Well, I got sidetracked for 3 weeks. Distracted by legal issues.when my daughter's dad got a lawyer to try to keep me from homeschooling.  I think he has given up. I don't think he expected me to put up such a fight. I think he will eventually see that I'm right and he should have trusted me from the beginning, but it's okay.


So, last week or so the blackberries were blooming and something in the raspberry bed. I have picked strawberries and sugar snap peas and I have flowers on peppers and tomatoes. My new rose, which I think is Reines De Violettes is getting eaten by some kind of bgs. The Therese Bugnet still isn't blooming. The Pinata rose accidentally got cut by the weedeater.The Mr. Lincoln rose, peonies, and siberian iris are blooming. Dilara's "Commander-in-Chief" lilies may have been mislabeled. One bud opened today and it is YELLOW, not red. She thinks the flower is "confused" and it is like the banana we got in a bunch that was flat, stayed green, and was hollow when we cut into it. I think it was mislabeled. It will be interesting to see what the other 4 bulbs do.

I got my other community garden bed planted last week, but kind of in a rush.  I still want to get some okra planted out there.

My lettuce and spinach are both bolting. My cabbage and brussels sprouts never did anything. I shouldn't bother with them next year. My onions have done well.The Dwarf curled kale is doing well. We picked a lot last Sunday and made a big salad with it with salt, olive oil, and lemon juice. Dilara loved it.  The dinosaur kale and broccoli rabe haven't done so well. The broccoli rabe has flowered. I guess I will try to harvest seed and eat the leaves. Maybe.

Dilara is impatient to pick carrots. She pulled one up today, but it wasn't any thicker than a pencil.  I meant to do succession plantings of radish and carrots. I guess I'll wait till later.

We divided the water lilies and put one in a container garden with some feeder goldfish and a shubunkin from my ex-husband's house. It died, and I'm not sure why.   I still need to plant up pepper plants and tomato plants. We just got a lot of rain, so this may be a good time to get things planted.

I hope today to get some of my transplants in the ground, or into earthboxes. I got some gourd seeds for Dilara to plant and I was thinking we could train them up the dog fence. 

Dilara's sunflower house is coming up well. I meant to plant some lima beans. Our sugar snap peas are doing great.

I am making myself mow down the raspberry plants that are growing where I don't want them.

The asparagus was disappointing again. I'm not sure what the problem is. I was expecting trouble-free harvests for many years.  I will try to give more fertilizer.

https://archive.org/details/figitshistorycul00eise

http://www.uri.edu/ce/healthylandscapes/Rain%20barrel%20bro.pdf
http://www.rainbarrelguide.com/

Aspirin For Your Garden
by Charlie Nardozzi

The next time you have a headache and reach for the bottle of aspirin, consider sharing some with your garden plants. Tests last year at the Organic Vegetable Garden at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston showed that spraying a water solution containing aspirin increased yields and the quality of tomatoes, eggplant, basil, and other vegetables.

The vegetables were grown in compost-amended soil with drip irrigation. Beds were sprayed every 3 weeks with aspirin water (1.5 aspirins per 2 gallons of water). It’s thought that the salicylic acid in aspirin trigger the plants natural defenses and boosts the plant’s growth rate. Not only were the aspirin treated plants healthier, than produced better than those plants treated with a commercial bio stimulant. The plants grew larger and produced more than in the control beds.

For more information about the demonstration vegetable garden, contact the University of Rhode Island Demonstration Vegetable Garden at http://www.uri.edu/ce/healthylandscapes/cecenter.html

Worked in the garden from about 7 till 8:30. Will do more later. I have to avoid the sun. I'm sitting in the shade in my backyard at the moment.  It has been a hard week for me, emotionally, since I got some bad news about a loved one that I am having a bit of a hard time getting used to.  I find peace in the garden and I like to think of how Jesus did, too. It is definitely springtime.  The birds are singing, the trees are mostly leafed out or are blooming. The stately sycamore in the back corner of my yard is never in a hurry to leaf out. The wild (and sometimes weedy!) violets are carpeting the lawn, especially underneath the sycamore and around the swingset. I always enjoy the purple and occasionally whilte blossoms of these sweet little flower.  I do love the heart-shaped leaves, as well. I am sorry to have to pull it up and throw it away when it grows where it isn't wanted. I even find it in my hanging strawberry planters. How??? I finally dug up what I think are the last of the raspberries I will try to save and share with friends. I must discipline myself to be ruthless in keeping them mowed down or pulled up from where I don't want them.  At the moment, I feel like the patch is manageable.

