2017
Harvest Day 2017
That casserole recipe:
1 h 15 m
�2 medium zucchini, quartered and cut into large pieces
�4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
�1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
�1 clove garlic, sliced
I ADD 3 SMALL ONIONS CHOPPED or one big one
�1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
�1/4 cup olive oil
�paprika to taste
�salt to taste
�ground black pepper to taste
�Add all ingredients to list
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
In a medium baking pan, toss together the zucchini, potatoes, red bell pepper, garlic, bread crumbs, and olive oil. Season with paprika, salt, and pepper.
Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender and lightly brown.
Fait accompli
May 20, 2017
At 6:30 this morning the thermometer showed 32 degrees and there was ice on the two bird baths. By noon it had risen 30 degrees eventually topping out at 70 for a little while in the afternoon. After what seems like weeks of overcast skies and chilly weather, the sun came out, invigorating everything and everybody, or at least me.
So, after putting all the plants out to enjoy the sunshine I went after the nagging chore of finishing tilling and leveling the big garden space in front of the house and for once in recent days finished something I started in the same day.
I've been putting the plants out every day except a couple when the wind was just too strong, hardening them for the day I can plant. I really want to see an overnight low of 50 before I do that but if this weather holds and the temps stay in the 40s I will give it a try. I have lost a few plants to the weather particularly the wind and to keeping them in pots too long. Principal among them are the potatoes which are the tall potted plants in the foreground of this picture. They are crowded in those planters and I think with way too much leaf growth that should have been going into potato growth.
One pot has only one plant and it's particularly heavy and I figure that one is full of young potatoes. The other two have up to four plants and are light and I think they are crowding each other. We'll see when they come out for planting. If all fails I have other potatoes planted in one of the squares.
I have lost maybe half my zucchini plants and also half the corn. Oddly the toughest plants are the sunflowers grown from bird seed.
It wouldn't be my garden if things didn't go haywire so the experiments continue. A bunch of the growers around here are holding a sale of starter plants Saturday so I am going to pick some up there to fill out the garden. Maybe plant what I have by Thursday.
Oh yeah, that plant in the lower right hand corner is a lilac that looks to be ready to bloom and grow beyond recent years.
And then there's that pile of firewood in the background that needs to be split. Soon. I backed over a stump next to it with my new truck the other night and it came up and dented the rocker panel. That didn't take long.
At 6:30 this morning the thermometer showed 32 degrees and there was ice on the two bird baths. By noon it had risen 30 degrees eventually topping out at 70 for a little while in the afternoon. After what seems like weeks of overcast skies and chilly weather, the sun came out, invigorating everything and everybody, or at least me.
So, after putting all the plants out to enjoy the sunshine I went after the nagging chore of finishing tilling and leveling the big garden space in front of the house and for once in recent days finished something I started in the same day.
I've been putting the plants out every day except a couple when the wind was just too strong, hardening them for the day I can plant. I really want to see an overnight low of 50 before I do that but if this weather holds and the temps stay in the 40s I will give it a try. I have lost a few plants to the weather particularly the wind and to keeping them in pots too long. Principal among them are the potatoes which are the tall potted plants in the foreground of this picture. They are crowded in those planters and I think with way too much leaf growth that should have been going into potato growth.
One pot has only one plant and it's particularly heavy and I figure that one is full of young potatoes. The other two have up to four plants and are light and I think they are crowding each other. We'll see when they come out for planting. If all fails I have other potatoes planted in one of the squares.
I have lost maybe half my zucchini plants and also half the corn. Oddly the toughest plants are the sunflowers grown from bird seed.
It wouldn't be my garden if things didn't go haywire so the experiments continue. A bunch of the growers around here are holding a sale of starter plants Saturday so I am going to pick some up there to fill out the garden. Maybe plant what I have by Thursday.
Oh yeah, that plant in the lower right hand corner is a lilac that looks to be ready to bloom and grow beyond recent years.
And then there's that pile of firewood in the background that needs to be split. Soon. I backed over a stump next to it with my new truck the other night and it came up and dented the rocker panel. That didn't take long.
