Have a Plan...

April 2014, actually the "after" photo, this is not a bare slate...

July 2013

It is always good to have a plan.  Last year with the Garden Walk looming, I wasn't about to switch it up or around, or make any drastic changes.  Even experienced gardeners will admit, if they are honest, you never know exactly what a growing season may hold and how that impacts well-laid plans of mice and men... and gardeners.

Without any changes, it will like look much like this again this year.

So although I conceived this idea...

Oh, I Need Spring!

I need Spring.

The picture above was taken last year, just ten days from now. The ice was gone from the Mill Pond, The maples already in bloom. The ground was workable. With 80 degree temperatures the maple syrup harvest was over before it began. The we had a very cold April and cherries, apricots, and apples froze. No crop at all. The first picking of strawberries, too was a loss. Last summer was not a particularly sweet one.

Still, I would like some warm days. With rainy weather versus snow, especially as 56% of the United States is still in drought. Feed lots across the country have a cow shortage. There is horse in the beef products and up to a 1/3 of the fish are not what is labeled.

Dear sister-in-law (SIL), mother of Baby Boo, or Baby Gardener as I typically call him in Summer, says. "Buy local! Horse meat and mislabeled fish is what you get when you don't know your supplier."

We plot and plan in passing moments as we prepare food from the garden for the Family Game Night. The menu is fajitas with seasonings straight from the freezer and pantry shelf lined with the salsa canned in September. Made with the tomatoes that so fascinated Boo when he realized they float as we washed them, bobbing red balls in the sink full of warm water.

The call is for more fruit. We will add more blueberries, rejuvenate a bed of strawberries. SIL wants cranberries. Cranberries will freeze well and she has a rhubarb cranberry relish she likes. I think I have found a source. She also wants cilantro added. One of the Twins wants peaches. We are still discussing that one.

Also, one of the Twins wants tiny white pumpkins. I have found a variety called "Boo". How perfect!

The Twins and I have been germinating seed using the baggy method. It is spinach and it has sprouted. Their Poppa and they are also growing mold on some strawberries, blueberries, and other miscellaneous food stuffs. All tossed in a clear glass container on the kitchen counter. It is a trap for anyone unaware of its contents, but the Twins are fascinated with this no longer microscopic organism growing in their "Petri" dish.

I'll stick to seeds.

This is the garden division of labor; we decide together, and I produce the seed, typically from saving, and germinate and grow our transplants and source anything else that goes into the garden. We are trying to develop a local provenance to the seed as well. We wish we could grow oranges and bananas, too. I can well understand the English and their glass houses. The garden is on my brother and SIL's property. It is herbicide and pesticide-free.

We all plant and harvest. My brother does the majority of the watering. I do most of the weeding.

These are varieties that grow well in central Wisconsin.

This is what we grow:

Victoria rhubarb
Purple Passion asparagus
Autumn Bittern raspberries
Blackberries
Reliance seedless grapes
Concord grapes
Honeoye strawberries
Lapin cherries
Patten pears
Northland and Blueray blueberries
Mount Royal plums
Blue, Red Norland, Pontiac, and Yukon Gold potatoes
Kidney, contender,and Flambeau beans
Danvers, Yaya, carrots
Spaghetti squash
Crookneck summer squash
Straight Eight cucumbers
Aunt Molly cape gooseberries
Verde tomatilos
Yum, California Wonder, Planet Hybrid, sheepnose Pimento, and Margaret peppers
Olpaka, Celebrity, and Amana Orange tomatoes
Early Sunglow sweetcorn
some looseleaf salad blends

We grow just a few turnips, cabbage, and rutabagas. Last year, we did not grow parsnips, a mistake.



In about a week I will start peppers, followed by tomatoes. Right now, parsley and basil seeds are in baggies swelling and moving toward germination. I have had my lights set up and working rooting flowering bedding plant cuttings. Now I will move into my vegetables...

...with more snow in the forecast and Spring an illusive dream.

Garden Ballet: Opening and Closing Show on July 13, 2013

Hemerocallis hybridized by my Handsome Son.

I never do this-- plan out my garden additions to a prompt a crescendo for any given weekend-- as I am doing this year.

Garden Walk - July 13, 2013.

I tend to think of garden design as writing ballet in three acts in which all the principals must be on stage in all acts, even if they die before the end or have no lines until after the big chase scene.

