Summer

April updates

Not April yet, but so. Front yard: had driveway replaced, which was a little traumatic for some new ground cover along the edge, but overall a good thing. Several inches higher than the old one in places to even out the incline. We will be getting a new entryway with straight bluestones, so the concrete was cut with several angles into it to accommodate the stones….hope the next owners like it!

Above is the driveway half way done….it’s done now and normal color (that was some topical etching stuff). Some of the old stepping stones still there for comparison, will update side by side when done.

Put in another Shepherdia, or soap plant, down by the road/ hazelnut trees. It produces bunches or red berries in fall, but only if there are both male and female plants. We have an 8″ plant sprouting back out this year, but don’t know what that one is, either; they have to bloom to compare the flowers before you can know. And we got another small Rhodie Occidentalis or deciduous rhodie, for the middle of the front yard plate that was recently cleared….that should be the dominant or specimen plant there. There is already a Pieris in that area that is doing fine, but it’s position is eccentric and it could get in the way of a few plants.

Update 1/2019: moved the soap plant into the rest of the back yard and bought another larger one. Hopefully between the two here are male and female, as required for berries!

August 27 vegetable garden update

The latest lettuce crapped out after getting to the several leaf stage, not sure if it is because of the intermittent hot weather. I think they were meant for spring here .

Finally pulled the second planting of “failing lettuce” and planted new carrot and onion seeds in their place, which are just coming up this last week. So now I have three different ages of onions and carrots, established pole green beans that keep trying to grow above the six foot or so trellis getup, and ripening tomatoes. We have had a few of the Oregon Spring ones already, but the Sweet Casady are just starting to get red. New seeds planted today for recently removed carrots, too – I targeted the ones on the south because they are blocking sun from seedlings. The carrots get huge, by the way…almost all of them are quite fat, some are double, and I think they can’t get more than about 10″ long because of the depth of the planter box. They are more tender and tasty than the store bought, as are the onions and green beans. The broccoli is still in seedling phase. The cucumbers were a bust, next time plant only vine cukes and only on western side.

I am fertilizing them about every three or so weeks with fish fertilizer, and we have them on automatics drip watering. I’ve given the tomatoes a little extra water at the bases because I’d accidentally turned off the drip system and they had a little dry trauma, but they since recovered. In fact the Casady is putting out hundreds of flowers!

Lessons learned ?:

1. Plant the carrots, and probably all of the vegetables, in square configurations rather than rows. That may minimize the sun blockage from carrot leaves on the other, shorter plants.

2. No radishes. Not worth it, and they have huge leaves that grow fast and early to block out the other seedlings.

3. Pay attention to the seedling packets you buy. I spent a lot of time going through the way too many varieties they had at Sky (have a gift certificate), then ended up buying the way wrong type of cucumbers- a “bush” type, not a vine, but either way they didn’t do well.

4. If I plant cukes again, it will be on the western part of the planter, since they are so heat and sun needy. The two plants on either east/west side had very different growth rates, and it’s only a 4 foot box! It had to do with the other plants blocking, I’m guessing,

5. Nasturtiums are great for color and vitamin C, and for putting flowers on your salad (I’ve read a LOT about edible flowers and they are extremely nutritious). But, I only need one or two plants, not six. And they can be continually pruned back away from the plants as they like to spill out over the sides.

August 19 vegetable garden news

Lot of warm weather this summer, so the second batch of lettuce failed to grow much. They all sprouted but then stalled out when the temps went into the 80’s. I left about five plants in a row to see if they’ll take off. The others were replaced last week by broccoli, carrot and onion seeds. A bunch of the broccoli sprouts are already coming up, so I thinned them out to one about every four inches (a little on the tight side, but I don’t think they’ll get large). They should be ready to harvest by fall, but I think they can overwinter, too. And the one plant I had from earlier planting is still growing, now about ten inches with purplish flowers on several branches. I hope this is what they’re supposed to do.

Had lots of tomatoes yesterday from the Oregon Spring plant…about five ripened at the same time. Also, I watered the front with a sprinkler and when the sun came out some of these ripening tomatoes split, so I had to pick them. We served them with salad to guests, and they were delicious! Still accumulating Sweet Casado small tomatoes, but no red ones yet.

Vegetable garden, summer edition

Took all the old lettuce out last couple of weeks- since they were spaced pretty closely to begin with and the stalks continued to grow stout while I was harvesting outer leaves, they eventually ended up too crowded to grow new leaves. The stalks also grew tall, but the leaves were short and not as good. The new seedlings just got their second set of leaves. This time no spinach, it just bolted early, and the lettuce is spaced out a little.

Have been getting great nasturtium flowers for vitamin C, plus great peppery flavor. I had six sites in the planter bed, so I took most of them out before we go out of town for a while, also to let the adjacent carrots and onions get some sun, leaving two plants. They are very floriferous. I always eat a bouquet full of flowers. When I cleaned out the planters, I made a great salad of all the nasturtium flowers and buds I’d taken out, a fat carrot, two small onions and some olive oil vinaigrette. Yum.

Sowed broccoli seeds where the nasturtiums were, 4 sites, all along the west side. Broccoli is supposed to be sown in mid summer. Right now in my garden there are two different rows sowings of carrots and two of onions, each type with some ripe or ripening vegetables. The carrots are larger than last year, much fatter. The green onions are new for me, but so far I have been using the thinned out ones and they are very tasty. The 5 green beans plants now have several sets of leaves each, and are about 6″ tall, still not yet sending aerials to the trellis. Also two cucumbers about 3″ tall, a “bush” variety that I’m hopioto train on the trellis, I accidentally bought the wrong variety.

