Black Dirt Where Are You?

Worried About Plants

I’m trying to think happy thoughts here. I’ve had a heck of a night and quit the crappy morning. Last night Derek and I ran out to the garden plot at about 9 pm to put in a fence. Unfortunately it looks like we were a day too late. One of my pumpkin plants is completely eaten, missing a few leaves on the other one, a few pepper plants are done for as well as one of my cucumbers. I knew it would happen, I’m on the corner closest to the woods and the only plot nearby without a full fence. I feel like I was given a warning because it could have been much worse.


We installed what we could last night while being chewed on by mosquitoes. I didn’t have enough fencing to finish but there’s only a 2 foot gap between my fence and the tall contraption/fence of my neighboring gardener. I went to Menard's right before they closed last night to get a few more posts and the last of what I needed for fencing with a plan to get up at 5 and go install the remainder while also heightening the existing fence I put in. I think I bought 3 foot chicken wire before so it’s not very tall and I’m still worried they will be able to get at whatever they please. It’s all or nothing. You can do all this work but if you don’t do it exactly right, they can walk right in and it’s all pointless and your plants are gone.

My alarm went off at 5 AM, I got up, ready to go. I loaded the car with a shovel, posts, fencing, wire ties and went to grab the wire cutters. Nowhere to be found. I made the mistake of handing them to Derek at one point and now they’re gone. He nor I have any clue where they went. My garden sits vulnerable and possibly more damaged and now I’m at work hoping and nervous about the state of my plants. I already have to replace some veggies and would hate to have to spend a bunch of money again because I couldn’t find those darned wire cutters.

I wish I could go home after work like normal people and take care of things like everyone else can but instead I have school until 8:30, home at 9. Not my best day, I’m sure to most normal people think it’s silly to get so stressed out about plants but give me a break. I’ve been babying peppers since March and spend lots of time and money and thoughts on these silly plants.

Wish me luck that the deer will stay away.

225 Plants?!

Wow I have a lot of work ahead of me.  I'm trying to get organized and plan my front and back garden spots where the rock currently is.  I used my memory and this blog to tally up just how many plants and what kinds I have at the old house that need to come to the new house.  That's how I came up with 225 and I am absolutely positive that is a low number compared to what it really is.  How the heck did I accumulate 225 plants and where on earth am I going to put them all?

I have drawn up a rough and embarrassing sketch of the front and back planting spots and plan to divide out the plants by height, color and necessity (shade/sun).  Where on earth do I start?
I'm going to make a list on here for my own reference and so you can see what a ridiculous chore I have in front of me:
Hostas x 13
Foxglove x 6
Purple Coneflower x 5
Lupine x 7
Daylilies x 16
Phlox x 2
Aster x 2
Bee Balm x 3
Columbine x 5
Lillies x 12
Misc. flower started 10’ x 5
Tulips x 12
Dianthus x1
Mixed spring bulbs x 40
Iris x 18
Rose x 1
Hibiscus x 6
Ornamental Strawberry x 6
Baby’s Breath? X 3
Rose of Sharon x 1 (if not dead)
Salvia x 2
Squigly grass stuff x 1
Evening Primrose (if not dead) X 1
Flowering perennial bush x 2
Yellowing flowering perennial x 1
Hollyhock x 6
Delphinium seedlings x 7
Red, White, Blue Hydrangea x3
Shade:
Jack in the pulpit x 5
Trillium x 4
Spiderwort x 4
Lamium x 4
Other:
Strawberries x 6
Raspberries x 3
Rhubarb x 2
Ferns
Snow something

Some of these may end up in a plant sale when we have our garage sale or maybe I'll just give a bunch away whenever I get a chance.  What I don't have included on there is all of the flowers I started this year, some of which have died since I forgot we don't have gutters in a certain spot of the house where my poppies were sitting.  If those survive I have 4 or 5 different kinds of poppies, snap dragons, carnations, penstemon and coreopsis.  Yes thank goodness some of those are annuals but that adds up fast as well being that I have 8 or so of each. 

Once I get my little drawing all sketched in with plants maybe I'll post those, in the meantime I am studying this website to better design my perennial gardens.