My neighbor, Dr. Darrel Apps, is also on this garden walk. I asked him what plants he would add to my garden. Tongue in cheek, he answered, "Daylilies."

Cue guffaws and ruckus laughter. This comment from a world renown daylily hybridizer, who as I type this is probably putting more and more daylily seed into his fridge to prompt its germination.

I have been looking for cheap inspiration everywhere. In the course of my searching, I have noticed a lot of my pictures "pinned" on Pinterest. I'm not a "pinner". Maybe I will be someday, but not now.

Something I noticed when I typed particular garden related words was how many pictures I have taken have found their way to be pinned on Pinterest. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Obviously, it is a compliment. And, as I have hundreds of hits a day, even in winter for my blog, it is something to be expected. Also, it is not like I haven't found inspiration in the pictures of others. The internet and its pictorial nature have certainly gone a long way to make me feel less trapped in the boonies, for certainly central Wisconsin IS the boonies.

Typically, the pictures do have my blog's tagline on them, too. "Someday," I keep playing with the idea of a book on garden art and staging a garden which gardeners could do themselves. So, the sticky question, "If a picture is dissimilated far and wide beyond my blog, do I still have rights to it?"

These murky thoughts while pondering creating a better water feature for my side yard. My sole water feature is a cement bird bath I keep filled with water. More than used by birds, although they use it too, my neighbor's bees found it to be a sanctuary during the drought and heat of 2012.

This Christmas I have been gifted with money with the particular purpose of installing an outside outlet. A strange gift, for sure. Not one I was wishing for, either. It is a want. It opens up so many garden decorating possibilities.

So, Pinterest.

Cooling my yard would be nice so maybe this cooling mister? This doesn't need electricity. On a timer, it might be a cooling addition to my front yard hosta bed.

My side yard, with its bird bath which has been an nearly perfect water feature, is narrow, just 12 feet wide and 24 feet long. A large part of this is a pea gravel path.

I can actually tent my side yard.

Late last summer, I actually dug out a section of my long border and replanted with the crescendo in mind. I spent fall incorporating my key signature color into as many of the garden accessories as I could. I added as large of potted clematis as I could find to any climbing structure, particularly if it was inhabited by climbing roses. I staked and tied my climbers.

Then late last fall I brought in many of my annuals, thinking to have many cuttings so I could bed out plants to plump up my borders, shade and sun, and the baskets I hung under my deck windows.

(Photo courtesy of Walters Gardens, Inc.) Hollyhock 'Appleblossom'

An unnamed lilium blooming in my garden, early last July.

I also had a flat of hollyhock seedlings I planted at the back of two of my borders just in case it was a "hollyhock year" and planted lilium to be the darlings of the show adding to the cast of pale, unspotted yellow ones already holding court in my garden mid-July.

(Photo courtesy of Van Engelen Bulbs) Lilium 'Landini'

(Photo courtesy of Van Engelen Bulbs) Lilium 'Algarve'

(Photo courtesy of Van Engelen Bulbs) Lilium 'Elodie'

I have also been struggling developing some labeling for my plants. That I am a collector is part of the reason my garden is on this walk. There were at least a couple dozen plants the Master Gardeners could not identify when they toured late last summer.

Thoughts and suggestions? I could use some brainstorming here from fellow gardeners and those of you who open your garden to the public on occasion.

Congratulation 'Little Fingers', You Passed!

'Little Fingers' carrots passed their germination test. They had a fairly even and good germination in just 11 days. I've read parsnip seed is only good for a year, but did not see the same information for carrots. As the carrot is in the same family and I have a lot of seed from last year, I thought I'd better give some the test, just to be sure. In garden soil with a host of a bit more uncontrollable germination conditions, using good seed is a basic first step.

I have a lot of seed left over because the family garden's soil did not get prepared as well as I would have like. Running out of time, I planted carrots only in the potager. As everyone likes carrots, this was a failing in our garden planting scheme I hope to correct this year.

I like to get the seed I will use lined up by about mid-March. I've already started seeing some see listed as sold out for the 2012 garden season.

A good garden starts with proper planning. Part of proper planning starts with picking good cultivars for my area.

You can perform this same test on seed about which you may be concerned. Place a minimum of 10 seeds in a piece of paper toweling, fold it up, wet it, press out the water and place in a Ziploc bag or Tupperware container. label and place in a warm location. Seventy percent or better is considered a successful and viable germination rate.