First year for fruit trees! We picked this Dave Wilson double delight dwarf nectarine bare root and multiple other fruit trees up before we had their permanent home prepared. They’re living temporarily on the enclosed deck in heavy duty peat pots until fall.
Most of the gardening we’ve done up to this point has been for a practical purpose- food. We’re at the point now that we’re beginning to add some permanent landscaping purely for aesthetic reasons.
This project tackled a small area in the front of the house along the driveway. The 3 difficulties were 1) finding ground cover that would spread but was also visually appealing and 2) finding varieties that would thrive with next to no sun under mature pine trees 3) of course the obvious need for frost tolerant, hardy plants.
While doing some brush clean up I found a few attractive ground covers which seem to be thriving with no human attention. I took pictures with the intention of later doing some research to identify them. A few nights later while watching a TV show I stumbled on the answer- Miners Lettuce! and what a pleasant surprise it was.
Miner’s Lettuce (Claytonia) is native of the west coast, grows well in cooler climates, and is a very hardy lettuce variety. Big shock here- it was eaten by miners which is how it got it’s name.
Some seed suppliers offer this variety but lucky for us it grows here naturally!
It is now the end of March and seeds are in the ground! Starting this growing season we’re still limited to 1 raised bed. The rest of the garden wont be prepared for another couple of weeks. Not wanting to miss out on valuable growing time the existing bed was churned up with compost and soil booster. This year we’re trying quite a few crops for the first time including peas, onions and carrots (which we tried last year but flopped).
The snow peas, sugar peas, and carrots didn’t make for enough content for a post so check back in a few weeks for a full post on each.
Onions being such a staple in cooking deserve a spot in the garden. Many books I’ve read also note their great storing ability which is very appealing. Having never planted them before I wasn’t entirely sure what to buy or what to expect. I ordered a few seed packets of various veggies from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds and added a 1lb bag of red onion sets to the order.
Our recent trip to the local nursery found us bringing something home that wasn’t on our list. These beautiful flowering Monrovia Jubilee and Misty Early Season Blueberries caught our eye.
These varieties are southern highbush blueberries, which have been adapted to withstand the hot summer months in the south and grow well in our area. They differ from the lowbush varieties that grow in the pacific northwest because they will grow 4-5+ feet tall if left untamed.
One bush will produce on its own and additional varieties are not necessary for pollination however, it greatly increases the yield. Read the rest of this entry »
We are nearing the end of March and now have blooming naturalizing daffodils and grape hyacinths!
The daffodils and hyacinths began popping up a few weeks ago and bloomed earlier this week. The deer have feasted on the hyacinth foliage as well as the tulips which I’ll post in a bit.
About 10 days ago I planted some PaperWhite Narcissus bulbs to be forced indoors.
The original post with details is here http://www.self-sufficient-home.com/375-forcing-paperwhite-narcissus-bulbs.html
A lone yellow daffodil that sprouted through the wandering ground cover last spring gave me some motivation to plan a fall bulb flower patch our first fall season living in our house. It is a miraculous site in the gloomy days of early spring when its still too cold to bask in the sunshine and everything is a muddy mess to see a new flower emerge from the ground after being long forgotten. As is the case with many projects you’ll read about here, this was my first go round with bulbs (well, second including my “forcing narcissus bulbs” but that doesn’t really count).
Time flew by as it always does and by the time I had a chance to sit down and figure out what I was doing most online bulb suppliers were having their end of season sales with discounts from 30-60% off. Being on a budget I went with the site that gave me the most bulbs for my dollar and ended up ordering from tulipworld.com. I ended up with about 180 bulbs of different varieties for about $50.
I did take some time to map out what was going where taking into consideration the bloom times, planting depth, and plant height to maximize the visual impact of the bulbs I ordered. A few different sites I did some research on recommended planting in layers and giving the bulbs more of a natural look by letting them fall into the spot rather than lining them in rows like toy soldiers. Read the rest of this entry »
While at the local nursery I found some PaperWhite bulbs 50% off and decided it would be a good way to add some life indoors during the dreary winter months.
This was a quick project; I just added a layer of pebbles to some pots, added soil, mixed in a tablespoon of bone meal, plopped in the bulbs, covered with soil and watered. And let the trickery begin! After bulbs have experienced a cold period during the winter months (I’ve read 13 weeks is the minimum) they can be brought indoors into the warmer spring like temperatures and they will think its growing season.
I’ve read that they can be forced in pebbles alone. Either way, they can be placed almost shoulder to shoulder in a pot….much closer than when in the ground. Read the rest of this entry »
With the end of the gardening season near we’ve started saving some seeds from our heirloom veggies. Next year we will plant a mixture of new store bought seeds and saved seeds from our first year garden.
This is my favorite non fruit producing plant we have this year. The dallas red lantana with its stunning vibrant blooms has been extremely low maintanance.
We are finally enjoying the fruits of our labor!
We’ve learned the harvesting season is much later (as expected) up here than down in the valley. The average daily temperature is still in the high 80′s to mid 90′s with evening temps averaging in the low 60′s and a few in the mid 50′s. Read the rest of this entry »
Well its mid-August and we finally have a steady supply of ripe delicious blackberries. We have cut back and ripped out a large quantity of the berry bushes during our clean-up efforts.
As it sounds, this method involves a deeply dug garden bed. The preparation is more labor intensive but the yields much greater…up to 4 times that of a conventional bed. Deep bed gardening aka the Chinese method or the French intensive method has been around for hundreds of years used in various countries by farmers that lived just outside of the city on small expensive land and needed high yielding crops. Read the rest of this entry »