Past garden stories
Taking it outdoors
May 20, 2017
Hardening cart: I can drive it around to keep plants in the sunlight all day.
The Solo cup garden is outgrowing the indoor space so outdoors we go. First day of hardening today with the sun shining and a healthy breeze blowing
Some of the corn plants have grown past two feet and buds adorned the tips of stems on the zucchini. Strange height to potato plants started indoors and today I planted one of the four-by-fours with other seed potatoes.
Sunflowers grown from the same seeds I feed the birds have reached above a foot, too.
Meanwhile two new specimens of a fragrant type geranium are hardening near the doorway in an effort to keep the mosquitoes away if possible. One already has buds on it. The lilac
Solo cup garden indoors.
does too. It usually greens up around the same time as Green Day which happened some time last week.
The ground temperature has been higher than 50 for more than a week now and it's getting close enough to Memorial Day, if the weather holds I might not wait for the weekend and plant maybe Wednesday or so.
It's not the most ambitious garden I've tried, mostly potatoes and zucchini but it has some interesting experiments too, including the corn and sunflowers grown from bird seed.
New garden edging. Funny story about those timbers. Three Lowe's employees stood about 20 feet away watching me load nine of those timbers onto a cart by myself. This was after one came by and stood there watching me try to wrestle them around a fork lift that was blocking the pile and never thought to move it until I asked him to. I let the three slackers know I wasn't too happy with them. Loaded the truck by myself too. I'm a bad man! lol
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| Hardening cart: I can drive it around to keep plants in the sunlight all day. |
Some of the corn plants have grown past two feet and buds adorned the tips of stems on the zucchini. Strange height to potato plants started indoors and today I planted one of the four-by-fours with other seed potatoes.
Sunflowers grown from the same seeds I feed the birds have reached above a foot, too.
Meanwhile two new specimens of a fragrant type geranium are hardening near the doorway in an effort to keep the mosquitoes away if possible. One already has buds on it. The lilac
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| Solo cup garden indoors. |
The ground temperature has been higher than 50 for more than a week now and it's getting close enough to Memorial Day, if the weather holds I might not wait for the weekend and plant maybe Wednesday or so.
It's not the most ambitious garden I've tried, mostly potatoes and zucchini but it has some interesting experiments too, including the corn and sunflowers grown from bird seed.
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| New garden edging. Funny story about those timbers. Three Lowe's employees stood about 20 feet away watching me load nine of those timbers onto a cart by myself. This was after one came by and stood there watching me try to wrestle them around a fork lift that was blocking the pile and never thought to move it until I asked him to. I let the three slackers know I wasn't too happy with them. Loaded the truck by myself too. I'm a bad man! lol |
A meager harvest at best …
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| Eight-foot sunflowers, next year corn. |
September 7, 2016
With frosts predicted almost daily and night temperatures dropping into the 30s the time came to bring in the crop – harvest day in the haphazard garden.
The garden didn't produce nearly as much as in past years but there are several valid excuses. To begin with I almost didn't plant at all and so when I did start it was late and then I didn't plant nearly as much as I have in past years. Then over the summer I gave away most of the the zucchinis that grew, particularly the big ones, lettuce too. The lettuce planted in a pot next to the door grew at least four harvestable quantities, coming back strong after every cutting, so that experiment was worth it.
Some sizable zucchinis came up but I gave most of those away and had a couple of meals out of a few more. Potatoes came in strong. Having some of those tonight.
A friend came out and I gave her most of what I harvested today to share with other friends, so it is all going to good homes and the whole process no mater the outcome is satisfying and worth the effort.
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| Lettuce, zucchini and potatoes. |
All in all, a success and enough so as to encourage another try.
Posted by Tim Jones 1 comment: 
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An experimental garden
April 28, 2017
How long was it going to take before garden talk showed up this spring? Well, this long. Seeds went into Solo cups Sunday and Monday and already are sprouting.
