Tag Archives: gardening

May 2, 2024 · 4:07 pm

Spring 2024

May 1, 2024: Premier voyage of the greenhouse! Propagation has been in full swing since January 2024. One little setback delayed my peppers for a month, however I am no longer frantic as I have a greenhouse to extend the season as long as necessary! The crops shown above are my Asclepius groups “Hello Yellow” and Orange tuberosa and the middle Common Milkweed. happy with the progress so far.

Managing the Temperature in the Greenhouse is going to be the challenge this season. I prefer my veggies to be full grown before they are “cooked” with high temps! The Palma Twin greenhouse fan with thermostat has kept a steady heat all winter long allowing my hydrangeas, yucca, kale and parsley to successfully survive. Newly propagated plants have been put in the greenhouse as soon as they showed they were sturdy enough to stand temperature shifts and real sunlight rather than grow lights

Red bush beans are already producing! So far I am very pleased with the color and sturdiness of the plants. I have been supplementing with fish fertilizer, something I have finally understood, that its “OK” to use fertilizer in potted plants. Plants in pots are dependent on us for nutrition, it was something that I was reluctant to try, but now I understand that there just isn’t the same soil dynamic as there is when you have worms and other organisims crawling around.

Cucumbers are doing well. For the past few years I have not been happy with the harvest, we will see how I can change this in 2024. I may just leave some in the greenhouse to compare how they thrive in there vs an outside plot. Every year is a new adventure.

This year we pruned the fruit trees again. Last year they shot up and I would say doubled in size! We need to keep them manageable and on the small side, after all they are dwarf varieties and should not be allowed to get too large. We sprayed horticultural spray application #1 and will continue following sprays to keep the fruit healthy. Last year was very successful as there were no bugs. The apples had spots on their skin due to the leaf-heavy centers, now we know that air circulation is key.

Nature never fails to surprise. After pruning the trees, I had used some heavier branches to support the side of my huglekulture bed. I have notice that it started to grow! Totally unexpected, and not so sure that it is really going to grow, but I am happy to see is sprouting nonetheless !

More to come…

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March 10, 2024 · 4:56 pm

Saying goodbye to old friends

March 10, 2024 My elevated beds have taken themselves down 😦

I am a steadfast believer in re-using, restoring, re-purposing pretty much everything, just because that is the way I was brought up. Everything can be salvaged…to a point. After 10 years of loyal service to our homestead it is time for replacement elevated beds.

When the bottoms started to fall out, I removed the soil and put it into grow bags which enabled me to move them around if I chose to. This system worked well all last season with two out of the 5 beds that were falling. This past winter one more collapsed on me, and today after completing my cleanup I watched (in horror) as one bed totally took itself apart-luckily all the soil filled grow bags plopped down without spilling soil all over the gravel!

Lesson and cautionary tale: as I was filling bags, I noticed that over time the soil had gotten a bit dense, so as I set up for a new season, in new elevated beds I will restore the mixture to a lighter, nutrient enhanced mix. I will continue to use the grow bags because I like the flexibility they offer. Looking forward to a new season of growing!

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January 10, 2024 · 9:56 pm

Fall 2023 Garden

January 9, 2024

This fall may have been the end of the outdoor growing season, but the start of the indoor and greenhouse garden! My long awaited greenhouse kit arrived and was erected in late September, so rather than growing from seed, I have opted to winter-over some kale, yucca, peppers and my Banana trees. I have started some seeds indoors, and have moved some potted up broccoli rabe and arugula out to the greenhouse to see how it does. The Temp in the greenhouse is a steady 56 degrees with the addition of a thermostatically controlled heater/fan .

On January 1, I planted some cayenne pepper and Italian flat onion seeds and they were germinating nicely…until last night. I usually clamp the humidity dome shut to prevent critters from snacking on sprouts, but having forgottn to do that I now have to replant and start again.

My Root cellar attempt was…just OK. The temp around the carrots and green squash was a steady 61 degrees, I believe that is far too warm. I had to cook and freeze so I didn’t loose my squash harvest. Back to the drawing board on that! In the meantime I did successfully preserve most of the Tomatoes, apples, peaches and grapes! Peppers are drying and hanging in my kitchen, Bill has created some amazing hot sauces with recipes for next season in the works. I plan on working on my preservation techniques for 2024 garden. Green beans, although very prolific have been a bit of a disappointment. Dragon beans (which I had last season) were great, however the heirloom green beans I planted this season were harvested and frozen with the “string” intact! I should have taken it out before freezing…now I know.

