Monday, March 31, 2014

Adding Ornamental Edibles to Your Landscape

The beautiful fall orange color of a blackberry cane is decidedly ornamental.

I have always had an eye toward growing my own food.  Maybe it is because my dad is a farmer.  I know where food comes from; someone has to grow it.  Maybe it is because I live in a food desert of a sort; because I live in an agricultural area, unless you grow it, it is terribly expensive, or not to be had unless you find something that is damaged falling off a truck.  Maybe I am just too cheap to buy it because I can grow it.

The decorative aspect of the savoy type cabbage which was grown in a large pot along with a canna and crocosimia  (non-edibles) is hard to deny.  As I only eat a cabbage or two a year, growing a couple in a pot is ideal.
I don't know, but I have always tried to incorporate as many edibles into my landscape as possible.

Friday, March 28, 2014

Pelargonium 'Vancouver Centennial' Comes Home


One of the plants hurriedly repotted and sent to live at my neighbor's over the winter while I was recouperating has found its way home, magnificently in bloom.  Something to bring me joy this spring day.


It seems to incorporate orange, red and purple into its bloom color matrix.


Had to share!

Seeing With the Gardener's Eye

Thinking bright, sunny thought, traveling in my time machine...or trying to.

Gardeners have their own sort of time travel machine.  They can look out into their snowy and snow-covered frozen yards and see a garden at the height of bloom in say mid-July.  They can see lush greens when everything is brown and withered.  I have been using that time machine a lot the last few days.

My garden is still relatively snow covered, but already I can see that this brutal winter has taken a toll.  I will stare at a particular section of garden thinking of how I want it to look this summer, thinking back to how it looked last summer, and then slam on the brakes

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Embracing the Suck...Broken

Phormis, kept under my neighbor's lights all winter while I recovered.
When I am not gardening, I substitute teach. 

As a substitute teacher, I sometimes get to have conversations with young people which I could never imagine.  Returning to school now with a cane to walk has given me membership in a special club, the mobile but less than able.  In schools, there are always those athletes who have messed up an ACL or MCL, or have sprained an ankle.  We are all enabled to ask, "what happened to you?"

There are also those with lifetime membership to the "Broken Club".  Today, I had a conversation with one such student.  This student is an avid BMX dirt bike racer.  Two or thIree years ago on a beautiful spring day, he had a terrible accident.  I was subbing at the school then and heard of the accident.  When I heard of his injuries, I could not imagine him even living, let alone returning to school, or having a normal life.  For sure, I never imagined having the deep, soul-searching conversation about the very depths your psyche can bottom-out to when recovering from such an injury.  Conversation about the mindless hours, adding up to days, weeks, and months, to recover from such injuries and when his eyes met mine as he dug deep to express that, he knew that I knew where that place was.

And, that we had both been there.

And suddenly, we had a very deep connection, because we both know not too many people get to that place, especially not someone who is not yet 18 (or even people at my age), and certainly not his peers.

Because of the extent of his injuries, including spinal and brain, he was on a lot of anti-inflammatory and blood thinning drugs.  That summer though was pretty much a blur, and he said he thinks the doctors probably had him on anti-depressants as well, he's not sure.  He says they helped.

But the one thing that really burned inside him was his desire to get back on the horse that threw him...to competitively dirt bike again, to earn his semi-pro status.  I have to say his courage is greater than mine.  This spring, when winter finally lets go of central Wisconsin, he will finally be back on his bike.  I will be crossing my fingers for him.  It is what drives him. He needs to do it. 

And I get it.

Baby hosta!

Whatever  it is that drives us is what makes us whole.  It is what we live for.   Whatever it is, if we can't do it, then we will be broken.  Until then we will embrace the suck, and it will move us forward.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Best Tomatoes for Central Wisconsin

A selection of grape tomatoes at 2013 Waushara County Fair

What is the best tomato to grow in central Wisconsin?

Like I might know...

Well, this is a very important question, almost every gardener plants tomatoes.  Whether you buy transplants or start your own seed, the choice of tomatoes can be crucial to having a good year in the garden.


I suppose I should be a tad more scientific in my analysis, but basically I have been checking out what gets the blue ribbons at the county fair each year as a integral part of my analysis.  Over the last few years we have had some drastically different weather patterns and this more than anything has affected my tomato harvest.

