Sunflower Diligence

It has been nothing but wet, rainy, and windy here. There are some garden things happening, but progress is slow. So, I'm simply going to post this great pic of Promise being diligent on a rare dry day.




Oh wait found another one. She's trying to imagine what it will be like when they have grown in. :)

Planting Wildflowers

Planting Wildflowers, also known as "Project - Break Yourself".

I started out with a good idea and I think it will be nothing short of grand when it's finished, but I'm going to hurt tomorrow and for a few days I may wonder if it was worth it.

It rained decently heavy yesterday. There was also a bit of hail that had me out checking the status of my maters after it all passed. Thankfully they came through just fine.

The hubby and I then went out for lunch and stopped at the hardware store where I found this box of wildflower seed. The packaging boasts "At least 4,500 seeds in 17 varieties, to cover a 100 sq. ft area in a fully organic mix". All for $1.99? Sounds good to me!


Because of where we placed Promise's sunflower house, she now has little strips of lawn on each side that hubby will be unable

to mow. Around here, tall grass is habitat for mosquitos and wood ticks so one way or another it has to go. I've been hoping for just such an excuse to turn this area into some type of flower bed, hummingbird, butterfly, I honestly didn't care what. It's untended, untamed, and unattractive. That's just too many "uns" for my yard and in my minds eye I've always seen this corner filled with flowers. To give you some spatial perspective, this entire corner is more or less the view from my kitchen window. You can just barely make out the railroad tie flower bed lost in the tall grass. The area I want to root up is outlined by the yard tool handles.

The plan was to attack this area today while the ground was still soft from the rain; pull the grass and weeds out, and set down a sprinkling of this wildflower seed mixture on each side of her house area.
I managed to clear away all the grass to the back corner of the RR bed. I still need to weed along the fence line and then expand toward the sunflower house.

On the bright side, the soil here is quite possibly the best I could hope for. I've been dumping leaf piles here for years to improve the soil quality and it has worked! Every turn of the claw tool unearthed a mess of worms. Every. Turn. I don't remember the last time I saw so many worms in one place. This grass nearly had me beat today. I don't know what it is, but the roots are brittle and if you dare to leave the tiniest nub in your bed, it will regrow a whole new grass plant. Picking out these roots took me far longer today than I anticipated. I was not able to finish today. I'll have to continue the project tomorrow. I find myself wishing I had some roof flashing or some type of border material to surround this bed to keep it all from creeping back in. I'll have to see what the hubby can come up with.

A Sunflower House

Ever since I discovered the book Sunflower Houses by Sharon Lovejoy (link to follow), I've wanted to plant one of these for Promise. I don't know why it took me so long, but today we finally planted our sunflower house.

First Promise helped me roll the old wagon wheel rim out to the chosen spot. This rim is not quite 5 feet in diameter and we use it whenever we want a perfect circle. Yes, that's right. I cheat. ha ha :P

We then gathered rocks and set them around the rim. I had 16 Mammoth sunflowers that came up from seed so we used 16 rocks. She sat inside the rim and we decided it wasn't big enough. She's 10 after all with legs to her armpits. We moved the rocks out 15 inches from the rim and spaced them 12 inches apart. This left us enough room for about a 2 foot wide doorway in front. We removed the rim and she sat inside the circle of rocks. This time there was enough room to fit the both of us comfortably. Using an old trowel that threatened to break in half, I set to work digging a hole where each rock sat. We then planted a mammoth sunflower seedling in each hole.

We added a second row of shorter sunflowers, the Moulin Rouge, to the front. We put 5 on each side of the doorway in a row 12 inches away from the Mammoth and about 15 inches apart. I had more than 10 of these sprout but I was afraid if I went too far back with them the Mammoth would block their sunlight. You can see the placement of these in the next photo. Since they were about half the size of the mammoth sprouts Promise decided we should leave a rock next to them so she wouldn't step on them.


For the third row we used the 2 packs of petunias I was given for Mothers Day from Gail at Whitcombs Nursery when we bought our apple trees. There were 4 to a pack. One was labeled purple and the other had no tag. I dug four holes on each side of the door and planted purple, mystery, purple, mystery. I'm hoping these will help fill in the lower sunflower stalk area for some additional screening and privacy. When this all grows in I'm going to have to send her a picture with a thank you note.

Promise then lined the doorway with rocks outlining the path inside and quickly came with her little watering can to water it all. The top end of the pathway points to the line of mammoth sunflowers.

