Waiting for RJ

I am eagerly awaiting the response of our newest invitee, RJ. However, since she is in the Dominican Republic, I expect that it will be a few days. in other news, we all have admin capabilities, so if you get a hankering to mess around with this here blog, mess away.

I would like to attend both nerdy garden events.

Here's your chance to meet Mr. Food!

If anyone wants to *really* geek out, planbreaker and I are thinking of attending the Home and Garden show on Sunday at Assembly Hall to see what that's all about. Anyone wanna join us?

Kick-Off the 2006 Gardening Season in Style!

Hey gardeners, welcome back to our much-neglected blog! A special welcome goes out to our new gardening partner, Renee (By the way, who is the blog administrator? I think we need to add her to the blog).

Two bits of gardening news. First, Prairie Gardens is having some kind of "Gardening Kick-Off" extravaganza on Saturday, April 1. As part of the celebration, they're holding seminars in the morning with local garden experts on a variety of topics. There are two that I thought might be helpful for us. At 10 a.m. there's a seminar on "Organic Gardening," which promises useful tips on enriching the soil, pest control, and crop pairings. Also, at 11 a.m., there's a seminar on "Pest Control," which has a special emphasis on those damned Japanese Beetles.

I think I'm going to go to both seminars. Is anyone else interested? As an added bonus, they'll have coffee and donuts!! The seminars are free, but they ask that you sign up (there's a book at the information counter). I optimistically signed up myself + 1. I thought it might be a nice way to kick off our own garden season. We could get brunch afterwards & discuss the garden, perhaps?

Second point of business: If you or anyone you know drinks milk in plastic containers, please start saving them. We can use them to protect our baby plants from the destructive prairie winds. Remember last year how we didn't do that? And remember how well that worked?

Is anyone else getting garden fever yet?

watering and beetle schedule

now that we have traps to empty, it seems like the person in charge of watering should also do the emptying. i'd definitely recommend getting someone else to go out there to help, if only for moral support.

15-TG
17-MG
19-DF
21-TG
23-DF
25-AW
27-AW
29-TG
31-MG

there was some logic to this schedule but now that it's just the last part, i'm not sure how much sense it makes anymore. please be assured that everyone was on the original watering schedule 3 or 4 times. except for jenny, who was on 5. i guess we should work something up for August so if people want to email me with times they're away, i can figure it out.
of course, we also need to have a beetle summit about the other bugs that are out there. ugh.

Traumatized by beetlemania

I went to 5 stores today to look for beetle traps. Good ol Farm and Fleet finally hooked us up. I bought two and I also bought some organic pesticide at Lowes just in case I couldn't find any traps, so I can return it if we don't use it.

I felt like I was in a horror movie when I attempted to set up the 2 traps in the garden. Hundreds of beetles flew from everywhere and landed on my face and hair and hands even after I set the traps down because I still had the scent of the trap lure on me. It was scary.

The good news is that there are beets and broccoli that are ready to be picked, and I picked two green peppers today too. More peppers are going to be ready soon. I could only find one zucchini in the jungle that is the squash plants though.

Beetlemania pt 2

Now the beetles are eating the pea plants.

Beetlemania

Melissa and I checked out the beetle situation today. It looks like they are mostly eating those huge weeds, but they are also eating the tomato plants and the basil. The milk jug trick didn't kill anything, so we went to Home Depot to see if they had any organic pesticides that would kill beetles (Strawberry Fields didn't have anything). They had one brand that said "made by vegetables for vegetables" but melissa and i couldn't figure out what one of the ingredients actually was (and now I forget what it was) so we didn't buy it. Maybe Melissa will remember the brand so we can look up that ingredient.

Bottom line is that we need to do something about the beetles on the tomato plants--in one section of the garden, it's relatively bad. I have some issues with touching bugs, so if everyone else decides to do the potential plan of picking beetles off plants and drowning them, I don't think I can help with that. If you want to wait until Donovan gets back and he sees what's up, that is ok. Melissa and I are ok with organic herbicide (if indeed we can figure out what the mystery ingredient is in the kind we saw today). She and I are also ok with using the other stuff our garden neighbor recommended. Let us know what you want to do.

P.S. Donovan, I picked a bunch of pickling cucumbers for you, so they will be in my fridge til you get back

Snake

In addition to the beetles, we also have a black snake living around our garden plots. I take this to be a good sign--our garden is so beautiful, all of the creatures want to live there. Apparently, this snake has been around for a couple of years--it's a familiar friend to some of the other gardners--and it is totally harmless. It's also very small. But, if anyone is afraid of snakes, do be careful. Thrash around a bit before entering any high weeds, for example.

