Too many things to do - Tuesday

Ok, on a previous post I mentioned that this is NOT a hydrangea. It turns out that it is actually going to be a rather large deciduous tree. It was only about 2 1/2 feet tall when I first transplanted it.  I moved it to a sunny location in the back area of the house.  Bad move.

 These little puppies more than tripled in height in just one year. Yes, there are two. Both now clear the rooftop.  

Mystery Plant Monday

Today's post is an update on all things in the garden, although I do have a mystery or two to solve there as well. I can hardly believe that these are my hydrangeas. Love this plant! I have two varieties: the top is a vibrant violet purple, the bottom is a beautiful sky blue with creme centers. Nature is amazing for sure!

 Now for the rest of the garden tour . . .

Snapshot Saturday

The weather's gorgeous and we're doing the last minute touches on Puppy-proofing the house- so enjoy a few snap shots taken while on watering patrol.

Currently - lots going on here at RiverHaven

My rhododendrons have bloomed. Some are quite pretty. I would love to know the varieties. I have counted at least three; this one stayed this color. One of the others started a pretty bright pink, then settled to white. Something to add to the Mystery Plant topic list.

We continue to prepare for puppy, finishing touches to the outdoor kennel and continued work on the fencing. 

 Below is a picture of the run area we built. I still need to attach the cover to the run to protect puppy from the eagles until he's bigger. We need to cross brace the corners for stability because my sailor didn't have time or energy to set it all in concrete before he had to leave. Then there's the access gate to attach between the run and the garden shed. 

I want to put a skirt on the porch so puppy's not encouraged to dig under.  I also need to set up a water station and I want to add solar lights to the pole posts for winter light. A quick finishing touch of string to the gates so we humans don't get locked in.

Photo Filler Wednesday

Having survived a whirlwind of finals, last weeks of school, and surprise visits from the Sailor- we've been a little too busy to do any major projects around the homestead. We have plans- oh so many plans! But they'll have to wait until this weekend when we have a little sun and everyone is officially on summer break.

Guest-Author-Girl-Child here advocating that the veggie garden looks AWESOME. I'm really excited, mostly because I've never gotten past the watering-indoor-plants stage. Inevitably, any horticultural feats are eaten by my cats before I can endeavor for something braver. Growing veggies from seed and being successful just blows my mind.

Mesculin in the bottom left, red peppers immediately to their right, onions next to them and radishes taking up the lower right hand corner. Tomatoes line the back wall- caged are store bought but in the top right hand corner you can see the seedlings I started in the green house happily growing along. 

Oh and cucumbers! Those are growing nicely too! We opted to just use the seeds we had and take note of what sprouts and what doesn't- so far everything sowed (sewn?) in the raised garden beds are thriving. 

Those trays in the greenhouse filled with the remainder of our test seeds isn't as productive. So far only this one pot is sprouting anything of interest. One more has hints of green, so I'm just keeping an eye on them for now. 

Local grocery store had a sale on fuchsia trees- this one happily greets us by the front door. 

Mum moved this old wheel barrow from near the chicken coop (between those two trees in the far back of this image) and planted some fun bright flowers. They're still adjusting but as long as the chickens leave them alone they should thrive.

Mum has these fantastic mock wine barrels. This one, we filled the bottom with upside down plastic pots and then covered with fresh soil. Mum liberally sprinkled some of our herb seeds, just to test if they were any good. So far it seems so! Parsley, English thyme, Basil, Dill, and Cilantro to get us started. The plan is still to make one of the out door areas a permanent herb garden, but this will suffice until we can weed and pull tree stumps and get the area prepped. 

I'll see if I can snap any photos of our fast flying visitors- there are at least 2 species of hummingbirds who frequent the hanging baskets. Mum picked up a new feeder and dusted off some of our old ones and now we've constant visitations. The cats go crazy, moving chairs to situate themselves for their new favorite show.

Better photos of our deceased back yard denizen, general consensus is that it's a badger. The front canines aren't as long as some of the other photos I've seen- but the orbital cavity  and the coronoid process seem right. A super helpful website has been the Museum of Osteology and its supplier Skulls Unlimited International.

Rear view- we found it beneath that tree trunk and assume that it fell or was crushed by the tree.

Upside down view haha- but you can get a good look at its jaw and orbital cavity. Definitely an omnivore!

More photos- found most of his bones beneath the ferns, 

Found a bunch of vertebrae! 

