ok you aphids, time to dance

well this year, even though i have been wanting to post more often, the backyard garden just isn't all that interesting. the most exciting thing so far, are all the plans for the garden swirling around in my head. this season i got such a late start on everything and was in such a rush, not a whole lot of planing was done, so it all just kind of fizzled. although there are some things out there growing, i just see all the great veggie everyone else is harvesting, and i get a little sad and extremely jealous. oh well, boo hoo me.

anyway, this is a post, once again, about my complete failure in growing summer squash. you know when you overhear how folk's squash just grow like crazy, and you get in you car or come out your front door, and there lies a basket of perfect and bountiful summer squash in all their yellow and green glory. well, i can tell assure you of one thing. i wasn't me who left it there. and here's the thing, i don't even like summer squash all the much. i am doing it for the hubby. (remember when he pouted, "oh, so you're only growing what YOU like.")

since last year i had an extremely bad time with squash vine borders, this year i took the proper precautions.... row cover.

here are the little squash babies.....

and here they are all covered.

of course, since i didn't have any support in the middle of the cover, 

i had to try a few different ways of trying to keep the row cover up. 

it was a pain to deal with. hard to get under to work on and check the squash. 

but, it was covered. 

the plan was to keep the row cover over the squash the whole time,
even though most of the information i researched said to uncover the plants once flowers appeared. 

i assume that is so the bees and such could do there work and pollinate the fruit. 

however, i figured that since i was such an expert in squash love,

 i could hand pollinate myself and avoid the squash vine boarder all season long. 

which seemed to be working..... for awhile at least. 

i started to get a few male flowers. so i just sat back, 

left things as they were, and waited of the females to appear. 

little did i know that under all that cover, all nice a cozy and protected from predators, 

were those icky little aphids just loving the underneath of all my squash leaves.... gross. 

see the little black dots on the out of focus squash blossoms in the center 

and the little green blossoms to be in the upper right corner.... APHIDS!!!!!!!

you'll have to take my word for it that they were everywhere since the follow picture was taken after i knocked quite a bit of them off the plants. since in my research, it didn't appear that all that much damage was being done to my particular plants, even though they can completely destroy a plant, i choose the route of just knocking them off with a few gently rubs to the leaves and a little bit of water from the hose. once the little buggers hit the ground, that's supposed to be enough to kill them.

then came the debate of whether or not to pull up the squash and use that area to plant something else, since they really didn't look like much was gonna come of them anyway. but in the end i decided to just leave them where they were for a few reasons. for one, i am really curious to see, that now that they are uncovered, if i do in fact get squash vine border. two, the aphids seem to be just concentrating on the squash and leaving almost everything else alone. and three, maybe if i am patient enough, i just might get a squash or two.

the silver lining to all this is i learned something completely new that explained all the crazy ants running around the squash...... ants and aphids love each other. or at least ants love their little aphid friends. as it turns out, aphids, after sucking on my plants, poop out some delicious sweet stuff that ants just think is marvelous. some ants even go to the lengths of overwintering aphid larva in there nest, and then bring the newly hatched buggers to the plants in the spring. they also can milk the buggers for the sweet honeydew, and some will even fight off predators. so if it's not one dang thing, it's the other.

the aphids also attacked the borage leaves as well. which is fine, cause i wasn't really eating it anyway. and since the two borage plants were fairly close to the eggplant and one pepper plant, i left them in as well as decoys to hopefully protect the other plants. in the end that could be a horrible mistake. there is probably a gigantor underground aphid incubator being built by the ants as we speak. just waiting to attack me next year.

see the ant attacking me!!!!!!!