Weeding Tip

Our experienced garden neighbor (the nice one, not the mean one) passed along a little weeding advice to me yesterday. She says that when the weeds get this out of control (and trust me, they're totally out of control) you should pull them, but leave them in the garden. She says you should then take the piles of weeds and throw them over the other weeds. Supposedly they will suffocate the other weeds, thus reducing the amount to be weeded. I thought the advice was worth a try--especially since it means I don't have to carry piles of weeds over to the dumping ground.

If you notice weeds piled in the garden, this is why.

Exciting News!

I went to the garden tonight and pulled weeds all around 7/9 pepper plants and watered. I didn't put more straw down around the pepper plants because it was impeding the weeding process and there is much more to weed over there next to the tomato plants.

The exciting news is that a big cucumber AND a big zucchini were ready to be picked today, as well as tons of the peas. Also I gave Sascha lettuce and in exchange for the gift, he said that he would help me pick vegetables that were ready next week.

There are weeds everywhere though and it's driving me bonkers! Maybe I can get Sascha to weed too in exchange for all of the lettuce we can't eat.

hot day update

lots of exciting news from the garden--a fair number of peapods are ready to go, the chard and lettuce are out of control, there are some more beets sticking up out of the ground, and i spotted little zucchini, yellow squash, peppers, tomatoes, and beans. i'd guess that there's at least one zucchini that will probably be ready by the end of the week so someone should go out there and get it!

on the work side of things, it looks like our little straw plan only sort of worked because weeds are getting out of hand in some areas, despite the straw. apparently we didn't do a super job of getting rid of everything before putting the straw down. some places are better than others.

i was able to weed a little bit but i didn't have a ton of time. i'd say that the "problem" areas are in the back right where the peppers are being choked out (and a couple of the roma tomato plants in the way back on the side that have no cages) and then by the herbs. i did some emergency weeding to give them a little room but i would guess that they'll be overcome again in a few days. almost everything is marked with sticks or cages or has yellow flowers or actual little vegetables on them so it should be much easier to weed now.

it was really exciting to be out there b/c there's a lot of stuff coming in. yippeee!!

oh, and if anyone has the nerve to put up our signs (in the dead of night?), they're on our front porch.

The heat is coming

I've been out a few times this week to water and weed and put down more STRAW (finally looked it up, we are using STRAW, not hay). Things are looking pretty good. We need to eat greens like crazy - go nuts with that stuff. I also made a better pea cage, so that oughta be safe now. We'll try to get out and water daily if we can, and every other day at the least, on account of the insane heat coming our way. FYI, I've been watering just using the hose without a nozzle and basically dumping water right at the base of the plants, which seems to work well and is a fairly fast way to water.

The peas, squash, greens, beets, chard, and 'maters are all looking good. Beans look pretty good but might need some poles (we need more tomato cages too). The peppers are looking decent, but not amazing, hopefully they will perk up. The herbs are not looking horrible, they just don't seem to be going crazy like I had hoped - maybe we need to take off the wind shields that we put on when we planted em and see if that helps.

There are a few spots that still need to be weeded and "strawed", and a few places where I guess we just put straw down over the weeds and they are poking through. The area where the squash was planted is looking kinda weedy, but I'm unsure where the plants and weeds begin and end on the south end of the rows, so maybe someone who planted those should weed them. Also, the far west row where we planted okra is a loss and we should clearcut that and plant more okra and/or some fall squash. The dudes behind us said okra is supposed to take 60 days from planting to eating, so we can have em by the end of August if we get em in now.

I'll try to get out and do some more weeding, caging, etc before we head for NYC.

Harvesting advice

i'm wondering if we could all share our harvesting knowledge since we are starting to have a pretty good looking garden (despite what some older neighbors may think...). we have lots of lettuce, chard, beets... and tonight we spotted a few peas!

i read in the gardening book that chard should be harvested by picking (meaning taking a leaf and snapping it off at the stem) some of the bigger leaves from each plant and leaving some of the other leaves. i guess this keeps the plant viable so more chard can grow. when i harvested some chard the other day, i was able to get a pretty big bag just from picking a few leaves from each of the plants.

oh, i also know that beets are ready when you can see their tops coming out of the ground. please don't eat the beets without eating the greens, or at least seeing if anyone wants the greens. they are super-tasty and it would be sad if they went to waste.

any other harvesting advice? how soon to pick things, how to pick them, etc... we need help.

Mean Midwesterners

That's it. This isn't really garden related, unless you see the WORLD as GOD'S garden (you do? seriously? tool.) in which case I would like to make the point that the Midwest is as nasty and weedy a part as any other. I have heard so many people claim that the Midwest contains a different sort of person than the rest of the country - specifically a NICER sort of person.

Um . . . . . bullshit.

Seriously.

Bull. Shit.