Rather than plant the same old stuff this year there are a couple of experiments in the works. First,
last summer a sunflower sprouted in a place I hadn't planted nor where an errant seed from the plantings could have landed. Nevertheless the plant grew to a little more than two feet tall and flowered. A friend suggested an errant seed but none that I could think of could have reached that particular place. This spring raking up the leavings of the winter I found the answer. The birds had left numerous sunflower seeds on the ground from spillage off the feeders. Could I have missed one of those with the rake and it sprouted? I brought it up as a question and a friend said she often sees sunflowers sprout under her feeders. So, I thought, why not plant a few to see what happens.
Sure enough after about four days little sunflowers are sprouting in my Solo cup ranch. We'll see how they do over the summer.
Meanwhile after the success with sunflowers last year I thought I would experiment with the planting spot rather than the plants. No sunflowers this year except the ones growing from bird feed. Instead I started some corn last Monday. I picked two varieties that have shorter growing seasons, one is 60 days and the other 70, and I will put them in the spot that gets the most sunlight, where the sunflowers were last year and again, we'll see what they do.
Along with those I have started the usual selection of favorites, zucchini, potatoes, lettuce and a few onions. It will all make a smaller garden this year and I hope a more productive one. I did a little research over the winter and I'm adding some fertilizer and some fertilized soil around the place and fixing the boxes so they drain better, raking and loosening the soil deeper than I did last year and drilling some drainage holes near the bottoms of the planks in the raised spots.
I might invest in a few flowered plants at the store later. Looking forward to one of those conglomerations of potatoes, zucchini and red peppers coming out of the oven in the future. Some day no matter what my doctor says I might melt some cheese over it. Maybe take two of those cholesterol pills that day and give them something to do. So it goes, watch this space for updates.
Rather than plant the same old stuff this year there are a couple of experiments in the works. First,
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| These are sprouts from sunflower seeds bought as bird feed over the winter. |
Sure enough after about four days little sunflowers are sprouting in my Solo cup ranch. We'll see how they do over the summer.
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| Corn sprouts – four days, only 54 to go. |
Along with those I have started the usual selection of favorites, zucchini, potatoes, lettuce and a few onions. It will all make a smaller garden this year and I hope a more productive one. I did a little research over the winter and I'm adding some fertilizer and some fertilized soil around the place and fixing the boxes so they drain better, raking and loosening the soil deeper than I did last year and drilling some drainage holes near the bottoms of the planks in the raised spots.
I might invest in a few flowered plants at the store later. Looking forward to one of those conglomerations of potatoes, zucchini and red peppers coming out of the oven in the future. Some day no matter what my doctor says I might melt some cheese over it. Maybe take two of those cholesterol pills that day and give them something to do. So it goes, watch this space for updates.
Labels: Alaska garden, Spring
Harvest
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| Potatoes, onions, lettuce, spinach and zucchinis. |
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| Trophy class zucchini. |
August 13, 2015
Not much to say about it, but delivered some groceries to my daughter's house today. I warned her ahead of time to call some friends because I was bringing it big time.
How does your Alaska garden grow?
How does your Alaska garden grow?
Tomatoes or frost The race is on
August 21, 2015
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| Black pansies. |
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| Cherry tomatoes |
Fireweed blossoms reached the top of the stalk around July 9 in this neighborhood. Folklore has it that means six weeks until snow on the ground. Well here we are in the August 20s and no snow even on the highest peaks out the front window. At the time some folks suggested the strange hot summer caused the fireweed to peak early and that probably is the case. And that is probably the reason there's no termination dust on the mountain yet. That snow on the high peaks has shown up earlier than this in the past and if there isn't any by Sept. 1, consider it an abnormal year.
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| The largest of at least three acorn squashes. |
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| Another acorn |
So in the garden there are small tomatoes and three fair sized acorn squash, growing but not ready to pick yet. Low temperatures are still in the high 40s or low 50s so no danger of a frost yet and there's plenty of sunshine during the day, but the hours of daylight are diminishing at 6 minutes a day. And, there has been snow and frost farther to the north, so it's coming. The question now is will these late bloomers grow to maturity or will the frost get them before they can?
