Saturday in the Garden

I only had the afternoon to work in the garden, so I didn't accomplish much. There was also a pint of Guinness and two bowls of pipe tobacco involved in my lack of pastoral achievement. I know some people can smoke a pipe and work - my father speaks of his father, Jim, smoking a pipe all day day while framing a house. I can do neither. If I am smoking a pipe, that is basically my activity of the moment. I can think while I do it, sometimes talk and / or walk but the minute I add another facet, my pipe goes out. Then I have to stop and tamp and re-light. I guess it is not that I don't do other task while smoking, it just multiplies the time needed by about two to three hundred percent. Also, the mellow and contented feeling I get from smoking a pipe makes me two to three hundred percent more likely to sit down with a pint and admire the fruits of my labors, such as they are.
Of the not much accomplished -the great potato experiment of 2010 continues. I implemented my plan of planting potatoes in whiskey barrels to free up garden space and allow me to mound soil on my potato plants to get more production per plant. In one barrel I planted the left over seed potatoes I had. On Wednesday I cut the potatoes into sections with two to three "eyes" per section and then dusted the cut ends with ashes from my fireplace. Most sources say to dust your cut ends with sulfur powder, but my organic gardening book also recommends ashes. I don't have sulfur, but I'm over-run ashes. I am not so organic as lazy and cheap. By Saturday my cut potatoes looked a little withered by the cut edges. Is that bad, would sulfur have prevented that? So my withered, sooty cut potatoes went in one barrel. In the other barrel I planted some of the potatoes that had already been in the ground in my raised beds. I had originally put in about 9 potatoes in 5 square feet or so, and after some thought, decided that was way to much space to give over to potatoes. So I dug up 5 potatoes (leaving 2 square feet of potatoes planted) and moved them to the second barrel. I knew the planted potatoes were still in decent shape from previous snooping, but much to my surprise the ones I dug up had finally started to sprout and root. They looked really nice, healthy and well adjusted as I ripped them from their homes. So now I wonder if they will survive the transplant. I also wonder this - why can't I leave well enough alone? why am I constantly make grand garden experiments out of simple planting procedures? what is my fascination with meddling? Any insight or answers to these questions can be kept to yourself, dear reader.
I also put out some granular fertilizer (LadyBug brand 8-2-4 by our local garden center / garden show host / garden king - John Dromgoole) and sprayed some Medina Hast-a-Grow mixed with SuperThrive. Why most gardening organics have to have cheesy names is beyond me, but if SuperThrive ever makes a radio commercial, I recommend strongly they invest in the rights to "Superfreak" and then just make the obvious change in lyrics for their own use. I already sing it my head every time I use it. SuperThrive is a mix of vitamins, minerals and voodoo with a crazy label covered in marijuana induced, incoherent, left over hippy babbeling rivaled only by those Dr. Bronner's soap containers that are so creepy I don't even like them in the shower with me. SuperThrive's label is more 1950's optimism and less 1970's pseudo-religion, but that much lunacy in print gets you lumped into the same category with me.
Anyway about it, I fertilized. I think I needed to, but don't know because I still haven't done a soil test. But I did look as though I knew all about soil fertility and other deep subjects as I smoked my pipe.

Snow pictures!

What will snow do to my perennials? Onions, potatoes? Who cares, it was beautiful and we loved it.

Too sunny and nice out to post much

Enjoy this photo of my fennel and I'll have more later this week.

Potato Update

My potatoes are still not up. I read it can take three weeks, so I'm not too worried just yet. But all the same, I am making alternate plans. I watched Central Texas Gardener this morning and Trisha Shirey (one of the segment host) gave a concise five minute lecture on growing potatoes. I am now convinced I put mine in too soon. She discussed buying your seed potatoes early and letting them sprout some before planting, splitting the big potatoes and dusting the cut edges with sulfur powder and how to plant potatoes in containers. If my first planting is a failure, I think my next planting is going to be in some old half whiskey barrels I inherited with my house. Trisha showed, and I've read of similar techniques in The Texas Gardener magazine, to only fill the container up 1/4 of the way then plant your potato and then keep covering a large percentage of the new growth until your container is mostly full. That way you maximize production in a vertical space.
The whole scenario reminds of a sign one of my high school teachers had on his blackboard - One doesn't plan to fail, one buys and plants potatoes too soon and then ends up doing most of one's research by accident whilst listening to the radio and watching tv and then one has to plant all over again. The proverb didn't make much since at the time but now the veracity of it strikes home and it seems like one of those elemental truths in life.
For those not in the know - Central Texas Gardener is a local PBS program that is very well done and is chock-o-block full of good information. It opens with a tour of a local, usually private garden. They show the garden from various camera angles and interview the gardener. The only downside to the tour is that the producers pair it with these calming instrumental pieces of background music. The music may be what some consider really good, in a town like Austin you would think so, but it makes me want to simultaneously vomit and weep. And neither gardening nor music should make you feel that way. The show is hosted by Tom Spencer, who has a good manner about him as he interviews a weekly guest. He also host a weekly radio show that is one of the better in Austin. I met him at a party one time and while I was in awe of the celebrity in our midst, everyone else, including Tom, couldn't figure out why I was so excited to meet him. I think that is all one needs to learn about Central Texas Gardener from me.