Always learning. Each season is a new lesson!

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June 8, 2019 · 5:36 pm

June 8th-Mid Spring

I finally have a weekend that I can actually take stock of what was planted last year, as well as see the progress of some things planted this year! The after-shock of planting from the Nursery has settled down, roots are established and plants are now getting into the swing of their second full year.

Happily wildflowers are returning and the area that we reseeded is filling in. Two possible mistakes made: 1) Leaf litter was too heavy and was not allowing many of the perennials from pushing through OR too many annuals were planted (like cosmos) and of coarse, being annuals did not come back.

The 4 raised beds we build are filled with corn, squash and bean (3 sisters) as well as radish, beets, tomatoes and freshly planted zuccini seeds. Lets see how long they can grow before night bandits start taking bites out of the harvest!

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February 23, 2019 · 5:13 pm

February

Had a few big snow storm threats but all ended as nothing but an inch or two at best, not a snowshoeing season at all this year here in Westchester.

Outside all is fresh and crisp above, but below all is alternate crunchy and soggy, not a good time to walk on soil but sure is nice to clear your head of the winter cobwebs!

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July 27, 2018 · 8:00 pm

Birthday Butterfly

July 27th, 2018

Great shot of a female Tiger Swallowtail that landed on my Butterfly plant

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June 26, 2018 · 12:53 am

Nature in my garden

Our bird family
Black swallowtail larva
BlackSwallowtail

June 25th, 2018: Life in the garden

Sadly this year, the buzz of bees in my garden has just not been there. I did have the opportunity to shoot mama (or daddy?) wren (?) bringing home a lacewing dinner. If you look closely you can see clear down that little baby’s throat!

I also found an infestation of small caterpillars on my dill and parsley. Doing a bit of image research I found out this will mature to a black swallowtail butterfly (pictured above). It amazes me that I have not seen any butterflies of this type this year, yet these little caterpillars are all over the place! I can’t even see any eggs, but like magic, they show up almost overnight.

I am hoping that as the season progresses the grand-central like activity at my rose garden will build, right now though, it very sad. I have only seen a few bumble bees around the clover and the bee balm

 

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February 11, 2018 · 7:11 pm

Evolution

February 11, 2018

Grafedie In The Library has been a learning, growing experience for me over time. At first, I wanted to use this blog as a vehicle to share my reader advisory skills, hoping that I could improve my writing skills in addition to promoting books that we had at my library. That was the intent, and I was perfectly happy blogging in my own little world. My opinions were not controversial, or political or witty so there was no reason for any one particular group of readers, or library user to even notice.

But as time went on, I let go of the Library related posts and concentrated on adding my GardenSpot page and documenting our Hiking trips. Two things that have come to be my passion. This post is just a bit of retrospect, looking back over a few years how I have changed and continue to learn new things. Recently I have been listening to Podcasts. My favorites are on Sustainability, Horticulture and Gardening.

Just a bit of rambling

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July 9, 2017 · 12:38 am

Help! Gardeners advice

Does anyone know what is going on at the base of this Peony? the picture does not look as yellow as it is in reality. Is this some kind of fungi?  is helpful or harmful?

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Update: This photo was taken last night. After a bit of research it looked as if it was “vomit fungi” nasty name

I wasn’t totally sure because it wasn’t exactly

IMG_6635like the images I saw.

However this morning I looked at it and noticed  how it had changed and now appears to look like the images seen on the internet.

Commonly appears when thick layer of mulch is present and can be scraped around, thin out the layers and I think all will be well. Thank you for input, you were spot on.

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May 10, 2016 · 12:34 pm

Mel Bartholomew, an Engineer Who Popularized Square Foot Gardening, Dies at 84 – The New York Times

I just came across this in the NY Times this morning, and I wanted to share the article, as this is the book that help me plan my garden for decades, no matter what kind of space I had available. I have to admit that I never really accomplished the one-seed concept, the urge is always to put two or three…just in case, and then they all shoot up and I hate to pull the weaker one, But, the concept is brilliant, multi-use of a simple square foot of space.

For those of you who garden it is worth a look. (and look at my GardenSpot page while you are here, to see my garden progress this season)

Mr. Bartholomew’s innovation saved water and space by folding traditional rows of vegetables into a raised bed that could fit on porches, patios, decks or roofs.

Source: Mel Bartholomew, an Engineer Who Popularized Square Foot Gardening, Dies at 84 – The New York Times

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