I found 3 asparagus spears peeping up from their bed this morning as I pulled back the pinewood mulch. My, how full of life the soil is!  There are always many unwelcomed seedlings that pop up, I guess from the compost. I should figure out some way to stop that, I guess. Not sure how to.  The seedlings come up easily, but there are hundreds of them. I probably picked up 20 or more at one time....they were growing in an eggshell fragment that was still holding a bit of compost.   There is one spear that is very fat and the other 2 look like they may be spindly. I planted 2 different kinds of asparagus spears last year.  I tried to load them up with compost earlier in the year. I am not very happy with how they did last year.  I do think they came up earlier last year, but I will have to check my records to be sure.

The last of the daffodils are still blooming. I see the necks of the stem of some of the flowers Dilara picked and brought in are swollen as the seeds are becoming ripe.  I suppose we have nothing to lose by planting some. Of course, we can't eat them, but the spring flowers do brighten our hearts, and that is no small thing. I have some iris plants, multicolor beared iris that were shared by Hannah, the next door neighbor of David when he lived on Raywood land.  I think she and her husband were Polish. Her husband had lost a leg in the war, I think, and we often saw him roaming around their yard in his wheelchair. David and the children all liked them. Anyway, I planted a few iris rhizomes (I guess that is what they are) by the fence on the east side and some in the back, but they don't get enough shade.  I see no sign of the iris at the east fenceline, but they may be buried by leaves. I tried to pull some of the leaves back, but I didn't see the iris leaves. I am not exactly sure where they are, but they are south of the blackberries. I suppose i should move the iris...Perhaps I will do that today.  It may not be the best time, but I think they will be happier in the long run.  Actually, I think I shall do that now.

There...4 "fans" of bearded iris planted in what I hope will be a happy home. In that "bed" there are a Therese Bugnet rose, fragrant daylily-- including Stella D'oro brought from Autumn Ct, if I am not mistaken, speedwell, and siberian iris (from the Gordon residence, if I am not mistaken), orange daylily from Howard Moore Lane. I suppose I should be making a bed for the cutting garden, annual flowers. There is no grass where Perdy (the dog) was, and I suppose I should loosen it up and plant something nice. I was thinking of planting this Brunswick (?) fig that I got from the property at Blackman Ct. over in part of the bare spot.  The ground is very uneven where the dogs have dug it up over the years. 

The wild grapevines are having the tiniest little leaf buds. They will grow fast. I never finished cutting the grapevine back as much as I wanted. At least I got it away from the Triple Crown thornless blackberries. I really want to protect and nuture them. They are nicer to be around than the raspberries. I think the breeding (making them thornless) must have made them a little more delicate. The raspberries would take over my whole yard, I believe. I am surprised at how little the blackberries have spread.

So, I should note if the grapes and asparagus both start waking up at the same time.  The raspberries have been leafed out for a while.  I did not cut back the ones I dug up to share as much as I should have, but they seem to be adjusting. One was wilted for several days, but the leaves did not die. 

I am enjoying eating from my garden what has been ready. Onion chives are making flowers...they are always so pretty, but so SPICY! Dilara has been eating wild onions from the garden. She loves eating from the yard. The onions I planted did not do so well. The radish seeds I planted still have a long ways to go.   I suppose I should plant more radish and carrot seeds. I have 3 earthboxes to plant. The one the raspberries were in, the one the sugar snap peas were in last year (still 1/2 full, just needs topping off), and the earthbox that held parsley and a serrano pepper last year. It still has some thyme in it.  I really should make a herb bed. I could easily do that over where the dogs were. I need to have the mint and rosemary in pots (maybe in a pot inside a pot, so the pot directly in the ground can be a place holder! I have lots of bricks. I have several burlap bags.  I really do need to take advantage of the sunny spot where the dogs were  to make a good planting bed. I could take all my leaves over there and cover them with burlap sacks...start a kind of lasagne garden.  Dilara's sunflower house would go well there.

