Late Fall Garden Update

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The weather is turning nippy and the winds are blowing the remnants of fall's brilliant leaves around into whirlwinds of color. My garden, which has been so productive, is beginning to slow down in preparation for winter. Nevertheless, it still has some bounty to share before the long sleep. Here are the last of the apples in my tree. These beauties are the inaccessible ones at the very top of the tree. Since they can't be reached, we have to wait for them to fall. The squirrels and birds haven't been very cooperative in this regard, helping themselves to more than half the apples on the tree.  Apparently they have had their fill as they have left these few alone. Fortunately these apples did not get mangled, beaten or bruised from the fall and fell onto the soft dirt instead of the hard concrete surrounding the garden. There's good eatin' here.

My monster tomato plant (yes, plant...singular) has all but obliterated the azalea bush that supports it. Only a little bit of the bush is visible on the extreme right side. The rest is all tomato. It is still producing flowers which I am ripping off as fast as they are being produced in the hope of redirecting the growth hormones to the developing fruit. There are still hundreds of little green tomatoes on the vine. Because of the shorter days and cooler weather the ripening process has slowed down drastically but I am still harvesting quite a bit. I was out of town for a week and upon my return the bowl of tomatoes you see here was waiting for me.


Now begins the long process of readying my garden for winter. Spent plants must be uprooted, Pots must be brought in, and plastic must be draped over the hoop house to shield it from the ravages of snow and ice. I'm tired just thinking about it but it inspires me to look forward to next season's garden. Now I have property upstate that I can plant also. More work. More fun. More food. I love my garden .

Always and All Ways,
#Gitana the Creative Diva

The Vine That Ate Troy Avenue

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View from the front of the garden

No, you're not looking at a scene from an agricultural horror flick. What you're seeing is a monster tomato plant that has all but consumed my ancient azalea bush and is using it as its own personal trellis. This vine spontaneously sprang up in the middle of my garden of its own accord. Had I intentionally planted it, I would have placed it in a container. I thought about pulling it up but then I got lazy and decided to leave it and allow it to take its course. OH MY, I got a whole lot  more than I bargained for. Turns out that this tomato was an indeterminate variety. That means that it is a sprawling vine that keeps on growing and growing and growing until weather or other conditions kill it off. Some of those tentacles are over eight feet long!! If I had known that when I saw that cute little plant spring out of the ground, I might have yanked it out without any mercy but I'm actually glad I didn't. Turns out that:

View from the back of the garden

Indeterminate Tomato Varieties Have Better Tomato Flavor*

“Determinate” and “indeterminate” are terms used to describe a tomato variety’s growth habit — but many gardeners don’t realize these categories relate to flavor, too. Most determinate tomato plants have fewer leaves per fruit than their sprawling indeterminate cousins. These compact determinate plants have the advantage of growing better in containers and producing all of their harvest at once, which makes them great for processing. But, don’t expect them to be as flavorful as the vining indeterminate varieties that have more leaves to convert sunlight into sugars and, thus, develop more intense, complex flavors (*Source).

The fruits of my labor

Who knew? Not me, but I can tell you this. Those little tomatoes, pictured here, are delicious. My son pops them in his mouth and eats them like candy. I've used them in salads, in stews, made tomato sauce with them and they are great. Best I've ever grown, really, and I never would have known this had I ripped it out of the ground. And it's still producing in October! I have dozens of green tomatoes on the vine waiting to ripen. 

Basil, Lettuce seeds, and more

These days I've been harvesting as much as I can because the days are shorter and the weather is cooler. Here you'll see a picture of Italian basil, red lettuce seed heads, some tiny potatoes that were hiding from me last time and a green pepper. Those leaves are going to be dehydrated, those seeds will be separated out from the heads for next year, and those potatoes and pepper are destined for my cooking pot. BONUS: the cooler weather benefits cilantro which has begun to grow in my garden now from seeds that dropped from the spring crop. More tasty herbs on the horizon. The cycle begins again.