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| A better beefsteak |
Much as I want to see a winter with plenty of snow after last year's debacle, I am hoping it will hold off until I can pick at least a few tomatoes. We shall see.
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| If the state fair had a category for ugliest tomato. I don't think I will try beefsteak again. |
In the meantime I pulled potatoes for the plants that were damaged by the excessive light and heat and got a bowl full of edible sized ones. There are still a dozen plants thriving so they can wait for a while to try for some real bakers.
The flowers are doing quite well. And the race is on.
One for my own silver linings playbook
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| Looking at the sunny side of things. |
May 2, 2014
The five trees that blew down in the storm last fall have been a pain of one kind or another ever since. The only upside is the wealth of firewood they will provide, although it is fast-burning spruce instead of the more desirable birch.
Hauling them down out of other trees, cutting them up into sections, digging out stumps, plans to the E level and most of the splitting still too go because they are still too green to cut up easily this firewood warms half a dozen times at least.
But, today, a silver lining from all that travail showed up, at least to my vision, today. Apparently it has been going on for some time. The answer is in the photo.
For all the time I have had this garden, there has been a sunny end and a shady end. The end closest to the camera in this photo has been the one in shade for most of the day. Shady end indeed. Does it look like it?
Well, it isn't the shady end any more. Three of those huge spruce that fell cleared the sky at that west end of the garden. Sun hits it about an hour after local noon (do I have to explain that again. Because of politics, business and daylight savings time, local noon here, the time of day when the sun is highest in the sky, is 2 p.m. by the clock.)
The sun then stays on that spot almost until sunset, at least five or six hours of daylight. That's actually more than the former sunny side of the garden gets. If you look closely at the picture you can see the garden is all raked out and the wire is in place for the climbing plants. I am going to have to move some of it into this new sunny place.
One sign the sun already is working, in the areas where I threw mixed Alaska wildflower seeds last year the ground is covered with little green plants. Some of that is visible in the lower right hand corner of the picture.
So tempting to go outside with the garden already. It has been hot here the past few days and supposed to go well into next week. It only takes a look at the thermometer in the morning to prevent that. Right now it is 77, but when I woke up this morning it was 33. We still could have a freeze, so you really have to stick with the Memorial Day rule. Meanwhile there's lots of growth in pots and flats in the house.
Labels: Alaska garden, Alaska life, global warming, summer
Oh, yeah there's a garden going on, too
July 24, 2014
Haven't posted much about the garden this year. Like every other year, it's full of surprises and new stuff and things I didn't expect. Here are just a few examples:
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| Flower end of the garden has poppies and assorted bright flowers plus pansies and petunias and rocks, lots of rocks. All those bright flowers in the foreground grew in an area where I spread one of those bags of wildflower seeds last year. |
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| Lettuce and potatoes with a lillie in foreground. Already harvested some of those vegetables. |
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| Two pots of pansies and petunias. |
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| Potatoes pretty much took over one end of the garden. Not a good year for tomatoes which should be tall in the background. Skinny green things in front are onions. |
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| Here's that woodpecker on the tree. It's a hairy identified by size and the red spot on its head. |
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| We had a very hot May and I read birds needed water in that situation, so I invented a bird bath. This is the first one I have seen using it. Hairy woodpecker. |
Labels: Alaska garden, Alaska life
Harvest 2014
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| First potatoes. All these came from that row of disturbed dirt. Have about twice this many still to go. |
It snowed in Prudhoe Bay this week and also just north of Fairbanks. Overnight frosts gradually creep farther south, most recently not too far from the East Pole. Still no termination dust even on the highest peaks but still it's time to give the garden a good look with an eye toward saving what can be harmed. So, today the harvest begins. Lots of potatoes and lettuce. Peas and beans kind of a failure and a grand total of two tomatoes. I started those tomatoes too late and now while I have several strong plants, they are only just blossoming. All those last things a product of mistakes I made last spring and now know how to correct that next year,
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| The entire tomato crop. |
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| The same bunch of potatoes. |
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| Two lillies on another plant. |
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| A single lillie on one plant. |
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| Pansies in the pot. |
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| Petunias in a pot. |
Going outdoors
May 27, 2013
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| Tomatoes. |
Green Day for sure, actually a couple of days ago.