"get away from my little aphid buddies, you giant amazon!!!!!"

but for now, that's the plan. well see what happens.

community plot update

since the new backyard garden beds are coming along very slowly, let's go check in on my community garden plot. since it's a true raised bed, it seems to dry out a lot and needs a ton of water. also, my plants just don't seem to be growing as well, and as fast, as i think they should. i'll need to come up with a plan for feeding the soil and perhaps some sort of mulching. maybe later today i'll go hunt down some burlap coffee sacks again. anyhoo, let's see how she is doing.

ok, so not to shabby. the peas i planted were a total bust. they didn't germinate as well as in the past, which could be due to the new type and brand i used, or the fact that i have a tendency to forget about my community plot and neglect it more than i should. also, i did not use any kind of inoculate, but then again, i never have. the few peas shoots that did start to grow were then promptly eaten by some sort of critter, so, that was that for the peas. 

the onions seems to be fairing ok, but not great. they're not dead, but not really growing either.

i had high hopes of enjoying some nice kohlrabi. but then again, 

some critter has decided that the young tender leaves make for a nice night time snack. 

the crowder peas that i planted last week seem to be off to a good start. 

 the lemon cukes are popping up as well,

and the turnips are hanging in there.

soon i'll have some pictures of the new backyard garden. 

in the plans are: 

4 types of tomatoes, 3 different peppers, 2 eggplants, various herbs, 

a few sunflowers with green beans climbing them, 2 kinds of summer squash, 

and a couple of potato sacks getting started way to late. 

 in the future i would like to add: 

a lettuce table, a herb and flower garden, some fruit bushes, 

a very small table top greenhouse, and cold frames. 

it all makes my head spin a little, so i just keep telling myself.... 

one thing at a time, one thing at a time.

(garden note to self: crowder peas and lemon cukes: direct sowed seeds: second week of may. tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants: from starts: second week of may. )

patience is a virtue

hello there!!

(boy that was a busy busy two months.)

patience is a virtue, but i am no good at it. no good at all. but today i am taking a cue from mr. keebs and trying to not get to anxious that it is nearly the middle of may and not a single thing is planted in the new backyard garden.

i'll just wait here till your ready mamma.

plus, my raised beds did not turn out as pretty as i hoped they would. therefore, i have revised the goal for this year to simply be.... get the plants in the ground!!  i'll work on the aesthetics this winter.

so much to do in that little back yard.

i just gotta keep reminding myself that we have some fairly awesome farmer's markets here, so it will all be alright. no one is gonna starve. now i'm off to do a little unpacking in the new house!!!!!

here we go again...

it's garden season again folks. while i have been away for these last weeks much has happened. me and the hubby bought a new house and renovations are under way, although there really isn't too much that needs to be done before we can move everything over. just a new kitchen floor, refinish the hardwoods on the main level, and paint the front two rooms and hallway. but mostly this moves means starting from scratch again with the backyard garden. while i have big big plans swirling around in my head, i need to be patient and think small for this first year. so for now i am concentration on getting two 4x10 raised beds set up and will build from there in the future. step #1: get my soil tested for lead and other heavy metals to determine the height and structure of said garden beds. i'm dropping off the soil sample this afternoon and will post the results as soon as i get them back. being in an urban setting, i suspect that the results will not be great, but i'm crossing my fingers nonetheless. so bye bye little rental backyard, and hello even smaller new house backyard. can't wait to get to know ya!!!!

 rental backyard garden plots all cleaned out and awaiting... yuck.... grass seed.

new house backyard garden area!!!!!!!! 

i see raised beds, hoop houses, mini green house and cold frames.

i see vertical gardening, sunflowers, and a few small fruit trees. 

unfortunately, due to space issues and the need for play areas for the puppernutz, 

i don't see an orchard, honey bees, or.... sniff sniff..... chickens.

with so much work to do inside the new house, the outside is going to have to wait a few weeks before i can get any kind of veggies going. fortunately i can still get to producing some food at my new community garden site down the street. our group installed the beds last saturday and since then i have put up a trellis and direct sowed two rows of peas. in the next few days i also hope to start some turnips, kohlrabi, and celery.

