Grow Your Own

Before Christmas I saw a gift guide that suggested these "grow your own tree" kits.

I knew this would be the perfect gift for the Sergeant, who loves growing and nurturing plants, and who wants to plant more trees in our yard that will produce food (we've got peach and apple trees, with a cherry on the way). He's super-conscientious about watering and feeding all our houseplants, most of which would have expired long ago if I were in charge of them.

The company that makes these kits has many varieties, including trees such as gingkos, bristlecone pines and palm trees, and plants such as Venus fly traps, sunflowers and poppies. I debated over what kind of tree to choose, but the piñon is native to Colorado and produces pine nuts, which we love. So it wasn't a very long debate.

The kit is not large or complex — you could certainly just buy seeds and make your own — but it's nicely packaged and comes with charming instructions. That's what makes it a good gift.

The process includes refrigerating the seeds for a while, then putting their little greenhouse in a sunny spot. Of the handful of seeds we got, just one sprouted (the company guarantees sprouting, so they'll send more if the first batch is a dud). I wish I'd gotten a photo of the little sprout with the seed husk still attached. The Sergeant finally pulled off the husk because it was constricting the top of the seedling.

You can see it's quite tiny, this greenhouse, and the seedling is tinier still. Eventually the seedling will grow big enough to be transferred to a pot and then, many years hence, transplanted outside.

If you doubt the Sergeant's ability to keep this tree going that long, consider the wee Norfolk pine he got as a Christmas gift many years ago. The kind of mini Christmas tree you might find at the grocery store around the holidays. I posted about it 10 years ago (holy cow!) when it was 12 feet tall and he was "a friend" and not "the Sergeant." Now that tree is 35 feet tall, planted in his parents' back yard.

Grow Kits are sold by the Jonsteen Co. in Humboldt, California. Click here for a list.

It be May. Maybe.

Springtime in the Rockies is becoming predictable. Nice weekend followed by midweek snow. This time I got a little smarter and harvested some tulips before the mercury dropped.

This morning, it was 19 degrees, a record low for May.

It's good to have moisture; these storms have replenished the mountain reservoirs and lessened the likelihood of wildfires. But they keep freezing the buds of everything trying to bloom, and that's a bummer.

Before the chill

Here's what was blooming (or almost blooming, in the peach tree's case) in my yard two weeks ago. That was right before a week of snow and temps down into the single digits. I don't worry about the plants or tree surviving, but the flowers were toast. Sadly, this probably means no peaches this year. Last spring was warm from March on, and we harvested a bumper crop. More bulbs are flowering this weekend, with more snow on the way. That's how it goes.

I won't show you a photo of my very ambitious rhubarb plant. It was thigh-high and already flowering. After the deep freeze it was a pile of mush. It will survive, too, but I regret not harvesting it when I could.

Moo

It's Stock Show time again, which means we've survived the holidays and can think about eating again. The Stock Show is mostly about meat, after all. We went to the rodeo on Friday, then wandered around the barns looking at cattle and sheep. That's a Hereford bull above, and a Jacob ram below. They're an heirloom breed (even biblical – hence the name) and can have up to six horns.
The sheep is standing on a grooming table with his head secured on a chin rest. Dog groomers use something similar, and I was tempted to tell the sheep groomers that I'd be back with poodles in tow.
I bathed both dogs and shaved Jackson's face a couple of weeks ago. He's cute with a fuzzy face, but it gets grungy-looking fast. He's much easier to clip than Sophie was and doesn't struggle or stick his tongue out.

Lucy gets a pass on the face-shaving because the dirt doesn't show on her. And she's super-cute with a curly snoot.

Here they are at the dog park yesterday. It was 65 degrees and sunny. The dogs got a good romp in.
When we got home, the Sergeant worked on garage projects and I filled the garden cart twice with detritus from the front garden. In another month the crocuses will be up!

