Seed Catalogs are arriving!!!

It's the end of December. Christmas is past. I'm getting seed catalogs in the mail. Get my blood going for gardening. In January I will start planning my garden. I'll get the area in the basement cleaned out so I can get my seeds started. I put a table right by the sliding glass door so they get sunlight. I also have a small 3-4 foot greenhouse that I put by the windo also. Getting those seed catalogs makes me want winter to be over already and we have about 4 months left. They sure send out the catalogs early. I'm hoping my trees are surviving over the winter. They look ok but you can't tell until the spring when they wake up. I guess I'll pull out a puzzle to kill the time until my planning pays off. Getting Rockband for the family for Christmas will help kill those winter blues. Christmas was great. Everyone got what they asked for. Now it's time to wait it out until spring.

It's over

The garden is done for another year. Summer seemed to go on forever this year. We didn't get our first cold spell until this past week. I managed to get all the corn off the stalks before the cold. Last night was the first night it got really cold. We couldn't eat all the tomatoes and there are still some out there. I have been sick for over 2 weeks so I wasn't able to freeze or can any of the tomatoes. We still have onions, lettuce, carrots and potatoes out there. I'm going to put some straw over them so we can continue to eat them at least until we get a hard freeze. My willow trees are doing great this year. Hopefully next year we will be able to move them to their permanent location out close to the property line on the north side. I'm hoping they will fill out and provide a wind block and neighbor block. Next year I plan to totally rearrange my front flower bed. It seems like stuff is just thrown in there wherever there was an empty spot. I want to put some of the lilies along my veggie garden fence line to provide a small wind block. I want to plant hollyhocks out there too since there are tall. I had a problem with wind this past spring and alot of the small delicate plants got beat up by the wind. the strawberries are doing good but didn't get to many this year. The flowering trees that I thought a gopher ate came back. Well, at least 2 of them came back and are about a foot tall. The replacement blue spruce trees that I received don't look very good. I think they sent me dead ones to begin with. I will have to send for another replacement. The lilac bush and rhubarb did not grow at all. Bums me out and kind of irritates me. I'm not ordering from that company anymore. I'll just buy local.

Squash Squash and More Squash

Ok so now I'm giving away squash. I froze a bunch and ate a bunch now I'm giving it away. We got a few cucumbers but not much this year. Last year cucumbers were abundant. The corn is doing good and making ears. They are not quit done yet but I'm hoping it's ready before we get any frost. After all the rain I had some tomato plants drowned because I have a low spot in the garden. They have perked up some and have lots of tomatoes on them. We actually grew broccoli this year and it was good. Mmmm!! I'm going to grow broccoli every year from now on. I have more growing that will be ready soon. The potatoes are good. We've been eating them for the last week now. The only thing is when we dug them up each plant had 2-3 big huge potatoes and that's it. I'm not sure if that's normal or not. There might be more potatoes deeper, I need to get a shovel to make sure. Pumpkins are huge and starting to turn orange. Shelby is having a great time checking it every day. Carrots are small and not growing very good at all. Green onions are still small and growing slow. Lettuce and spinach are delicious. We've been having salad every night with dinner.

No more rain please!!!

My tomato plants are standing in a pond. We have water everywhere. My corn is turning yellow. I don't know if I'm going to get any vegies or not. It turned cold that last couple of nights almost down to 40. We need a day or two to dry out then it can rain again.

Rain Rain and more Rain

For the past 4 days we've had lots of rain. So much rain that my corn is turning yellow. I did get about 6 more yellow squash. The tomato plants have more tomatoes but they are all still green. the onions were bent over by all the rain and the wind. The corn to a beating from the wind but none of it broke off so that's good. The corn is about 6 foot tall but no corn cobs on them. Some have a tiny little cob and the silk is already brown. Don't have a clue about that one yet.
The front flower beds look pretty good. I even have burgandy or dark purple colored lilies that I didn't know I had. They are beautiful. Along with all my flowers growing with the rain so are the weeds. I'm not sure when I will be able to get out there and work on getting them pulled out. I hate weeds.

More Squash

The garden is doing alot better since I put in the soaker hoses. We picked 2 more squash today. They are a little big but I think they should be ok to freeze. I want to chop them up and freeze them so we can use them in our fish packets. We finally have tomatoes growing, still green but I'm sure it won't take long for them to turn. I have some unidentified plants in my garden. I did plant them but...I thought I was planting bell peppers...but now they look like cabbage or broccoli. I think the package was mismarked.I have several bell pepper and banana pepper plants but no peppers yet. Carrots have not done very well this year. I usually have huge carrots by now but not this year. they are still small and so are the green onions. Every year is different. The corn has tassled and is now growing ears. I can't wait. The sweet red onion are doing great. We could probably start using them. I wish it would rain.
Please rain. Rain Rain Rain Rain Rain Rain!!!!

Water Stress

My sweet corn always seemed to be water stressed even though I water everyday. I read somewhere that soaker hoses should be used for the corn. So, I gathered up every soaker hose I could find and put them up and down every row of corn. The corn is doing much better now. My potatoes are concerning me a bit. The bigger plants already have mature potatoes under them but the smaller plants don't seem to be growing. Not quite sure why. All my tomatoes are doing great except one. It started to wilt and turn yellow. I'm wondering if a gopher disturbed it. I have broccoli everywhere. The plants are getting big but no broccoli yet. Carrots and green onions are doing good but growing very slowly. I can't wait to reap the benefits of all my efforts.

I love my gardens

I just want to document all my garden trials and errors. I love to garden. My flower gardens are always changing. My vegetable garden is different every year.