It’s been raining on and off all week, nothing very significant but enough to flatten the leaning iris blossoms and bend the sodden lilac flower trusses almost to the ground. Territorial Seeds is supposed to deliver my first batch of tomato plants tomorrow, and Tasteful Garden says it’ll be shipping the rest at the beginning of next week… just in time, if the tv weatherpersons are correct, for the temps to jump from the low 50s to the high 70s. I’m hoping for enough of a break in the clouds to clean out the permanent planters and set up the gro-bags; nothing says ‘gardening season’ in New England like hauling waterlogged sacks of planting mix that weigh three times what the label claims.
How are things looking in your gardens, this week?
Corner Stone
You didn’t bold or italicize the word “your” this time. I’m beginning to think you no longer really care.
Corner Stone
Someone really signed off on the checks to make the movie, The Beaver ?
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
I’ve been eating lettuce. Broccoli is growing, peas have sprouted, tomato transplants are alive, nothing yet from the carrots, and so far the grackles living in the garage eaves haven’t stripped all the leaves off the peppers like they did last year, the bastards.
And it’s been freaking wet and cool, so I haven’t had to water anything, just walk out back and admire my little 4×4 squares.
Svensker
New garden, tons of rain, and not sure at all how climate, sun, soil are here, so I’m planting a bunch of 4 O’Clock and cosmo seeds this year and will watch and learn.
And ditto on hauling those bags of waterlogged soil. Ow, my back!
MikeJ
@Corner Stone: If it didn’t have Jodie Foster at the helm I’d write it off.
Redshift
Ummm, now that the lawn has been tamed, I’m going to face the back yard this weekend. Time to take a machete to the raspberry canes and hope the bindweed hasn’t completely taken over again.
If that goes well, I may think about planting something.
Corner Stone
@MikeJ: I’d rather have an Internet Tough Guy feed me my liver than sit through that debacle.
Steeplejack
Would love to contribute to these garden threads, but no luck. I gots the genetic green thumb (long line of hardscrabble Tennessee farmers), but the man-cave is eight stories up and, although it gets a lot of light, doesn’t have a setup conducive even to a pot of herbs thrown on the windowsill.
jurassicpork
The Rapture kinda snuck up on us this year and I don’t have a damned thing to wear. What do you wear when you meet the Son o’ God? A Snuggie and sandals?
Anyway, today I landed in another steaming pile of trouble I didn’t need. Details are here. Any help would, as always, be much appreciated.
Random User Name
All we’re growing in our yard is dandelions, I’ve never seen so many dandelions in my life. We went from a few here & there to an entire yard full in less than 2 weeks. Creeping Charlie, too, but at least those have pretty purple flowers in the spring.
We’ve also been adopted by a rabbit for the past month or so, and last Friday I caught s/he eating the ugly dandelion stalks that are left after the fluffy things blow off. So if we can just find a couple dozen more bunnies, the dandelion problem will be licked in no time.
mr. whipple
Um, wettest Spring ever on record? Soil underwater so deep be lucky to plant in 2 weeks, assuming it doesn’t fucking rain more in the meantime.
Worst Spring EVER!
RossInDetroit
I’m afraid of my cactus. It’s a fairly huge patch of prickly pear that produces scores of awesome blooms every late summer. But I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t chosen quite as sunny and well drained a spot for it because it’s freakin’ unstoppable. Spreads like nothing I’ve ever seen. Last summer it handily beat back an incursion from English Ivy. My money was on the Hedera Helix but no, the cactus sent it packing. How am I going to get this thing under control without a flame thrower and hazmat suit?
Jewish Steel
Quick question: How do I keep my escalating electric bills from alerting the authorities about my grow operation? Thoughts?
Comrade Luke
How’s my garden? HOW’S MY GARDEN?!
Tomorrow it’s supposed to break 70. If so, it will be the first day we’ve had above 70 since the first week of November.
Lived in Seattle all my life, but it’s been killing me the last couple years.
Violet
Harvesting tomatoes (nine different varieties), green beans, peppers, the tail end of the brassicas like collards and kale, onions, the last of the radishes, and a bit of lettuce that got hidden behind another plant and thus has had some shade. Oh, and beets! A veritable plethora of beets and their delicious greens.
On the fruit side, the blackberry plants are producing, but this is their first year so it’s only a few berries. The cantaloupe (technically not a fruit, but tastes like one) are coming along.
Trying to decide if I should plant yet more cucumbers and I really need to get the long beans in soon.