More winter chores, onions

As promised, it was a busy weekend in the garden. I planted onions - I didn't want to grow only onions this spring, so I limited my planting in the garden to two square feet. From my vegetable garden planting, I should get about 10 green and 10 mature onions. That left me about 50 starts of each variety to do something with ($1.99 will by you a load of onions). Since my garlic is holding it's own in the cottage garden (the deer nibbled on one and left the rest alone - a sure sign of deer disgust), I planted the rest of the onions in little groups of 3, 5 or 7 in my cottage garden. I hope they make it.
I planted my 4 inch perennials in my new bed, ensuring it will be voted the perennial border most likely to make Monet wish he had never held a paint brush.
In my much paths in the cottage garden I found the basal rosettes of three mexican hats and two native verbenas growing. I dug them all up and transplanted them, the verbenas to the garden beds and the mexican hats to the berm created by my stream bed. It has been my experience that verbena transplants better than mexican hat (a tap root involved, maybe?). Another good native to transplant is the mealy cup sage, a plant that is very high on my list of native plants that are great garden citizens.
While on the subject of moving plants, I posted lately that I read that you can root stems from Artemesia. I tried it with several stems of varying lengths and woodiness. They immediately wilted as though I had thrown them out in the August sun. They have not completely given up two days later, but I don't hold out much hope.
I trimmed back more perennials on Saturday. My bi-color iris plants were completely browned by the 8 degree freeze three weekends ago. I trimmed them to the ground and can only hope they will come back. They have never died all the way to the ground before. I also trimmed some lantana that I had been ignoring for two months. I came up with a simple yet ingenious plan to use my stemy perennial trimmings to mulch the paths in my vegetable garden, which was becoming a delightful mix of weeds and mud I call abandoned lot contemporary. The trimmings as mulch is not very much easier on the eyes, but it serves its purpose and I admire my utility.
Next up - installing drip irrigation in all my beds. I already have it in my largest cottage bed. Getting it in place requires crawling around in the beds, so I need a weekend that is dry enough that I will not overly compact my soil. I need to finish before all the perennials come back as it is much easy to lay the tubing without plants in the way. Also on that dry weekend is the much discussed, yet never implemented soil testing.

Cilantro, beets, carrots

Cottage garden in winter

Shades of green, grey and brown. I think it still holds its own. Color is coming - a few poppy seedlings are breaking through the mulch and the mealy cup sage is already coming back from our big freeze. If it was all color, all year long, I think it it would bore me dreadfully.

Why I only accomplish a little bit each day in the garden

Raised beds are the perfect height to sit and have a pint.

Onion Starts, Potatoes

At far end of photo - two rows of onions. The barren space in the fore ground is where the potatoes are. Looks like barren ground, but that is where the potatoes are.

Bought Onions starts today

I had a cancellation at work due to the torrential rain and used the time to run by The Natural Gardener in Bee Caves. The Natural Gardener is a great local nursery that is all organic and very Austin - it is owned by the same fellow who does our local gardening radio show and the store has his old hippie vibe.
I couldn't find the vegetables at first and then I was sucked in by the display of perennials in 4 inch pots. Standing in front of the racks of plants, I blacked out and when I came to, I was holding a Gregg's Salvia, a Pink Skull Cap and a Purple Verbena. I couldn't figure out just how this all had transpired, so I thought it best just to buy them. This kind of cosmic intervention is frustrating to me because it undermines my well thought out garden plans.
Almost my favorite part of gardening, especially in my cottage gardening, is the planning. The design aspect is at least half the fun. I like to sit down at my desk with measurements and graph paper and draw out beds, go through all of my gardening texts and then fill my new beds with plants. I group the plants based on color, size , light and water requirements, my needs and wants for the area. I did this before I built my cottage beds and then followed my plan when planting. And then an episode like the one described above happened. Again. And again. I see a plant I know I like and I buy it. I see a plant I've read about but don't have and I buy it. Someone gives me transplants and I take them. I get home with my new plants and throw them in the ground wherever I can fit them. Within two years, my meticulously planned cottage garden looks like it was designed by Gertrude Jekyll's deranged twin brother, Mr. Hyde (Groan!) I digress somewhat, but I've done it again. I have no idea where I'm putting these plants.
I did buy onion starts. When I found the vegetable area and walked in, the aroma of onions announced that I had my timing right. I bought yellow granex (the same onion that becomes a sweet vidallia when grown in Vidallia, Georgia) and a southern belle red. They will go in the ground this weekend. It is going to be a busy weekend in the garden, I'll have a big update ready next week.