May 23, 2007

• ...How Does Your My Garden Grow...    I have finally gotten "into the groove" with my gardening this week.  Side bar: Pass your mouse over the images to see the name of the flower. Nifty lil HTML trick in Frontpage!     It might be because that freebie table and chairs I picked up this week is making me feel bad that my gardens out front look like heeyyyyeelll. You would NOT believe the amount of thistle that is coming up in my gardens. It has to be coming in with the mulch from the landfill. Or some jerk is coming in at night and throwing thistle seed into my beds to drive me absolutely loopy. And itchy.      I am about a month late starting the heavy gardening chores.      At least a month. Probably more. I feel like I will never catch up. I never do all those cool things one is supposed to do in Fall to prep the beds for Spring.      *sigh*.      I helped Michael a wee bit, but he has been hard at weeding and mulching the beds, starting WAY before I hitched up my britches and got busy. The gardens at the top of the driveway look terrific due mainly to his attentions. He weeded and mulched the beds, which are a rough kidney shape and about 24 feet x 7 feet. I went in and thinned out a few plants that were getting out of control and pulled out a few things. Each bed contains a similar assortment of plantings for symmetry: a Japanese lace leaf maple (newly planted 2 years ago and about 4 feet tall), Fall blooming perennial mums, hollyhocks, Maximillian sunflowers, Black Eyed Susans, tulips, anemones, Irises in yellow, white and pink, gold euonymus, creeping juniper, tiger lilies, Easter lilies, a spiky ornamental grass, Echinacea, some self-seeded sunflowers *probably sunset sunflowers in Fall colors*, Nasturtiums, balloon flowers, and some other things I am sure I am forgetting. I try to plant as many perennials as possible and then I fill in with annuals for all-summer blooms. Most of what is there I started from seed or small plants I purchased. There is a satisfaction that comes from starting plants from seed or from cuttings that doesn't come from buying them. For one thing, it is a whole stinkin' lot CHEAPER to start from seed or cuttings. Example: I bought one large $5 pot of impatiens that contains three different colors. Tomorrow I am going to take cuttings from the pot of that contains probably 6 large plants and will likely have 40 plants plus in about 2 weeks when the babies take root.   Not bad for five bucks, eh?   I am going to do the same with a large container of fuchsia colored wave petunias, 4 quart sized Nasturtiums, amd 4 dahlias I bought from a local gal that has a greenhouse on her farm. Trimming the plants for rooting cuttings will encourage bushier, fuller growth of the plants, too. All in all its a win-win situation to root cuttings from existing plants. I plan to run up-county to the same farm and pick up a couple of sweet potato vines, a couple perennial mums and a few more dahlias to fill in bare spots. Her quart plants are only $2 and are a nice size, healthy and grow wonderfully in my gardens because they are locally grown from the get-go. I also get to do one of my favorite things: support a small, local business.   Today I pulled out probably 100 waist high thistle plants from a flower bed *yes, it really was THAT bad!* along with some evil vining plant that a neighbor I once had called wet weather moss.  I need to look it up and see what its official name is. PITA is what I call it, personally *Pain In The Arse*.  Michael will mulch the bed for me once I finish weeding it. While I was weeding I moved around some plants, planted some of what I had purchased and found that I have a lot of space to fill up. Oy. I don't have much money to spend so I need to get hold of some annuals that will put color in those beds til I grow/buy/trade/steal (hehehe kidding on that one...mebbe) perennials for the large spaces.    I also cleaned up around the 40 feet of peonies I have in my yard. They are SO pretty when they bloom. Tomorrow I am going to put in stakes and run some twine to help keep them from flopping over. I put in a bunch of Nasturtium seed under the peonies for summer color when the peonies are done *if the seeds come up!*.  I want to also put in something else there that is blooming now. Its a long stretch of plants that need color. I took one of the perennial mums I bought and split it in four pieces and put one of them at either end of the peonies. We will see how they do since they are new plants to me.   So think of me the next two days as I endeavor to finish weeding several flower beds before the weekend's rains hit. The gardens need the rain, but drat...its a holiday weekend! I could use the time to do more yard work. My veggie bed hasn't been touched yet, and it honestly is totally a thistle bed. I HAVE to get them up before they set seed, and its going to be a close race. Michael has been working on my herb bed...YEAH! I bought basil *oh yeah...I am going to take cuttings from those too* , parsley, thyme and lavender from Patricia (farm gal) also*. I want to toss some seeds in the beds and see if I can get some stuff to come up ...namely calendula. *shrug* Yeah it is terribly late to start seed but if I plant them and they flower and I let them set seed, I may have volunteers for next year.  I hate to make lists but I will put down a few "plans". Tomorrow we will tackle the herb bed and finish that (or revisit it in some cases where the thistle is coming back after all Michael's hard work).  This weekend is the Herb Festival at Leakin Park in Baltimore. Next weekend is the Darlington Herb Festival in our county. I may just go to both and fill my herb bed back up. I lost quite a few of my plants so its time for new rosemaries, lavender, chamomile, lemon thyme, and well, heck, EVERYTHING. The bed just went to pot last year. :^(   Friday my plan is to tackle the veggie bed. I picked up some tomatoes, and eggplants from Patricia also. Hey...$2 for 6 good sized plants! Can't beat that! All I need to do is pick up a couple Roma tomato and yellow tomato plants and my tomatoes are good to go. Then I can plant my cukes, lettuce and beets and pick up 2 zucchini...or 4. We love zucchini and will grill and eat it every day when they are in season! What we don't/can't eat I shred and freeze for making zucchini bread come winter. Oh and I can't forget hot peppers! We love them. I will even get a few sweet pepper plants this year, though I tend to not have good luck with them. Worms. 'Nuff said. p     I will let you know how the gardens are a doing after the de-thistlin' and weeding and plantin'. Hopefully we will win the battle with the thistle and get lots of plants in the ground.    I might even get brave and photograph the thistle hell that is my vegetable bed.    Lord how embarrassing. *turns red*    So how does my garden grow right now? Not with silver bells and cockle shells but with dock a plenty and thistles so many.                                                                                                      ~Kathie

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