Now, if only it would rain.
MattR
Has somebody already posted a link to the CDC page on how to survive a zombie apocalypse?
Rudy
Finally got seedlings and seeds planted last weekend, only to be followed by a few mid-30 nights (MN). Sigh. The bean seedlings already had pickable beans and now planted look almost dead (guess that means they weren’t really seedlings anymore?).
Trying one of those hoses with little slits in it this year, anyone use those? Half the hose sprays many feet while other sections barely dribble out. I have no idea if its defective or if that is the best I can expect.
Kristine
Lettuces and broccoli raab sprouting in the raised bed. Five varieties of basil sprouting in deck pots. The peppers and tomatoes that I planted a couple of weeks ago are still kicking, although the chill slowed them down some. 70s and possibly 80s this weekend, so I’m hoping for a growth spurt. I have a few more tomato seedlings that look too good to waste. Deck pots for them.
The indestructible Chive is loving this weather. I have never seen it so strong. I was never a fan, but now I’m chopping chives into salads and cooked veggies and sandwiches in self-defense. Damned thing is taking over.
Kristine
@Rudy: Is that a seeper hose? I set one up with a timer a couple of years ago so the garden would be watered while I went out of town for a week. It worked just fine.
Tim O
We’ve been composting for months now here in AZ. We used some of the compost to plant some Texas Sage bushes. One day a tomato plant started to grow all on it’s own; presumably from seeds that were thrown in the compost. Anyway, this monster of a cherry tomato plant is taking over the whole area. If I had tried to plant it; it would have died in a week! We’re enjoying quite a harvest though!
Elizabelle
I haz a sad.
The tea party gave a rally in Columbia, South Carolina, and virtually no one came.
http://www.thestate.com/2011/05/20/1825938/tough-week-for-tea-party-ends.html
The Donald cancelled on them, poor dears.
Karen
Am I the only one who never heard of “Knockout Roses?”
Someone was telling me that they were planting knockout roses and I had no clue what the frak that was.
Also why is it that affairs seem to be more unforgiveable if the woman isn’t “hot enough?” With Clinton and Lewinsky the big problem people had was not that he cheated but that he cheated with a zaftig young woman.
With Ahnold, all the media is talking about how she’s “not hot.”
And with women, notice, it’s still not acceptable in the media.
BR
Btw, for those who are new at gardening or lazy about it or just want some help figuring out what to plant when, there’s a neat site I found called Sprout Robot. You punch in your zip code and what veggies you like and it figures out based on your climate what to plant when. Apparently you can also have them mail seeds to you, though I haven’t signed up for that.
BR
@MattR:
That is teh awesome.
Redshift
@Random User Name: Hey, you can always adopt domesticated rabbits. Ours love dandelion greens. It’s not good to have them outside unsupervised (too many predators, even in suburbia), but you can put them out in a pen and move it around to different spots.
Cliff in NH
@Rudy:
you need higher water pressure, do you have a restrictor/flow regulator on the line?
or they just have should have made the holes in the higher pressure area smaller to preserve pressure. Made in China?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Corner Stone:
.
.
Sounds like a good investment, if it is opening as widely as I have heard. If the concession stand offers Coke, I may check it out four or five times the first night.
.
.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Don’t know if the BJ community is clamoring for my thoughts on POTUS’s speech or anything, but just in case
Obama, Netanyahu, the Middle East speech – & what might have happened there: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/obama-netanyahu-the-middle-east-speech-what-might-have-happened-there/
As always, I’d love to see you there!
Rudy
@Kristine: Yes, that’s what it is. I’m going to try replacing it to see if I get more consistent outflow. If not, I’ll go back to the regular hose and consider it my Zen time.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Random User Name: It’s my impression that if you get just one more bunny, but are sure to get it of the right variety of gender, you will have all the bunnies you might ever need fairly quickly.
Dave Trowbridge
Clearing skies, soil drying out. NIght time temperatures still in the high 40s to low 50s, so too early for tomatoes, still.
Kale, radishes, onions, leeks, sugar snap peas, parsnips, and cauliflower well established; beets and lettuce still a little shocky from planting. Double dug another bed (probably for summer squash and carrots). Two more beds to go, along with work in the former vineyard where the trellises will now support tomatoes and small winter squash (along with seven surviving vines for Syrah grape juice–unbelievably good). Also got to get dry beans planted in the back alley plot and Emerite green beans along the fence.
