Value of harvest as of 7/20/10: $563

A kitchen gardener's blog

If You Build it, They will Nest

July 02, 2010 - These three posts, hold up wires that support grape vines in my vineyard. If four grape plants qualify as a vineyard. Maybe it is more accurately described as a grape fence. Anyway the deer don't jump it. This spring, the bird house on the first post housed a family of bluebirds. In the third box was a family of wrens, and a foot below the wren house was a cardinal nest.

On the south border of the garden is a second family of blue birds. Mocking birds are building a nest in a honeysuckle and rose covered arbor. There is a robin nesting in a tree near by and a family of bluebirds i... MORE

Flowering Onions

June 09, 2010 - Many yeas ago, captivated by a pretty picture in a bulb catalogue, I ordered one Allium bulb. Money was tight at the time and alliums were expensive. So I hovered over this plant as it emerged and began to grow tall. Finally one day it sent up a single bloom, only to have the stem bent in half by my young son as he played in the garden. I was disappointed that I would not get to enjoy my one and only allium flower. Since the flower was still partially attached to the stem, and figuring I had nothing to lose, I taped the stem back together with medical tape. And to my surprise, it worked,... MORE

Growing Bamboo Poles

June 22, 2009 - Part of my motivation to eat seasonally is to reduce food miles, the distance foods travels to get to my table. Now that concept is spilling over into other areas of my life, like bamboo pole miles?

Several years ago I built a gate made of bamboo poles. I ordered the poles from a place in Florida, I think they imported them from overseas, probably China. Wow, what a lot of bamboo miles.

Now I have three rapidly expanding patches of bamboo. Each a different pole diameter. Not only does the bamboo provide a great screen, but I can harvest it for use in the garden. This year I... MORE

A Mockingbird in a Peach Tree

June 15, 2009 - This morning I tackled a chore I have been dreading, thinning the peaches. I should enjoy this task, after all it is not back breaking or messy like most garden chores. But I hate it because it causes me great grief. Grief at all the peaches that will never develop. I know, that unless I remove the tiny peaches, so that there is at least three inches between each one, that they will all be stunted. But I hate throwing all those peaches out. After a few minutes I find myself counting...five, six seven. Seven peaches that will never be eaten over pancakes at breakfast. Ten, eleven, twelv... MORE

Bolting Leeks

June 08, 2009 - I harvested my leeks today, even though they were not full grown. Some of them had started to set seed. I learned the hard way, last year, that once the flower appears a woody center develops. I knew they only way to save the rest was to pull them before they flower.

So why does this keep happening to me? I think part of the problem was I planted late. This planting was from slips and they arrived late. I did a little reading today, and have decided that I should only plant leeks in the fall. Spr... MORE

Blue Podded Pea

June 02, 2009 - When I first started gardening, I could not imagine mixing flowers and vegetables together. And I never saw the vegetable garden as a thing of beauty. That was a long time ago. Now I have onions in the flower beds and flowers all over the vegetable garden. And most of the time my vegetable garden looks prettier than my flower beds. Sometimes I will even select one a vegetable variety over another just because I think it will look pretty. This pea is one of those. Bakers Creek Heirloom Seeds, called it a Blue Podded Pea, it looks purple to me, but pretty just the same. And it tasted grea... MORE

New Monarch Butterflies

June 25, 2008 - No matter how many times I see a new Monarch, I am still amazed by their beauty.... MORE

Monarch Butterfly

June 24, 2008 - When a monarch chrysalis turns clear it's a sign than the butterfly will emerge soon. ... MORE

Monarch Chrysalis

June 22, 2008 - My monarch caterpillars finally stopped eating and formed chrysalises.... MORE

Caterpillars

June 20, 2008 - We love butterflies at our house and grow plenty of plants to attract them. So you can imagine my despair one morning when I recently witnessed a beetle kill a monarch caterpillars. So upon the advice of an entomologist, I am raising caterpillars this summer. So far my success rate is 100%. I have released 3 monarch butterflies and six black swallowtail butterflies. Every morning as I walk through my garden I pay careful attention to host plants, looking for tiny caterpillars. When I find one, I snip off the branch he is on and put the branch in a container of water, in a cage on my scre... MORE

Aphid Infested Tomatoes

June 12, 2008 - Wow, have I been busy in the garden. As a result the month is half gone and this is my first posting. This has been a bad year for aphids. About a week ago my tomatoes were just covered in with these tiny green insects. I knew that a blast of cold water would knock them to the ground. Since they are slow moving, they would starve before they could crawl back up my plants. So I grabbed the hose and started spraying. However I shortly discovered that the vines also had a large number of ladybug larva. While the ladybug has a reputation for consuming aphids, it is really the larva that do ... MORE