Also, as I like to grow tomatoes primarily to can, I tend to like the meaty Roma style tomato over the large mortgage buster types.  Also, there is the determinate versus indeterminate discussion.  Do you want your tomatoes to set and ripen all at once, or the grow on morphing vines that set out clusters of tomatoes and then just keep going?  Determinant tend to set and ripen all at once.  And those of your that feel you have to trellis or cage your tomatoes, indeterminate certainly go a long way to justifying your grounds to do that.

I think the best answer is you want to grow some of each of the types.

Two of my favorites are open-pollinated heirlooms that seem to come true no matter what sort of foolishness I have going on in my garden.  These are the grape type 'Chocolate Cherry' and the meaty low-acid 'Amana Orange'.  'Amana Orange' is an early ripening big, yellow orange tomato best picked a bit on the unripe side.  The 'Chocolate Cherry' will ripen on a window sill and hold well more than a month in your vegetable drawer  after the last gasps of autumn are heard.  As a larger, yet still sweet grape type that germinates and grows well and comes true from seed, it is easy to keep in your garden year to year at no cost.
 
When I have observed tomatoes for your typical middle of the road, red tomato with unblemished skin, no cracks, and consistency from tomato to tomato, in central Wisconsin that has to be 'Celebrity'.  My favorite canning Roma, 'Olpalka', and 'San Marano' both deliver.  I always grow these.

You could add the 'Sweet 100' to the list of good growing tomatoes here, as well as any of the 'Mountain'" series, 'Mountain Princess', 'Mountain Girl'.  From year to year grape tomatoes seem to grow well no matter what the growing conditions, particularly in cooler, wetter and shorter growing seasons.  For larger slicers, though in a hot dry year, grow 'Celebrity'.

What are your favorite tomatoes?

Friday, March 21, 2014

Some Die-back in the Garden

Left, Japanese cypress in warmer days, may have been a victim to this extreme winter's depths.
Yesterday was the first day of spring.  Lots of snow covering the garden, snow banks are piled high, but the roads ae generally clear.  Plants are beginning to poke their last years' growth above the snowline. I fear damage and death to those zone-challenging plants will be coming.  My motto, "It's not dead until it is warm and dead."  Warm it has not been.

Walking as I do with a cane and a lot of effort as I do these days, is not conducive to getting out in the garden.  Sitting on my deck yesterday in the bright warm sunshine (it was all of 40 degrees (F) here, heatwave!),I could see a lot of plants needing trimming and pruning.  Already I am fretting over pruning my Katsura trees into their neat lollipop shapes and how far I might be able to trim back the dwarf leaf Artic blue willow (and whether it is a height that won't leave it denuded of the ability to generate new growth and allow me to trim it without using a step ladder (something Handsome Son is already cautioning me not to do).

From the deck I can see brown Japanese cypress.  Brown is not the right color.  It is typically a tantalizing lime yellow and fresh green.  There has been tip die-back in the past,   This spring, from my deck, I can see three feet of "tip die-back" and I am worried.

But the joyful factor was not lost on me.  I was outdoors, sitting on my own deck, with the sunlight hitting my skin looking at my garden.  And as bad as things have been for me these last six months, that was not lost on me.

My yew that surrounds the base of my 'Crimson Frost' birch has a big brown splotchy appearance and the larger box in my garden has definitely had some wind burn or sun scald.  Yesterday, the widow-maker limb of my ancient white pine which broke off in April of 2013 (and lodged some 60 feet up) was removed from my roof by Handsome Son after antics involving a water-filled milk jug, rope and a gym shoe.  It has soft landed there a few days before during a windy evening, with no damage.

There will be a lot of debris for spring clean up, as my putting the garden to bed last fall did not take place.  First, however there was the attempted task of building a handrail on the steps to aid my progress up and down the step in less than safe and dry conditions.I feared at one point I might need to widen the steps or install a ramp for access.  At this point neither of those is a necessary plan, thank goodness, but for safety, all concerned feel a handrail a must.

Each day I am pushing myself.  Each day, my muscles are screaming back at me.  I want to just get up and move, but like this winter, both are something this gardener is still working through.  Like my beautiful Japanese cypress that has suffered tip die-back in the past, I will not count it or me out, not until we are both warm and dead.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Life! (Penciling it in...)

Statice, germinated!
March is starting to thaw us.  There is still a LOT of snow around and temperatures today reached only 18 degrees (F).

But life is starting to regain a footing.  I have heard bird song!  Silly robins!

