Tag Archives: garden

Growth Chart

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In my part of the Rocky Mountain Region, the “final frost date” is approximately May 10, give or take a few days.  That is an important date to know because it is sort of a gardening ground zero – the date around which all your garden grows!

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Find your Final Frost Date!

Here is one link to help you find it.  Knowing your area’s final frost date pretty much works for anyone anywhere as far as when to plant what.  So, I am going to use the abbreviation FFD to indicate that is what I am talking about when I tell you my own personal plan of spring garden-action below. 

Now everyone from my sister Tami in Corbin, KY to my sister-in-law in Aberdeen, SD, my mom in Springfield, Mo and even my fam in Butte, MT or Hobart, IN can use these numbers!

Seeds to sow indoors NOW! which can be planted outdoors after the FFD:

cucumbers, squash, zucchini, parsely*, cilantro, peppers*, tomatoes*, annual flowers (petunia, marigold, zinnia, etc), onion seeds (or wait and buy the seedlings) 

Seeds it is OK to plant outside now because you can plant them a month or more before the FFD

carrots, radishes, peas (snow peas, old-fashioned garden peas or my FAV-sugar snap peas), swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, mesclun mix, onion sets

FFD – Don’t rush it

After Mother’s Day, weather-permitting, you can start plopping established plants in everywhere.  I do have some sweet banana peppers growing on the windowsill, but most of my peppers and all of my tomatoes will come from pre-established seedlings I pick up at the nursery and they will not be planted until mid-May or after if I fear the night temps will drop below 55-degrees or so.  I can find a great variety out here in “farmland country” at locally owned farm stands.  So, planting seeds for these is not my deal.  I will have squash and zuch ready to go at that time. 

I only have 3 4 ft. x 4 ft. garden boxes for my veggie garden, although I also tuck stuff in here and there around the rest of the yard and use containers, too.  So buying a parsely plant or two makes way more sense than buying a whole package of seeds and feeling compelled to plant every single one and then not having anywhere to place the plants in the garden, anyway.

Make yourself a List!

After the FFD, I will plant both seeds and seedlings.

Pre-established seedlings: started by me or purchased

Tomatoes (I’ll buy)
Peppers (I am already growing some, others I will buy)
Cucumbers (I may seed indoors-or just directly outdoors…don’t know yet)
Zucchini  (I have some started, will sow more outdoors)
Squash (same as zucchini)
Cool stuff I find at the nursery like herbs or lemon cukes, etc
PLUS-fill those pots with flowers! (annuals will provide the most continous color-punch for the immediate  buck, but perennials are an investment that will serve you year after year)

 

Seeds: Straight into the soil

Beans (grown them vertically for space-saving)
More lettuce, More spinach, More radish (these are all cool-weather, so it would be the last planting of them, though currently, you could plant a few more weekly for varied-date harvesting)
More zucchini and squash for subsequent harvests
Giant sunflowers for the grandkids, pumpkins and gourds (I plant the stuff that thrills the grandkids – big things, colorful things – for fun!)

It is important to note that where my radishes and lettuce and other cool-weather plants are right now, by July will have been replaced by warm-weather plants like tomatoes and peppers and zucchini.  The same garden will be totally different – filled with flowers and herbs and other heat-lovers.  I don’t have much space, so I use succession planting and timing to get the most out of it!

Bonus tip:

If you want to garden, but are afraid, start with a “salsa garden.”  Go ahead and plant your oinion sets now (they are sold in bags or bunches in the garden section and look like mini dried onions.  Then, plant your peppers and tomatoes after the FFD.  Add some cilantro seedlings then, too and you’ll be off to the races for some late August salsa you’ll actually dream about!

OK-so this post was all over the map.  There are many other things you could be planting, but these are my must-haves.  I am also going to try to do potatoes this year for the first time.  They should already be out there!  Yikes!  The thing is-I can look at that list and know, OK-this week I can do this.  Next week I can do that.  And it isn’t all one, big, heavy to-do list.  Here a little, there a little…

Go sit in the Garden…

Mission: (Are you sitting in the garden?  No?  Then go there before you even attempt this!)  So, today – make a list of veggies you want and decide which you’ll do from seed and which you’ll do from seedlings.  If you just go stand in front of the seed display, I promise you, you will buy tooooooooo many seeds and either waste them or never plant them.  Go eeeeeeeeasy on yourself!  Then [1] go ahead and plant seedlings and seeds that can go out now  [2] plant some seeds in cups indoors if you are going to – a thrill for the kiddos  and [3] let the rest slip from your mind until it is time.

Going to the garden…Jeanie

pictured: one evening last summer ~ the last of the lettuce and spinach and radishes (which were mostly gone) and where the large pepper plants were about to get sunk.