That's the day the buds sprout on the deciduous trees and give the forest canopy a green hue. It's very late this year. That's not surprising but actually it is only a little more than a week later than last year despite the long, cold spring we have been experiencing. I mean, a week ago today it was snowing. But that's in the past and Green Day has finally sprouted and it couldn’t have come a minute later.
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| This robin did not appear happy to find patches of snow in the yard a week ago. |
The combination of starting plants early and the late winter weather has left this house a jungle. I have tomato plants four feet high and green bean plants that have beans on them three inches long. I have been moving and juggling positions across almost 20 feet of windows to try to keep them all in the sun but I have lost a few already. Yesterday the hardening process began. Take them outside during the day and bring them in at night for a few days to get them used to the direct sun, wind and perhaps cooler temperatures and then day after tomorrow I will plant and then figure out what to do with the usual gaps between plants. I am keeping the tomato plants indoors for a while longer; I understand they are a little more fragile than the others.
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| The hardening machine. |
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| Green beans about a week ago. |
Got a little creative with the hardening process this year. Always before one by one I carried the plants out and put them in the garden in the morning and then reversed the process in the evening. This year I found I could park the four-wheeler by the door, fill the trailer with plants and then drive it out into the sun. Move it around during the day and then bring it back to the door in the evening, with just a short hop with the plants to bring them indoors for the night. And, rather than try to fit them all on the tables in the windows, figuring they are supposed to be in the dark anyway, I spread a tarp on the living room floor and put them there. It's a little inconvenient, but only for a couple of days and it does make the process go quicker.
Despite the weather, too, the ground is in the best shape all weeded and raked out and level and fertilized, just ready for planting. I have a lot more vegetables this year and hope to eat a little more off the garden than I have in the past. We'll see about that. I have another bag of those assorted wild seeds to scatter too, only these are all native Alaska flowers so that should add some color. All told with the sun out it looks a lot more optimistic for a good year.
It looked optimistic enough today, along with the weather forecast, I planted a row of asparagus (for harvest next year) and spread some of the wildflower seeds in the spot among the trees. Let's call that fairyland, a place where the sprites can dance.
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| Green Day. |
Labels: Alaska garden
Rambling through a random garden
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| Wasn't kidding about the tomatoes. |
Here's that wall of tomato plants mentioned in the post Friday. Wasn't kidding.
I haven't been tempted to bore folks with garden posts this year. Part of that is due to the mixed results. I started plants way too early, like early April, and as a result some were mature or even past that when I could put them outdoors after our May 16 snowfall.
Bean plants in particular didn't fare well and I had hopes for a climb to the clouds. The tomatoes are what I think is called leggy, long stems with bushy leaves at the tops. Still they are doing well. I lost count around 30 tiny tomatoes on the vines.
One of the problems this year was a shortage of money to buy expensive plants at the local nursery and from what I grew indoors beforehand, I only had enough for about two-thirds of the space. Sooooo, two packets of those Alaska wildflower seeds everyone is selling this year took care of the rest.
There are peas in various stages of development, from dead on the vine to just beginning to flower. But there is a lot of spinach only I think it has gone to seed and I have no idea how to preserve what's still good. Canned spinach may be one of the worst looking, worst tasting vegetables in the world.
All in all though, the garden appears full anyway and I guess that's something. We shall see when all the flowers pop. No need belaboring the explanation, the pictures tell the story.
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| Spinach, maybe gone to seed. |
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| A gladiola, with spinach low and to the left. |
Bean plants in particular didn't fare well and I had hopes for a climb to the clouds. The tomatoes are what I think is called leggy, long stems with bushy leaves at the tops. Still they are doing well. I lost count around 30 tiny tomatoes on the vines.
