The Peskiest of all Pests

I have never been a fan of insects. The creepy crawliness of them just....eck....I am getting the chills just thinking about bugs and their many legs walking on me...ooooo!
However, to the gardener, many bugs are helpful little critters: spiders protect our plants by eating tons of other harmful bugs, ladybugs eat aphids, centipedes eat those slimy slugs, and there are many other examples of creepy bugs doing great things to keep our gardens looking wonderful. So that means my shivers need to be subsided temporarily and when I see (or feel!) an insect, I must turn and walk away, knowing that it will then go eat something else that is trying to eat my garden.
There is one such bug, however, that I cannot find any useful purpose for. One that has been known to carry diseases and if nothing else, packs a wallop of annoyance and unending itches.
That insect, my friends, is the mosquito. And boy did it show its face this season! In years past, we could wander around the E.S. Garden pretty much all day up until dusk hit. Then the mosquitoes would come out in full force and we either had to arm ourselves with bug spray, find some campfire-shelter nearby, or run inside and hide.
This year we saw a whole new side of that obnoxious buzzing creature. It did not matter what time of day you were outside - morning, night, whenever. You were instantly barraged with a wall of mosquitoes. Normally the mosquitoes don't bother me quite as bad as many people. This year they showed no mercy, no preference. They were out for any and all blood.
And that certainly squashed some of the garden-love I had for this year.

Fall Update

Cosmos Bipinnatus

Here in Upstate New York we have had quite the "summer". Lots of rain, hail, below average temperatures, sogginess, blight, mosquitoes, flooding...ahhhhhhh!
But fear not, all hope was not lost, and there were some beauties to keep us smiling!

Tithonia Rotundiflora - Mexican Sunflower

Ipomoea alba - Moonflower

I started the Mexican sunflowers over at the Apartment Garden and replanted them after I moved. They took some time adjusting to outdoor garden life, but soon they started budding like crazy and not long after that the beautiful orange flowers were all over the yard.
Moonflowers are easy to grow and have such a beautiful color to them. I love purple flowers and this is definitely one my favorites. We have them trailing up trees all over the garden.

Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes

Despite the tomato blight that has destroyed thousands of tomato plants and has virtually killed many tomato farmer's crops, our plants overall came out OK. We had more cherry tomatoes than we knew what to do with! I think I had cherry tomatoes for every meal of the day a few times.

Our basil also did wonderfully. We made lots of pesto, basil pizzas, basil and greens salads. I probably love the smell of basil more than I enjoy the taste so I definitely sat down in the middle of the basil patch a few times this season and just smelled and smelled and smelled. Ahhhh....

And now...for the not so good...

poor little cucumbers (they should be green, by the way)

The E.S. Garden is set up in a way where about a third of the garden is sloped down and is in the lowest part of the yard. Most summers this isn't an issue because usually we're dealing with a drought, or at least a severely decreased amount of water. This year, however, (and last year for that matter) we were wet for almost the entire summer. Just to get an idea of how soaked we got this summer, here's a breakdown of the number of days it rained (and by rained I mean more than a trace, I left out the days that it still rained but not enough to measure) :

14 days of rain - June
18 days of rain - July
9 days of rain - August

July? Are you for real? 18 days of rain? That would mean we had 13 days of no rain. Which isn't to say sun. Because the number of actual sunny days, I'm sure, hovered around five or six. Yes that is pathetic. That is why we have poor cucumbers like the one pictured above. And why our tomato plants look like this far earlier than they should:


So I suppose after seeing our pathetic sunshine forecast for the summer, I can understand why we suffered in the veggie area. Other than tomatoes and basil we had a great crop of swiss chard, our rutabagas are blasting right out of the soil and are almost ready to enjoy. (My favorite way to eat rutabagas is with mashed potatoes. Mash them both together, mmmm delicious!), our other herbs did very well and so did some of our peppers. The carrots came out great and this year we even had some red ones come up in our mixed variety! The flowers also faired well, overall, especially the sunflowers. I think they didn't mind the rain as much as our veggies.

September is coming to a close so normally we would be waiting for our crops of squash, pumpkins and other root vegetables. Unfortunately our squash plants were some of the first to go to the squishy, squishy pile. The delacotas and winter squash were planted at the very bottom of the garden and were rotten very early on. Our pumpkins went the same route and we did not plant any potatoes this year. So we're waiting on our trusted rutabagas and we're already chowing down on our fall crop of greens, spinach and carrots.

I'm sorry, I've been keeping promises like a middle school girl as far as my blog posts are concerned. Thanks for not breaking up with me or telling me we can't be friends or beating me up in gym class. I appreciate that.