Future project time! Mum identified these plants as NOT hydrangeas. Initially mum moved them from the middle of one of the garden beds to the window outside the downstairs studio/office. She thought they were some kind of hydrangeas but they are DEFINITELY NOT. There will be a mystery plant Monday explanation as soon as Mum sits down and types it up. We were quite startled with the discovery that these are NOT hydrangeas. DEFINITELY NOT. 

Future project will involve moving them to another part of the property. 

Hopefully this midweek update will tide you over- until then enjoy the outdoors and keep your fingers crossed that I do well at my interview!

Belated Garden Sunday

Life has been crazy-crazy! Guest-Author-Girl-Child here, in the midst of dead week and prepping for finals. After this next week, I am officially in my last year of university!! YES.

Anyway, here is a belated "Sunday" post of the projects mum and I did last weekend. 

The sun has come out and STAYED out these last few days. Gorgeous weather just begged for some veggie planting and mum, having finished her national board projects (HECK YES!) reactivated her green thumbs and joined me in the garden.

You might remember our raised garden bed project from before, I filled it partially with a mixture of compost and peat a few weekends back. Together we filled it the rest of the way in preparation for some new veggies mum picked up as well as some seedlings I grew in the greenhouse. 

Mum arranged the new veggies by future size and spaced them accordingly. Tomatoes will be tall, so we put them in the back so they won't block the sunlight from the other veggies. Those are spaced about 8-12 inches apart. In front of them are peppers, spaced 4-6 inches apart. And at the front of the box, are radishes, spaced 2-4 inches apart. Once everything was arranged to her liking, we took off their shoes and got them comfy in the veggie bed! 

Completed! We filled in the open areas with the seedlings I grew from the green house (more tomatoes, peppers, and radishes as well as some carrots and a mystery plant). Mum pushed in some of her tomato cages, ready for when they get a little bigger to make sure they have the structure they need. 

A lot of the seed packages in the garden shed are old or of unknown origin, so mum and I made some temporary planters to test them out. We labeled them (much better than I did  last time!) and we'll see what sprouts. If nothing sprouts in a week or two, we'll know those seed packets are done for and toss 'em. If they grow, we'll repot them and let them thrive in the green house until our next veggie box is ready. 

Project 2 we started was a door for our new fence. Project puppy-time meant fencing off a good section of the property and we cut a preliminary section out to attach a door. As I have the most experience with power tools, mum measured and labeled the wood and I cut. 

For the record, we did not cut on the bed of my truck. That is a major saftey no-no. This was just a perfect photo opportunity while mum went downhill to research how to adjust the blade allowance. I took woodshop and metalshop in college, and the experience is totally worth it. We covered table saws, skilsaws, jigsaws, lathes, mig welders, tig welding, and oxy-acetylene torches - all are excellent tools to have a good know-how about. In any case- the door we were trying to build was like this one:

This is one dad and the boy-child put together for the dog kennel they built. We picked up an extra hardware set (hinges, frames, handle, and lock) from our local hardware store and laid everything out. 

The fencing seen here is the bit cut from the actual fence, I think it's a smidge to small to actually cover the door frame so we're contemplating using spare hardware cloth. 

We ended up not finishing the door project that day, ran out of daylight and 1/8th inch drill bits! We called it a night when the one we had broke off in the uncooperative wood panel. 

We picked up some more today, and hope to finish the project in time for the next Sunday post!

Gardens - Green House Prep

Guest Author Girl-Child here, with another weekend update. While Mum was visiting our Sailor in Port Townsend, I got a few projects done around the homestead.

      It's just the right time to get veggies going (or so my green-thumbed madre assures me) and once her National Boards is through- she's itching to get back into the garden and play. To help prep for that, I decided to take a day to clean out the green house. Oh yes! The green house mentioned here is up and sturdy and full of life. Just... the wrong kind of life. *cue psycho shower scene music* Eek! Dandelions! Aphids! and Baby Black Widows! Oh my!

     If you remember last February, mum mentioned a bunch of new plants she wasn't quite ready for. Well, Washington proceeded to rain, and rain, and rain, until all of her lovely new plants either drowned, were eaten by chickens, bowled over by raccoons, or molded. The ones that survived, were stashed in the green house and promptly forgotten about. As you can see below, there's a lot of plants to wrangle and pots to sanitize before anything new can start living in here. 