This year's growing season is winding down but I'm still reaping the benefits and planning next year's garden. I'm smiling just at the thought of it.

#LoveMyGarden 



Ballo ergo sum - Gitana, the Creative Diva

Garden Update, Take 2

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For the past couple of weeks I have been on a steady diet of weed. Weeding the garden, that is. We've been experiencing quite a bit of rain which has created an explosion of plant and flower growth but, alas, the weeds also benefit from Nature's largesse. Particularly bothersome are the morning glories. Last year's beautiful abundance of blooms resulted in hundreds upon HUNDREDS of seeds, all of which appear to be germinating simultaneously. Without any exaggeration, I can easily say I have pulled out several hundred seedlings in the past few days alone, only to have a new crop appear again in the same place the very next day. This is in addition to purslane, dandelion, bedstraw, chickweed and all the other usual characters found in the weed pantheon. Nevertheless, I press on, determined to pluck every last one lest they compete with my plants for nutrients.

Speaking of my plants, they are doing quite well although some of them are taking a very long time to germinate. I have quite a collection of flowers growing.

Here are some lovely four foot tall orange daylilies. They sit front and center in my front garden, greeting all passersby. They are so prolific that I've given most of them away and spread them through the garden and I still have a lot.  They tower over their pretty yellow cousins, the Stella D'Oro daylilies. They, too, are quite prolific and would easily take over the garden if given the chance.

 Here are a couple of snap dragons that popped up spontaneously without my help. (
There's a lot of that going on the garden this year.) These two are actually growing under the large leaves of two other plants that have mysteriously sprouted in my garden. You can see them below left, flanked by lavender in the raised bed. I have no idea what they are but they appear to be sunflowers on steroids. The leaves and flower buds are similar but there are differences in the growth habit. They are so thick and stocky, I'm almost afraid I'm cultivating another Audrey 2 (from Little Shop of Horrors fame). The raised bed is surrounded by sweet alyssum that self seeded from last year. They are already releasing their beautifully delicate fragrance and sweetening the air.

In the vegetable department, I've got some bush beans growing in plastic pails along the front of the house, They are joined by the yellow flowers of the cucumbers climbing through my old azalea and some bush variety cherry tomatoes blooming profusely in another pail. My onions, not to be outdone, are also in bloom. If  you've never seen an onion blossom, it looks like a fuzzy ping pong ball at the end of a stick. I'll soon  cut off the blooms and use the stems as scallions for cooking.

For a touch of whimsy I set up my tipsy pot of flowers. Every year it is in a different spot and sports different flowers. This year I decided severely limit my garden expenditures and chose to use whatever was already growing in my garden to fill the tipsy pots. This year it is filled with alyssum and creeping Jenny (moneywort) trailing over its side.

There is so much more going on in the garden but too much for now. Fodder for another post. Until then...


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

Garden Update

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A lonely pansy peeks out from among
the sedum. Self seeded from last year.

The weather has been pretty flaky here in Brooklyn, NY these past couple of weeks. May brought us unseasonably warm weather with a couple of days past the 80 degree range but not a lot of rain. June, on the other hand, has brought much needed rain with much cooler temperatures. This has caused much confusion among my plants and they have shown their displeasure in a number of ways. My Alexander Darby rose, which produced some beautiful buds, drooped miserably when the colder weather hit us so the resulting blooms were sad looking. The rain has been a boon for my crops as well as for my weeds. Weeding is my least favorite thing to do and the garden has become a little scruffy looking for lack of diligent weeding.

A white heath aster shows up in one of
my pots. Take a look to the left of the
flower...I caught a bee just about
to land on it

To add to that chore, last year's bountiful morning glories left hundreds of seeds in their wake, all of which appear to be sprouting simultaneously. Seriously, there are parts of the front garden that are blanketed in morning glory seedlings, all of which must be ripped up and thrown out before they begin their insidious twining around the fence.

