Gardening

Yesterday:

Today:

These bulbs grew over night! When I went away to Kansas, they had only grown about two inches, and when I came home, they looked like this:

I found out that paperwhites really like cool temperatures. I took two bulbs downstairs to my room where it is very cool, and two weeks later they both had a nice root system. The three bulbs I left upstairs had no roots.  So I brought them downstairs and they spouted roots right away, but they’ll be flowering about two weeks later than the others. I can’t wait to see them in bloom!

It’s only the first week of January, and I’m already finding my thoughts wandering to the garden. Though I’m trying not to think about it too much, my mind is continuously being drawn that way. The first seed catalog arrived in the mail a few days ago. I allowed myself to peruse it’s tempting pages once, then I put it away in my closet till the end of February, when I’ll get ready to order seeds. I also found myself in the garden section of the library last week and I rather guiltily paged through a few colorful flower books, even though I knew it would make me feel like it was closer to March than Christmas.

So, I stopped by the nursery today for something to appease my gardening cabin fever. I picked up a several paperwhite bulbs to grow inside. They are really easy, and I did one several years ago, and the tiny white blooms are lovely and fragrant. They need only a vase, pebbles and some water, and they’ll bloom about 4-6 weeks from now.

Three in a vase:

Excess foliage has been cut back. Seeds from the ever-faithful marigolds have been strewn evenly across the ground. Clumps of lilies that were reaching for sunlight have been divided and relocated. Daffodil and crocus bulbs have been planted – a promise to cling to through dreary winter months. The garden has finally wound down to a close, yet it’s on my mind as much as ever. Since the ground is not yet covered in snow, I have been frequently walking the now empty plot of soil, imagining next year’s planting arrangements. Inspired by a stop on our city’s garden tour, I’m going to plant a lot of things in pots above the ground, for better soil and protection from those terrible gophers.  I’m also going to try to plant members of the bean family, as I grew lots of nitrogen depleting vegetables this year. I am continuously changing and adding to my list of must-attempt produce, but here is what I have right now:

peas

green beans

spicy jalapeño peppers(pot)

bell peppers (pot)

zuchinni (visions of zucchini bread are dancing in my head)

tomatoes (pots)

  northern breed of cantaloupe (much shorter growing season than watermelon)

Though some of the things I grew this year were technically failures, I did learn a lot from tending to them. I saw that there must be very uneven pockets of nutrients in the soil, as certain corn plants shot up to become twice as tall as one close by.

Also, my seedlings stayed about the same size from a week after sprouting to a month and a half after planting.  Then they all of a sudden started to grow really, really fast, even though there was no change in temperature or watering. I’m guessing that the surface of the soil is depleted, and it takes a long time for the plants to get roots down to nutrients.

One more interesting thing: as a test, I grew one extra row of corn without adding manure to the  soil when I planted the seeds. At the end of the year, this row was literally half the size of all the others. I will definitely be using a LOT of manure next year.

The largest watermelon, the black diamond, was not quite ripe yet when I was forced to pick it because of upcoming frost. Nevertheless, it was still pretty sweet, and it would have been delicious if we had a week or two more of summer. The striped crimson sweet were closer to being ripe, but as the plant put out two watermelons they were puny compared to the black diamond. The little pumpkin is extremely cute, and there are still three more left out in the garden almost ready to pick!

I picked corn in the beginning of august, and it didn’t do as well. The ears were not well kerneled, and very bland:

Some of it was downright disgusting!

On the very last day of June, our local nursery gave away a ton of seed packets to my brothers. I was doubtful whether any of the seedlings would be able to make fruit in the short time left, but we planted them in small pots anyway. We did get two zucchinis and some lettuce. There were also a lot of unripe bell peppers and tomatoes that were almost ready, but damaged by the frosty weather.  Next year I will plant them in pots earlier, because I’ve discovered that using pots is the only way to prevent damage from those pesky ground squirrels.

I’ve been getting a small handful of raspberries about every other day for the last two weeks, and this is my absolute favorite way to eat them:

This corner of the garden makes me smile every day. Cheerful sunflowers stand out against morning glories rambling freely up the fence. But the moment is fleeting, for the morning glories begin to close as early as ten o’clock in the morning. Yet even when they are not blooming, the large leaves soften the look of the chain link fence behind the garden.

 Do you see the bumble bee in the upper portion of the picture below?

See the pollen sack on the back legs!

A mix of blooming petunias, balloon flowers, geraniums, zinnia, and marigold.

With morning glories,

and watermelon,

cilantro blooms

and pumpkin vines

and corn plants all in a row.