 

 isn't she pretty. 

i hope to add some sort of vertical structure to the back of the bed to maximize my space.

 i'm thinking something similar to the raised bed that i wrote about here.

ray thinks it's his radio, but......

i'm gonna steal it for the new kitchen.

it's going right on the yellow formica table i rescued from the alley. 

especially since it was really nice to have the radio going while i was cooking our "out of the garden" dinner last night. just look at those fresh mustard greens. they're doing really well out there under the double layer of frost cover, with little to no attention being paid to them. the turnips are doing ok. their growth seems a bit stunted with the colder weather, (it's gonna get down to 11 degrees tomorrow night ya'll!!!!!) but the ones that are full size are keeping nicely in the ground.

i can't wait to get into the new house, get settled, and start the new garden. i have big big plans for my little space. it's gonna be a lot of trial and error as i try to grow things up instead of out, and to be productive and harvest through all four seasons. i have a message into the sellers to see if i can grab some soil samples to send off for lead testing. once i get the results i will know which kind of garden plan/raised beds i am going to do.

i'm leaning towards a little something like this....

 (photo snagged from "the year round veggie gardener")

so nice and neat and pretty. 

i think the hubby would approve. 

also the cool thing about these raised beds is, you can use outside of the bed and the space in between to grow veggies up, like this.......

 (photo snagged from veggiegardener.com)

this will be great for my lemon cucumbers. they did really well this year and didn't suffer at the hands of the squash vine borders or the squirrels. however, for my winter squash i will need to find a way to grow upward and still keep them under a row cover of sorts for protection. dang you squash vine border!!!!!!!

getting some produce love from the garden in january!!!

it's been a little dry here lately, so i though i'd go out, check under the row cover, and water the fall garden. i really didn't expect to find much new going on. i knew the swiss chard had taken a hit the other night after the row cover had gotten blown off and a light snow fell on the exposed leaves. and i knew the the mustard greens were doing pretty good after i quickly reached under the covers two nights ago and picked some for our soup. but i really had no idea as to what was happening with the beets and turnips. well surprise, surprise!!!!!

look at that little garden grow!!!!!

it looks good from up here, let's take a closer look. 

what the heck!!!!

there are some turnips growing in there!!!

who knew?? not me. i wasn't expecting that at all. 

i was just gonna do a little watering. 

see the little bit of purple top peeking out.... that's me turnips!!

there was quite a few of them out there in various stages, 

so i just pulled out a few to see what they looked like. 

aren't they pretty!!??!!

the rest of the turnips i'll leave in the ground for awhile and harvest as needed. if we get more frost or a big freeze, in the end, that will just make them sweeter as the plant sends all it's sugars down to the roots for survival. and the row cover is proving to be useful at keeping the frost from damaging the green leaves. as for the beets, well, they were a failure. but if i remember correctly, i did not give them as much love as i did the turnips in the beginning, so i may only have myself to blame. i pulled up all the beets, which were growing in the middle, and that made it easier to water both the mustard greens and turnips, so c'est la vie. the swiss chard was looking a little sad under it's tent, so either the snow did it's deadly deed, or the soil was simply a little dry. i gave them some water, and with the temperatures rising a bit this week, we'll have to wait and see if they perk up over the next few days. stay turned!!

now just image what i can do once i get around to building cold frames and proper row cover!!!!

the dirty dozen for 2012

call them goals, call them resolutions, call them what you want, here are a few things i wish to work on for 2012....

1. eat better, exercise more, drop 20, 25, 30 pounds, blah, blah, blah....

2. be a nicer person and don't gossip. do what i wanna do, and don't tell others how to behave.

3. learn to knit.

4. sew a complete outfit.

5. work more on my bloggy blog.

6. spend more time in the kitchen learning new things, especially cheese making. 

7. brush my dogs' teeth at least every other day.

8. read 1 book a month.

9. keep up and organize the bill pile, along with organizing and downsizing the house.

10. create a 4 season garden that will hopefully, one day, provide all our produce.

11. enter at least 5 juried contests and take pictures, take pictures, take pictures........

12. spend more time, getting to where i'm going, by foot, bike, bus, or train.


and for our baker's dozen bonus....

13. GET CHICKENS!!!!!!!!!!!! 

happy new year. 

my best to you and yours.