::Edit::
Of course I forgot 3 or 4 peonies. How I'm not sure.

Feeling a Little Guilty

I'm thinking I should have just taken some time off from school during planting season. Yesterday I was feeling a little under the weather and way too exhausted to go to school. I called in so that I could go home and sleep. But did I? Of course not, not with more gardening needing to be done. Silly me, of course I wasn’t going to sleep when there were things to be done. But I feel accomplished now and got some final things done.

Ran over to Bachman's last night and oh boy do they have some cool things. I guess I never knew they had so much! Hundreds of types of plants, many different seeds from different companies, everything you could ever need in the way of trellises, poles, netting for vines. You name it. I’ve been gardening for quite some time now, I’m kind of ashamed I haven’t shopped there before. I found a healthy looking watermelon plant and some honey dew seed that I’ve been trying to track down for days. I didn’t find popcorn seeds but I expected I could only get that online. Oh well, guess I’ll save that for next year.

After Bachman's I ran over to the community garden and planted the remainder of the garden. I added basil, 3 different kinds of watermelon, cantaloupe, a Roma tomato donated by my grandma and 2 honey dew plants. My garden is mostly full though I need to do some hand tilling on the edge where the grass has taken over a good 12 inches of my dirt. That will be a project for this weekend.

Once I got home I started on the new garden bed along the patio. I pulled out some of that dirt, filled it with good garden soil and evened it out. I replanted the carnations, added my white delphinium, and planted seeds for marigolds, and 2 different kinds of zinnia. I also planted something I don’t know the name of which is supposed to get tall and produce purple flowers. This was also a donation from my grandma and I think it starts with a v or something. I’m sure I’ll find out later. Next step is to finish that whole area, add more good soil and plant my hundred or so gladiolus. Yes this should have been done already but what can I say, I’ve been a little busy. I’ll just have a late crop to look forward to. This year I think I’ll follow the rules though and plant them in 1 or 2 week intervals so they are continuously blooming all season.

It’s amazing how much time I spend thinking about flowers and gardens and vegetables. Who knew I’d become such a devoted gardener. “I won’t rest until the garden is planted” haha TGIS (summer)

Community Garden!

Fridley Community Garden is Open!  Enough Said.

This is what happens when I let my fiance do the labeling.

Derek's work again.

Zucchini, tomatoes, jalapenos, habaneros, california wonder pepper, sweet corn, pumpkins, cucumbers, pickle bush cucumbers, summer squash, green beans.

Creating Planting Space

Yesterday was one of the most exhausting days I've ever had.  I'm super sore in my arms, shoulders and legs, I feel like I ran a marathon.  Maybe I should work out before I do any heavy gardening.  I had a shovel in my hand all day but boy did I get some things accomplished!

I found this small area on the side of driveway #2.  I thought to myself, that would be a great place to put some flowers, we never use the driveway and it's right on the patio. I had no idea this tiny area would end up being such a huge job.  Turns out it's full of rock.

I spend at least two hours trying to sort out the rock.  At least the dirt is pretty okay and not pure sand like there is everywhere else.  However it was a much bigger project than I had in mind.

After a few hours and tired dirty hands, this is the outcome.  I ran back to the new house and grabbed some plants I though would look nice there.  I ended up with all of my pansy's (yellow, purple, black and a mixture) and 3 lupine plants.  In this picture it looks like I killed my lupine but I promise you they have perked up since and it looks like they will be spending a long and happy life there. 

 By this time it was probably around 1 or 2 pm and I decided to start my other huge job, creating planting space around the curve of the patio.  My fiance had the idea, which is great!  So here's the before and almost after:

I'm obviously not done yet but my hands hurt too much and it was 7:30 by the time I got to this point.  Another issue is that the dirt is so sandy and I bought some good dirt last night but I'm going to need to get rid of my sandy soil somehow. Not sure how you go about disposing of dirt/sand.

 On a less exhausting note, there are some pretty things going on in the garden and some tasty things at my old house.

Today I plan to go to the community garden.  I drove by last night and there are plots already planted so I'm guessing it's been open for at least a week but no one told me.  Oh well, this is the first weekend I could plant it anyways.  I cannot wait to get over there!

