Winter Blahs!

We've received feet of snow and there's more to come Wednesday night into Thursday. Can't wait for spring to arrive. My garden is tucked away and my new seeds have arrived and are waiting in the refrigerator for spring sprouting and planting. Am going to add a new herb garden in the back yard close to the kitchen. It will triple the size of the herb garden I currently have. Plus more perennials have been ordered to fill in around the potager, as well as Pee-Gee hydrangea trees to go along the fence in the back yard. There will be tons of planting and digging to do and I can't wait until the ground thaws enough to get it all done!

Potager July 22, 09

Updated photo of the Potager. Things are really growing and we've just received some rain last night and early this a.m.

A shot of the pole beans crawling up their strings. Filled in nicely and have blooms all over them.

The nasturtiums planted among the tomatoes are blooming now. They're quite pretty and will go well in the salads. We'll see if the kids will eat them in the salads. If not, they add color and draw in pollinators to the garden.

One of the many red cabbages planted this year. I harvested one of them so far and sliced it into a salad. Nothing like young, tender cabbage in a salad.

A shot of the sunflowers that are well above my head now. Can't wait for them to bloom. In the morning their heads face the sun to the east and follows it throughout the day. It's really very sweet to watch as the day progresses. Hopefully if the birds don't eat all the heads, I can cut some and hang them out during the winter months for them to feed on. The stalks make great kindling for the fireplace when they're dried and cut down to 1 foot pieces.

More pictures of Potager July 22, 2009

The sweet corn is developing tassles. Won't be long and I'll be harvesting.

Can you say "I HATE DEER!" This hungry deer seems to really enjoy Swiss Chard. He ate something off of every single plant and I only harvested from it 3 times. Talk about disappointing! But expected considering where we live. Walked right up into the bed and had a late dinner. Oh well...he also nibbled on the pole beans and bush beans but so far has left everything else alone. Will have to pull up the chard and plant broccoli. Then cover it with tunnels to prevent, hopefully, any further damage.

Hard to get the lens to focus on the actual tomatoes, but they're growing well. They're about the size of my palm. So far no bugs, but I'm keeping them dusted with diatomaceous earth and BT to keep the caterpillars off. So far so good.

This is the Blue Hubbard vines that are taking over the bed. I actually pulled up one of the smaller vines because they are growing out of control. Although a beautiful plant, it is really quite large. Next year it will have a bed to itself as it is smothering the carrots at the end of the bed. Live and learn.

Here's one of the developing blue hubbard squash. They're going to be quite large. I read that you can pull off the flowers to encourage the energy to go to the growing squash, and I may have to do that. These vines are loaded with flowers, more than we would be able to eat and give away. Guess it is typical squash behavior considering the way zucchini grows.

Airbrushed car by my son Sean

(Click on any picture to enlarge)
My oldest son took his car apart and after sanding and priming, painted/airbrushed Final Fantasy characters all over it. Then drove it to Otakon in downtown Baltimore. Here are some of the shots of the car. Can't believe he took his car apart, hauled it up into his house and airbrushed them in his kitchen. But it turned out really well. Once the airbrushing was done, he had 6 coats of clear coat put on it by a place in Baltimore. This is the passenger door...although I don't know who this character is, this is one of my favorites from an artistic point of view. It's very difficult getting the perspective right when someone's head is angled down and they're looking at you. He did a very nice job...
The hood of the car. Apparently this took him 90 hours of painting to do the whole car. Every spare moment he got away from work he was painting. It's hard to believe he's self taught.
Some spirit figure in the sky which is also difficult to do to get it to appear transparent and wispy. Especially when you're going from one color to the next.
Two more characters...

This guy just looks like a meany!

More pics of airbrushed car

More characters on his car.
I don't know all the characters names....
Apparently he used the bristles of a broom to do the fur...
This is my favorite of all of them. I love the way he did her face and eyes and hair. To think he has never had an art lesson and is self taught using the airbrush. He's a talented young man.
This is a view of one side of the car taken down at Otakon. He ended up passing out all of his 500 business cards in a very short period of time.