And there are a couple of hundred volunteer parsnips in the alley proper (an abandoned private road) that I’ll be pulling up as baby vegetables.
different church-lady
While I wasn’t looking the caterpillars ravaged my old-world climbing rose something fierce. I’ll be lucky if there’s even a third of the blooms there usually are.
But the rest of the roses look vigorous. The tulips did spectacular. There’s about 100 strawberry blossoms in transition to green fruit. I’m trying tomatoes from seed for the first time this year, and they seem to be coming along nicely. The rhododendron is starting to bloom. And it looks like last year’s plantings of daisies, Echinacea, and Jacob’s Ladder will all be flowering in short order.
Jewish Steel
Also, too: In case y’all missed this link at Salon, I found this totally delightful.
http://stuff.jonwhitestudio.com/2011/05/presidential-campaign-press-statements-illustrated/
maven
I fear all my seedlings will rapture.
What will I eat? Talk about engineering.,,,,,,,,,,,
Yutsano
Why are y’all bothering? It’s Game Ovah come Saturday anyway.
Anne Laurie
@Karen:
The ‘Knockout’ roses are new-ish… I remember them being advertised as the very latest thing shortly after we bought this house, maybe 15 years ago? They are shrub roses, tough, weather-resistant & with a long flowering season. But the flowers aren’t fragrant & they don’t make good cutting flowers, so mostly they get used for massed color at a distance, not for admiring up close. Around here, that means they’re interspersed with creeping junipers and Stella d’Oro daylilies on the traffic islands of all the more upscale industrial parks & shopping malls.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Yutsano:
Not really. The people who are left behind will want something pretty to take their minds off their misery.
(Hi!)
Yutsano
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Konban Wa!
I’ve had a day of interesting medical reports, lots of good food at work, and a pretty damn awesome evaluation from my manager which means that they just might end up keeping me after September. I’d probably be flying if I weren’t so damn exhausted. I think I’ll just go into a coma this weekend.
Oh and on topic of the thread: one of my co-workers threw three pea seeds into a potted plant we were saving by the window. We got two sprouts. Our who team is a-flutter over it.
kdaug
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
My arch-nemesis from UT days. I hate them, they hate me, it’s even. But FSM I’d have them drop from the trees and feed the worms. This time of year the whole damn campus smells like birdshit.
The bats are cool; I’m even fine with the predatory squirrels. You can at least avoid them if you see them coming. But grackles? No dice. There is no space in my black, shriveled heart to accommodate the grackles.
Although I would be willing to entertain any grackle recipes y’all might have. Got enough to feed a village in Austin.
The Tim Channel
Here in my northern German neighborhood, flower season really never ends. They’ve apparently developed flowers and other lawn greenery that can survive through the arctic climes. I was shocked when I went to the hardware store around Christmas this year to get some coal for our firebox. There was a foot of snow on the ground and the parking lot at the garden/flower shop across the street was packed. Very freakish.
On the other hand, now that it’s leveled out to about seventy degrees during most days, the botanical displays that double as ‘front yards’ on all the homes in the neighborhood are perfectly manicured. Juxtaposed with the debris free streets and sidewalks, even a quick walk to the local market is more like a stroll through a Japanese botanical garden than you imagine.
The Germans are nothing, if not fastidious with their maintenance of home and country. It’s no stretch at all to note that the average German street/sidewalk is scrubbed, cleaned and maintained at as high a level as Disneyland. I’m not a big garden/flower type guy like you are, but it’s still quite enjoyable to see the various well maintained horticultural offerings from house to house. Flowers are ofter arranged amid heavily coiffured evergreen shrubs and ornamented with unique rocks or whimsical garden accoutrements. Since I know you guys give a dam about such, I’ll make it a point to capture and display an assortment sometime this week. I’ll post a flickr link when I get the chance.
Enjoy.
ruemara
Squash. Squash, Squash, Squash. Although the first sprouts from the papaya squash plant fell off rather than grow to juicy harvest size. THe zucchini is coming in nicely. Eggplants have survived earwigpocalypse, along with the spaghetti squash and the japanese cucumbers. Tomatoes are blooming, my freshly planted sets of roses and the blackberry and raspberry canes are blooming, contemplating doing something artful and permanent with all my potted strawberries. Plus, carrots. what the deuce is up with blessid carrots? I seed and seed, but hell if I get them to come up. However, i went out there and shed seed like a fuzzy cat in 100˙ weather and there seems to be signs that this one must have worked. I don’t know why I always try to grow carrots, I don’t really care for them.