The tomatoes had an iffy start, what with leaf curl and all, but no spots or brown discoloration. It turns out to be due to overwatering one of them. The wart like spots on the Sweet Cassidy miniature tomato stem looked like some kind of fungus, but it is due to root initials or starts. They recommended mounding some dirt n them and they will form roots to make the plant stronger, which they did. It finally took off, and is now three feet tall with dozens of flower buds forming, more all the time, and growing quickly. It is an indeterminate plant, so we got three plastic rods to place inside the existing cage and extend it higher for more growth. It took a long time before it showed flowers, which the indeterminate do….they grow first. I gave them flowering fertilizer, but it still took a while. Several hot sunny days helped. The determinant plant, Oregon Spring, started flowering almost right away.

Late summer in all it’s glory – really!

We’ve had some good summer rains this year, about every 2-3 weeks or so. Combined with the hotter weather, the plants are loving it! Most everything looks beautiful and lush like it normally would if it got enough rain throughout the summer, which “normally” it doesn’t! A few plants still getting a little scorched, fewer now that I’ve transplanted most of them out of the direct summer sun? So, so’ s not to forget, here’s my transplant list for this fall:

Two huckleberries from backyard meadow, to west entry area.
Two maidenhair ferns from front yard to anywhere better, speaking of over sunned!
Pull out remainder of ajuga around patio, replant with new seedlings of Paintbrush, Gaillardia and Globemallow.
Hooker’s Fairybells to less summer sun.

I sowed a bunch of Trillium Chloropetalum seeds that the one newer plant produced (two small but productive pods), into three spots in the lower back yard. Propagating these would be a coup, as they are fragrant and more delicate looking than the Westerns. It is in an area that the moles have thankfully abandoned, as they have several other hazard spots, and not in too much sun. It will eventually be a little grotto for some ferns, Boykinia, Leopard lily, Fawn lily, chocolate lillies, Shooting stars, Miterwarts, Trilliums (Chloropetalum),Penstemons, spotted Saxifrage, Camas, Bear Grass, Balsamroot and Pussytoes, to name a few. Well, it will be trilliums in about 7 years, anyway, that’s what it takes from seed! The Western Trillium seeds from the last few years germinated well – we have about five different patches of two-year seedlings planted out in the ground, and about five of the three-year plants which were planted into a small pot.

We’re in the paper!

Our garden was featured in the Seattle Times’ Sunday garden section, as a native garden. The pix were taken last year, in May, so things have filled out more since then, but the photos were good anyway…our garden can be very photogenic and not hard to find many good shots.

Next up, Sunset! We were photographed in May of THIS year, during and after the native plants society tour on the 17th. I have to say, those pix are likely to be much better – there are more and larger plants that are relatively new, more filled out, and a few plants bloomed for the first time, including the gorgeous White Camas and White Brodiaea ass well as Bear grass…these pix really don’t do them justice!.

Late summer 2013

Above is actually a slightly bigger garden – Hampton Court, outside of London!

Had quite a summer, a real one actually, with 70’s and 80’s and sun since Memorial Day. Several periods of rain saved me some time watering. The garden looked the best in late June through much of July, while the foliage was still lush.

Im trying to establish some young plants in newly cleared areas, as usual. New plants include seedlings of Balsamroot (sunflower yellow flowers) and Iris Setosa (dark purple) that I sowed last winter 2012, as well as some young ferns and other plants we bought at the native plant sale.

I have a bunch of seedling /bulb lets to plant out this fall including the smaller more delicate Common Camas, hookers onion, brodiaea, shooting stars, leopard and tiger lillies and other camasses. Those will be planted out around the yard with pumice to mark the spots. I need more of them in the front yard, but these have a harder time in general there, between the slugs and the moles, so I am usually reluctant to commit too many of these that I’ve spent time on.

Few Douglas squirrel sightings, and also of lizards. Three raccoon sightings in four days, all during the day! Here’s hoping for another one of those raccoon blights.

This year’s seeds

I’m going to plant seeds in pots that I haven’t before, less common plants like Munro’s Globemallow (cool orange flowers), Blue Columbine and Yellow Columbine, Hooker’s Onion (small plants, pink flowers) and Harsh Paintbrush. The usual seeds – all the camas (small, light blue, white and large purple), Chocolate lily, Leopard lily, etc will be planted around outside. Sometimes the planting in pots is just interfering with their best chance, just ending up in the right spot in the ground, but sometimes its worth it, plants occasionally do better in the pots. This is true of Wild Blue Flax and camas.

Below is Harsh Paintbrush, a bright orange red. The bright orange parts are actually leaves, not petals:

July is like spring

Tiger lillies blooming, here’s some below with Brodiaea:

Gaillardia, Brodiaea, Yellow wooly flower, bluebell and Penstemon richardsonii blooming. Lots of green leaves still, due to all the cool weather and summer rains.

The Rattlesnake plantain that I boke off (accidentally) and replanted is sending up a new leaf, as is the ‘mother’ plant, with several shoots. This appears to be a useful method of propagation, as the seeds didn’t come up.

Continue reading “July is like spring”

Eureka, we found the cactus flower at last!!

We finally found a Fragile Cactus (Opuntia Fragilis) flower in bloom, after at least ten years of searching ! We found it today, June 28, on the south west end of Lopez at Iceberg Point. It looks like several other buds are ready to bloom, hopefully when we return in the next 12 or so days there will be more flowers. We have some in our yard (well-marked and contained, an unpleassant surprise to find them if you are not aware of the needles there) and in a couple of planters, but they have never bloomed…not enough sun? We also had put a few in the planter boxes around the deck at Lopez, but the deer displaced them when they were checking out the goods….I’m hoping they got a needle or two on the snout when they did so!