I still need to renovate my water lily container. I have that blue half-barrel I got from the side of the road. It needs to have the holes plugged. I am assuming there is nothing that would harm fish....My dream is to have a pretty container garden with a couple of shubunkin....I should be able to get some free from David.

I need to set up my rain barrels.

I pulled up so many Tristar strawberry plants.  I need to be ruthless about cutting back runners. I want more fruit! I put the plants in a bucket of vermiculite. The green onions I bought fro K and S...3 bunches for $1 are keeping very well in a flowerpot of damp vermiculite. They are staying alive, making new roots, rather than slowly turning to mush in my refrigerator.  I like to always have green onions on hand, and it looks like I figured out how to do that.  It may be that I can grow new green onions from the ends, but I don't know if it is worth the trouble.  I have 2 bunches of onion plants that I think may dry out before I get a chance to plant them.  I put the in a flowerpot with damp vermiculite, in hopes that they will keep better there than in a paper bag.

I hope this evening to plant some things in my community garden plot.  w

http://www.garden.org/ediblelandscaping/?page=201005-interplanting
http://michaelweishan.com/gardenblog/?p=1782

(this was in my draft folder..actually it is from 2012---maybe June)

Last year I had the most wonderful strawberries and posted a photo on my main page.  This year I think I have only gotten ONE strawberry.  A few weeks ago the plants were covered with blooms. This year I know I have at least 2 rabbits and a squirrel. 

I try to grow organically as much as possible. I love bunnies, but I have a whole yard full of white clover they should be eating!  I can't afford a fence, but that would probably be my best option. I also have lots of birds giving me fits. I have some bird netting and floating row covers. I went to Family Dollar and spent a dollar on a container of scented "shower to shower" type body powder and I went all around my garden area and also around the strawberries. My aunt told me it repels rabbits.   It is true that I haven't seen the rabbits in the garden since then, but it might be because there are no more strawberries. These are supposed to be Tristar everbearing berries, but i wonder if they were mislabeled.  I don't get berries throughout the year. I am pretty sure they need some fertilizer.

My asparagus didn't do as well as I expected this year. I think it might need fertilizer, too.  I drive by some people who keep horses....they would probably be glad for me to come scoop up a few buckets full of manure for my compost pile.

I planted more rainbow chard, but I think the birds got the seedlings.  My flat leaf parsley that I bought last year came back with vigor. I think I'll take the chives and thyme out of the earthbox they are in and put something in there I actually use. The chives just bloomed. I will pot them up in regular pots, I think.

I have one ripe early girl tomato. I wrapped it up in a floating row cover because last year my first tomatoes...which I wanted to leave on the vine till they were perfectly ripe....got bitten into by something before I could get them.

My regular tomatoes look a little spindly. The roma tomatoes that were smaller and planted later are HUGE. I planted 4 rather than the 2 suggested in the earthbox, but I put fresh "Mel's Mix" in about 1/2 the container and put some fertilizer and bonemeal and bloodmeal in it. My ex-husband's tomatoes are huge, too.  I guess it is the fertilizer. 

I need to get some more cucumber seeds in....I need to replant often so I have a continuous supply..seems like the plants play out or get vine borers within a couple of weeks of when they start bearing.

I have some "slow bolt" cilantro I started from seed that is doing well.  I prefer parsley, but I have a harder time with it.

I made my first batch of pesto last week with my basil...4 plants in a window box. 

I planted one Heritage and 2 Logan Raspberries. Looks like I have BLACKBERRIES growing there...Had a couple ripen, but birds got them...I need to get the net out. I have some Triple Crown blackberry plants that are still a ways from ripening.  I am rather puzzled about these new blackberries. Could they be "volunteer" plants? Oh, I just looked up "Logan" and they are BLACK raspberries. They still look like blackberries, though. They came in a container with a red raspberry on the picture. They look more like blackberries than raspberries, anyway,

(this is from summer of 2013 and was in my draft folder)