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| I think these are poppies. |
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| This was an experiment after sweet peas outgrew their pots indoors. A bit of chicken wire around a gladiola with sweet peas climbing it and then regular peas planted at the bottom later. |
There are peas in various stages of development, from dead on the vine to just beginning to flower. But there is a lot of spinach only I think it has gone to seed and I have no idea how to preserve what's still good. Canned spinach may be one of the worst looking, worst tasting vegetables in the world.
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| This is what those bags of wildflower seeds make. |
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| The tomato plant is indoors growing from one of those upside down planters. |
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| Look what was among all those upside down leaves. |
Labels: alaska, Alaska garden, tomatores
Poppies in the wind
August 16, 2013
Please bear with me. This is an experiment. I saw the slight breeze moving the poppy petals around today and made a short video with my iPhone. What it reminded me of was the movie "American Beauty." I read somewhere that the director had seen a plastic bag blowing around, playing if you will, in the wind and it inspired the whole movie which revolves somewhat around a boy on the edge who fills his life with video of beauty as he sees it. This is 34 seconds and iPhone shaky. Not exactly ready for prime time, but a learning experience. Now a plot revolving around a lonely old man recalling the loves of his life and seeing their beauty in the flower garden he cultivates. That sounds like a work in progress as well, though if you read the poem a couple of posts down, it might be further on its way than I thought. Then again, maybe not. It's tough to see the new horizon when you are surrounded by tall mountains. I would love some feedback.
The song is "Elusive Butterfly" by Bob Lind
Waiting in the usual place
The song is "Elusive Butterfly" by Bob Lind
Waiting in the usual place
Labels: Alaska garden, movies, poetry, video
2012
How does your garden grow?
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| Is that a flower bud on the oriental lily? |
Green is popping on the lilac. Plants growing strongly indoors. Green also visible on the primroses all through the woods around here. I know they are common wild roses, but having just finished the Hunger Games series of books, they will be primroses to me from now on. Am allowed some literary license after all.
Green Day hasn't happened yet, the day when birch and alder sprout giving the whole forest canopy a green hue, but it is close.
Meanwhile 72 pea plants have started sprouting in a container and others in a couple in pots have outgrown any apparatus meant to let them climb. They may go outside and take their chances. The upside down tomato plants are upside down now. The instructions said they would produce a hundred tomatoes. Probably not a good idea to bet the ranch on that one.
Green Day hasn't happened yet, the day when birch and alder sprout giving the whole forest canopy a green hue, but it is close.
Meanwhile 72 pea plants have started sprouting in a container and others in a couple in pots have outgrown any apparatus meant to let them climb. They may go outside and take their chances. The upside down tomato plants are upside down now. The instructions said they would produce a hundred tomatoes. Probably not a good idea to bet the ranch on that one.
As the song lyric says "meanwhile life outside goes on all around me."
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| A single rose grows in the brush pile. |
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| Lilac just about ready to pop. |
Watching the garden this year, something didn't seem right. Since I planted everything outside it seemed like very little changed. It was like all growth stopped. There of course is the perspective comparison effect, but nothing seemed any bigger than it was when they went out in the first place.
A sigh of relief yesterday. I am not the only one. This valley where I live is famous for its farming, and the newspaper yesterday had an article saying all the farmers are seeing the same thing, no growth. Much more serious for them, as that's their income. Mine are just a few ornamental flowers.
The article put the blame on weather. After an unusually warm April, May was cooler than normal and it slowed most of the plant growth on the farms and in the garden. Green Day was just about average but for most of the month temperatures were more in the 40s and 50s, rather than in the 50s and 60s. As a result not much grew. So far in June it has been overcast, rainy and cool as well. Until today. In defiance of the forecast, the sun came out today. Here's hoping it sticks around for a while and things warm up to good growing temperatures.
In the meantime the wild roses have bloomed all over the property and a few plants in the garden are showing signs of life. Some of the pea plants are 18 inches tall now.
A sigh of relief yesterday. I am not the only one. This valley where I live is famous for its farming, and the newspaper yesterday had an article saying all the farmers are seeing the same thing, no growth. Much more serious for them, as that's their income. Mine are just a few ornamental flowers.
