Category: Gardening

By this time in the garden…about 5 weeks after planting everything…we are seeing some successes and some failures. Frustrating, but totally expected. Between the weather and the bugs, it is almost guaranteed that some plants do very well and others don’t. Things can change even in few days. Ahh, the adventure of gardening! Thank goodness for the Farmers’ Market and even the produce in the grocery store.

It has been 15 days since our last measurable rain. We’ve had some dark and cloudy days, a little sprinkle now and then. We know this because Bert has tracked our rainfall for over 20 years, every day from March 1 to November 30. Our rain gauge measures to the 100th of an inch. Remember, Bert’s an engineer!

Two weeks ago, the cucumber plants that Bert started indoors back in April were doing very well.

Over the last few days, I even found 4 small cucumbers that I ate immediately! Yummy! Yesterday the plants were wilting and even with watering they did not perk up. Absolutely dead! With a little online research, Bert found that the culprit was probably a bacteria in the soil. That particular raised garden has had the same problem over the years…first with strawberries and last year with cucumbers. Looks like we need to try to find seeds/plants that are resistant to that issue, or at least plant something else there. Anyway, Bert pulled out the dead plants.

Now how about the rest of the garden! My raised planter is doing well. My second batch of radishes are almost ready and the lettuce has been picked and replanted.

That’s the tour. We certainly don’t grow all the vegetables we like to eat, but over time we’ve decided to let local growers handle the things we don’t have room for (like corn) or the things we don’t eat very much of (like squash and potatoes). Every other year or so I’ll go to the Farmers’ Market at the end of the season and pick up a pile of cucumbers to make relish, or even tomatoes and make ketchup. Our carrots will stay in the ground until probably Thanksgiving and we’ll just dig them up as we need them.

The older we get we know which vegetables are labor intensive and which we don’t want to mess with anymore. As the season goes on, I’ll start preserving any abundant vegetables by canning, freezing or dehydrating. More on that as I do it!

Please comment or email me directly if you have questions at marykisner@comcast.net.

We had over 2 inches of rain last night and I thought I’d better see how beat down the garden was. Luckily, there are no puddles in the gardens so it looks like the garden beds are draining well.

I must say, it’s days like this that give me hope that everything is right with the world…well, at least in my little corner of it! Enjoy!

Please comment or email me directly at marykisner@comcast.net.

It’s always encouraging to see how much the garden has grown in two weeks…especially with enough rain on a regular basis! Two weeks ago (May 21) this is what the lettuce and radishes looked like:

Today, the radishes are ready to pull and I could make a small salad with the lettuce:

These are the seeds I planted. I’m pleased with how they did.

The raised planter gets two thumbs up from me! It was easy to keep an eye on the plants…easy to water, thin and harvest without breaking my back! Thank you Kathy and Steve!

Most of the garden looks pretty good too:

At the moment, the rain barrels are full to the brim, the big tank in the garden is full too. So, when it decides to stop raining (which often happens in the middle of the summer when we need it most) we’ll be able to keep the garden consistently watered.

Thanks for letting me share the garden with you! Enjoy!

Please comment or email me directly at marykisner@comcast.net.

Take a walk with me around the gardens. We planted all our seedlings and seeds last weekend, hoping that the cold weather is gone for good. My patio planter with lettuce and radishes is doing well!

Right off the corner of the patio is a big pot with 4 Spearmint plants. I know this will get huge over the summer and the bees should love it.

The small garden beds near the patio with my herbs and cucumbers look sparse…but I know that will change by the end of the summer. It’s always tempting to fill in the spaces with more plants because I forget how big some of these plants will end up. For now, I’ll try to curb my enthusiasm!

These small raised garden beds have removable fences so I can weed easily but the greens are safe from roving bunnies! It’s funny to watch them hop all around the fence trying to find a way in.

The regular garden up on the hill will have flowers on both ends (Echinacea and Lavender).

Four rows to the left of this picture are planted with green and wax beans, carrots and beets. Nothing to see here until they sprout. On the right are 8 lavender plants. I’ll use the flowers for my projects!

Since we planted everything, we have had no rain. We’re grateful for the big tank of water at the corner of the garden. Bert has pumped the rain barrels twice so far so we should have about 200 gallons of water to work with. Now we just wait for the plants to grow!

I’ll keep you posted on the progress!

As always, please comment or email me directly at marykisner@comcast.net.

Enjoy!

