bee creative

All victory gardens should include flowers!

I think this captures the weekend the best...glorious yellow sunshine, well, a "Lady Banks" rose. 

So much happening in the garden:

*Planted out most of the tomatoes.
*Planted my sweet potatoes in containers.  They look rather sad.
*Still hilling up the potatoes.
* Assembled one huggelkultur.  Tomorrow I'll plant the winter squash I've started indoors. 
*Weeded my asparagus bed.  I found one teeny-tiny stalk coming up.  It's the first year for this bed so it won't be harvested. 
*Figured out where  to put the lavender and two rosemary plants that need a home.
*Observed a lot of bees working in the garden.   Hoping that there are enough flowers blooming to keep them happy! 

The to-do list is even longer unfortunately.   More weeds to pull, more seeds to plant (cucumbers, beans, and summer squash), and some mulching to do.  I have a stash of cardboard I'm going to put around the blueberries. 

Something else that is making me very happy in the garden:

I've waited four years for my tree peony to bloom.  Here's the first blossom.

Something beautiful in the morning -walking

Yesterday was "Bike to Work day."  I'm still uncomfortable biking so I'm walking most of my commute right now.  The other part I bus.

Walking makes me feel good.  And I get to see beautiful things like this....

It's a dogwood, possibly the variety "Kousa?"  It's planted along one of the trails in my community. 

Handwashing clothes with a plunger

My latest experiment will probably convince my family that I've gone around the bend.  I've read about using a plunger for washing clothes in a couple different places (don't remember where) and thought I'd give it a try.  So I found a plastic container and bought a new plunger.

The system I've been experimenting with is to wash each day's clothing for one person as a batch.  I soak the previous day's clothing during the day and then spend about 10 minutes in the evening plunging and rinsing.  Each batch is hung up on the outdoor clothes line.  I'm wringing the water out of what is easy to wring and just letting the water drip out of the heavier items such as jeans. The rinse water is being used to water ornamental plants in the garden.  Not sure what I want to do with the soapy water.  My clothing is usually used as a hanky for any one of eight toddlers I spend my day with. 

At the beginning of the week the weather was very wet but I hung things out anyway.  I decided the rain water would rinse things out  a bit more.  By Thursday we had lovely warm weather and everything dried up quickly.  The laundry smells great too. 

I've been a little worried about getting a rash from the soap.  I make my own laundry soap with grated soap, soda and borax.  It hasn't been dissolving very well.  With my next batch I'm going to try pre-dissolving the soap mix in hot water before adding it to the clothing. 

I've used about 2-3 gallons of water for each batch, figuring about 12 gallons for 5 batches which is also usually one load of laundry.  The washing machine uses about 40 gallons on average per load (an old top loading model). So a savings of 25 gallons of water minimum plus electricity for the washing machine as well as the dryer.  It will be very interesting to see what difference it makes in the bills.  It would actually be a good thing if the water bill just stays the same.  It will be time to start watering the veggies soon.

Oh, and plunging the laundry is actually kind of fun.  Hmmm...maybe I need to get out more.

 

Rhubarb bread and other garden news

Yummy stuff!  Starting to have a really good crop of rhubarb.  Last weekend I made rhubarb-walnut bread.  Local ingredients:  milk, eggs (mom and dad's chickens), flour, walnuts and my rhubarb.  I've been eating it for breakfast this week. 

Other garden news:   

The sweet potatoes arrived.  I've planted them in 4 inch containers for now.  It's still pretty cold at night so they are being moved in and out with the tomatoes. 

The potatoes are growing like mad.  I've had to hill them several times now.  The ones in the garbage can are looking great.

The lettuce and spinach seedlings have their first true leaves.   Probably will start harvesting in a week or so.  A few will be transplanted from the cut-and-come again beds so that they can grow to full size.  There are two small heads of lettuce that could be picked (bought as starts).  Should plant more lettuce seed tomorrow.    

Beans (shell varieties-decided to plant those first as they need a longer season) will probably pop tomorrow if the forecast for heat is right.  They've pushed themselves up to the surface.  This weekend the rest of the beans need to be planted. 

A few volunteer  squash of some sort are coming up outside.  It's always a tough decision as to whether to leave them and see what comes, or to pull them out.  The winter squash that were started inside are starting to germinate. 

The tomatillios I planted aren't doing anything.  Mom has beautiful starts, so I think I'll have to snag some of hers. 

Now I just need to do something about the slugs and snails....

Inspire Me Thursday - Doors

I loved the prompt "Doors" for Inspire Me Thursday.  I didn't however get very far on  what I wanted to do-to paint my door.   So here's a quick photo of the door, tweaked digitally and a snippet of a poem that I really like. 

Tonight's garden tour...

Spent about an hour outside tonight.  Planted carrots, beets, shelling beans, Swiss chard and another batch of radishes.  Noticed that some of the cut-and-come again lettuce have sprouted.   Started hilling up the potatoes.  The potatoes will probably have to be checked every day now. The potatoes in the trash can seem to be a little slower, but they are coming along too. 