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| Oriental lilly about to bloom. |
In the meantime the wild roses have bloomed all over the property and a few plants in the garden are showing signs of life. Some of the pea plants are 18 inches tall now.
 Night visitors and missed opportunities
Today I saw something in the garden and went to get the camera. It was when I picked it up that I realized what I should have done last night.
Around 1 a.m. I noticed a large dark shape at the end of the driveway. At first I thought it must be a moose, but after watching for a while what took shape was a horse. Since the road apples last winter I have learned that my neighbors have a couple of horses, one of which is an escape artist. As I watched it nibble through the weeds, it hit me that I like living where occasionally someone's livestock escapes. In my teen years there were several times we chased neighbors' horses through the neighborhood and the occasional cow as well. I love hearing another neighbor's alpacas baaing once in a while.
But how often do we think of the bright thing to say once the conversation is over, or think camera long after the subject has disappeared? For me, anyway, the answer is very often.
Last night I let the horse work his way up the driveway keeping a careful gauge on the distance between it and my little garden. Finally it came too close for comfort and we had a little confrontation in front of the house. A few shouts and a couple of handfuls of gravel finally sent him on his way with no apparent damage to animal or vegetable.
Today in daylight I went out to take a closer look to see if maybe he came back later, but everything was in order. And, that brought the discovery of first peas. Later this year than last year. The first picture last year was posted July 6. This is the 17th but they have been there a while. Some even look mature so they may not be as late as they seem. Anyway all are safe and there is a picture for proof.
Back to the mysteries of a haphazard garden
Finally dragged myself out of the house for a few minutes today and found some surprises. One mystery solved and yet another posed.
When I started this year I threw a bunch of mixed wildflower seeds into a bare spot among the trees just in front of the garden. That field of blossoms is what developed. A few of them also grew around the new street marker. I will spend some more time with that next year. Now the new mystery. Among the pea plants there is one that doesn't belong. It is just as high as most of the others but it has a stouter stem, different leaves and red flowers instead of white. Could a different variety somehow gotten mixed up with what I bought or did some usurper sneak into the garden. Remains to be seen what will come of it. That's the picture with the red flower among the peas.
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Can haphazard be a concept?
August 12. 2012
 The concept of a haphazard garden has become more intriguing as more odd flowers show up in the patch where I threw the seeds. Had a wild idea to buy several bags of them next year, throw them into the garden and call it a wash. That probably won't happen but it is a thought. At any rate, this tall poppy showed up today and some other flowers are growing in there.
Then, too, there are the surprise peas. Those strange red flowers among the other pea vines are also peas. There are pods on the plants. A friend who knows about these things suggested the original seeds I used had been manipulated and when that happens sometimes there are throwbacks to the original variety and that is probably what the red ones are. There are more of them now and another patch elsewhere in the garden. Like I have said, haphazard.
  May 9, 2011So, I was walking into a store a week or so ago and just outside the door they had a display of flats full of green plants. Petunias for $21. I thought what the heck, a start to this year's garden. I brought them home and put the flat on the kitchen table and forgot about it until it looked like the top picture. Looked pretty full. I know the standard rule in Alaska is you don't plant outdoors at least until the end of May. There is still frozen ground in the shade and it can go below freezing during the night. That's fine. I asked a friend at work what i am supposed to do with this jungle growing in the flat and she said you have to separate them. One by one. That led to more flats, a bag of dirt and some individual containers. Then i was ready to wait two or three more weeks. So, I thought. Now look at the second picture. What the heck do I do now? What am I going to do now? I could put one on every desk at work and still have 50 left over. In addition through a purchasing error I now have 72 pea plants poking through dirt in one of those greenhouse flats. And, it is only May 10 and we still haven't even had Green Day yet. Where is that global warming when you really need it? In cultivating the garden i found some green on plants I thought were dead. And farther out in the yard there are little green buds on the wild roses. There's a lot of open water on the swan pond, too, and a couple of ducks on it yesterday. As Petunia's boyfriend might say the the the that's all folks. Peas and petunias
May 24, 2011
Almost Memorial Day so, time to get going. Ground temperature about 55 in the raised part. Can a trip to the nursery be far off? Money burning a hole in my wallet. Oh, and I found a little green sprouting on another plant I thought was dead but survived the winter.
