How to become a good gardener

I've been pondering what it is that makes a good gardener.  You know, it isn't having great luck and beautiful plants.  What makes a good gardener is failure.  Mistakes.  Pest infestations.  Bad weather.  Poor choices. 

How do you know what is causing your squash vines to wilt?  

Experience.  

How do you identify a bad bug?  

Experience.  

How do you know how to avoid cucumber beetles?  

Experience.  

How do you recognize blossom end rot?  

Experience

How do you know what varieties of zucchini are mildew resistant?  

Experience.

I have a little plaque on my bookshelf.  It says:

Good Judgement comes from Experience

Experience comes from poor Judgement.

Odds and Ends

Arrow is pointing to the break in the stem

This Dill plant is a volunteer which I left to grow when the new seeds were so slow to germinate.  One day it got caught in that ladder and grew so fast it snapped itself off.  But I let it be because I know how resilient plants can be.  How "snapped off" is it?

Pretty much all the way through.  But that was weeks ago and that thin strand of stem holding it together is allowing it to grow and flower.  It doesn't even wilt in this hot, hot weather we've had.  We finally got an inch of rain yesterday which was good because it had been 10 days and my water tank was half empty.  The temperatures have been in the high 80s to low 90s and I've been watering well every three days.

The Blue Lake bush beans

I have half a dozen little cantaloupes set.  Last night's rain gave them a boost.

The Big Drain in the front yard is a lush oasis.  The Chameleon plant ground cover is amazing.

Summer is in full swing.

And the Day Lilies are in full bloom

Not Tomorrow

Not tomorrow but maybe the day after!

Blue Beauty Tomatoes

** I also picked my first Blue Lake bush beans.

Give Peas a Chance

I have a new favorite garden pea variety.  I really haven't tried all that many because I was pretty happy with what I had been growing year after year.  But sometimes you have to branch out and try new things or you may miss out on something.

Up until now my favorite was probably Wando.  But I didn't grow them at all this year.

Reason being, they are very very tall and have relatively small pods.  They average 7 peas in each pod.  So even though there are a lot of pods per plant, the are more work to pick and shell.

There are not too many vegetable that you have to pick UP.  I would have to reach up for the later peas.  They require an extra tall stacking pea fence.  And if you get a stiff wind they turn into a sail.  Last year I had to anchor down the pea fence against the wind to keep it from leaning over.

The first year I grew Wando, they were two to three feet taller than the trellis and the tops leaned over in the wind.  This didn't hurt the plants but it made picking peas a challenge.  You just couldn't see or get to half of the pods.

Wando and Maestro 2011

I've grown Maestro peas every year back to the beginning of my gardening endeavors.  I started with Survivor (a self supporting "leafless" variety) which is now rarely available and Maestro.  And the Maestro are a nice average pea.  A garden staple you might say.  They are reliable growers and only 24"-36" tall but they have a couple of drawbacks.  Their pod shells are thick and spongy which makes them a little hard to open, because the shell is resilient and doesn't yield right away.  And the pod will expand and round out  before the peas inside are fully developed which makes for a lot of "false positives" when you're out there picking unless you have the sun shining through the row at the right angle.  Also once they are even a day too old, they get starchy and bitter right away.  

Penelope from Johnny's Seeds

So - Penelope Pea.  Similar growth habit to Maestro.  Maybe a little shorter.  Seems like more pods per plant than Maestro.  And they are just great to shell.  They average 9 peas per slender pod.  It's not uncommon to get 10 peas.  The pod is thin and well shaped.  It is much easier to feel the size of the peas through the pod so you are not picking too early (giving a smaller yield).  And if you are a day late and you open up a pod just crammed full of over developed peas, they are not as starchy or bitter as Maestro.

Next year I will be back to growing some Wando but Maestro will be replaced by Penelope.  And I might try one new variety.  This year my third variety was Burpeanna which just didn't grow well for me at all.  I don't know if it was the timing of the weather when I planted them or the soil or what but they had a poor germination rate, and the vines were mostly stunted and small.  The Penelope were planted in the same bed right along side of them and did much much better.

