Saying Goodbye to Another Season

The tang of Fall is in the air, and I even find myself thinking about snow, and *Gasp!* Christmas. Horrifying, I know. It may have something to do with being wound up over the imminent, and imminently huge, schedule change that is looming just around the corner. I have to say that I am tired of having it hanging over us - I want to just wade in and get it rolling, already!

On the other hand, it may have something to do with what we spent six hours straight doing, yesterday. It was the perfect day for it; breezy, mild, but not cold. Yes, yesterday we cleaned out 3/4 of the gardens. A little early, you say? Perhaps. But I know I won't have the time (or the inclination, probably), to do it once I'm back in school full time, teaching piano three days a week and still hoping to do a bit of writing/ artwork, and, of course, spend time with my hubby and canine babies.

So we pulled and plucked, chopped and snipped, and the result was eleven bags of yard waste, and much barer looking gardens. The verdict is in on the weed carpets, though. The bad news is that No, they do not stop weeds from growing, HOWEVER, they make the weeds much, MUCH easier to pull. So yes, they are staying as a yearly garden staple.

To celebrate and commemorate another growing season, I have posted photos of the phases it's gone through from March to the peak of the summer. It began, as usual, on my glass kitchen table, with newspaper, Styrofoam cups, a water spritzer and a huge amount of seeds...

...and progressed to the two mini "greenhouses," we put up by our kitchen windows. These two shelves become home to hundreds of plants - both vegetables and flowers - from the months of March to June.

Once the soil warms, it's time to go at it with shovels and other digging implements for the purpose of weeding, loosening the soil, and enriching it with things like composted manure.

This year, we added the step of covering the garden plots with weed carpet. Aaaah, it looks so clean...

At this point, I often wonder if the garden will ever look like it did last year, *lol* These are the seedlings in their cup planters. I placed them where I felt they should be planted (by height, color, etc...) Hubby isn't as familiar with their characteristics as I am, of course, so this was how he was able to help me "install" them.

Almost there. Carpet doesn't look too clean, now, covered in plants and dirt.

And Voila! One garden plot done. For me, it's an annual act of faith to believe that these little ones, sparse looking as they are right now, will fill out, join together, and actually form a flower garden.

And they certainly tried their best not to disappoint.

And there it is...

...Until Next Year!

Revelling in Summer Blooms

I have to admit that every year, when I place my little seedlings into the earth outside, I worry. Eighty-five to ninety percent of our plants are home-grown from seeds - that's two to three hundred. I start them in indoor "greenhouses" in March and April. But still, they always look so tiny when being transplanted, and one can never be quite, quite sure, unless one waits until the end of June, that the icy fingers of frost are gone for good.
I was even more worried this year. With the wacky weather, the seedlings just didn't seem to want to grow very much once they were in the gardens. I waited with bated breath for weeks. But now, finally, my efforts have paid off. The front gardens are a riot of color, playing host to bees. The back gardens are mantled with green, and home to darting dragonflies.

This is a picture that one of my student's created for me, using beads and other materials. Goes right along with the summer blooms theme!

                

                     

Stubborn Weeds

The worst thing about gardening (to us, anyway) is definitely the weeds. Versatile, adaptable, insidious and stubborn, they are a nightmare to be contended with on a daily and yearly basis.

So this spring, at the beginning of April, we rolled up our sleeves, slathered on the suntan lotion (I did, anyway,) bent our backs and set to work cleaning out the garden beds. We spared no mercy. With a large, pointed shovel we dug into the soil, pushed the shovel deeper with the ball of our foot, and tore the weeds up by the roots. My husband, especially, was ruthless, going after the tendrils and the tips, trying to make sure that the entire plant would be eradicated once and for all.

We went a step further this year. Tired of expending all this energy and having to re-do it constantly throughout the growing season (and we have a large garden - the entire perimeter of our backyard, two additional plots by the house, two front flower beds and a small 'around-the-tree' plot) we invested in what I call a 'carpet' (although it's possible that that is in fact the actual term) Well, we invested in two.