Exactly one year ago we had a killing freeze. With that memory of ruined tomato plants that we had grown from seed in mind, we are being very cautious about putting out plants too early. Hopefully, by this weekend it will be safe. Today we are giving the plants a shot of sunshine and fresh air, but will move them back into the shop in case tonight is still cold.

The tomato plants are doing well…they are 12″ high!

Some of the echinacea plants are doing well. Who knew they would be so hard to get started! (The three large plants in the middle of the small ones came from the plant sale last weekend!) They will be planted along one end in the garden and hopefully come up each year.

The cucumbers that we planted just a few weeks ago to get a head start are huge. We’ll plant the rest of the seeds directly in the garden.

I went to the Plant Sale last Saturday and picked up most of the herb plants I wanted. It was a cold, damp day but the sale was busy.

I found Thyme, Rosemary, Lemon Balm, Regular Basil, Purple Basil and Spearmint.

The Spearmint will go into a big pot on the patio. The other herbs will be in the small raised garden with the Chamomile that is already perking up from last year. You can sort of see it at the far end of this garden.

This year we are trying out a new raised planter that Steve and Kathy have designed and built. It sits right outside the patio door so I can keep an eye on it. I planted two kinds of lettuce and radishes there a week ago and they have already popped! This planter is also easy to cover right now if it gets too cold.

Bert is rototilling the garden today and the sun is shining. Soon it will be time to get out there and really dig in the dirt!

Please comment or email me directly if you have questions: marykisner@comcast.net! Enjoy!

We’ve had over 1/2 inch of rain since we set up the rain barrels on April 27, 2021. That’s 10 days! The rain barrels were probably full after the first rainfall, but today was the day Bert got around to pump them up to the holding tank in the garden. I tried to document all the details of the equipment he used, but hopefully you’ll get the gist of the process.

First, Bert put one end of a long garden hose into the holding tank in the garden. Then he ran the hose down the hill to the little pump sitting behind the shop. He says it’s about 100 feet.

This is the first barrel he will pump. He removed the lid and screen. You can see how much pollen and junk the screen collected. The red hose on the side handles the overflow if the barrel is full

And the barrel is definitely full!

The first batch of water to go up to the holding tank gets about a cup of Clorox added to keep bacteria from growing in the tank.

This is the motor he uses. It’s a 1 HP Portable Lawn Pump. It pumps the water about 100 feet uphill at 70 psi.

Here are the various hoses and cords ready to assemble.

The garden hose (red) is in the foreground. Bert is holding a siphon hose. It is larger around than the garden hose and has a quick-attach adapter.

This is the other end of the siphon hose…called a foot valve.

He fills up the siphon hose with water.

Once the hose is full, he quickly attaches it to the motor. He also adds water to the connector on top of the pump which primes the pump housing.

Hard to see in this picture, but then he loosens the bleeder valve to release any air in the pump.

Next, he attaches the garden hose to the motor and tightens it. He also tightens the bleeder valve.

The other end of the siphon hose goes into the barrel. He tucks the hose between the barrel and the supporting wooden stake so it doesn’t come out while it’s working.

And then, he turns the motor on!

In 8 minutes or so, the barrel is almost empty. He quickly turns off the motor so it doesn’t suck air.

The lid and screen goes back on the barrel and it’s ready for more rain!

Bert picks up the motor and hoses and moves them to the other rain barrel to repeat the process.

When he’s done with that, he goes up to the garden and removes the garden hose. The holding tank is now about 1/3 full (about 120 gallons). It holds about 360 gallons.

Whew! I learned a lot today. We should have a full tank by the time we transplant our seedlings.

Thanks for following this story. If you have any questions leave a comment or email me directly at marykisner@comcast.net. Enjoy!

Today was a beautiful day to set up the rain barrels. Each rain barrel holds about 60 gallons of water. They collect most of the runoff from both sides of the shop roof so we put one on each far corner.

Bert stores the barrels in the shop in the winter. If water froze in the barrels they would crack so we don’t use them during the winter months.

Below you can see Bert has removed the bottom section of the spouting that runs out into the yard. The concrete slab is the base for the barrel. The post just behind it will be used to tie the barrel down…if the barrel is empty the wind can just blow it away!

The he adds a shorter extension up high that will funnel the water into the barrel. He said he had to add a little piece on the end to slow down the runoff so it goes into the barrel. Otherwise, it zooms straight past the lid of the barrel!

Here’s a close up of the extension. The small piece on the bottom edge is a flap that seems to do the job of slowing down the water.

