Blackberry Heaven

I ate a blackberry today. It was right off the vine, and slightly warm on this summer day. It tasted like eating sunshine.

Then I begrudgingly gave one to Elliott. He didn't really want it, thinking it wouldn't taste like anything. But even he said it was excellent, and he isn't typically forthcoming with compliments, so it must have been excellent.

Then I ate one more, and blackberry season was done for us this year. With the summer heat, growth is at a standstill, and there aren't any more flowers or green berries left. My little blackberry vines are in their first year, and so I'm grateful for the three berries we did get. Most blackberry plants won't produce any in their first year. However, it does make me feel like I can't wait for NEXT summer.

More New Beginnings

I spent a chunk of my morning making small newspaper pots to start my corn seeds! Corn is always exciting to me because it was the flagship in my family's garden as a child. I will be planting corn along with beans between my already planted squash in a Three Sisters Garden. In this arrangement, the corn provides support for the beans, the beans provide nitrogen fixing for the heavy feeding corn and squash, and the squash grows around the base of the corn and beans providing shade (and therefore more moisture) for their roots and protecting them from animals with their prickly leaves and stems. This arrangement also allows for an efficient spacing of plants; I hope to have about 30 corn and bean plants planted by mid summer. The newspaper pots should provide a good nursery for my corn plants that will break down once I transplant the sprouts into the garden. The corn seeds are soaking as I right (and have been since this morning) and they'll go into their little pots this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

Other new beginnings are everywhere. My pea plants have just started to blossom, the fava beans have blossoms EVERYWHERE, almost every tomato plants has little yellow flowers, and even my boysenberries have a few white flowers to show off for summer. The carrot seeds I planted a few weeks back have finally started to sprout. The asian greens and mesclun I planted with them didn't fare so well, with only a half dozen or so mustard greens sprouting. But summer is fast approaching and the greens will get bitter with the heat, so it's not much loss. Perhaps I didn't water enough, or the seeds were too old (I bought them in 2009).

Plans for this week are to put in the pepper and strawberry plants I bought last week, seed the corn, seed more radishes and beets, and tie up the tomatoes and fava beans which have outgrown their last set training ties.

Peppers

I transplanted most of my pepper plants into the tomato bed today. There is one pepper plant in front of each tomato, except for one...my Anaheim peppers are still a little too small so I left a spot reserved for one. From left to right they are jalapeno, cayenne, ancho/poblano, anaheim (coming soon), california wonder, sweet chocolate, golden wonder, dulcetta x3. Each transplant got about 1/2 a tablespoon of Sure Start at the bottom of it's new home and while I was there I also gave each tomato a heaping tablepoon of Tomato & Vegetable food.

Because I had 15 pepper seedlings and 10 spots, that leaves 1 ancho/poblano, 1 cayenne, 2 dulcetta, and 1 anaheim that will be going into pots in the side yard later this week. They will be joining my boysenberries and Martino's Roma tomato which, since I had it out, also got fertilizer today. 1 T for each berry plant and 3 T for the tomato. Hopefully I will get my herbs and those boysenberries into bigger pots this week as well.

The Hawaiian Currant that I put into a rockwool pot in the aquaponics bed may recover, but I'd say it's a long shot. Only a couple small leaves have perked up since yesterday and they are still looking mighty sad. The duckweed trough for my aquaponics setup is looking sad as well. I think I will do a water change on it this afternoon and get an air bubbler in there as well. The water from the change will come from my main aquaponics system. It has turned such a lovely shade of electric green over the last week that you can no longer see the fish, but this green water will be delicious food for the daphnia that I am hoping to purchase this weekend. I suspect that once the seeds in the net pots get going, they will outcompete the algae and this problem will resolve itself.

A fresh start

Clearly, I am terrible at keeping a journal of any sort. I haven't posted in months and my garden has been almost as neglected. So, with Spring just around the corner, a new batch of seeds flats, and an iPhone to hopefully make it easier to post...I'm beginning again.



I've got melons, squash, peppers, eggplant, cucumber, and a variety of herb seeds in seed starter mix.



A couple courageous melons have started to creep upwards and I look forward to seeing their more timid flat mates soon. Boysenberry starts from my Aunt Steph are also waking up for Spring.




This morning I sprayed Round-up on the weeds that infiltrated my beds over the winter and I look forward to their slow death that will ensue. By the time my little seed children are ready to go out and play, hopefully I'll have the beds weed free and dug to fluffiness. Beet, carrot, radish, chard, and pea seeds are at the ready and will hopefully make their way into the garden in the next week.

It's good to be back with my hands in the dirt!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Must Try

Someday when I build up enough courage, I'm going to have to try this Raspberry & Green Tomato Cobbler