Lovely lavender survived the winter
to bloom fragrantly this spring.

And my tomatoes! Oh dear, what a predicament that is. I think I must have thrown tomatoes into the compost at some point without removing the seeds. So, of course, when I used my compost for planting my containers, the result has been dozens and dozens of tomato plants sprouting in every conceivable nook and cranny where they were not deliberately planted. I really don't know where I'm going to put them all but I hate the thought of throwing them out.

A mysterious plant (weed?) showed up
in the garden. Planted by a bird perhaps.

In spite of my garden woes, it continues to surprise me in many ways with blooms and plants in unexpected places. I have more than a few plants that I didn't plant but just showed up spontaneously. Last year's sweet allysum reseeded itself and is blooming beautifully with tiny white flowers floating over fluffy masses of greenery. A lonely pansy showed up in the middle of my sedum and a white heath aster has bloomed its daisy-like head in between some other plants. Then there are these two plants with large leaves that appear as if they will bloom into the second coming of Audrey II (from Little Shop of Horrors). I don't know what they are or where they came from but they're getting so big so fast I'm concerned about my lavender plant which is immediately next to it. In about a week I should know if it's a winner or bound for the trash bin.

I'll keep you posted.


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

Ah, Spring!

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Unidentified flower in my garden.
I don't know what it is but I like it.

King Alfred Daffodils. These bulbs have been
blooming and propagating for over 20 years.

After a long and very cruel winter, spring has finally arrived with all its glory. The mulch has been pulled back from the gardens revealing all the new green growth that was stirring underneath. In my garden the crocuses and daffodils have been having a party. Daylilies, hostas, black-eyed Susans, sedum and more are beginning to poke through the ground. There is a very healthy crop of cilantro and even some lettuce that survived the winter under my hoop house. Along with the beauties come the beasts and I've been ripping up weeds all over the place but that is to be expected. But some of my plants, like my 15 year old strawberries, did not survive. It is yet to be determined what else may have fallen victim to winter's icy blast.

Orange Daylilies preparing for
their turn on the garden stage.

Still have lots more work to do. These pots
await their turn for spring prep.

I tend to want to grow everything I see and invariably will end up with so many plants that I don't know what to do with them all at the end of the season. This year I think I'll be taking a more measured approach. I'm going to concentrate on those plants and seeds that I already have on hand and limit getting new ones. I am also going to limit what edibles I grow to those that I can easily preserve and consume during the off-season.  I have been blessed with a dehydrator and a stand-alone freezer which allow me to preserve my own food for future use. One of my greatest joys is cooking with the herbs and vegetables that I grew and dehydrated during the summer and fall. There's nothing like crumbling fragrant cilantro or basil into the food as it's cooking or making an omelet with my own veggies.

The growing season is here and I'm ready. Bring it on!!

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

The Persistence of Nature

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I don't have to tell you about the seriously ravaging weather we experienced this winter. It was brutal. Fortunately in the fall I had prepared some of my plants to survive the onslaught of the frigid temps and today I got a peek at some of the fruits of my labor. When the weather gets a little nippy, I place the plants I want to protect in my backyard shed which acts like a makeshift greenhouse. In addition, I place several plants on a rolling chrome cart that I cover over with bubble wrap to create an insulating cocoon. This way they are not only protected from the wind, they are just a little warmer than the air outside their "tent". Today I removed the plastic wrap to find...GREEN. My tiny tea roses are green and showing many new leaf buds. The garlic bulbs that had begun to sprout in October are still green and growing and my old vinca (really, it's gotta be at least five years old) is going like a champ. Some of the other plants in the "greenhouse" that did not benefit from the plastic cocoon are also showing signs life like the planter below right that contains a spike plant and some trailing ivy.