One is thick and light gray. It's porous, to allow water to go through. The other is lighter and black. In both cases, slits, or holes, are cut into the carpet to allow the desired plants to poke through. The idea is that weeds will have a harder time self-propagating, and, hopefully, growing, since there is obviously much less sun underneath.

Although the light gray one has a lifetime guarantee, I must admit that I like the black much more. It's lighter, so it's easier to work with. Plus, being black, it more closely resembles the 'color' of soil. I can only hope that when the plants get larger, they will cover up the gray nicely, because the alternative looks extremely bizarre in my mind's eye.

It wasn't a good beginning. The gray carpet, being so thick, broke some of my cool-weather seedlings when it got blown around by the wind. I wasn't incredibly thrilled by that. However, we have resolved the problem by weighing it (and the black one) with rocks.

Did I mention that weeds are insidious? Of course, they manage to spawn their seeds even with the carpet in place but, hopefully, it will be much less than it otherwise would have been.

I will let you know as the season progresses.

Perennials Versus Annuals

That exciting year when we planted our first flower garden, we started with digging out a small strip right in front of the house. Into this plot went a climbing rose, a regular rose and a bleeding heart. Being very green newbies, we didn't know much (if anything) about these plants that we had just put in, other than the fact that they were perennial, and were expected to return the following year.

Thankfully, the plants forgave us our ignorance and, despite initial soil deficiencies etc...have continued to grow year after year. The regular rose, who appeared to have died at some point, has stubbornly reincarnated itself even after having been 'dug up.' (Don't ask me how, I have absolutely no idea.)

In subsequent years we've added a soft purple clematis and a row of brilliant heliopsis and zebrina along the side, as well as a gaggle of gorgeous Asian lilies.

The result is a spectacular display of blooms that range from mid-spring to frost. The upside? I don't have to germinate, buy or replant them year after year, and they continue to expand both in width and height (this could also be a downside, depending on individual preference.) This aspect is especially wonderful in the climbing rose because it is now reaching towards the roof, and when it blooms the flowers are absolutely show-stopping (I will add pics later in the season.)

The downside is that perennials usually have one bloom period during the season before calling it quits for the year. Mind you, the bloom period is often quite a long one, but once it's done, it's done. The exception to this are roses. Our climbing rose blooms twice, and the ordinary one blooms throughout the summer. The heliopsis flower in July and last until mid to late August. But plants like the bleeding heart will only flower during the cooler months of spring, and the clematis and lilies also have a short, albeit beautiful, bloom period.
And this is where the annuals come in.
If (like me) the preference is for the garden to be a riot of color all growing season long, then it's a good idea to have both perennials and annuals in a mixed bed.
The downside of annuals is that they need to be regrown and/ or re-bought, and replanted every year, since, as the term 'annual' implies, they only last for one. I personally germinate approximately two hundred in my indoor greenhouses starting in March. Some annuals such as petunias start flowering as early as June and continue on right until the fall. Others begin in July until frost.
Besides the much longer flowering time, one of the upsides of annuals is the sheer variety. There is definitely something for everyone.

So, if an 'easy keeper' garden is the desire, go with some hardy perennials. They look great and come back every year.
If, on the other hand, a color riot is wanted, mix it up with some annuals and bask in continuous blooms.

Spring, and the Beginning of the Gardening Season

All seasons are sensory, but spring, for me, is the one that strikes the deepest chord. The sight of the first tiny tendrils of green on the bare branches gives me an indescribable thrill. I love the feeling of waking up to a room that is streaming with sunshine, and opening the window to a chorus of birdsong. Although I am not a huge fan of rain, knowing how important it is for the growing things (and for avoiding a droughty summer and a hefty water ban) I've learned to welcome it, too. The smell of rain, the smell of earthworms, seeing that first bumblebee hovering around my bleeding hearts, the excitement of thunderstorms - all part of the rich experience that is spring.

Gardening Time

And with spring comes...The Gardening Season! This is a joy I had looked forward to for years. When we bought our house, besides the excitement of simply having a house, the thing I looked forward to the most was being able to create our own gardens.

The front yard wasn't a problem. We simply dug a garden bed right in front of the house and planted a climbing rose bush, a regular rose bush, a bleeding heart, and a clematis. Of course, this has expanded year by year to include a large plot of annuals (which I start indoors every year), a strip on the other side of the garage with heliopsis, and a circle bed under the tree with zebrinas and more annuals.

