There’s always something to distract me when I move my office out onto the back deck on pleasant summer days. Seems the neighborhood is becoming a playground for a couple of new families with kids – not that I mind (except one group tends to EAT most of my landscaping!) but it does make it tough to concentrate on getting work done at times.
A small fawn pretends to be invisible in the brush at the rear of my yard, dreaming of munching on my day lilies perhaps?
A tiny wren has been busily bringing twigs and pine needles into my bird house, in preparation for raising a family.
Approximately four dozen tasty radishes harvested on June 22nd.
I fell a little behind the past week in doing my garden update, so I have some catching up to do. When I last posted, I was lamenting the rain and issues it caused in the garden. Well it’s now day 35 of the garden project, and the first products of the rains (besides the massive weed growth) are ready for harvest!
On the 15th of June, I pulled the first dozen or so red radishes from the ground, did much more weeding (and only achieved 33% complete status) and was happy with how things are looking, overall.
I’ve already reached some conclusions on what needs to be done next year:
Plant earlier overall, and lettuce & spinach definitely much earlier. It is amazing how far ahead of me the produce is in some of my neighbors at the Roseville Community Garden.
Weed earlier and far more aggressively, even if it means pulling a few sprouting seedlings with the weeds. The longer the wait, the harder to differentiate between the two!
Start more seedlings indoors and earlier next season, and pare down the variety of produce I plant based on what has been successful so far.
Where not feasible to start indoors, plant nursery-started items for some produce. I’ve had a hard time getting cucumber plants to germinate or survive from two rounds of seedings I’ve already done.
A Widow Skimmer dragonfly at the Roseville Community Garden on June 16, 2012. (click to enlarge)
I was working at the garden yesterday (weeding…my usual task the last few days – more on that later tonight) when this incredible dragonfly zipped by and landed on a weed-filled plot adjoining mine. Believe it or not, these pictures do not do it justice. It was truly a thing of beauty. Glad I had the camera along to snap these pictures.
Amazingly, there are more species of dragonflies in Sussex County, New Jersey (145 – out of a possible 182 in NJ) than any other county in the United States, according to the Sussex County web site. The site states “Dragonflies, by definition, are stout and large bodied with round heads and eyes covering much of the top and sides of the head. The forewings and hind wings are different shapes and are held straight out to the sides while resting. They are strong fliers…. In New Jersey, the season for dragonflies and damselflies runs from April through October although the best month for spotting the most species would be June.”
Another angle of the Widow Skimmer dragonfly at the Roseville Community Garden on June 16, 2012. (click to enlarge)
Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger. – Saint Basil
Slowly winning the battle with weeds, this June 9, 2012 photo shows the current status of my Roseville Community Garden plot.
Today is the 21st day since the start of my 2012 gardening project, when the first multitudes of seeds were sewn, and the transplanted young spouts of Black Beauty Summer Squash, Early Acorn Squash and Waltham Butternut Squash were planted in my Roseville Community Garden plot. With the exception of gently sprinkling the newly planted seeds & seedlings that day, I have yet to need to water the garden. For better of worse, Mother Nature has provided a more than ample supply of moisture.
I’m at the bottom of a gentle slope – the low end of the garden, as it is – and the runoff from the stone paths grows to a healthy “stream” as it reaches my end of the garden. A subsequent “gully-washer” 10 days ago actually created ruts in the stone pathway and started undercutting the boards of the raised bed.
The downpour also flattened all the seedling Sweet Red, Kung Pao Hybrid and Pepperochini Hot Peppers I had planted, so I restarted some seeds at home and purchased some more established, nursery-grown plants over Memorial Day to insure I’d have a pepper crop this summer.
I’m not complaining about the rain, mind you – although it, along with some early unseasonably warm nights has certainly helped with the bumper crop of weeds I’m dealing with. The constant rain is making access to the garden itself a muddy trek, and working on weeding or thinning planted rows difficult at times.
All this rain and the unseasonable warm nights has sprouted a carpet of grass and thistle between the planted rows, and it seems there is no stopping nature from trying to utilize every square inch of exposed soil. Fortunately for me, my parents are here visiting from Minneapolis, so the three of us spent a few hours Sunday morning hoeing and pulling and beating the rascally weeds into submission, if just for a short while. It looks quite nice too, if I do say so myself!
We also planted another hill of Early Acorn Squash, Cucumbers and Black Beauty Summer Squash to fill in the “bald spots” where previous seeds had not sprouted, or been lost to small rivers eroding the loose soil when torrential rain hit just a day after planting.
I must say, it’s amazing how the plants that are supposed to be growing have taken off in just 14 days – see for yourself by comparing Sunday’s photo (above) to one taken just two weeks ago.
If I can believe the seed packet write-ups, I should have some Cherry Belle Radishes ready for eating by next week, which will be great as my mother loves radishes and it would be great to send a bunch along home with her when she leaves next Sunday.
So that’s the latest from my little 15″ x 15′ slice of heaven on earth – look for another update next Saturday. I’m hoping the weeds take a break this week, and the vegetables add more proper green to the plot.