I would like to take a moment to decry that particular sentiment as the sad mix of patriotism/xenophobia and anti-urbanism that it is. This belief is founded on the idea that Americans are somehow the best people and that the Midwest is somehow, due to its geographical position, the part of the US that is the least corrupted by the outside world (the incredible number of Mexican restaurants in a town the size of Champaign notwithstanding). Alternately, it is founded on the belief that people in cities have somehow been corrupted by the evil inherent within them and that this evil manifests itself as a lack of "nice".

Crap. Crap. Crap. Self-serving, egotistical crap. Are you serious? Does anyone really think that Americans are better people? Or that people in cities are somehow less wholesome? Look, I'm sorry if the only time you went to New York you got freaked out by the homeless guy in Times Square but lets be reasonable. Cities scare you. That doesn't make them evil. And anyone still laboring under the belief that Americans are a superior group of people needs to carefully consider both John tesh AND Paris Hilton at the same time.

So look, cut the crap. Some old ladies in the Midwest are every bit as crabby and pushy as those in Philadelphia. Some bouncers at bars in Chicago are every bit the assholes that bouncers at bars in L.A. are. Silly teenage mallrats dress ridiculously all over this country. Peopl here are not inherently nice. nice people are nice people. They are everywhere and they deserve nice treatment in return. Crabby, pushy, scolding old hags are also everywhere and need to be dealt with through sarcasm, name calling, and possibly jokes about Jesus.

I am going to go pick some beets, and if Grandma gets cheeky I'm gonna belt her.

Our lovely garden neighbor...

Actual quote from the mean old lady in the garden next to us: "Someone needs to teach you how to use a hoe. You never had a garden before, did you?" Seriously, she said this to me today. Her reasoning was that I was pulling weeds by hand, which clearly implies that I don't yet know how to use a hoe and have never had a garden. I tried to explain that the bean plants were too closely tangled with the weeds to use a hoe, but she just said that was our own fault for letting it go so long. She said, "Aren't there a bunch of you? Why didn't somebody take care of it sooner?" Also, she said our beans look "pretty pathetic."

I almost whacked her in the head with my hoe.

Speaking of progress...

I just ate a delicious salad from our beautiful garden. Planbreaker and I spent the morning laying straw, and, in the process, we discovered baby tomatoes, baby peppers, and plenty of flowering plants. All the work that you people did while I was out of town has completely paid off! So, in this moment of optimism, I thought it might be a good time to take a look at just how far our little garden has come.

Remember a few weeks ago when we had no idea where the weeds ended and the plants began?



Well, compare that sad hodgepodge of greenery to our new "super-rows":



And how 'bout that mystery row? What were those plants anyway?




That's right...They're beautiful bean plants! (OK, so we still have a little weeding to do, but come on, they still look pretty good).

And look at this panoramic shot of tfoster watering in late May. One false step and a whole row could be wiped out:




Just a few weeks later, and look at the difference. I dare tfoster to try to crush these hearty plants:



And these were our peas just a few short weeks ago:



Now, they've grown so fast you can hardly recognize them:



All in all, it's been a good few weeks for the garden. Seriously, two different people commented on how good our garden looks today when planbreaker & I were out there. Yay garden!

vacationing....

what are people's "away" schedules for the rest of the summer? I'd like to figure out a watering schedule, if possible.

Frustration

Ok, it seems that the weeds are seriously taking over the garden (and this is after some pretty hefty weeding sessions by all on sunday and monday). df and i went to water last night and found that the kale and many of the other greens had been covered over *again* with weeds. we took some time to rescue them and some of the other plants but we only spent an hour weeding so there are still a lot of weeds out there. what can we do to make those weeds go away?? what's going on with the straw/hay?

the signs are also ready to put in but i feel like a jackass doing it b/c the garden doesn't look spectacular yet.

in better news, anyone who wants lettuce/salad greens should go and get it. i believe you can just bring scissors and cut some off and it will grow back. just don't eat the stuff that the bugs have eaten-- those are weeds! oh, and the new pepper and tomato plants and herbs seem to be doing well. and the one thai basil survivor looks like it's making a comeback!

Money

A quick appeal for sanity. At this point there have been numerous purchases for the garden: sprinkler, several rounds of tomatoes and peppers, stakes, bigger stakes, cages, seeds, etc. I think that it is a really terrible idea to assume that we will be able to remember all of this in November, so I am sending out a second appeal for people to send their expenses to me to put in one place (a nerdy spreadsheet that I created).

Send me your expenses!

An update about our lovely garden for Melissa

Amy, Donovan, and Tim all planted herbs and more peppers this weekend, and they and I did a ton of weeding. Amy watered yesterday and Tim and I watered today. Tim also tied the peas up around posts and they are looking good. I'd say about 5 more hours of weeding total and the garden will look beautiful. Donovan and Tim are looking into the hay option to place between plant rows.