Photo of the Week: Harvest

It's been awhile since I've done a gardening update so I thought I'd post a picture of my first harvest. It was definitely a learning experience. For example, critters really love eating melon flowers so getting even one cantaloupe was a challenge. The first melon got gnawed on by presumably a chipmunk or ground squirrel and I didn't notice the second one until frost killed off the vines. There wasn't much flesh and it wasn't sweet or tasty but it produced a surprising amount of seeds for next spring.

I had better success with the root vegetables. Lessons were learned with the sweet potatoes, namely that they like their space. Each container is holding three plants. The three in the top container were grown surrounded by carrots, cantaloupe, and sunflowers. The three in the bottom container were grown in more isolation

The carrots were pretty simple to grow and their size seems determined by how early they were planted. The largest one is a little over 13 inches long. In total I had 15 carrots but 4 were small and not worth harvesting so I left them to see if they will go to seed next year.

Overall I planted 4 cantaloupe seeds and got 2 to sprout, although one was extremely stunted. The six sweet potatoes were store bought plants. I don't know how many carrot seeds I planted but it was more than double what I ended up with.

Next year I plan to add corn, peas, and strawberries to the mix.

Gardening: Nature is an Autocrat

As the title says, Mother Nature is an autocrat. All of the cantaloupe seedlings died and all but one of the sunflower seedlings died. So here comes Round 2. Tons of bird and squirrel-planted sunflowers have popped up though. I also scattered a bunch of marigold and California poppy seeds a little over a month ago and they are just no beginning to grow. I've also sown columbine under the existing crabapple tree (because I'm sick of mowing under there) and butterfly weed seeds in the mulch around the house.

As for trees the potted maple has begun leafing out although it's been slow going. I repotted it into a larger pot to try and help it out. Lazarus has has also leafed out although the main stem appears dead as it's begun sprouting leaves from a new stem. I've taken two cuttings from a ginkgo tree and potted them so here's hoping that in ~2 months they'll have taken root. I've also managed to save and pot two crabapple seedlings. Most exciting of all is that I was recently eating an apple when I discovered that a seed had sprouted inside of it, producing a root about a quarter-inch long. So I potted that and am now praying that it will survive. The Lord taketh but He also giveth.

Spring is here!

That means it's time to start planting and with fuel prices rising and food shortages on the horizon there's no better year to start. Last fall I harvested a "wild" sunflower growing near my house and this year I plan to grow numerous sunflowers along the south wall where there is currently nothing but peonies, spirea, and bare mulch.

One head of sunflower seeds and some crabapples.

Along the west wall there's more mulch, spirea, and sedum. I intend to plant cantaloupe in the bare areas here. I have grown cantaloupe in a pot before, producing one baseball sized melon.

In the northwest corner there is more mulch, spirea, daylilies, and coneflowers. I've also planted about 7-8 apple seeds here and am hoping at least one will sprout. In the southwest corner of the property I intend to plant the maple sapling I collected last summer.

Better days...

Winter was hard. The leaves dried up and fell off. I'm praying this means it's just dormant and not dead. Moving to the front yard I'll be removing the shroud from Lazarus the mulberry in a few weeks and praying that the rabbits don't get to it.

Lazarus

Just to the north of Lazarus I planted a sycamore seed. If that one fails to germinate I have several seed balls I can take more seeds from.

Lastly, I may or may not take some of the cedar saplings and transplant them to the north or northwest (if the apples fail) yard to create a windbreak and privacy screen. An alternative is the possibility of 'guerilla' planting them around town.

An abundance of cedars

Those are my gardening plans for this year.