I am pretty excited about having my first success with a softwood rose cutting!  I  used a potting mix for containers I made mine from compost,vermiculite, and peat moss in equal parts--but I am sure a bagged potting mix with a lot of peat moss and perlite would work. I cut 4" long pieces from a stem I cut after it had bloomed. I wold say the piece that rooted was probably half the diameter of a pencil, pretty thin. I cut the ends at an angle and I took note of which side was "up" so I didn't plant any cuttings upside down. I put them in a recycled 4 pack or 6 pack container that I had bought some other transplants in. I don't think I treated the cuttings with anything. If I did, I used honey. I stuck them in the dirt about 1/2 way and I left a leaf or two on the cuttings, but I had them turned so that no leaf touched the leaf of another cutting. Then I put them inside a plastic bag...either a gray one from Lowe's or a white one from Kroger. I did not seal the bag up tight. I put some sticks, like chopsticks or bamboo skewers in the corners of the container to hold the plastic off the cuttings and I tied it losely shut with the handles. This was a couple of months ago. I put them outside in a shady area and ignored them for a couple of weeks. Then I checked on them, took out any that were dead (just because the leaf dies doesn't mean it is dead. If all the green of the stem goes away, it is dead.) and I gave them some more water and I left them another week or two, then I took them out of the bag.and put them in a place where they got a little sun and I watered them daily. I think I had 2 that looked alive at that point. When I started seeing new growth at the joint where the leaf was, I potted it in a bigger pot. I ended up with one, but I think next time I might have better luck. I think having it outside was a good idea. I think the heat probably helped the rooting process. I think next time I will try making a little "greenhouse" out of a 2-liter bottle. Or little water bottles. I think I will try to root some more today. 


I am looking into buying another rose variety. I just learned that 25% of rose varieties are native to Turkey. I really wish I knew what kind of rose it is that my daughter's Turkish grandmother uses for Jam. I think it is a centiflora variety. 

I need to keep a pen and some labels/markers in my pocket anytime I am messing around with plants. I planted some spinach seedlings between the rows of sugar snap peas and I planted cauliflower and cabbage seedlings (which I don't expect to amount to anything)  in an earth box and planted some spinach seedlings between them. I have at least one "mystery" 4-pack. There really isn't any good excuse for not taking a moment to label things.

I dug up 2 raspberry plants and put them in pots. I cut a few raspberry plants to the ground. Oh, it is SO hard to cull. I need to get over my hesitancy. I will have several raspberry plants to give away. They spread like crazy. I planted 3 plants about 3 years ago and they have spread like crazy. I am trying to do better with them this year.

I am not seeing much sign of carrot seeds. I had them spaced out on a cheap paper towel and pre-sprouted them before I planted them out. Still no sign of corn. There are hundreds of little seedlings coming up in my earthboxes. I think they must have been in the compost. Not too hard to pull them up, but I want to be sure I'm not pulling up beets or radishes. I already forgot where I planted beet seeds.

Next week I will be planting things at the community garden. I need to keep a pen and some labels in my car, along with some gloves.  I was looking into growing ginger. I just found some ginger root in my refrigerator that I bought in October to put in juice. At  $1.49 a pound, it is almost to cheap to grow my own. I think these roots are not fresh enough to grow. Tumeric is something else I was looking into growing. It is similar to ginger. I would love to make some crystallized ginger. http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/ginger-permaculture.html

I have seen people using stones as plant markers, painting the names of the plants on the rock. I guess that is a good idea. The ginger that was in my refrigerator was on a styrofoam tray. I hear they make good markers, and they can be written on with ball point ink, which also leaves an  impression.  I think cutting tags from aluminum pie plates and writing on them with ball point pen, making an impression, is also a good idea. How to attach?

I wish I had more money and could invest in plants and materials and tools to make my house and yard and garden more into what I want them to be. The cattle panels I want are 4 gauge wire. the welded wire is 14 gauge. The cattle panels don't have to be stretched.

I think I have found a place to buy pallets for $1 a piece. They have some guy who comes and picks them up, but I think I could get them to save 4

Well, I remember now what I planted in the earthbox the other day. Beets in one end (presprouted seeds which had long roots..we'll see how they do), onion seeds (mostly sprouted, and dinosaur kale and broccoli rabe seedlings at the other end.  Nothing looks like it is growing much. I think we may be seeing some radishes and carrots starting to come up.  I replanted some more sprouted sugar snap peas. I am seriously considering replanting the sprouted Painted Hill corn.  It was supposed to be cold tolerant.