A view of the potager

This is a view of the "potager". We haven't been able to tarp and mulch the walkways yet, but that's coming. Things are growing well and the raised beds have really paid off since we've had so much rain. Most of the plants, especially in the far right, rear corner would have been flooded out. If you look along the back of the potager, the farmer that is behind us recently mowed the "swamp" as I call it. We have a natural spring that runs underneath this section of the property and are unable to mow it with our riding mower because it's just too wet. He came with his huge John Deere tractor and mowed down all the grass that was at least 3 feet high. If you look, all of the dark areas behind the potager is "the swamp" and you can make out where the spring runs underground.

This is a closeup of the red cabbage. They're growing well and filling out beautifully.

A shot of the pole beans. They're starting to crawl up the twine.

A shot of the sunflowers. They're about 3 feet high so far and the package says they will reach 9-12 feet high. I planted them close together so they will support eachother as they grow. I figured the sunflowers in the fields aren't staked, so I'd give it a whirl planting them close enough to touch as they grow. We'll see...it's yet another experiment in gardening, and if it works I'll do it again. If not, chalk it up to a learning experience.

Who are you and what are you doing on my sunflowers? This little guy was immediately defensive when my daughter was taking his picture and kept backing up and bobbing his antennaes around. I've tried to find out what he is in my "bug" book, but haven't located him. He's red and black, with white spots on his back. Initially I thought he was a boxelder bug, but he doesn't look like any of the photos, or even the "baby" boxelder bugs. If anyone knows what he is, let me know. I hope he's not a bad bug, but if he is, we'll capture him and put him over by the newly hatching praying mantises. "Lunch"!

Close-up of Growing Vegetables

This is the Red Cabbage Bed. They have really filled in all the bare spots compared to when they were first planted. Yesterday when I was out around 6 a.m. checking the garden and looking for weeds and bugs, I spotted a little white butterfly flittering around looking for a place to lay her nasty little eggs. After careful inspection of each and every plant since then, I haven't found any eggs, but the BT is in the wings ready for the little cabbage loopers who intend on finding the plants and gnawing away.

This is a closeup of the squash plant. I'm always amazed how the leaves and flower and stems intertwine and grow. They're so beautifully designed and it always is fascinating to watch vegetables grow. To think you put one seed in the ground and this is what grows out of it. Amazing and awe inspiring.

This is the Blue Hubbard Squash I started earlier in the year from seed. It is really taking off and filling out. I love the leaves. There is so much texture and design in each one. A very pretty plant.

Swiss Chard Bright Lights that I started from seed this year. They just took off once they were put in their final spot. Almost time to start harvesting the outer leaves and getting them to the table.

The sweet corn is coming along. Planted this closely, you really have to feed them religiously every week or they will compete for nutrients and not thrive. I use Miracle Grow Liqui Feed initially and now that they are about knee high, I switch to a product called Sea Magic. It's a sea kelp product that you mix into a gallon of water. This is the "liquid concentrate". Then every time you feed, you put only 1/2 cup of the concentrate into a 2 gallon watering can and water the food into plants. The 1 gallon concentrate makes 66 gallons of fertilzer.

Flowers Around the House

Bicolored daisies in front perennial bed. These little guys really took off. Later I'll post a photo of the whole front perennial bed that I started this spring.

Million Bells Petunias and a soft pink petunia baskets on a shepherds hook near my oregano bed. Gotta love Miracle Grow!

Pink Dahlias off the back porch. Considered tender perennials, planted in their large pots and will be brought in to the basement to over winter there.

More Million Bells Petunias on a double hook near the front porch sidewalk. As long as you keep dead-heading the petunias, and feed them, keep them well watered, they are quite the flower producers.

Black eyed susan variety in front perennial bed.