 Gloving up, I grabbed an empty bucket and proceeded to delicately clip-n-catch the dandelion heads with some garden shears. After about ten minutes of this, I recalled my heritage and dashed inside to put on sunscreen.  Very important! Then I doused the bug infested greenery with distilled white vinegar and hot water before tearing them out by their roots (or as close to the roots as I could manage).

The pots were all plastic, aside from some organic/compostable ones (which were pretty thoroughly moldered and tossed into the compost heap), so I got the go ahead to save the soil. If you look in the far back of the above photo, there are some half-wine barrel type garden barrels on the right hand side. They all contain good soil now, ready for re-purposing. The pots were rinsed and arranged by size on a low table, to be sanitized at a later date before rejoining their fellows in the Garden Shed. Plastic labels and tags were washed and put in that white plastic three drawer tower in the Shed for the next batch of lovelies!

Much better! Now that there's room for seedlings, I re-set up Dad's veggie trays.

The carrots and sweet peas are first to show!

 The other project I was able to get to before papers swallowed my weekend, was the raised garden bed. The boy child hauled these bags of peat and compost from in front of the Garden Shed to here. We don't have a wheel barrel big enough, so we would have to mix 3 bag compost with one bag of peat by hand. We weren't certain what was the best way to go about it, so I opted to experiment a little with this handy dandy twirly ground aerater doohickey (yes, that is it's official name, or at least it is until I can ask mum).

It took a bit of work, but the compost and peat mixed perfectly. Mum still wants to add another row of boards around the edge (we're all tall folks here, leaning over will be easier), but that can be added later. For now, we've got a good soil base for any goodies Mum feels like planting! Only two more weeks to go!

To Do List Tuesday - Garden Notebook part 2

I'm continuing my To Do List project from last week. Now that I have my fabulous new Garden Notebook, I have been fervently working to transfer over the notes and cut outs, and plant lists I had tucked in my marble notebook.

I realized in putting the pages together that I needed to move the form around a bit to give more room for the care and instructions part. I want to be able to have notes at a glance on overwintering or end of season care. I'm finding this layout works much better.

It's a slow process, but will worth my time - especially since once it's done, I'll only have to add pages for new plants and it will be a book tailored to Our Haven.  It will be  a work in progress, but when it's done, it's done.

I'm thinking it might be a better project for the winter when things are dormant. For now, I'll work on it a bit here and there as I have time or need a diversion from other projects.

Mystery Plant Monday

My Mystery Plant of the week is a variegated vine with heart-shaped leaves. It's spreads low to the ground and grows is shade to dappled sunny locations around Our Haven.

It's called Aegopodium podagraria 'Variegatum' and goes by several names including Bishop's weed, Bishop's Wort, Bishop's Elder, Dog Elder, Dwarf Elder, Ground Elder, Goat's Foot, Goatweed, Farmer's Plague, Garden Plague, Ground Ash, Pot-Ash, Jack Jumpabout, English Masterwort, Pigweed, Eltroot, and a list of others.

No wonder people have a hard time identifying it!

 At first I thought it was pretty - very woodsy and it seemed to have little cream flowers. I thought, "What a neat ground cover."  HA! Little did I know.

As the season progressed, I started calling it "The Blob" because it spread quickly, swallowing everything in its path.  Now - it's a weed taking over the one flower bed I worked so hard to purifying and rejuvenating this spring. It went from a small section around the stump pictured above, to covering over 1/3 of the bed.  It is no longer "cute" but a weed and I want it out.

I have always been patient with weeds - after all, they are only plants growing where gardeners don't want them. However, according to my research on this darling, removing it will be a battle, and one I probably won't win.

One of my favorite comments was from This Garden is Illegal

DISCLAIMER: If you are ever offered this plant, run, do not walk, run quickly from the area before you are talked into taking some home.Bishop’s Weed is an avid gardener’s worst nightmare. Worse yet, it is sold in garden centers and big box stores with no warning label. Really, before they are allowed to take this stuff home, people should be required to sign iron-clad contracts that requires them never to pass this plant along.

Here are the good things about it:

• It is a vigorous ground cover great for shady spots.
• It's fast-growing and easy to care for (little care needed, really). 
• It's deer resistant. 
• It tolerates poor soil and conditions where little else will grow. It's like ivy in the respect that you can plant it and let it be and not have to do much. This is great for those wanting low maintenance. 
• It's good for erosion control.