I know I have really rushed spring.  Oh, well, I'll still learn from the experience.  Hopefully, next year I will have a cold frame set up and a nice "grow room" type area to start seedlings. I would also like to grow greens through the winter. Dilara loves baby spinach.  I like that things that are growing are not rotting. I want to have a constant supply of fresh parsley and cilantro and mint. I should be able to grow lettuce and spinach indoors. I hope I am being organized enough to have succession planting going on all the time. 

I saw that Whole Foods has kiwi plants for sale. Male and Female from Freedom Farms. I would buy a couple of kiwi plants before I would buy a cherry tree. It takes 3 years, I think, to get kiwis. I really hope my fig trees aren't dead. If they are, I'm going to have to figure out how to root cuttings. I really like this variety. 

I am really interested in this free online permaculture course. I also really like this website http://www.rosalindcreasy.com/ about edible landscaping. I am going to plan on working 2 4 x 12 raised beds at the community garden and adding 4x4 bed here.  I should be able to get 64 ears of corn.

I hope 2 weeks from now I have the dogs fenced in.  I need to provide them some shade, as well. The area where Perdy has been gets tons of sun. When I first bought the house, almost 11 years ago, my next door neighbor had a tulip poplar tree at the fence.

I have a love/hate relationship with the wild grapevines. I hate them strangling out my blackberries. There is some other vine, too, that is not edible. And on my west side of the yard, there is some honeysuckle vine.  I need to identify the trees that are growing under the maple tree in the front yard. I cut back one of them a lot and cut back a lot of the honeysuckle bushes to make room  for Dilara's disc swing and rope ladder.  The crotch of the maple tree is low, so I guess it would be easy for her to climb. She's quite a climber. She's like a little monkey!

The other day I finally planted some fragrant daylilies and speedwell and wormwood. They had been in pots for a couple of years, I guess. I used my trust bread knife to cut the rootballs in two and trimmed some of the roots off before I replanted them. The soil seems to have a lot of clay in it  and I added some compost when I backfilled. A year or two ago I dumped out an earthbox that had some Stella D'oro lilies, some purple siberian iris, and some orange daylily that came from Howard More Lane in Culleoka. I finally got around to hilling up dirt around the edges.  That was a lot of abuse for those plants, but they are tough.  I made a brick border around my Therese Bugnet  "body bag rose" I got, a year or two ago---I have the exact date written somewhere.  It is doing wonderfully.  I really like the red stems.

I just got the wormwood because it was "biblical" and kind of a novelty. I am  not sure it I will regret it.  I have read that it can poison some plants. I planted it near the peonies and wildflowers (Shasta daisy, Black-eyed Susan, and a butterfly weed.) I have so man Autumn Joy Sedum plants and I really need to find them a home. This is the year! I have some in a window box that have been there since we moved from Bellevue.

I am afraid my Stargazer Lily and 3 of the Commander-in-chief  lilies are dead. There are 2 of the red lilies that are showing stems.

Oh, one of my potato bags has a bit of potato plant showing. They are in burlap sacks with dirt and with coffee chaff on top. I WAY overplanted them, I think. We will see how they do. 

I want a peach tree, fig, pomegranate, cherry, more blueberries, more roses.

Oh, I really think one of the 2 "body bag" roses I got from Big Lots is dead. I think they were mislabled. The one that seems to be still alive is the "thornless" one.  I wish I had not pruned my Mr. Lincoln back so much. It is showing new growth, so I guess it isn't dead.  I suspect it is ‘Reine des Violettes’ because from what I have read, it is "thornless."  The one that was thornless was labeled as "Marchessa Boccella" (aka "Jacques Cartier") but I have not seen anywhere that it is supposed to be thornless. That is why I think they were mislabeled.  I hope the one that looks dead shows some sign of life.  I know I would like a 'Paul Neyron" rose, which not only should make great rose petal jam, but it is also supposed to be thornless.

I definitely need to dig up raspberries and prune them back. I need to share them. My waterlilies also need to be divided. I guess I will take my trusty bread knife and cut the raspberries that have been in the earthbox all these years into chunks. They may do better replanted, although I have tried to refresh the soil. The ones growing in my yard are really taking over.  I may should throw away the tired ones in the earthbox. I really need to be ruthless so as not to let my raspberries take over. They are really annoying when they are growing where I don't want them.