June 18, 2007

flowers for the bees

To attract bees, I have planted a bunch of flowers. I went down to Mahoney’s Garden Center, an enormous place that has every imaginable plant, and walked around looking for flowers with honey bees on them. The busiest plant by far was the nepeta (catmint), which had several honey bees working away. There were also some small bees on the heliopsis table. I asked an employee which plants attracted most bees and he thought the lantanta, daisies and petunias were good. I purchased yellow lantana, nepeta, a daisy and two…

June 16, 2007

fava flowers

Fava beans (broad beans) are a new crop for me this year. I’m looking forward to grilling some tender fresh beans. I have one 3.5 foot row of about 10 plants back behind my pole beans. This week they’ve started to bloom. Big black and white flowers on plants that are about 2 or 2.5 feet tall. There are still a lot of black aphids on the plants. The aphids are on the top couple inches of the plants. Once I get another set of flowers, I’ll cut off the…

June 15, 2007

farmer’s market fare

Our local Farmer’s Market is in a parking lot in our town center once a week. It has been open for two weeks now. We get about a dozen vendors. Often the farmer herself will be there to talk with. The major offering at the stands today was lots of lettuce greens of all different types (which I have in abundance in my garden right now). I bought asparagus, broccoli, purple scallions, spinach, radish, hot house tomatoes and a fresh free range chicken. Other offerings I saw: kohlrabi, chard, strawberries,…

June 13, 2007

alpine strawberries

A couple of years ago I planted this little alpine strawberry along my stone walkway. It has little white flowers and small deep red strawberries all year. It doesn’t send out runners and is slowly growing into a nice little clump. Its a nice care-free edging plant with the added benefit of sweet little berries to snack on. alpine strawberries (Fraises des bois)

June 12, 2007

watching for the first tomato

I’ve had nice tomato flowers for a couple of weeks now – but no baby tomatoes. I though maybe it was because we had no bees around (which concerns me too). But in checking into this I see that bees are not an important pollinator of tomatoes. It seems more like the wet weather may be the culprit (maybe affecting our bee population too?). We’ve had perfect temperatures for tomato fruit set, but our rainfall has been higher than usual, with a lot of drizzly damp days without much sun…

June 12, 2007

planting potatoes

A couple of weeks ago, I planted potatoes for the first time by sticking 15 store bought potatoes about 4 inches down in the ground. Many sprouted nicely. But then yesterday I read that potatoes should be planted deep and gradually covered over with dirt as they grow. So, I dug up my potatoes and replanted them 8 inches down using the trench method: Trench method: “Dig a shallow trench about 4 inches wide and 6-8 inches deep. Plant your potato seeds (8) inches apart in this trench. Place the…

June 11, 2007

African blue basil

I put some blue basil in a pot near my kitchen door. Unlike sweet basil, the flowers of blue basil don’t need to be pinched because the plant does not produce seed. The flavor is more clove-like, but it makes a nice garnish. culinary herbs

June 9, 2007

tomato tepees

It seems like a real garden now that the tomato tepees are up. The posts are 1x1x 10 ft poles cut from pine 2×4’s. Most of them are 10 or 15 years old now, but a few were freshly cut last year. I like this tepee structure because its very strong and easy to assemble. Its also completely removable each year so I can rotate the planting location. This year, I am growing my tomatoes against the house. I took these pictures early in the morning when the only sunlight…

June 9, 2007

garden crew

Here’s a group shot of my garden crew. I guess they are on their coffee break. garden birds (Hortus Aves)

June 5, 2007

favas

This crop is a new one for me. My fava beans are now about two feet tall and are starting to lean over. I was figuring the fence would support them but they have no tendrils. Maybe I’ll need to tie them to it or support the stems with branches. I have also found lots of black aphids on the upper parts of the plants. It turns out that favas are often infested by black aphids. Maybe its time to order some lady bugs? I’ll watch as see what happens.…

weeks and counting until my last spring frost

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