Handsome Son is home from his college spring break.  He took me out to eat.  In a restaurant.  For the first time in six months.  Wow...

I have seedlings growing, although not too many, in a southern window space. Statice seed germinated very quickly at a high percentage using the coffee filter method.  Mystic Lilac Wave petunias, although nearly microscopic have also germinated in a pot in a Ziplock bag.  I am a bit behind the curve on those, but they will probably catch up as they germinated very rapidly.

I am thinking of getting my peppers and tomatoes going, too.

And on the personal front, I have accepted my first work assignments since my fall last October.  I am a bit nervous about that.  I made it very clear: I need to use a cane.  The first assignment is an easy one and was one of my favorites before my accident.  There is flat parking, close to the door and the classroom is right there, too.  It doesn't have any physically ardurous responsibilities.   I can stand, sit, and move around as much or as little as I like.  We'll see how it goes.

In the three weeks I have been home in my own house, the three steps in and out are no longer a challenge (not taking on any ice, though!).  Showering, although a tad precarious and time-consuming, not that much of a challenge any longer either.

Getting up and down the flight of stairs to my growing room, but the time I will really need the space, will most likely no longer be a challenge either.  I am starting to fill in my life, but I am using a pencil.  I'll see how it goes..

Monday, March 10, 2014

My Favorite Way to Start Seedlings: Parsley


Spring is thawing us here in the frozen north of central Wisconsin.  The Polar Vortex has abated a tad.  The car thermometer said 55 degrees today!

Yes, car thermometer, as in I was out of the house on my own for the first time in 5 1/2 months!  I went to the dentist!  No one has ever been more excited to go to the dentist, I can assure you.  I guess you have to spend a couple months in bed and then a few more not stepping outside, all the while knowing it is freaking 40 below with the wind chill out there on the tundra, to make 55 degrees and a visit to the dentist to have a filling replaced seem to be as wonderful an outing as a trip to Hawaii.

The weather today has got me all jazzed up to start some seedlings and get going on some corms to be transplanted later.  This year it is going to be pretty simple.  I am still about a week from starting my basil, tomatoes, and peppers.  I also want to start some flat leaved Italian parsley.

Parsley is one of those things that you sit and you wait and you wait and you sit.  During all that time it takes up a lot of space.  The seed is nice sized so you can see what you are working with,  I like to use coffee filters for this process, although I have heard of people doing this with paper towels.  I find it is easier to pick the seed off coffee filters versus the damp paper towels as the seedlings' radicules tend to grow into the paper toweling pretty quickly.  You don't want to damage roots at this stage.


I wet the coffee filter in hot water and remove a lot of the excess moisture.  Placing them on my bamboo cutting board makes it easy to see the filter and the seed when I sprinkle them on the wet filter.  I then fold the filter over into quarters.  Light can still penetrate for those seedlings with that requirement.  I put the folded filters, two to a zip-lock bag and tape then on the side of my fridge where they get morning light.

This saves a lot of space.  This is a great method to use for seedlings that will germinate at temperatures from 55 to 70 degrees (F), whether or not light is a requirement.   I typically use this method for seedling that require more than 7-10 days to germinate.  (Today I used this method with parsley, onions, statice, and laurentia.)

When the seedlings are thinking about the third leaf (or the first true leaves) they get carefully pricked into growing medium.  If they are very tiny, I shake them onto growing medium, lightly cover, and press.  I often continue to control humidity with either a dome lid or a wrapping of plastic wrap over the tray.   This method saves me three weeks of trying to control humidity levels while staring at trays with nothing growing in them.

In a couple weeks, check back in and show you the seeds' progress.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

On Your Mark, Seedlings!

(Photo: Jungs')
This past weekend, my Handsome College Son has come home for a visit.  Large and looming, was attempting to climb the stairs to my second floor.  Two weeks ago, when I finally came home after five months of recuperating with my brother and the Gardening Nephews, stairs loomed large and foreboding in my mental landscape.

Going up and down stairs seemed a Herculean challenge of sorts, like breaking a box squat record or the four-minute-mile.  It had become the definition of insanity in my family, and probably the ultimate definition of possible stupidity (behind my back).

But, you see, I am motivated.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Appreciating Plants Just as They Are

Smoke bush 'Nordine'

I think as gardeners, we tend to have fanciful visions this time of year as to what our gardens will look like come high summer.  I dare say last summer, with my garden featured on the county's Master Gardeners' Garden Walk, my garden was close to the best it has ever been.  This year with my newly developed frailty, I have wondered what I will be able to do in the garden.