The back garden, however, was a different story because, of course, we couldn't put a garden in until a fence was up.

We wanted a fence for two reasons; one, as lovers of dogs, a fence is pretty important. Two, we wanted a large vegetable and fruit garden. It took two years for us and our neighbors to finally collaborate and get a fence up. Before the posts even went in, I was on my hands and knees digging up turf. We realized that it would be much easier to dig up grass before having an obstruction like a wooden board in the way.

We dug up the entire perimeter of our yard, three feet deep.

Those first years were definitely a lesson in progress. I began by planting my vegetables and flowers way early in February. My husband (who is always on the lookout for things I might like or need) discovered these wonderful wooden mini greenhouses that move on wheels, have a plastic zippered cover, and can be folded up when not in use.

So, armed with greenhouses, I set to work by planting hundreds upon hundreds of seeds, and growing hundreds upon hundreds of plants.

It's been a few years since that initial one, and here's what I've learned in the interim:

1. There's no need to germinate the entire seed packet at one go.
Not sure why, but when I first started I felt that it was somehow necessary for me to use up the entire package of seeds. Needless to say, I ended up with way, way, way too many plants.

2. Start germinating seeds early, but not as early as February.
We live in a cooler climate area, where winter truly sets in at around the middle of December and releases its grip very reluctantly in the spring. For that reason, it isn't safe to plant seedlings outdoors until mid June or so.
I now start my flower at the beginning of March, so that by the time I set them out in June, some will have already begun to bud. Vegetables are started in April, so that they don't get too big for the greenhouse before it's time to transplant.

3. Don't waste money buying tons and tons of pots
This doesn't matter as much if it's only a few pots, but if, like me, it's hundreds of plants being grown, then buying pots is just a method of throwing money away.
Styrofoam cups are much more time and cost efficient. They have the downside of being non-recyclable in terms of the blue bin, but they can be reused year after year. Easy to label, easy to poke holes in the bottom to allow water to drain. And easy to get.
Plastic picnic cups are also great, especially if the plants need a bigger pot. Empty yogurt and cottage cheese containers, plastic ice cream and whipped topping boxes are also wonderful indoor plant homes.
Empty egg cartons are great for starting seed, and are fully recyclable. Their downside is that, being so small, the plants will need to be transplanted to a larger pot fairly quickly.

4. Label the containers
This I knew right from the get-go also. It is extremely important to label each plant, at least until such time as the ability to recognize each individual seedling develops. I had a mishap this year while transferring seedlings from Styrofoam cups to larger plastic ones. I was doing this outside, and a huge gust of wind blew in and knocked down my greenhouse and everything in it. I was three quarters of the way down, and over two hundred flowers were on those shelves. Needless to say, plants got knocked out of their carefully labeled containers. I felt (on a very, very small and much less important scale) like I was searching for earthquake survivors as I sifted through the debris to try to recover as many seedlings as possible. I think I lost about twenty. Thankfully, since I've been gardening for quite a few years now, I've developed the ability to recognize my seedlings on sight, including the ones that are new for the year.

5. Keep the seed packets
Even if they're empty, the seed packets can come in very useful. Most of them have information on the back like when to plant, where to plant, how far apart to plant and how high the plant will grow. When planning out a flower bed, especially, height is crucial. It wouldn't do to have a plant that is two feet tall in front of a ground cover one, for example.

6. Stagger
If planting an entire flower and vegetable garden (which is what I do each year), the process if definitely a long and involved one. Since most of us have crazy hectic schedules, it's best not to do everything at one go. This year I designated one day out of the week as my official gardening day, and it's the day we've done most of our garden clean-up, weeding, carpeting etc... When I started planting my seeds this year, I spent a couple of hours each day until all the seedlings had been sown. It beats sitting down and labeling, filling and sowing hundreds of containers and seeds at one go. As long as there's a schedule and it's stuck to, things will be done in short order.

7. Enjoy!
This is important one. Gardening is a lot of work, but the results can be spectacular. Enjoy the journey, and enjoy the destination!