“The LORD God planted a garden…”

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Genesis 2.8 NKJV  “The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there He put the man whom He had formed.”

 

And if we are smart – we will make every effort to get back to the garden with Him!

Gardening can seem overwhelming, but it isn’t if you take it step-by-step, here a little, there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept…

First things first.

If you believe you are sorely behind to be able to garden this year – you’re NOT!   Spend 5-15 minutes each day this week cleaning up debris from the fall and winter.  Clear out dead leaves, sweep patios and empty all of last year’s potting soil into a large trash can.  It can be re-used, of course, but we’ll add some good stuff to it and re-freshen it for this year.  Hose down the pots and line them up.

Does that seem overwhelming?  Then just tell yourself: I’ll clean up a 3-foot x 3-foot area.  that’s all.  I am betting you’ll like it so  much you’ll want to keep on, but if not, stop there.  Little by little, it can be done.

Do you know what you’ll see?  Green everywhere.  Perennials will have been emerging that will suddenly “show up!”  You will have a fresh clean palette in which to work.

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Start indoors.

It is safe to go ahead and start some things indoors now (because our final frost date of May 10 is approaching quickly).  Any annual flower or vegetable seeds, really – have at it!  If you have a super-sunny windowsill or a grow light, you’ll have nicely established seedlings in mid-May, right when you want them for outdoor planting.

Sow outdoors.

There are actually things you can be planting directly outdoors already.  My broccoli has been in the ground (from seedlings) for a couple of weeks and last week’s weather didn’t phase them a bit.  I put out onion sets yesterday and they could have been in earlier.  Right now it is safe to plant radishes and carrots, sugar snap peas and spinach and chard and lettuces.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you my current garden “plan of attack.”  I am like everybody else: busy.  So, it has to get tucked in here and there, but it will be so worth it when you see that you have buried a seed and caused new life to explode – first in the garden, later (if you do veggies) into your body!

C’mon – give it a try!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Give up on the fingernails…for now.

pictured:  Hunter in the garden 2007 and 2008

Fire in the Garden

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I am writing a devotional to be included in a book being compiled for distribution for my sister-in-law, Robin’s, Women in the Word ministry seminar in April.  Tara will write one, too and she was way worried about trying to come up with 300 words (it is to be between 3-400 total), while I, on the other hand, have been agonizing about getting rid of words. 

Because I am in the garden mood, currently, I decided to use a blog post from last June as a jumping off point and have managed to take it from 569 words to about 429 and I just cannot seem to go lower.  Each time I would ruthlessly rip one sentence and delete, I would think of something else to add.  Here is where I have landed and I think I will go ahead and submit it to the editor.  She may now do with it what she will.  Be careful, please – these are my words, and I love them (t-hee)…

frontpage_dirthands

Fire in the Garden

Read:  Galatians 6.7-8

Excitedly leaving winter behind, the seeds are planted according to package directions at the right depth after the final frost date, assuring us they will sprout in 7-10 days. You watch, you wait…two weeks – still nothing.   You begin to believe something has gone wrong, that the cooler-than-usual nighttime weather has destroyed the promise.   You consider running to the store for another package of seeds, concerned about the time you have lost for the growing season.  Will there even be time for a harvest now, you wonder? Another week goes by and the barren soil just lies before you.   You resign yourself to running to the nursery to pay too much for established seedlings.  You don’t see any other choice.

But before you can get there on that blazing-hot and sunny day, one glance at the patch of garden where disappointment has been and you spot the tiniest of green specks.   And look!  All over: the most fragile and minute seedlings are emerging – just as you had planted them.  They have arrived!  They are here in their glory!   Hope has not been lost.  

What the good soil and tiny seed could not do alone, what watering and watching did not produce immediately, the intense, piercing heat of the sun (unlocking the moisture beneath the soil’s visible crust) rises, softening that seed.  And just like Jesus, from the tomb on the third day, risen!   Indeed!

Sowing the seed of God’s Word into our lives and homes and standing on His promises does not always bring the instant results we are looking for. We hide His Word in our hearts, we meditate on it.   We allow ourselves to be washed by it. Yet we are devastated at the barrenness in our lives in certain areas.   An unbelieving husband or prodigal child creates unbearable pain.  Health issues and financial stress deplete our hope.

There are variables in sowing and reaping.  Some seeds seem to remain latent, yet the promise of reaping what we sow is not diminished in the waiting.

Sometimes it will take a very hot day in the furnace of affliction to become the defining moment, the proof we need that He remains faithful and His Word is true. In the fiery brilliance of distress and the cry for relief, under the white-hot flames of suffering, we break-through.  In seed-shattering brokenness – new life!  His Word confirmed!

He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.  If you sow to please the Spirit, you will reap the green, life-giving things of the eternal, variables notwithstanding.