Burpeanna from Burpee

Side Yard - Before and After

BEFORE

Sometimes you just have to pause and compare the Before and After of a project.  

The other day I was flipping through old photos looking for 

something and I came across the before photo above. 

What a striking difference today!

AFTER

The side yard now has tall London Plane trees and a dry creek bed. and the dying red oaks are gone and converted into wainscotting.  The drainage problem has been dealt with.

BEFORE

 The Dry Creek Bed handles the drainage in a pretty satisfactory way.

AFTER

The many clumps of day lilies along the creek bed are just now beginning to bloom.

The deep red come first but we will have several weeks of color.

Someone is Eating the Parsley - At Last

And why am I pleased that someone is munching on my Parsley?  

Because it's one of the good guys.  

A Black Swallowtail Caterpillar

We have a fair number of butterflies around.  Mostly the yellow Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.  Our native tree assortment supports them the best and I will often see three or four at the same time.  I see a Monarch now and then but my favorite has always been the Black Swallowtail.

The plants that support the Black Swallowtail caterpillars are Dill, Carrots and Parsley and I have plenty of all that so I have been waiting to find a caterpillar.  And today I found him.

In addition to butterflies, I've been supporting the bees.  But the buckwheat is starting to go to seed so it is time for the next step.  I cut two of the beds and laid the cut plants on the bed covering them with some finished compost.  This will hold them down from blowing around and start the composting process.  The root systems are pretty small so an option would be to just pull it up and lay it down.  That might be easier.  We'll see.

I have two more beds to work on.  

They aren't as far along so the bees can have them for another day or two.  

But then the bees need to move on to the flower bed I planted for them and the cucumbers.

State Fair Zinnias

Snapdragons and Border Beauty Mix Zinnias

State Fair Zinnia

It got ahead of me

The strawberry bed was doing really well.  I had thinned out the center so I wouldn't have a complete jungle.  I had disturbed the black oxalis weeds to the point I thought they would be manageable....

And then I covered the bed for the week the berries would first ripen to keep the chipmunks out.

And it got away from me.

I did get several pickings of nice berries.  As much as I wanted really.  But then the ants started farming aphids in there and it all went to heck.  All of a sudden it appeared that all of the strawberry plants were pretty much gone.  Frankly, it became an eyesore.  One that I had to walk past 10 times a day.  Something drastic had to be done.  I've reached the stage of gardening where I do not hesitate to pull something out and start over.  Or go to Plan B. 

Zinfandel Oxalis sold by Proven Winners

Now a "weed" is anything that is growing where you don't want it.  Some of the "weeds" that I deal with a lot are actually useful plants under some circumstances. Oxalis, Purslane, Bachelor's Buttons... some people even plant Golden Rod on purpose.  But the Oxalis is getting pretty tiring.  It's everywhere - both the light green, upright, yellow sorrel, and the sneaky, low growing creeping woodsorrel.  The yellow sorrel is pretty easy to deal with but the woodsorrel is nearly impossible to pull.

Maybe I should have weeded the strawberries more carefully.  

^That ^ is a tree.

Some pretty nice soil

My initial plan was to strip out the top 4 inches of soil and discard it.  Instead of planting the semi-permanent strawberries back in there I will use it first for fall lettuce, and next year for broccoli and cauliflower. But when I got to digging around in there I remembered that this was some of my best soil.  Just look at how well it grew weeds.  So the plan changed.  I will have to keep an eye on it and keep the oxalis cultivated out.  That will be easier with seasonal crops than with the strawberries.  The strawberries are going into "time out" in a strawberry tower where they can't get themselves into as much trouble.

Meanwhile. the neighbor's new raised beds are doing great.

The Tiger Lilies are in full bloom.  In fact, I think that bed may need to be thinned in the spring.  Tiger Lilies are quick to take over.

The neighbor's have also finished setting up their rain water collection.  This tank stores water from the barn rain gutters.  There is a submerged sump pump to pressurize the hose, and a wall light to tell you when the switch is on so it doesn't get left on.