Shredding season

Faced with a mountain of yard waste and an average-sized compost bin, the Sergeant and I looked into renting a chipper-shredder. It's a shame to throw organic stuff in the dumpster, but a lot of it is just too big to compost easily.
Home Depot only had the industrial-sized kind used by tree services, and the cost was more than $100 a day. After I asked for advice on my gardening listserv, a member offered to sell us her 10hp model. She'd hardly used it, and stopped altogether once Boulder started a city composting program.

It started up just fine and the Sergeant got to work feeding in the tree branches, raspberry canes, fennel stalks and tomato vines. Here's what came out:
This stuff will make great mulch and break down nicely. The shredder's chutes come off, so it won't be hard to store.

It's a very satisfying thing to have.

We has beans

The Sergeant introduced me to scarlet runner beans, which he used to grow to screen his back deck in California. We planted a few here and they took off. I harvested a big grocery bag full.
The beans are quite gorgeous, in a marbled purple hue. I'd never seen such a lovely bean before!

In the U.K. scarlet runner beans are grown primarily for eating, while in the U.S. they are often considered more ornamental than edible.

The Sergeant made some tasty chile with beans he had dried, so I can vouch for their edibility. As for their ornamentality, you be the judge:

The great pumpkin harvest

We got ourselves some pumpkins! And a whole lot of buttercup squash.

Pumpkins can endure a couple light frosts, but six inches of snow and temperatures well below zero will turn them to mush. So we harvested them and brought them inside. I let the Sergeant do the honors with the shelf pumpkin. I think it's the most perfectly shaped of our crop, thanks to the support he provided.

Now there's just a few days until Halloween. We've got some carving to do!

Last garden bouquet of the year

We spent the morning rushing around getting the last of the harvest in, putting away garden tools and winterizing the swamp cooler. I gathered a few of our many late bloomers for a posy to take to work.

It was 80 degrees yesterday. Tonight it is snowing, with 8 inches or more on the way.

Unquashed squash

The freeze finally came and killed off all the squash and tomato vines. The fence squash hung in there until the end, marveled over by passers-by and unmolested by vandals or vegetable thieves.

The Sergeant says that would never have happened where he lived before. On his busy, urban street his front garden was regularly trampled, with plants ripped up, sunflowers beheaded and his lemon tree torn asunder. How hateful some people can be!

Not that we are entirely immune to such things here: we've endured some sprinkler vandalism, kids tagging the fence and dumpster, and someone making off with our blooming tulips (also kids, I suspect). But in general this neighborhood is friendly and peaceful.

Now I have to figure out what to do with all this squash. I haven't taken a final tally, but it's probably around 10 buttercup squash and eight pumpkins. Luckily the buttercups will keep for a while in a cool, dry place, and the pumpkins are destined to be jack-o-lanterns. Maybe I'll carve one today!

The Sergeant is looking forward to the roasted seeds, especially with some of the goopy stuff that clings to them when they're scooped out. It becomes crispy and savory in the oven. I like it, too.

I want make squash ravioli, using the ravioli tray I bought months ago and have yet to try. And some squash soup, and squash lasagna. What else should I make?

Biological pest control, marmalade edition

As I noted before, the neighborhood cats have figured out where the little rat bastards are congregating. I was out in the yard yesterday with Jackson and spotted this handsome fellow guarding the tomatoes.
Luckily Jackson was oblivious, so I put him inside and grabbed my camera for a portrait. Mr. Marmalade reluctantly turned away from his thoughts of deeelicious rodent snacks.
He was quite friendly, as it happened, leaping over the greenery to get a good skritch. It was hard to get a decent picture of his wiggly self in the overcast light.

He soon went back to hunting mice, and I filled my apron with more green tomatoes in anticipation of another freeze warning. Which was yet again a false alarm, darn it.

Many of the green tomatoes I harvested last week are now ripening on the counter, so I was able to make another pan of roasted tomato sauce to freeze. And there's enough basil to make a nice batch of pesto.