Finally  June 2, 2011
Winter machines put away, summer ones ready to rumble.
Garden is planted, such as it is.
Wild roses and forget-me-nots are blooming, Yard fairly well cleaned up. Time to man up. Expotition to the East Pole next weekend, god willing, lack of rapture and the creeks don’t rise (which is the most likely). All that Bush gear in the closet has been tempting me for weeks now. Time to use it. Discoveries   July 7, 2011
So, last night I happened to edit the newspaper’s garden columnist. As the season goes on weekly he tells people what to expect in their gardens and what to do or what might be coming up, literally. One of last night's alerts went like this: “Peas: Harvest.” WHAT?????
I automatically went to those assumptions, not doing it right; what’s wrong with my plants; what am I dong wrong; what can I do to fix it at this point?
I have seen a few blossoms but harvest? I don’t think so. Also in the little garden outside the newspaper building there is a row of peas and they look so much healthier than mine. The stems are thicker and stronger and the leaves are huge compared with mine. I mentioned to my garden guru yesterday that I did have a few blossoms on my plants which, though taller, look scrawny next to those at the paper. She said you have to have blossoms before you have peas.
Today as I was raising the support wires for the pea plants for the second time and noticing quite a few blossoms, it hit me that I have always been looking at the tops of the plants and some time ago I had noticed blossoms closer to the bottoms. With that in mind I inspected down near the ground. Whoa, look what I found. (The first picture). I didn’t look at each plant but a quick survey found half a dozen of them. They aren’t ready to harvest yet, but they are much closer to the garden columnist’s schedule than expected.
I am guessing the time is coming to renew the squirrel war. Especially if that round green fruit on the other plant matures. Can you believe it? Tomatoes! Now we are talking. Checking the live trap too. But I am thinking maybe the local cats got most of them. I haven’t seen any lately but someone ate the bird feeder hanging in the tree, literally.... the top was chewed to the point it fell off and some of the perches had been knocked onto the ground. I may have a new animal. That feeder was there long before I got here.
Going back out now. No matter how I framed the photos, I couldn’t hide the weeds that need tending.
Harvest
August 11, 2011
Or as my niece who has a farm share calls it, "ant work." Nice sunny day with lots of fat pea pods on the vines, perfect for a nice lazy harvest, shuck and preserve. Of course the effort/reward ratio was very low. So far the total production would about fill one of those Birds-Eye boxes on the freezer shelf at the store. But sometime next winter the satisfaction element will go way up. There is an album here. Oh and there is a nickel prize for the first person who can identify something else that has changed in the pictures. Good luck observers. Garden surprise  August 26. 2011
I did promise no more peas, but other things are happening. The larger picture at the top and the one on the left of the smaller ones are flowers that bloomed early on and then stood there being green for most of the summer. Then all of a sudden in the past week or so they filled out with all those flowers. That coincides with a period with lots of rain and not much sun. I might look for those again next year if I can figure out what they are. The little yellow flowers just popped up all over the place but I never planted them. I thought they were pansies left over from other years but in the places they are showing up I never had any pansies. Maybe weeds. The are shaped a bit like buttercups. The last picture is the east end of the garden that gets the most sun, big petunias, big new flowers and those weeds. The tomato plants are turning so I picked all the larger ones and brought them inside for ripening. Last but not least two more frozen boxes of those little green round things. Ant work, not on the scale of my niece's but ant work just the same. As yet no one has won the nickel. As a matter of fact no one has even entered the contest. It is still here and the contest is still ongoing to point out what might be different from the early garden pictures and those taken more recently. As always no one directly connected with ownership or habitation of this house is eligible to enter. Get those guesses in, this contest won't run forever. (Will it?)
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