June 2009 Archives

This weekend I learned that vinegar does, in fact, nuke weeds.  I poured some on the weeds growing through the cracks in my sidewalk, and they were quite dead a day later.  So put the Round-Up away - you don't need it. Just get some cheap vinegar.

I spent some time this weekend trying to reclaim the tomato and pepper bed.  I discovered that I have a baby watermelon that's about the size of a gumball. Yay!  My tomatoes are starting to bloom.  One of them already has tiny little green tomatoes.  Two of the plants are too close together. *sigh*  That's what happens when you plant things hurriedly in the semi-darkness!

I lost the potato berries.  I looked for them this weekend, but they're gone.  Excavating for potatoes remains on my to-do list.  I'm not expecting to find any, but I have to look.

I also have beans!  I need to dig out my planting chart so I can figure out which bean is which, otherwise how will I know if it's time to pick them?

The squash plants took a break, but now they're producing again. Actually, I think some of the baby squash rotted away because it was so wet. But that's OK, there are plenty more blossoms and baby squash one the way.

I'm a bad gardener.  I finally strolled out to the backyard to check on my plants yesterday afternoon around sunset.  I think there might be tigers living in the jungle that surrounds my tomatoes and peppers.

So, I learned that I don't have the time or the inclination to weed my garden as much as I should.  I should've figured that out last year.  Duh!

Meanwhile, I've been reading Masanobu Fukuoka's One-Straw Revolution. Fukuoka studied his land and the crops he grew and created a self-substaining biological system that leverages the natural tendencies of nature.  He refers to his technique as "do nothing farming."  He goes on to clarify that you do actually have to do things, but just not as many things as modern farmers do, such as plowing all the time and dumping pesticides all over the place. 

He strategically sowed clover around his crops to serve as a ground cover that chokes out larger weeds that would compete with the crops.  He grew wheat, and used wheat straw as a mulch.  He also used the weeds themselves as mulch - he cut them and dropped them in place to decompose.

It took him years to figure out the components and timing needed for his "do nothing farming," and he says that what worked for him won't work everywhere because soil and climate differences are a big factor.  He encourages people to experiment and figure out what works in their conditions.

I think I'll do that.

One thing is for sure - I have got to do something about the weeds next year.  I'm thinking mulch. I'll just mulch everything.  I'm a little concerned that my garden plot seems to be very damp already, and the mulch will help it stay damp. (Oh. That reminds me about my potatoes. I'll get back to them in a minute.)  But for all I know there could be a drought next year.  I think I'll try the mulch and see what happens.

And now, the potato report: the purples ones are dead. :(  The red ones are heading in that direction.  The "potato berries" are still hanging out on one of the Rose Gold vines.  They're the size of a nickel now.  They really do look like small, unripe tomatoes. 

I also noticed the return of the miniature furry hermit crab bugs.  These guys showed up on my tomatoes last year.  I put one in a jar and took it to the ag extension office, but they couldn't ID it.  As far as I could tell, they didn't really hurt the tomatoes.  This year they're on the potatoes.  The potatoes are so sickly that it's hard to tell if the bugs caused it or not. Hmm.  I'll make a note to take a picture of the weird little bug dudes.

We have enough squash now that we might make a casserole. :P  Some of the squash are actually greenish.  On the next squash-picking expedition I need to note which plant the green ones are coming from. 

 

Potatoes obviously have flowers, so, do they make seeds?  If they do, why don't we use them to plant new potatoes? I may not solve all of those mysteries, but  I'm at least trying to find out what a potato seed looks like.  I kept an eye on the blossoms, and where the blossoms once were, weird little berry-looking things formed:

I'm keeping an eye on them to see what happens next. ^_^

Aren't the blossoms pretty?

It's been raining.  A lot.  It rained yesterday, and it's rained nearly all evening today.  Yesterday I noticed that most of the mulch had been washed right out of the front flower bed.  (We really need to put gutters on the front porch to keep the water from collecting in that flower bed, which is right under the edge of the porch!)

It's supposed to rain all weekend, too. Argh.  Don't get me wrong - until yesterday I was starting to get concerned about the lack of rain.  But this is an awful lot of rain. 

I need to get a rain gauge.  I keep thinking that, and I keep not getting one! :P

The rain is preventing me from planting the last set of seedlings I bought at the farmer's market - the parsley, the dill, the zucchini, and the marigolds.  They're not holding up too well in those black plastic six-packs, either.  *chews on fingernails*

Hopefully the little squash are benefiting from all the water. And the little carrot seedlings.  And the tomatoes.  We've got to make tomato cages sooner rather than later, because I'm sure their growth will be astounding after all the rain. :) 

Ok, so I realize that fireflies aren't plants.  But I still think they're darn cool, so I'm mentioning them. :P  Tonight is the first night that I've noticed them this year.  Last year we had flocks of them flittering around our backyard.  Tonight, we only noticed one every 2-3 minutes.  Hopefully their friends will show up soon, and our backyard will look like a shimmering constellation.

My theory for why we have so many fireflies is that we don't use any kind of pesticides and our property is next to the undeveloped banks of a municipal drainage canal.  There are lots of trees, shrubs, and grasses for critters to live in.

In actual plant news, the Nikko Blue hydrangea looks absolutely stunning in the fading light of sunset.  I wish I had a tripod for my camera so that I could take a non-blurry picture of it.

The beans suddenly realized that they could climb up the bamboo poles that are next to them.  I'm pretty amazed - I was expecting to "train" them onto the bamboo poles, but they didn't need my help at all.

We have itty bitty sqashes.  I guess we'll be able to pick them in about a week. 

We really need to pick the mustard before the scortching heat of summer starts up in earnest.

Oh - and the second set of carrots came up.  No luck with the onions again. *sigh*

And now I'm going to go see what the fireflies are up to.  ^_^