Scatter seed.  Sow.  Believe it – you will reap!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Final frost date is May 10 (this blog post has 610 words…Now more)

Dandelion

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OK, so Pantone has named Mimosa the 2009 color of the year (I have mentioned it here and here), but Mimosa doesn’t grow here.  Dandelions do, though. 

So perhaps my color of the year will be “dandelion.”  And that is happy, too, even though sometimes they have made me crazy.  If it weren’t for the HOA, wouldn’t we let them have their way?

 

pictured: mimosa, left; dandelion, right

Wind

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Threatened by a forecast of freezing rain turning to snow, we are actually hosting a magnificent and sunny day fully lighting the multi-faceted palette and texture of fall.  Fluttering madly in the autumn breeze and dancing to the tune of the wind chime, the once-emerald leaves of the Aspen clump are becoming more golden by the hour.  The burning bushes are flaming as scarlet as they can be and potted flower heads are bowing in reverance to the power of the season as it blows by, sometimes in a whisper, sometimes as a roar.

Psalm 65.9  The Message
O, visit the earth – ask her to join the dance!
…fill the God-river with living water.  Paint the wheatfields golden.
Creation was made for this!
Drench the plowed fields, soak the dirt clods with rainfall…
Set the hills to dancing! dress the canyon walls with live sheep,
a drape of flax across the valleys!
Let them shout and shout and shout!  Oh, let them sing and sing!

 

 I am singing my head off to You, O Lord, and trying to sing as loud as the trees which are clapping their hands and the bushes which are dancing (the twist) for your pleasure.  You have made all of creation so holy, so set apart for Your glory.  Can I live my life as free, as abandoned? 

God and all He has created are glorious!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  See His glory.

Fall Frost

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I think we had an actual, true frost today.  I know it was 58 degrees in my kitchen when I started up the coffee pot.  And no, I will not turn on the heat, yet.  I am a die-hard.  Can I make it to November?  This is the question. 

Most of the plants seem to be perking back up, even though I have done nothing to save them.  Even the zucchini, whose leaves froze and look soggy, dark and droopy, are boasting some bright new flowers in response to the returning sunlight – after 3 very overcast days.

I am studying and preparing for the Leaving a Legacy Intensive kick-off this weekend, but keep getting distracted by 3, small adorable orange moths of some sort.  Though they are probably depositing some evil larvae all over the garden as we speak, I think I will call them butterflies because they are delightful as they frolic,  alternately swooping and circling and tag-playing, with sunning themselves on the patio and garden rocks  Try as I might, and though I swear I have seen them all in the view-finder at once repeatedly, I cannot seem to get the camera to click quickly enough to capture all three, though they are dancing and prancing about just inches from me here near the glass doors.

Yes, the garden is slowly, but surely shutting down for the year, but it makes each plant that is still showing all the more ravishing, makes me more grateful.  Why, the petunias are practically haughty today, all purple and abundant, flowering with gusto, unaffected by the cold – perhaps even encouraged by it?

  

  

Today I am praising God for: the return of the sun…hot coffee (and decaf for when I have reached my limit)…the 3 fanciful orange “butterflies” performing gleefully outside my window…the grape tomatoes, packed with flavor, my morning snack…the love of a good man: my husband, my friend, my lover-the one who talks me off the ledges…my family, both the one I came from and the one I am getting to create, still…e-mails in “secret code” from grandkids…people who know how to pray…the sweet Presence of God, who joins me on the first sound of a song……First frost-warm home…the wisdom of the Word (I am in Proverbs today!).  And the temp in my kitchen has reached 63 degrees.  I am thankful!

Blessings in all things to you and yours!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  So glad I didn’t get in a hurry to uproot the sagging sunflowers (see photo here).  Yesterday they were the host to a couple of amazingly beautiful bluejays and I got to watch!  What would I have missed by stripping them away before their whole work was through?  Get back to Legacy notes…

Pictured, top, left to right: the orange “butterflies” sunning themselves on rock and concrete.  Bottom, left to right: the first two were taken through the window on the Dahlia plant that is apparently enthralling the little “flutterbies.”  Finally, the mum, quiet the summer through, has now exploded into this happy hello in its off-the-beaten-path locale.  I snapped  it chasing butterflies.

UPDATE  10.14.08 – I have been informed that my 3 little orange “moths” were actually baby Monarch Butterflies.  I didn’t know Monarchs were ever this small?  I hope they keep visiting!

The Garden Winner

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It is COLD out today!  It is also overcast and funny-looking and  I fear the rumors of a spittering and sputtering of snowflakes arriving this weekend may, indeed, be true. 

I just went out and walked among the gardens, which are slowly but surely finishing up their work year.  There are gazillions of tomatoes left and just yesterday, bright yellow zucchini flowers were still trumpeting their intent to produce.  But today, all bets seem off and I think the zucchini has resigned itself to closing up shop. 