Then there is a piece of screen that came with the barrel that is held down by the lid. This filters out big stuff like pine needles and bugs.

Then the lid (with holes in it) is screwed on to the barrel.

Finally, Bert ties a rope around the barrel and to the stake so it doesn’t blow away when empty.

He stores the spouting until fall.

This barrel is ready for rain!

On the other corner of the shop the steps are the same. Here’s the logo printed on the barrels.

Finally, when the barrels are full, he will attach a hose and use this little pump to get the water up the hill to the larger storage barrel. It holds about 360 gallons of water. Then we use that to water the garden.

Seems complicated, but we’re not hauling water to the garden and the plants seem to like the natural rainwater!

I’ll share more about the process of pumping the water when we do that. First…it has to RAIN!

Please comment or email me directly at marykisner@comcast.net. Enjoy!

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Nothing like a few sunny days in March to get us in the mood to do SOMETHING in the yard. Bert was compelled to dig in the dirt, so it was time to take care of the sad lilac bushes. They have been there for over 40 years and hardly flowered anymore. In the tour of the grounds I posted on March 1, I had a photo of those poor bushes.

After digging and chopping some of the roots, Bert pulled out the bushes one at a time with the help of the truck and some chains. This gave us quite a view of the John Deere business up the road! The rototiller dug up more roots until Bert thought he could dig the holes for six Arborvitae bushes. It looks so much nicer! Of course, we may be long gone by the time they actually block the view up the road!

I like to check on the buds of the Dogwood trees along the front of the property. They still look pretty dormant, but the buds give me hope!

Rain is expected today and temperatures are still too cool to do much more outside for a few weeks. Bert couldn’t help himself and found the seeds for the garden. He tries to start some of them around this time so by mid-May things are ready to go in the garden. In the past we have pushed the start date to early March, and that’s just too early. The risk of a late spring frost is pretty high until the third week of May around here. Last year we put our tomatoes in the ground around mid-May and of course, we had one final frost that killed them all in one night! Very frustrating! So hopefully the extra week delay will help.

Bert started our Super Sauce Tomatoes and the four different Echinacea seeds. We’re hoping that section of the garden will just reseed itself each year and we’ll have nice flowers for the bees!

We start the seeds in the shop under grow lights and that works well. The cucumber seeds will not get started for another month and the beans, carrots and beets will be planted directly in the garden about mid-May. I’ll add some herb plants from a local greenhouse as we get closer to May.

More later as Mother Nature wakes up. After the last year we’ve had, Spring is such a hopeful time!

Please leave a comment or email me directly at marykisner@comcast.net. Thanks!

I was craving some fresh greens in a salad over the weekend and decided to start some sprouts. While I like sprouts, I really wanted microgreens, which are just the tops of small plants without the roots. I was trying to avoid setting up the grow light and the proper trays…which forces me to rearrange my shelving by the patio windows. Soooo, I thought I’d start with the seeds I use to sprout to get them started.

Then I found my quart jar with the strainer lid that I use to start the seeds.

First, I measured out 1 1/2 tablespoons of seeds and put them in the jar. I added filtered water and let them soak overnight.

By morning the seeds were about twice their dried size.

I rolled the jar up in a tea towel and left it by the kitchen sink.

Each evening and morning I filled the jar with water about half way and swished the seeds around. Then I drained out the water, wrapping it up again with the tea towel. By the second morning the seeds had started to sprout.

By Day 3 the seeds were doing well. More swishing and draining.

By Day 4 it was time to green up the sprouts. I could have just set the jar in the light and by the Day 5 I would have green sprouts to eat. Since I wanted microgreens, I gently spooned the sprouts into a flat sprouting box. I thought the roots would attach to the mesh and the plants would grow up toward the light. I was planning to spritz the sprouts with water as they grew. It sounded like a great idea!

However, by Day 5 the sprouts were struggling to do what I had in mind. The plants did not anchor well and because of the holes in the sprouting box, they also did not maintain the right moisture.

With microgreens, they should be watered from the bottom, not sprayed on the top. Now, I had a pretty sickly (and slimy) batch of sprouts/microgreens. YUK!

So, I guess I’ll do it the right way. First, I need to find my books about microgreens and unpack the grow light.

More on that in another post…soon!

Be willing to take a risk and try something new! All I lost was 1 1/2 tablespoonful of seeds and 5 days. Oh well, they will add to the compost pile just fine!

As always, feel free to leave a comment or email me at marykisner@comcast.net. Take a risk!