown below. I tried to capture it's essence in the photograph, but it didn't turn out right - the focus is poor on the top two petals. Oh well. You can still sort of see the beautiful purple lines and yellow center, which a casual observer can only see when getting right up close and personal with the plant. (The little purple flower in the background is a creeping charlie flower.)

A Dog's Day

On Sunday I finished reading the book, Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog. It was one of those heart-warming "life of a dog" books which ended just as I expected it would: Merle dies. And of course it made me want to do something special for my own dog.

I looked over at Brix and decided to bring him to the dog park - for the first time ever. Our old dog, Dexter, wasn't all that great at the dog park. He didn't really like other dogs and tended to pay no attention to the humans in his life. But Brix is a bit more focused on us, and according to the doggy day care people, he loves to play with other dogs.

So, off we went. When we got there, I parked a little bit away. I was nervous - I had no idea how Brix would be. I finally got up the courage, brought him in and let him off his leash. Brix was in doggie heaven. He had a wonderful time, played appropriately with other dogs, greeted humans appropriately, and even made good friends with a little blond-haired boy.

I had fun because Brix had fun.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

        ~ Robert Frost

Elm leaves in early morning sun.