Late harvest

Saturday stayed cold and rainy most of the day, and early reports called for a freeze at night. I decided to bite the bullet and harvest the rest of the green tomatoes, the cucumbers, the peppers.

I got thoroughly soaked despite wearing rainpants and a raincoat, but I was well bundled up underneath, so it wasn't too bad. Every time I thought I'd gotten the last of the tomatoes, I'd look again and find one or two more.

I made fried green tomatoes for dinner and made two big jars of green tomato pickles. I still have a ton to process. There's basil outside and I need to make pesto, but my get-up-and-go has gone for the day.

I'm going to bed with crossed fingers.

Biological pest control

There aren't a lot of loose cats around the neighborhood, but we do see a few. They come into the yard for the big pot of catnip the Sergeant cultivates for our two felines. I suspect they stay for the mice.

While I was photographing the little rat bastard the other day, in fact, the dogs found this pretty creature up in a tree that overhangs the yard. We've had one previous encounter; he or she is very skittish and might be a genuine stray.

Next year, maybe we'll put pots of catnip in the vegetable garden. I know people try very hard to keep cats out, but we'd rather have cats than mice.

Just hanging out

The fence pumpkin is about as big as it's going to get and is coloring up nicely. We're glad it's somewhat shielded from view from the sidewalk; the Sergeant is sure someone would take it otherwise.

But. No one has made off with our fence squash yet. It's a buttercup variety, hanging right next to the sidewalk. When I'm working in the garden, I often hear passers-by stop and talk about it: "Is it a watermelon?" "No, I think it's some kind of squash."

It may be safe from predation because people aren't sure what it is. We'll see!

Little rat bastard

This is how bad they are. I saw a mouse scampering under the squash vines. I went inside to get my camera. I stood next to the tomato vines, aiming toward the squash. Well, you can see where that mouse was headed, bold as you please.

Silver lace vine goes to town

In October of 2009, someone on my gardening listserv was giving away a silver lace vine (polygonum aubertii), that was too vigorous for her small yard. I'd admired this pretty vine on fences around the neighborhood, so I was happy to go dig hers up.

I planted it on the other side of the fence, and this is how big it got in only its second summer. Wow! It's quite the grower. And the bees love the flowers. They have a pretty, delicate scent.

Here's a picture from another angle:
Turns out silver lace vine is also called Mile-a-Minute, growing up to 40 feet in a season. In some parts of the country, its relatives in the Polygonum family, also known as Mile-a-Minute vine, are considered noxious invasives (though not this particular ornamental).

The winters here are a deterrent, I think. But I'll be pruning the heck out of it next spring to keep it in check.

Damn mice

My tomato harvest this year is not going to be as great as in years past, in part because I let the vines get too crowded and didn't prune the heck out of them. Next year I'm going to try a different trellising setup.

And then there are the mice.
This has been a crazy year for mice. We're seeing tons of them outside, all over. Because it was so wet earlier in the summer, there's lots of food for them and their population has exploded.

The little bastards have been getting to the ripe tomatoes before we can. They eat half the larger ones and suck the smaller ones dry.
When the weather starts getting colder, we're going to have a real problem with them trying to come into the house. Ugh.

Gardening is uplifting

Well, the squarsh has gotten a little out of hand. We planted too many for the space, so the vines are crawling and climbing everywhere.
I walked past the fence outside the garden last week and saw this joker hanging there. It's a pumpkin, and not a dwarf variety, either.

I thought I could accommodate it with the help of some pantyhose, but they wouldn't stay put, despite the "control top" label.

The Sergeant came to the rescue, with a little monopod platform he whipped up in about five minutes. A couple of zipties ensure that it will stay put. Handy husband!

The pumpkin has gone from softball-sized to this in two weeks. The fence is probably thanking us, and the pumpkin, too.
We'll be sure to carve a smile on it when the time comes.