New beds and perennials around the house

These raised beds in the back yard used to hold my veggies. Since the addition of the side garden, I converted these beds to mostly perennial flowers. Once they are grown and need dividing, I will split them and add them around the vegetable bed fence. That's the great thing about perennials. As they grow you can divide them into smaller plants and transplant them wherever you need to. Most perennials tolerate this will as long as they are still pretty dormant when you divide them. Unless they're hosta's. I've yet to kill a hosta by dividing it. :0)

This is a Annabelle Hydrangea that is outside my front door. I bought this years ago and it was only a 4 inch little stick. She blooms more and more each year as long as I feed her regularly. I compost her base in the spring and fertilize once every 14 days or so and compost and mulch her in the winter. A very prolific bloomer and is great for cut flower arrangements around the house.


This is a St. Therese hydrangea I bought many years ago. Although the Therese hydrangea is supposed to be white, our soil here tends to be acidic and although you can't see it well in this photo, she has the loveliest blue tinge to the edges of her blossoms. A very beautiful hydrangea. She was also a stick when I planted her many years ago.


This is a stone bed I built a few weeks back. It is filled with Astilbe, hydrangea, hosta, coleus, impatiens, a cinnamon fern and four Hakone grasses. Although the plants are just babies, next year it should be very pretty.

This is the back of the house and the two stone beds I built. To the left is my blackberry bushes. They're loaded with blooms and forming beautiful berries. It's a thornless blackberry which makes picking, pruning and weeding so much easier than its thorny cousins.

The center of the garden...

I built this bed in the center of the garden. I really had no idea what I was doing so I just winged it! I figured..."How hard could it be?" Well...alot harder than I had explected! Trying to get those little buggers level is real chore. Not to mention that they're heavy! Plus when I put the last stone on, it wouldn't fit, so I had to re-arrange the whole thing. Took most of the day and it was only two levels. I filled them up and planted vinca, just because I had some leftover. And I planted six bareroot Hibiscus. Have no idea what colors they are. Could be pink, red, white. In the center will be an all weather birdbath. Now that this is all completed, it's time to lay the weed barrier and mulch the entire garden. More shoveling!! My kids will want to move out!

The Garden is Starting to Grow!

The green beans are sprouting up arount the bean poles.

Red Cabbage plants are growing better now that they're outside and in the ground. They just took off once I transplanted them outdoors.

I planted 50 bare root strawberry plants and they're just poking their heads up through the soil.

Sweet corn is coming up too. They look like they're close together don't they? I read Mel Bartholomews Square Foot Gardening adendum not long ago, and he once planted sweet corn very close so that it looked thick and lush on camera. He said that he had excellent pollination and it was one of his best corn crops ever. He said that since then, he grows them very close together. I thought I'd give it a whirl. Hopefully they will do as well. I planted two varieties: Silver Queen and Silver Princess. Princess matures quicker so we should have a longer season for corn.

A close-up of a corn shoot...

Planting time

Heading out to the garden. All of the beds have been stained, reinforced and filled with good compost and soil. The walkways will soon be filled in with mulch, and there are still 3 beds that will be built, but today I have to plant.

Ready to plant tomatoes...These tomatoes are Burpee Big Mama's. They're great for paste, sauces, slicing and canning.

Using a clean, sharp scissors, trim the lower leaves off, leaving 2 to 3 top branches of each tomato plant and bury them deep. They will put out roots from the stalk making your tomato plants vigorous and able to absorb more nutrients and water.

I know they look like a tree, but doing this and burying them deep will give you a much more vigorous plant.

Now that they're buried, give them a good drink. To keep diseases down on your tomatoes, it's good to prevent soil from splashing up on the leaves. You can mulch around them with peat moss or straw.

12 tomato plants planted and staked. I also planted two packages of Nasturtiums inbetween the tomatoes in each bed. Hummingbirds and bees love Nasturtiums...plus they're also edible and go nicely in salads. First two beds filled! On to the next ones...