My backyard garden is not to be left behind. My faithful daffodils (which were planted over 20 years ago) are pushing up through what was permafrost just two weeks ago and some of my ferns never lost their green color in spite of the sub-arctic temperatures this winter brought.



Last fall I also took the precaution of adding a ridge pole to the hoop house in the front garden that I had erected over the raised bed I built two years ago. It had been blown over that first year by a nor'easter and was in serious need of stabilizing to prevent knock down. It was also draped in heavy plastic to insulate the plants inside. Frankly I didn't think it would hold up especially given the amount of snow we got this year but believe it or not it did. I can't wait to take a look underneath the plastic to see how my cilantro and garlic are doing.

Looks like spring is going all gang busters this year. Bring it on!

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

My December Garden

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Snapdragons

Spike plant and Ivy

It is the middle of December here in New York and Mother Nature still amazes me. I still have flowers blooming and my cilantro is still perky. In the glass shed I use as a makeshift greenhouse, there is a pot of white snapdragons that won't quit. It just keeps blooming and blooming. Right next to it there is a pot that contains a spike plant and some ivy that is as fresh now as it was in June.

Cilantro

Sweet Allysum

Lest you think that the only plants performing well are in a sheltered environment, let me introduce you to some of the others that are planted outdoors. Although my white sweet allysum which grew and bloomed like gangbusters all summer is waning, it is still putting on a show with a handful of tiny white snowball blooms.

Lavender

Pansies

In raised beds on either side of the allysum I have lavender and cilantro. The cilantro doesn't grow tall in this weather but the leaves are still fragrant and tasty and I just harvested some for my kitchen. In my backyard I have purple pansies that apparently missed the memo that winter was upon us and are still blooming with impudence.

I've been making adjustments to the hoop house I erected over the raised bed in my front garden. Last year I dismantled it for the winter and covered the bed with a layer of bubble wrap to insulate the soil somewhat and protect the onions I had planted. It seemed to work well enough. This year I'm trying something different. I'm planning to keep the hoop up and covering it with plastic and have added a ridge pole across the top of my hoops to strengthen the structure. I'm making a fitted cover for the hoop house from a roll of heavy duty plastic. I'm going to order special clips to hold the plastic in place and plan to install openings that will allow me to access the interior of the structure. I've never done this before and have no clue how this will work out so wish me luck. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Until then...

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

Another Floral Surprise

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Last year I got a zebra plant (Aphelandra squarrosa) that miraculously survived the dry air in my home over the last frigid winter. This year, when the weather warmed sufficiently, I placed in outdoors next to my avocado and mini roses. A few weeks ago I noticed something I hadn't seen before. It appeared as if my plant was going to bloom! Never having had a zebra plant before, I didn't know that it bloomed. I assumed it was a foliage plant. Well, I was wrong. Here are some photos showing the transition from foliage to bracht to blossoms. Now that October is here and the first frost is not far behind, this last hurrah of summer is a very welcome sight.

 

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

Clearing A Creative Block

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Last night as I returned home I was welcomed by a surprise in my garden. The moon flowers that I had planted months ago and that never germinated (or so I thought) had not only sprouted but had climbed up my trellis and were in full bloom. Apparently they were hiding among the other vines climbing the trellis and went undetected. If you are not familiar with moon flowers, they are glorious. Their blossoms are creamy white and are the same shape as those of a morning glory (the two are related) but they measure anywhere from four to five inches across, only opening at night. Because of their creamy color, they look like miniature moons floating over the garden. I can't tell you what a smile it brought to my face to see the return of one of my favorite nocturnal flowers. HERE is a link to a one minute video I found online of a moon flower opening in real time - FAST!

The feel-good emotions I got from viewing my gorgeous flowers helped me to crack through a creative block I was experiencing with a Halloween decoration I was working on. This scene was created using several free digital cutting files, most of which came from birdscards.com. You can find many of the files used in this scene HERE. Choosing which files to use and where to place them was easy. My block came at the very end of construction when I didn't know what to do with the top border and the space between the words at the bottom border. I let the project sit and stew for a day, then returned to it the morning after my moon flower surprise. The creative cobwebs were gone and the project was finished in no time.