So Many Things to Do!

I have done so much the last two days!
To start, I resurrected the overgrown raised bed in the back.  It looks great now but it took me about 2 hours just to pull the weeds and mix the dirt.  I planted quite a few things that I had planned to bring to the community plot but if I can have it at home, might as well.  Originally it looked something like this:

Now it's all pretty and planted with peppers, carrots, lettuce beans and sweet peas, not to mention the Clematis, lillies that were here when we moved and a few red fox veronica.

That was project number 1.

Next I moved on to figure out what the heck to do about this rock.  Then I found out that my cousin started doing landscaping and could use some work. The fact is, I have so much to do and very little time left before everything needs to come out of my old garden.  The months are ticking by but there's no where to put things!  So he came out to look at the job and quoted me $150 to pull out the shrubbery that is ugly and just takes up my flower space.  I don't know if that's too much or cheap but I figure it's better than loosing all of my plants or having to wait a super long time to move them.  Here's what they're going to pull out.  In reality it is a LOT of rock.

That concludes my yesterday other than 3 hours of painting our basement.  More to follow when I get home from dinner with the fiance. :)

Fridley Community Garden

I did not choose my spot for my community garden plot because I called from Florida and had no idea what the layout was. They just posted the layout and fellow gardeners on their website. I'm number 30, looks like I'm as far from the parking lot as possible (almost) and on the very end. It will be nice to have 2 corners to myself but it's annoying to be so far away and on the far end from the water as well. Can't complain though, at least I get to plant this year still!

I went to home depot today on my lunch break and grabbed my seeds and some plants for my garden including the following:
Plants:
Pepper-Big Bertha
Tomatoes- Mortgage Lifter
Zucchini
Summer Squash
Cucumber

Seeds:
Morning Glory- Scarlet O' Hara
Sweet Peas
Sunflowers
Wax Beans
Mixed Lettuce
Pumpkin -Pie/sugar
Carrots
Sweet Corn

I think I'll have plenty of room for everything I want. Lots of people got two spots too which I thought was interesting. I hadn't even thought about that but maybe next year I'll have my yard all ready to plant and won't need the extra space.
This weekend is going to be great. Dirt on my hands and plants in the ground, that's exactly what I need right now.

Michigan Bulb Co.- One of My Favorites

I have used Michigan Bulb Company for the last few years and they continue to impress me. Though I can complain away about other companies, they have always been a solid, good-service company. They offer a wide variety of plants, bulbs, pre-selected gardens, vines and things of the like. I have found new fun things on their website every year. They also offer specials every day or weekly that blows me away. Order $80 and pay $40, free shipping, 67% off half of their inventory, and they mean 67%, it's not marked up and then dropped, I've watched for this kind of thing. Their shipments always come in good condition and with "extra care" packaging. I just can't say enough good things about them.

As oppose to Burgess who I have put in the "don't buy from" pile of seed and plant companies, Michigan Bulb Co. offers lifetime guarantee on their plants. This is directly from their webpage and is exactly how it works:

"Michigan Bulb Company's Risk-Free Lifetime Guarantee

If you're not happy with any item you order from us, notify us anytime for a full refund or replacement, whichever you prefer.

What's more, any item that does not grow and flourish to your complete satisfaction will be replaced free--with no time limit--for as long as you garden."

I have taken them up on this and everytime I get a responce by the end of that day at least with no complaints, questions or requirements. All I have to do is email them with "Hey MBC, my plant has died, could you replace it" and within hours I get a "Sure Tina, sorry for the problem, here's your order number, they'll be shipped tomorrow." That is how customer service should work. Easy Peasy.

Michigan Bulb Co. I love you.

Morel Mushrooms

I have these growing in my backyard. Apparently they are valuable to many people but I am not one of them, I don't do mushrooms on anything. I'm wondering how I can get these into the hands of someone that wants them. Do I sell them, find someone who wants them, dry them? Maybe I could go to the farmers market and see if someone wants to sell them. I have no clue but we're waiting to mow the lawn until we find out.

Let me know if you have any ideas or know someone who would want a bucket full of morel mushrooms.