One of my many sisters called me last night and being on top of one of my "I'm making progress" days, I repeated a commonly used phrase about being able to change what I can and not worrying about what I can't.  I think that is a phrase a lot of us gardeners need to take more to heart.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

So What Does Life Look Like?

Baby hostas!
This winter has been horrible, not to put too fine a point on it.

I am looking for my new normal, whatever that will be from now on.  In my last post, I mentioned "digging deep."  Digging deep has entailed looking right into the abyss and deciding what is important to me and how do I keep what is important to me, so I can continue to be... me.

Coming home has helped, even though I miss my wonderful nephews.  Away from their hugs, and their smiles, and their laughter, but as much as I miss them, I realize I really needed sunlight.  Sunlight is something my tiny house has in spades.  Built 150 years ago, the sun tracks around the house from room to room in nearly the order I use the rooms through the day.  The sunlight greets me in the kitchen in the morning.  Opening the blinds and allowing it to spill through the room as I make coffee is no little dose of good medicine.

Mid-way into January, a scant few days before the Spring semester began at the local community college, I decided I needed a new career.  A career that would not be dependent on whether or not I could walk, or walk well.  With cajoling, begging, and paying some extra fees, I managed to wrangle myself into some online classes that will go toward a technical diploma I hope I can complete in December this year.

I am also auditing a MOOC, one of the huge (30,000 estimated students worldwide) online offerings through Coursera on evolution and anthropology, which is more brain candy than anything else.  It is one of the first MOOC offered by my alma mater, the UW-Madison through Coursera.

I have started cleaning my house.  I have dragged around the vacuum, swept, put away almost everything I had taken to my brother's.  I have been sleeping downstairs in Handsome Son's room.  He's at college, and I promised both him and my brother I would not attempt the stairs, even on my butt.

I started some baby blue hostas (the deeply grooved and rumpled 'Abiqua Drinking Gourd') and heuchera from seeds raised from seed of 'Palace Purple' which have always had a lot more of the mahogany and russet tones with the purple.  Not having access to my grow room, the lights, trays, and racks; I have gone old school with a zip lock bag, egg cartons, and my southern window.  Not ideal, but...

Growing something gives me faith.  Punching the tiny radicules into the potting soil two days ago was calming to my soul.  I managed to do nearly the whole lot of them standing without taking a rest-- good exercise.  

Each day I have been peddling 30 to 40 minutes on a Drive Peddler.  I was desperately looking for a way to increase my cardio, and not being able to move, my options were limited, to say the least.  When it first arrived mid-January, I thought I would be primarily using my right leg and the right would be giving the left a "ride".  Most of my attempts the first week, made me question whether even that would be possible.  It was painful.  It was uncomfortable and unnatural feeling.  Sometimes it felt like I was re-breaking something.  If I could position myself properly I could maybe get 1500 revolution in 30 minutes.

I did not quit.  I tried every day.  Many days, the first two weeks I was crying or in pain.  I thought maybe this was a very bad idea. I had to use a shower brush to get my feet into the stirrups.  I tracked my progress and the amount of pain I had.  After three weeks, I realized I didn't have pain everyday.  Tracking the time and revolutions also allowed me to see progress.  One day I hit 2700 revolutions in 30 minutes.  It was a milestone.

I thought I had plateaued the other day, until I realized I hadn't used the shower brush to position my feet for more than a couple days, didn't have pain anymore, and then I hit 3100!

Yesterday was 18 weeks from my fracture.  I wanted to walk unassisted by Christmas.  That did not happen.  For a few weeks, I thought that might mean I never would walk again on my own.  That made me depressed and angry.   I don't know how people in their 80s come back from something like this.  And actually, statistically, few do.  Few walk on their own or live on their own again.

About ten days ago I started trying to walk with a cane.  It has been rough.  Again there is pain, pressure in the joint; I tire easily.  It has been slow.  The "slow" makes me feel old.  I move old.  I don't feel old.   Mentally, it is not a good place to be.  To contemplate a probable 30 years of moving old is a lot to consider.

My family is encouraging, telling me this is a bump in the road.  Crap, it feels like a sink hole.

The road back from the abyss is slow-going, be sure to bring a map.  The sign posts point to independence that way... it is the direction I am trying to go.