Dear rain: Get over yourself

I am taking it as a good sign that I've never really heard about this crazy, destructive disease of the tomato plant. As the article says, the rain has helped spread the disease quickly. However, it is worth pointing out that the magnitude of the spread is largely due to the fact that many plants come from the same large grower and supply to places like Walmart and Kmart. Making it much easier for the disease to spread from plant to plant as they sit in humugo greenhouses.
Another reason to buy local, friends.

Yes, I can appreciate all the wonderful things the rain does for us. We wouldn't survive without it. But daaamn it was 69 yesterday and it has rained something like 20 out of the last 25 days.

On a positive note, the rain has forced me to stay inside and get things done that need I to do. There's a big change a comin' for the Apartment Garden...oh yes...

Knockout!

Votes were counted, briberies were offered but refused, and the results are in!

Winner of the 1st Annual 2009 Who Has The Most Diesel Seedlings Contest:


























Any who have followed the travels of these seedlings should not be surprised by the winner. Jiff's pods prevail! Frankly coconut fiber, you suck:

















These pictures were taken on the same day. The coconut seedlings are yellowed and droopy while Jiff's pods are lush and green.
What you typically see before transplanting a healthy seedling is a well established root system around the medium you use.

Healthy rooted seedling

I do not have a picture of the coconut fiber seedling but when I took it out of the six-pack the medium crumbled away. The roots were growing straight down and through the bottom. So most of the root was wallowing on the plastic bottom instead of in some nice, helpful dirt. It makes sense they would be so yellow and unhealthy looking.


In other news...

I embarked on quite the lettuce seedling thinning process recently

















I had a ton of 1" pots and old Tupperware laying around so that made for easy temp. storage containers. I plan to give away many of the seedlings, I have plenty to keep for myself.
See the finished products here, and here.

It has been a busy few weeks over in the E.S. Garden. Enjoy the pictures of the flowers, they are especially wonderful. Thanks to the boy for taking lovely pictures, much more pro-fes-sion-al than myself. I've been over there quite a bit planting, weeding, mowing, and planning. We've had more greens than we know what to do with. The asparagus continues to grow enough so we're picking it every few days. We've had a taste of the radishes, as well, and wow are they little fire balls. I'm attempting to grow some apartment garden radishes, let's hope they can still enjoy a more confined living arrangement.

As you can see we've been very busy over here at The Pale Gardener!

New Home

We have successfully upgraded living quarters for some of our plants. It was a relatively pain-free process. For normal, run of the mill plants, the big parts to remember when repotting are :

-Start out with a clean pot. That way any yucko fungus or bacteria is cleaned away from the previous inhabitant.

-When repotting it's generally accepted that your new pot should be a size larger than your current pot.

-I like to breakup the root ball a bit before I plop it in. I've read that you can even trim the roots a little before you put it in its new pot. Just make sure the cutting device you use is clean.

-Leave a little space at the top of the pot so there's enough room to water without making a mess.

-Water the plant after it's all set in its new home.

*I just want to note that I am still new to this whole blog idea thing so I often forget to take pictures midway through the process. I will try and remember next time. For now, all I have are the finished products.*

Here is our aloe in its happy new home. This was not originally on the list of repots but part of the plant was heading right over the side and making it a bit of a balancing act trying to get it to stay up sometimes. So I figured it was time to upgrade. There were many, tiny, new aloe plants growing interspersed in the soil so it was a little tough to make sure none of them were sacrificed and burried alive (wow that sounds so morbid!). It has been in its new home for a few weeks and it seems to be adjusting nicely.

























I split the jades up into two pots. There were four plants in one teeny pot and generally you want one to two in a pot. I wanted to use wider mouthed bowls so they could sit a decent distance from each other. I recycled the old pot that held the aloe plants for the first set and I used the old pot that housed the fern for the second set of jades. They have also been in their new pots for a few weeks and are doing very well.
I also moved the jades back from the window a bit because they were starting to look a little pale. Since then they're back to their deep green color. So it seems jades like more indirect sunlight. Now they are about ten feet back from the window when before they were about three feet from the South-West facing window.


I'll be moving some of my plants out on the porch in the next few weeks. I can't wait to get some floor space back!

I was over at the E.S. Garden yesterday mowing the lawn, and everything is getting so green! I brought home fresh greens and asparagus. Here are some pictures to enjoy!

Happy Day!