Wavy rows of radishes appeared just three days after planting seed – three days of rain and warm overnight temperatures triggered their sprouting.
When I last blogged about the garden, I had just finished two days work clearing a massive tangle of weeds, roto-tilling the soil, planting a bunch of seeds and watering them all…then had crossed my fingers. To my delight, in only a week things are already beginning to grow!
I returned to the Roseville Community Garden to check things out on Wednesday afternoon (after some intense rains Monday and Tuesday) expecting to find some of the loose, recently tilled soil washed out, or the transplanted peppers, squash, zucchini and cucumber plants flattened. The peppers were still too delicate when I transplanted them, and they indeed were decimated. But all else seemed to survive…and seeds for the two variety of radishes I had planted (Cherry Belle and Crimson Giant) were sprouting after just three days. Yay!
The wet week and very warm nights seem to have been just what the newly-planted seeds needed. I returned this morning (Saturday, May 26) with my parents – who are visiting from Minnesota for the next few weeks – to plant tomatoes and peppers. More change was apparent – even more seeds are sprouting. I now also have tiny lettuce, chard, beets and broccoli plants popping up in wavy little rows.
Below is a picture from this morning, to give an idea of what has changed in the last week (the original “baseline image” can be viewed by clicking here). The six tomato plants are all nestled into their cone-shaped cages, and the four pepper plants are tucked in and ready to grow as well. I just hope the massive thunderstorms that rumbled through Sussex and Warren Counties this afternoon – pummeling the area with 2-3 inches of rain in an hour – did not pummel the plants!
Check back for updates as it’s looking like the face of the garden will change rapidly in the next couple of weeks, and the first “harvest” of radishes should come on or about June 11th, if the indication on the packet is right.
With tomatoes and peppers planted, and radishes, lettuce, chard, beets and broccoli beginning to sprout, the garden has changed noticeably in the last week.
“We are all co-owners of some of the most moving places on Earth, and while much of that emotion is born in the spectacular scenery we are seeing there, it also finds its source in us and our love and connection to each other.” – Ken Burns
When I saw this article and video this morning (thanks to a Tweet by my friend @MeghanJambor) I became instantly hungry for a National Park experience. I was immediately and emotionally taken by Ken Burns’ story about visiting Shenandoah National Park as a child with his father. When I was seven (1965, yikes!), we lived in Rockville, Maryland and I cannot tell you how many road-trips my family made to Front Royal and the Shenandoah National Park, the Skyline Drive & Blue Ridge Parkway – it was incredible!
Another one of the greatest memories I have involving National Parks was hiking 3 miles (6 miles round trip!) in Glacier National Park – up an elevation change of 2400 feet – with my father in the late 1970’s. The view from the top of the climb was spectacular. Looking to the east you could see FOREVER across Montana and back to the west the taller Rising Wolf Mountain and crystal blue Two Medicine Lake we had just climbed up from…and it was all the more memorable because I had done it with my dad. I’ll always have that memory forever etched into my mind.
Our National Parks are our greatest natural treasures – watch this great Ken Burns’ video commentary on our National Parks, and read the full article in USA Today Travel here. I’d almost guarantee you’ll join me with an incurable case of wanderlust.
The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul. — Alfred Austin
I’ve finally got the plot planted at Roseville Community Garden
I’m fortunate to be able to resume a favorite hobby this summer – gardening – and I’m hoping it also encourages me to blog and photograph the results (including recipes for what I grow). I’ll be including photo updates throughout the course of the year, so be sure to read this post to the end, as the “baseline” photos appear at the end.
After two years of wait-listing, I finally received my much-anticipated 15′ x 15′ garden plot this spring at the Roseville Community Garden, located on Hudson Farm West – a private farm straddling the Byram & Andover Township borders – which the organization is granted use through the generosity of Mr. Peter Kellogg, the property owner. It’s a wonderful location and a fantastic opportunity for Byram residents to garden, given that 99% of Byram is rocky and wooded, as well as over-run by herds of marauding, hungry deer.
I was happily informed when I first arrived that nearly every tool I’d need was provided on site through the Garden: hoes, rakes, shovels, weeding tools, wheel barrows, hand tools, and a Bolens roto-tiller. All I needed was plants or seeds and some sweat-equity to get my garden started!
Being perpetually behind in my personal life, I didn’t start cleaning up the plot until May 5th, and did not realize the amount of effort that would take. It had been abandoned last year, and was completely covered in thickly matted tall grass and weeds. Better finish “later.”
Well “later” became two weeks, due in part to uncooperative weather and prior commitments, and did I ever under-estimate the work involved! On Saturday I returned, determined to get this project finished this weekend. Three-plus hours of clearing yielded four large wheelbarrow loads of weeds & debris, and nearly two hours of amending soil and roto-tilling later, and the plot was ready to plant. But I was too beaten up by the roto-tiller – and light was quickly vanishing – so I called it a day.