What’s a grackle, Precious?
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Yutsano:
is a complicated word. Hope all is ok.
Yutsano
@ruemara:
Teh Wiki abides.
@Sarah Proud and Tall: I elaborated in a less public forum. The message should be delivered forthwith. And typing with a kitteh in your face also qualifies as interesting.
piratedan
looks like the latest Giffords surgery is complete, they’re reassembling her skull. Too bad they can’t do the same to Republican sanity
Yutsano
@piratedan: A frabjous day indeed. I wonder if she’ll be better enough by the next election to run.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
Hope your medical reports, wherever elaborated, turn out positive.
piratedan
@Yutsano: those of us in Baja Arizona hope so, though its understood that she may never regain that kind of functionality. Still, she’s come this far, so there’s hope that she may make it all the way back, despite all the odds.
opie jeanne
I need to go through this thread and read every comment and I will, but it’s late right now and I want to talk about my garden, which is just outside Seattle in a place called Woodinville, on Hollywood Hill.
Annie Laurie, some of the roses did not die after all. They aren’t particularly good roses, most of them, so we may replace them with hardier varieties like Rugosas. We have two plants of Sally Holmes, a really vigorous climber, but we haven’t planted them because we haven’t built the arbor for them yet.
Everything is coming up but we waited so long to plant because the ground was so cold that we won’t be eating from it until mid to late June. Maybe the radishes will be edible sooner, and maybe the mesclun will size up sooner than that, but I don’t think so. I mean, it snowed here just 3 weeks ago, and the first week that the overnight lows were out of the 30s was only 2 1/2 weeks ago.
Carrots, peas, spinach, onions, cabbage all just jumping out of the ground right now. Planted the second apple tree to keep the two pear trees company, planted three more tomato vines so now the total is 10 with heavy emphasis on the heirloom varieties, and we have two more raised boxes framed but have not yet filled them with dirt.
The dirt for the raised boxes is coming from a section of a messy heaped up dirt and rocks and trash and tree limbs that was crammed up against a fence that separated the front yard from the garden area, and the area where we are removing the dirt will become a wide pathway into the garden. We plan to erect a large arbor to frame the entrance to the garden. There is a rural fence like you see on horse ranches, but not as nice, that was on the front yard side of this heap of dirt, and we will eventually replace the fence with something more attractive. even a picket fence would be more attractive. So now we have built six raised beds and filled them with strawberry plants and potatoes and all of the things mentioned above, and more. Now we go out and talk to them two or three times a day and will the seeds to grow.
We have sunshine this week!!! It’s set to last through Saturday so we’re having a Left Behind Party. It just happens to coincide with the return of the youngest child who is on a stopover of 5 weeks before her show leaves for a 14 month tour of China. She’s been gone since last September with the same show which toured Europe. We’ve invited a bunch of people who know her and us and we will feed them pulled pork and coleslaw and boysenberry pie.
The older daughter moved her two cats out this week so we no longer have to worry about them walking on the kitchen counter and stepping on things like apple pies. Twice. Our cat doesn’t do that, thank God, and the bonus is that my asthma has finally cleared up for the first time since they got here in December.
Now off to read what everyone else has to say.
opie jeanne
@Comrade Luke: I feel for you. We’re new to this climate and are prepared to get our asses handed to us, at least for a couple of years.
We are considering the spot to put in rows of corn, even though it’s past mid-May. Very late.
opie jeanne
Forgot to say that I still have tulips that are just starting to color up, and the huge pale yellow and red ones at the front gate put on a show for the past couple of weeks, but right behind them the peonies are about to do their thing. Violently, from the looks of it.
opie jeanne
@Yutsano: I hope you’ll be ok. I look forward to reading the comments of several people here, and you are one of the Chosen Ones.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Anne Laurie: If it weren’t for “Knockout” Roses, I’d have no roses at all. My townhouse front yard is deep shade, and the back yard is forest. So the two rose bushes in the front are in pots so I can move them around to follow the sun.
bob h
In NJ, like a swamp. Its very dispiriting.
chopper
clear morning in ny, so i picked some lettuce, arugula, chard and kale. broccoli is growing bigger. tomatoes are in, though i would have preferred to wait a week, but the fire escape is not a great place for seedlings over the long term.
strawberries are coming up like gangbusters. peas, not so much.
all this rain is driving me nuts, but my soil is good so it can handle it. the inevitable spring tomato blight, however, is not going to be fun to deal with. i’m going to be spraying a lot of milk this year.