In approximately 7.5 hours I will be sitting down to my A&P II final for the semester. After that, freedom until August.
I do love school, don't get me wrong, I especially love what I'm doing now. But...it will be nice to be able to come home after work, not plan out three meals for the day at 630AM, and of course, attend to my apartment garden. Which by the way, is coming along quite nicely. The sunflowers are taking right off and I even have some chamomile popping up!
I planted some cress and chives over the weekend. The cress package was not lying when it said it was fast growing, the plants are an inch tall already!
E.S. Garden is also booming. The asparagus is growing like a weed! We have to pick it a few times a week! Boy do I love that asparagus...makes your pee smell funny though.
OK TMI, Jess.

Pics coming soon!

Til then, wish me luck!

We Have Lift-off!

Seeds have been planted! Actually, I planted them about a week ago, so I speak the truth when I say some are already pokin' their green goodness out of the soil. But I had this whole plan of doing a little science experiment aand using two types of mediums to grow the same plants and seeing which grew better and it was going to be great!
Well I did do it, I'm just behind on blogging about it. So we're going to pretend it's a week ago.

OK, so, la la, it is April 11th and here we go with Jessica's Science Experiment to the Stars!

I bought two different seed starting kits:




Jiffy seed starter - $5.89
Burpee seed starter - $7.99








So what I did was plant the same seed in both both starter kits, at the same time, and I'll compare both to see which one grows better plants.

So far this is my synopsis of the two:

Burpee:
I was very excited about this because it was different than other seed starting kits I've seen. This is a coconut fiber-based medium. The box touts its ability to drain well, preventing root rot and such.

Pros:
+ It came with plastic tags so I could label each cell group.
+ Relatively mess-free. I live in a small apartment, without a yard, so mess-free is the way to be!
+ The coconut comes in a compact sphere and it expands in seconds when water is poured on it.

Cons:
- The cells are very deep so I can see it being a pain trying to get them out when the time comes.
- Although the fiber expanded quickly it didn't expand evenly and it took me a while to break up all the bits.


Jiffy:
Pretty standard mix. Comes in netting.

Pros:
+ The netting will make transfer very easy.
+ Expanded quickly and evenly.

Cons:
- Doesn't come with tags. I made homemade ones...out of cardboard...they were soaked quickly...not my brightest move.
- A little messier than the coconut because the pods don't sit in any container, so the dirt spilled out a bit.

So what did we plant!


- Two varieties of lobelia
- Mexican sunflower
- lavender
- thyme
- chamomile
- sweet marjoram

I have a few more I still need to plant, but it's a bit early and I don't feel like transplanting things 8 times before I can bring them outside.



As you can see, I don't have any veggies. I will plant a lettuce mix, but I'm going to plant it right into the soil. The rest will be grown at the ol' p-rents house and I will share all that goodness as well.

Next week on The Pale Gardener - I'll let you all know which medium had the first sprouts! ooooo the suspense! I'll also post some pictures of the E.S. Garden (my new name for the parent's place) it's coming along wonderfully!

Keep your fingers crossed the seeds survive the weekend.
The boy is turning 25 tomorrow (Happy Birthday Nick!) and we're going out to visit my bro for the weekend. So I hope when Sunday rolls around I don't come home to poor little dead seedlings.

Give it the ol' college try...

Felder Rushing gives some good tips and persuasions to those still on the edge about starting a garden. And his definition of "garden" can fit almost any of our lifestyles:

Slow, Easy, Cheap and Green


I want to be friends with this dude.

Ok, Ok...

I know, this doesn't look good for me. I can't even get past the first post! I promise once the weather gets above 25 during the day, I will be more motivated to do plant-type things and therefore more motivated to blog!
First I'll set the stage for you all. "You all" being, like, me at this point. Regardless! Here we go:


The players:

The reason for this blog:








And you can see many, many more pictures of the jungle after I get around to setting up a photo site.


Also playing a roll in this production number:






Me of course!
Yes, the short, sunburn-prone individual above will be providing the entertainment for this evening.
However, don't show up every night, this girl is a nursing student (with high hopes of being a midwife!) so between a full-time job and part-time school, shows will be infrequent and possibly quite bad.
Fair warning to you all. (yes, yes still just me)



Also included in my rabblings but currently I am too lazy to post pictures of because, damn it takes a while to edit each picture so it doesn't take up 5 feet of scrolling space are:

-The full-time, humugo garden I help take care of over in ol' East Schodack.
- My doodle-bop animal buddies that I share a home with. Alf, Lola and Floyd.
- The great BF who may or may not want his mug posted on my blog. That will be determined.

Eventually I will get a photo space set up so I can post the beautiful pictures there where my lazy self will not have to edit each one for perfect height and width proportions.
In the next month I'll start planting some seeds and will get ready to transplant all the houseplants that are dying in their too small pots.
Until then, all us Upstate NYers are ready for Spring! (Although it was comforting to have a real winter again...finally)