But they are the winners!  The zucchini wins for the garden of 2008.  I have never had zucchini last into mid-October (I am calling it mid-October even if we are still in the first third – they deserve that).  Usually they are wondrous for a month or so and then get some sort of zucchini-acne-powdery-weird disease and die off, which is why an attentive gardener will do successive plantings and why I am usually kicking myself for not doing so.  But these sweet 5 plants, roundabout the yard, tucked in here and there as if I weren’t expecting much, have consistently outdone themselves, and oh how I have loved turning my nose up at their grocery store cousins!  For I have harvested the best.

  

So, tonight: what shall I do?  Shall I throw floating row covers over the green beans and cucumbers and tomatoes and zuchs – knowing full well that in a few days we could be back into the higher temperatures again (the beautiful, little-known secret of the Rocky Mountain Region)?  Or “should I,” as Doris Day sings in Pillow Talk concerning Rock Hudson, “surrender?” 

The garden – is it over or is it not?…TBD…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Enjoy the gorgeous dazzling-orange-red Maple leaves strewn about the yard, even though they are from the neighbor’s tree!

pictured: the garden shutting down; see the blackbirds eating the decrepit sunflower’s seeds?

October is Orange

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October is pumpkins and spice, rustling leaves, brilliant carrots and abundant gourds and squash.  It is wool socks, leather shoes and a new pair of dark blue Levi’s.  October is tricks and treats, turtlenecks, Sunday suppers and chimnea fires.  It’s roasted seeds and amber and gold with browns and greens.  It’s spicy, cool mornings and indigo-dark skies.  It’s cinnamon rolls and fresh spicy pies.  It’s blazing color and fried green tomatoes, and caramel and taffy and apples, too.   But mostly, October is orange.

DECORATE WITH ORANGE. 

http://blogs.hgtv.com/hgtv/design/archives/2008/10/fall_into_orange.html

ORANGE (“the color of craving”) AS DESIGN PASSION. 

http://www.whorange.net/

 

1 Kings 8.65 The Message: …”This is how Solomon kept the great autumn feast…Two solid weeks of celebration!…”

 

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds  (modified from a recipe by Alison Aves)
In a 10″ x 15″ baking pan,
mix 2 cups unwashed* pumpkin seeds,
1 1/2 tablespoons melted butter,
1 1/4 teaspoons salt (use a seasoning salt, if desired) and
1 teaspoon (or more to taste…for me? always more) Worcestershire.
Spread seeds out in pan.
Bake in a 250-degree oven, stirring occasionally,
until browned and crisp (about 2 hours).
Serve warm or cool.
Thoroughly cooled seeds can be stored in an
airtight container for up to a week.

So-I am a summer-lover, but fall feels really romantic and lovely to me, too…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: October is also when I have been called for Jury Duty, too.  Poo.  Jury duty is NOT orange.

*Don’t worry – the orange slime from the pumkin that is still on the seeds will form a deliciously salty, crunchy coating on the seeds.

pictured: a deliciously orange google image-collage

Transition

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I doubt it could be any more beautiful a day if I’d put in my very own order.  A warm, bright sun with the gentlest of breezes sweeping periodically through adorns my world.  The grass is brilliantly green, something you have to work for during the summer months, but comes easily these early fall days.  The tomato plants are loaded (I have a pan in the oven roasting as we speak – remember last year??)  and the annuals are enjoying a resurgance of color before their final farewell over the next few weeks. 

The sedum (from one near-dead clearance plant about 4 years ago) have gone from their hot-weather chartreuse to the light pink of a couple of weeks ago to a blazing cranberry, dotting the yard here and there in at least 12 places, growing ever larger and more glorious, the current social centers of the honey bees’ universe.

In between.

The disarray of the pool midway down, being dried and packed up for the year is rather unsightly and the shadows and sunlight dance differently now across the fences and gardens.  As the year has gone on, I have learned to let some weeds co-exist with desired produce and have let the grass enroach where I had earlier ordered it not to.

The shorter days are bringing into focus the beauty of each one, the fleeting nature of the minutes and hours that create the lives we are leading.

At 1:10 am yesterday morning, having just dozed off not long before, I was awakened abruptly and fully by an acute sense of my mortality.  At exactly 1:10 am, I realized I am closer to my death than to my birth.  I am past the middle, maybe way past.  Who knows?

I hope my colors are becoming more brilliant and more defined, less rigid and controlled.  I hope the shortened days bring more focus and appreciation for the beauty of each one.

Today she waxes melancholoy – as always, when autumn arrives…Jeanie

It has happened before… (melancholoy re: fall, I mean)…

pictured: google image, but not far from where I live