It grows best in zones 3-9 (so just about everywhere) in part sun to shade.
It starts at 12-24 inches tall and 12-48 inches wide (but doesn't stay there - just thing "the Blob"

It blooms early summer and the flowers rise above the foliage, seemingly floating in the air.

Bishop's Weed has been used medicinally for bee stings, burns, and the treatment of gout and psoriasis. That might convince me to grow it in a container out of harms way - but I don't want ti where it is now, no matter how woodsy it looks. It's about to choke my poor roses!

I'm not one for herbicides. I have been able to maintain pretty much all weed growth I need with a mixture of white vinegar, salt, and water.  This lovely however just laughs as the salty shower.

Next in my battle plan is conscientious pruning to keep it at bay until the spring. Because it's perennial, it will die back for the winter. I plan to cut it to the ground and cover it in black plastic tarp. Hopeful that will do the trick. If not, I pull out the big guns.

So, if you love your garden, and like your neighbors, this is not the plant for you. It's known to spread  most auspiciously because people pull it up and toss it in the woods or even compost where it takes root and takes off. So be mindful with it - if you must have it, contain it.

To Do List Tuesday - Garden Notebook part 1

Updating and creating a "good" garden notebook has been on my list to do for quite awhile. I just wasn't sure what I wanted or needed in it.

Until now, my garden notes have just accumulated in a composition notebook. That's fine - everything is in one place. The down side is that it's not as organize as I'd like and it's hard to find something without having to page through it all.

Today, I sat down with a cup of tea, a few of my gardening books, and my laptop and put one together. I think I mentioned I'm a bit neurotic with organization - I like everything to have and be in its place. I think this notebook will allow me to do that.

I will put it in a vinyl 3 Ring Binder, use page protectors where appropriate, and dividers for the sections. The beautiful thing is that I saved it as a PDF and can just print pages as needed. I also have it as an open file so I can make changes and tweak things as I see the need.

The notebook is divided into 5 parts, detailed below:

Planning & Projects: pretty self explanatory. In addition to the forms I created, plant tracking (what was planted where), a project tracker, and planter design pages for box and barrel pots, this section will include graph paper for drawing plans.

Maintenance & Chores: I created forms for seasonal and monthly maintenance/chores with check lists as well as amendment/fertilization record page

Reflections: I have a choice of a weekly Observation/Note page or a week-at-a-glance page with daily details.

Plant Profiles: Annual, Perennial, Orchard, and Veggie - color coded

References where I'll keep images of planting charts, or plant identification charts and other reference photos.

That's my To Do for today. Let me know if you think I have missed something. I think the next notebook I need to tackle is for house and equipment maintenance. But that's another day.


Thanks for stopping by!

Mystery Plant Monday

Our mystery plant of the week. 

In a previous blog post I talked about my foibles with my bulb order (read more here). I got them planted but there were quite a few mystery plants due to the labels washing off in the soak. 

Now they look like this . . .

Some of them show no signs of sprouting. I'll overwinter them in the greenhouse and see what happens next year. If there's still nothing, then I'll compost them and try again. 

Others, like the Irises and Montauk Daisies seem to be doing just fine in spite of being appetizers for the chickens. Then there's this one (below). No idea what it is. At least I have my order form to start with and I know some of the things it's not. 

My method this time? Do an image search on my order list and see what I find. 

 And the winner is . . .  Asiatic Elodie Lily

Here's what I learned: 

Family: Liliaceae (lil-ee-AY-see-ee)

Genus: Lilium

Cultivar: Elodie

It will bloom with candy pink layers of petals. It is pollen-free and is often called a Kiss Lily. Blossoms can be anywhere between 3-6 inches. Tends to single bloom the first year and then double bloom in following years. 

Plant bulbs 4" deep about 8" apart.  It does well in pots or containers and will grow to 24-36" tall. It is hardy in zones: 3-8, hardy in 6-8, mulch in 3-6. 

It prefers a rather heavy soil with lots of humus and good drainage. It likes the soil to be mildly acidic (6.1-6.5) to neutral (6.6-7.5). It does well in full sun or partial shade and blooms mid to late summer. 

Propagate by dividing rhizomes, tubers, corms, or bulbs. Plant does not set seed, flowers are sterile (no pollen, remember)

Care: remove faded flowers and do not cut back stems until autumn. Bulbs shouldn't be lifted, only mulch if necessary. Will bloom annually for many years. 

Mystery solved. Now to add the details to my garden journal. 

I can't wait to see it in bloom.