Also thinned the radishes that are growing in a washtub.  I'll be planting about 6 washtubs and two whiskey barrels with various vegetables.  Crops such as carrots and beets do better for me in containers. 

Vegetables are taking over the front garden too.  The cabbages are settling in quite nicely in the former primrose patch.  I also dug out a corner for winter squash.  Tomorrow I'm starting some scarlet runner beans for the front arbor.

It feels good to have so much happening in the garden.

Plant sale and Peacocks

Spent the day at a local Master Gardener's plant sale.  The park that the sale was held at has peacocks.  They spent most of the day sitting in the trees or on roofs "talking."  They did come down for a little bit to check out the sale though.... 

Interesting comments floating around.  Mostly that people were generally wanting to buy edible plants rather than ornamental.  Victory Garden's in progress? 

Vegetable love - an update

"My vegetable love should grow vaster than empires, and more slow."   Andrew Marvell

The idea of "vegetable love" has always made me smile. 

Hoping that we had the last heavy frost of the year on Saturday.  It was an incredibly beautiful day and a fair amount got done in the garden.

One project was moving primroses.  The primrose bed was in the shade during the afternoon.  Not any more!

What replaced the primroses?  Cabbages!  Also planted a little bit of lettuce.  Might stick a few radishes in too.  This is in the front garden too!  In general, the vegetables are really getting mixed up with the perennials, herbs and shrubs.    

I also weeded the area where the squash are going, planted a small asparagus bed, put the onion sets out, and planted a few shrubs that I was given. Felt like a very productive four hours!

Today  a bit more lettuce and some sweet peas were planted.  And I reorganized my vegetable seed/plant info.  I wanted to put my seed/plant list in one spot where it would be easy to update.  Taking photos of everything to help me keep track was getting a bit hard to manage.   The goal this year is to keep track of what is planted, when it was planted, when it gets harvested, and how much was harvested.   This is my solution:  The Victory Garden Plant/Seed list.  Just looking at my archives for "Vegetable Love" made me realize how much more complete my garden notes are this year. 

Inspire Me Thursday - Medical Art

It took me forever to get where I wanted to be with this project.   I wanted to use some science diagrams from an old text book, but  getting them where I wanted was a challenge!   The goal was to get them on fabric.   The problem was that I couldn't make mirror images and had to find another way to do it rather than use transfer paper. 

I managed to get one pillow done, but have 4 more to go for a set.  The text on the spine pillow says:

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well."

Vincent Van Gogh

It fits quite nicely along my back.

Recycled materials:  Fabric for pillow and for stuffing. 
 

Victory Garden in progress

Despite freezing temperatures and the occasional snow shower, the garden is growing.  On Monday I cleared a spot to put some asparagus in.  I also broke down and bought some Walla Walla onion sets.  My mother has  cioppolini sets (the ones pictured are from a crop I grew a couple years ago) for me too.  I already know I'll be wandering around the garden this weekend trying to figure out where to put one more onion in....

This past weekend I planted one of my strawberry pots.  Decided to try a little experiment.  One of the problems with strawberry pots is that they tend to get pretty dried out.  One idea I read to prevent this was to insert plastic pipe, with holes drilled in, lengthwise into the pot.  Seems like a smart idea, but I don't want to use plastic!  After thinking on it a bit, bamboo seemed to be an option.  I cut a bamboo stake to different lengths and inserted them into  the pot at different heights (a little crooked in the picture, they were straightened out).  When it's time to water, I'll water as normal, but then also pour water down the inside of the bamboo "tubes."  Be interesting to see what happens.   

Another experiment I'm going to try is growing potatoes in a trash can.  Directions at "Gardening with Ciscoe."   Setting that up will happen this weekend. 

It's also time to plant another round of greens, radishes and carrots.  And another batch of kale and cabbage since my little sprouts dried out and died.  On the plus side, it was very exciting to discover that the purple sprouting broccoli that was started last year made it through the winter and looks like it's really going to take off.  There is also more rhubarb to harvest.  One batch was already made into a crisp.   

I'm also considering the philosophical side of gardening right now and what my overall goals are.  I have  a family heritage of growing food.  Growing a garden to feed myself is something I've done pretty much my entire adult life.  It is so satisfying to eat a meal that been nurtured from seed to the table.  Now I feel like it's a responsible thing to do in the face of where our world is headed.   I really like the article that was written by Michael Pollan, "Why bother?"   Very interesting view points to ponder.  One thing I realized is that, when it comes down to it, gardening gives me faith.

On the goal side, I want as much of the 70% local foods to be grown in my garden.  I canned, froze and dried enough to get through the last couple months without buying too much non-local fruits and vegetables.  My exceptions were citrus and avocados from California.  It seemed more reasonable because there is no season for these crops in the Pacific Northwest.  One splurge was a basket of strawberries and an artichoke. The artichoke was yummy, the strawberries reminded me local is better and that I can wait. 

One thing I have been considering for quite awhile is chickens.  I'm thinking it's time to take the plunge.  I've been getting eggs from Mom and Dad, but I think I really want to be set up to have chickens here.  And then I'll have my own supply of fertilizer for the garden....