Moral of the story: A walk in the garden can clear your mind.


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

A Little Update

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Because there is going to be some disruptive construction work to address a leaky basement issue in the near future, I have to move all the plants out of the back end of the front garden in order to keep them from being destroyed when work begins. My apple tree is very popular with the local birds and squirrels which have been busy helping themselves to the abundant green apples on the tree. This creates a big mess because they tend to eat a bit of an apple, it falls to the ground, then they move on to another apple. Every day I'm throwing away pounds and pounds of green apples, as well as lots of fallen leaves, when I sweep the yard. All the bending associated with digging, uprooting, replanting, sweeping and collecting has done a number on me and I've been hobbling around with pains in my lower back for over a week. It was so bad one day I didn't get out of my bed. In spite of the pain, I love my garden.  My harvesting has begun and I'm already thinking about what cool weather crops to plant before the frost hits. I suppose I'm a sucker for punishment.

My personal garden show is non-stop and ever surprising. This week I was greeted by white and lavender Rose of Sharon flowers. I never even saw them budding because I was totally captivated by the beautiful caladiums that were showing off at their feet...er... roots. I was also surprised by morning glories on my front fence. Last year they took forever to bloom but this year they came up sooner than I anticipated. And my plum tomatoes are all blushing, leading me to believe I'm going to have a bunch of them ripening at the same time. Mmmm, I see homemade tomato sauce in my future.

In addition to my outdoor activities, I've been working on a baby scrapbook for my youngest grandson. He's already over a year old so I'm frightfully behind on this project but I'm almost done. I'm adding a couple of pages dedicated to his early school days and I didn't have any embellishments that conveyed that schoolroom vibe so, of course, I made some. I created miniature composition notebooks, pencils and a tiny ruler that I will glue onto the scrapbook pages. As usual when I'm making miniatures,

I tend to get carried away and I made way too many for the current project at hand. I made close to a dozen books in 1:12 miniature scale before I realized the proportion was much too small for the pencils which I created without any regard to scale. So I made some more books in 1:6 scale which worked out much better. I glory in the details when I make miniatures so these books contain actual ruled pages that can be turned between the traditional black and white covers. The one inch square grid they're on gives you an indication of their actual size.

Oh yes, I am truly a sucker for punishment.

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

The Official Start of Summer

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A Black Swallowtail Butterfly blesses my garden with beauty.

My loose leaf lettuces in all their colorful glory.

Memorial Day, the unofficial beginning of summer, has come and gone along with the requisite barbecue celebrations that go with it. We hosted a barbecue that was very well attended by more than 30 family and friends. My son manned the grills, cooking burgers, hot dogs, barbecue and jerk chicken wings, spare ribs and steaks to complement the spicy guacamole and salsa he made from scratch. (Yes, my boy can COOK!!) My contribution to the food was vegetable rice and a big salad fresh from the garden. Not only did I use leaves from the various colorful varieties of lettuce I'm growing, I also added some chickweed, cilantro and mint, also growing in the garden.

Yes, Memorial Day spells summer to some but for me the official start of summer is the arrival of the migratory birds and the butterflies and this year I was not disappointed. I've already seen a bright red male cardinal and heard the call of mourning doves and the neighborhood's resident mocking bird. Although monarchs are usually the first butterflies to visit my garden, this year I was treated to the sight of a gorgeous Black Swallowtail that flitted among my creeping phlox blossoms and sampled the few blooms left on my old azalea bush. The sight of that beautiful creature filled me with more joy than I can describe. This year I planted some milkweed seeds in the hope of growing some milkweed plants to attract more butterflies, particularly the monarchs that I dearly love. Hopefully they will germinate. In the meantime, my garden beckons and I will answer its call with pleasure.

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva