Garden Ownership

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I’m not that into gardening right now. The produce is coming in, plants sales are all over, and with the cooling temperatures it’s a great time to get garden projects done. But gardening mostly feels like a chore to me. The main problem is that I simply lack any feeling of ownership over the gardens I do have.

I just finished a project last week that I loves. I designed and installed an extended rear planting bed in the garden of an acquaintance. It was a hired job (and yes I do hire out for jobs, but generally just smaller ones more involved with planting design) and I loved being able to create something, not on my budget. I love being able to work through a project from conception through installation and will be happy to see how this one matures. (Better than it looks now, if all goes well.) Here’s a glimpse:

But in my own garden I have a dilemma. I’m moving for Atlanta in January. Anything I do right now will not be mine to enjoyed, and it is with my own non-paid time and my own money. Every garden I work on I will be leaving and I just can’t motivate myself to do too much. I’m not even getting too much joy out of the massive amounts of produce I’m storing, like grape juice, tomatoes, and frozen peaches. It’s not coming with me when I leave.

I want a garden that is mine and will be mine for a while. I’ve been moving around so much that any garden I work in is soon left, so I often can’t enjoy the results. I would love a place that is mine and where I can do fun things in, designs I would never put in someone else’s yard. To really get the joy out of gardening, you have to own the space and see it for years to come.

California Vacation

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We left Sunday afternoon for the long drive to California and proceed to drive hours through the middle of nowhere. Highway 6 in Nevada has got to be one of the boringest roads ever. We found a lovely motel in Tonopah called the Clown Motel. The name scared me a lot, but the price was good. The hotel was decorated in clowns, not my choice of décor, but it was clean and functioning and most of all cheap so it worked for a night.

Back to the road, we made it to Yosemite before lunch and entered the east side on the Tioga Road. It’s not the prettiest part of Yosemite, quite a bit like what are mountains are here and I don’t need to drive hours to see that. We did climb the Lembert Dome which was a four mile hike to the top of a granite capped mountain. It’s a good way to wimp out of hiking half-dome. Peter hiked a lot too.

We camped up at Hodgdon’s Meadow. It was a bit far from things but at least in the park (reservations aren’t plentiful a month before going). That evening we made a stop to Bridal Veil Falls and then to the store to buy everything we forgot, including a can opener and flashlights. I’m miffed about the flashlights. I love a good headlamp. A cheap flashlight was not a good replacement.

The next morning we went down to Mariposa grove to see the Sequoias. We took the bus down (Peter quite enjoyed that), and enjoyed a stroll through the forest. I absolutely love old-growth forests with huge trees. We went back up to Yosemite Valley and took a bike ride to Mirror Lake. It wasn’t much of lake, but was a fun ride. Joe set to work building something with sand and Peter and I waded around the creek. There was a good view of half-dome there too. We visited the visitor’s center and finished by hiking to lower falls.

Back at camp we had our only camp fire of the week. (I really don’t like camp fires.) We cooked hot dogs and strawberry marshmallows and Peter didn’t get burned. (Last trip he picked up a hot hot-dog stick and burned his hand pretty good.) That was it for Yosemite—we camped up and drove out the next morning.

We went through agriculture paradise mixed with very dry areas to visit Joe’s brother in Pacific Grove. After a short visit, we went down the coast to camp at Limekiln State Park. It is a beautiful place to camp. We were about 100 yards from the beach. There were also areas up in a redwood grove.

The next morning, we hiked the few trails in the park. That was probably the most serene, fun and pretty part of the whole trip. There was a 100 ft waterfall, lots of redwoods, creeks, and the lime kilns for which the park was named. The kilns were much bigger than expected and pretty cool to see as they gradually eroded into the landscape. On our way back a random guy hailed us. He recognized us from the Yosemite campground. We were neighbors for a couple of nights there, and then ended up in the same campground 5 hours away. Very random.

We drove to a few other State Parks, including a cool waterfall at Julia Pfeiffer state park, and another less-cool one at Big Spur. That one involved a hot, ugly trail up to it. The original trail went thought the cool redwoods, but had been burned out and instead we bypassed the redwoods for a steep, shrubby slope. We went to Pfeiffer Beach in the afternoon and played in the sand. I even got a little nap in.

Friday we spent visiting Joe’s brother and family again. He had a double sea kayak that we took out on the ocean. Even Peter got a ride. We also took a very long walk over to Fisherman’s Warf for chowder and ice cream. It was a lot of fun to visit with them.

Saturday we drove home. It included a delicious lunch at Chili’s, which was wonderful except Peter threw up his huge pizza right after. He threw-up a total of five times before I wised up and gave him Dramamine. After that, he was so much happier. The drive home was long and almost uneventful. We ended up getting a flat tire 40 miles west of Wendover at 10:30 at night. Somehow we still made it home on the spare and pulled up at 2:30 am on Sunday.

Here’s a load of pictures to complete the long post. Enjoy.

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Camping Out

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Last week we went on a family campout with my maternal grandparents, brothers, little sister and parents. It was a blast. The area was gorgeous–covered in wildflowers. We camped right by a stream underneath a bunch of douglas-fir trees.  We spent a lot of time relaxing, walking, talking, eating and not doing much. The best was singing around the campfire. My brothers are pretty good and Peter loved to dance along. The only thing bad was the first night our air mattress leaked (it’s been getting old) so the second day we went and bought a new one. Slept much better than second night.

We also have done Thanksgiving Point $2 Tuesdays. Peter loved all the animals at Farmland last week and the dinosaurs this week. He kept saying “Dino–Roaarrr!” That kid is getting to be quite the talker. He’s talking in sentences now…not that I can always understand him. He’s also learned “torry” (he can’t say “ss”) and now I can’t get mad at him because it’s too cute.

Here are some pictures I’ve liked from the last week or so:

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Landscape Designs

So lately I’ll I’ve been doing in the garden is weeding and picking tomatoes and some other veggies. Lots of tomatoes. But you really can’t have too much. I have been eating large amounts of BLT’s too. They are delicious. I harvested a few leeks (my trial crop for the year, and they turned out better than a bunch of other stuff) and made a leek and potato soup, which was yummy.

Today I went and bought a whole bunch of plants for a landscape project. I would highly encourage people to make planting plans. I see so many gardens planted willy-nilly. But with a good planting plan you know exactly what and how many plants to buy, and make sure you have plants blooming/looking good the entire season. You can also avoid doing things like planting azaleas in Utah (very stupid and any good nursery won’t carry them), buying plants with nowhere to put them, or putting a plant in the wrong place.

Not saying a planting plan is set in stone. I never spec out exact varieties, preferring to finalize those when I buy them. Sometimes you have to substitute out something because you can’t find it. And there is always improvements to make after it’s all planted up, maybe some plants are struggling in a certain spot, or you don’t like the way a certain perennial looks. An occasional spur-of the moment purchase is fine too. (I have chocolate flowers to plant. No idea where yet, but I bought them for 1.5o a piece at a year-end garden center sale. They are awesome plants so very worth it.)

Planting plans aren’t hard to make with a decent plant encyclopedia. I made a bunch of plant lists that I use with my favorite and common plants, and I’ve posted them here.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is I had lots of fun buying lots of plants and a landscape design made that happen.

Zoo and a 5K

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We went with my mom and Peter to the Zoo. It was a lot of fun. Peter liked the elephants, gorillas, and all the little animals. A couple of the dinosaurs on display scared him. I don’t think he quite understands that they are models. He also got lucky and rode the train and carousel. He was in tears after getting off the carousel, the ride was much too short for him. It was fun because Joe was there, even with finals this week.

Yesterday, I ran a 5K that Joe’s school did. I have never ran that far. Generally a mile is long enough for me. Joe and I have been running in the morning for a while, and I was surprised to find that I could run the whole thing. I was very proud of myself. I did not run very fast however, it was 3.5 miles (it was a little long) in 40 minutes. I’m still alright with that. My parents, brothers and Joe ran too. My mom beat me, but not by much. My little brother Daniel did really well and was 7th overall and beat everyone else in the family. He’s 15, so he would have won is age class, except the race wasn’t that big.

Joe should get done with school on Tuesday, and then I’m sending him to work to help finish all the landscaping projects that have been piling up.

Harvest

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Can you spot the red?

Slowly, plants are producing bounty. My fourth-of-july tomatoes are in full production and I’ve picked a few romas. I have three cucumber plants that all are producing quite a bit. I planted a couple of striped armenian cucumbers and thought they both died and replanted with different varieties. I was pleasantly surprised to fine that one did survive. I have loved the variety too. They grow quite large,curl and are beautiful when sliced. My sister mentioned that one looked exactly like a question mark. I’ve picked quite a bunch off of it already, and have taken them to whoever I visit. Here’s a picture of a small one, not quite ready for picking:

The picture above are my cucumber plants. The one on the left is a regular armenian cucumber. It has a horrible case of powdery mildew. So does the watermelon. But the striped armenian seems a lot more resistant. (It’s on the right.) I’m surprised at how bad my powdery mildew is. It’s killing back the plants. Still haven’t come across a control measure I feel comfortable with, so I’m hoping it just won’t get worse.

My potatoes also appear to have a vascular wilt disease. There’s really nothing I can do there but be disappointed. Hopefully I’ll still get a few.  It stinks that I actually know quite a bit about plant diseases but can’t solve the problem. The funny thing about plant diseases is there’s usually not a lot you can do. Control measure are things like get rid of all your plants so at least is doesn’t spread,  rotate for three years, water properly, and plant resistant varieties. Not a lot you can do when the disease strikes the plant, as fungicides are often pretty ineffective to combat infections once in the plant.

Not a horrible year so far, but not quite as good as I was expecting thanks to a long wet spring.

Mini-Vacation to Logan

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We went up north for a weekend and it felt very much like like a very small vacation. Most of it was spent visiting with my twin Heather and her family. We came up Friday afternoon and went to the Willow Park Zoo which was hot and a little boring, but Peter enjoyed it. That night we set up a tent in my sister’s backyard. I love camping, even if it is fake camping. It’s fun being able to wake up outside and see the stars.

The next morning we went on a hike to White Pine Lake. It was full of wildflowers, much prettier than any of my pictures. We remembered bug spray too this time. I have a goal to hike 100 miles this year: I’m at 58.2 miles, so I’m over halfway. Hopefully we’ll go a lot on vacation at the end of the month and in the break between Joe’s finals and his next semester. But there’s still lots of landscaping project to get done to, so we’ll see.

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After the hike, we visited some more family members up north, including a birthday party for Joe’s grandma. Made it home before 9:00 with one tired toddler.

Quick Update

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I’m still around, just busy. Lots of landscaping, housework, sleeping, and a little toddler named Peter. Here’s some pictures. The hike was up at Lofty Lake Loop and it was an awesome hike except I forgot the bug repellent and we all came home covered in bites. We also took some family pictures up in Logan. One actually had all three of us smiling.

Oh, we are moving to Georgia in January to finish up Joe’s school.

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Summer Fun

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Summer is so much fun. We’ve done a lot of playing in water lately including a picnic up at Bridal Veil falls with a friend, swimming with Daddy at the public pool, and a trip to the splash pad in Highland with a bunch of my neighbors. On Wednesday night we took a trip up to Kennecott so Peter could see the dump trucks. His favorite thing there was the collection of toy construction vehicles and other models. He was pointing at everything and calling “Car” or “Du-truck”.

Peter’s speech is starting to really take off. He copies just about any word, and they are getting to be more like the actual word he means. So fun to see him get older.

Finally, I’ve nearly finished the dining room wall. For all those familiar with my Grandma’s house, you can ohh and ahh over the change. Two of my aunts, Grandma and I all contributed to it. I actually drew it out on the computer first. It really helps get everything centered and just where you want it before you put anything up.

Here’s the pictures:

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Garden Update

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I think I thought spring was busy only because I wasn’t in summer yet. There is never a dull moment.

In the garden: the only thing blooming is the yucca and roses. I don’t care much about either. In fact the yuccas are slated for removal. They just don’t look that great with quack grass thrown in.

I’ve picked peas, lots of lettuce, and chard. My first banana pepper was picked yesterday. The tomatoes have fruit: they just need to mature. My only disappointment so far is the zucchini. This supposedly indestructible plant has struggled a lot but now seems to be taking off. I planted a yellow and a green variety, but one died. The other was very wilted so I tried to perk it up with some water. A week later when it started to look a little better, I took a look at it and realized that the stem had rotted. This hearty plant still managed to root out above the stem root and is still alive. It’s just also very far from producing zucchinis. Now I know: check the plant and soil before just dumping on even more water.

My blue hubbard squash is taking over. It’s kinda expected. At one of my gardens, I did a traditional row layout and the squash didn’t end up with enough room. So now it’s overtaking the onions.

I have more than enough landscaping project and plenty of heat to do them in. My brother and I went and worked on one for a while the other day and quite after a little over an hour. Too muggy and hot, and we were tired. Summer was made for laziness, even if my to-do list is constantly growing.