I'm still thinking I could go out and transplant some of my daisies over there for additional fill, but maybe not today. ;) We had a great time together planting and we can't wait for it to grow in. I'll post an update pic later in the summer so you can all see it.

Get the book that inspired it all, here!

Some Progress

Hubby was very productive yesterday. He mowed the lawn, put together the potting bench we bought last fall, AND built me a frame for a raised garden bed.


We discovered this potting bench being used as a display rack in a discount store late last fall. Being the floor model it was the last one left and the price as they say, was right. We pestered the sales people for screwdrivers and took it apart ourselves. It has a basin for mixing soil a drawer for spoons and whatnots, and a couple hooks to hang my hand spades and trowels.

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The new Salad Bed Area
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This is the north side of the house which tends to be considerably cooler throughout the summer making it a perfect place for the salad garden. This first photo is the "before" picture I took, when we began planning out our space. The tractor tire serves as the current compost spot as I was attempting to build soil there. The bird feeder never seems to have seed in it. I'd like to move it to somewhere I can actually see it and watch the birds. The little hill at the bottom right is a pile of useless clay, rock and weedy bits that was left from the crushing of the old cistern. The cistern was crushed shortly after we moved in, and I hadn't known they were going to do it. If I had, I would have arranged to keep it as it would have made a wonderful root cellar. Now my old garden was way at the end of the property. If you follow the driveway up you'll see lots of tall straw colored grass. That's the old garden. I don't know why the previous owners put it so far from the house. The garden hose doesn't even reach that far.


In this second photo, you can see the tire has been moved and the feeder pulled out. The clay pile now mostly fills the back of our old pickup. That clay is going to be spread on the driveway to fill in some holes. When all is said and done, I should have enough room here for 3 bed frames like the one you see in the photo. The perimeter will be fenced to keep out the goats. I planned to trellis peas on the fence, but I think it's likely the goats will just eat the peas through the fence so that's probably not the best idea.

Things are growing!
My lettuce has come up. The oregano is coming up. The basil seems undecided. I think I might have some echinacea. The mint is having a tough time after getting heavily rained on. The sunflowers are all coming up. I think it's just the watermelon I'm a little worried about so far.

The Violet Harvest

One day a year, we harvest violet flowers. Today was that day.

The blossoms are dried and saved for a very delicate flavored tea that is reportedly high in vit C. This is a job Promise likes to do all by herself and her little fingers are perfectly suited to the task. She set off with a little basket and returned about 2 hours later with it nearly full of tiny wild violets.

It really looked like quite a bit, until I had the first batch in the oven to dry. Then all the little petals crinkled up and the blossoms were not much bigger than a lavender bud. The stems need to be carefully picked off so as not to break open the little bulb that holds the nectar. These flowers in the photo have been cleaned and are ready to be dried in the oven.

Project - Orchard

Yesterday we planted 2 bare root apple trees, a Honeycrisp and a Honeygold, on the south side of the foot path to the frog pond. In the photo, we have added several layers of backfill and water to make sure the soil settles in around the roots with no air pockets. The grass layer was then tucked back in around the tree with roots up. We were told they may even set fruit this year if they decide they like their placement and get enough water, but it won't be anything like the yield to come in 2 - 3 years.

Check off one more pesticide soaked product I'll never have to buy from the store!

What's Growin'

Garden plans are underway!

Of course I tried to buy heirloom and organic seed where possible, but honestly, we are so broke I wasn't sure I was even going to be able to put in a garden this year, so I am simply very happy to have what I could find at my local hardware. I can only take careful notes, and save seed from the good stuff, so I have less to buy next year.

I spent yesterday setting a few seeds, the rest should probably be direct sown. I set a flat of some early salad greens which I will be transplanting once the beds are up. I know it will be a rather tedious process, but I favor it over just dumping seeds in a trench and they do transplant reasonably well. They also prefer the cooler temps of the early summer to germinate, and I'm a little afraid of how well they'll start when direct sown after it begins to get really warm. Starting them in a flat gives me a rather clear idea of how well they are germinating. The lettuce bed will consist of Black Seeded Simpson, mesclun mix, mesclun spicy, salad bowl blend (red and green mix), and arugula.

I have 15 Roma tomatoes and 4 Cherry tomatoes that I bought as 6" starts. They were 1.69 for a pack of four. I thought that was a pretty good deal so I grabbed them. I love tomatoes. At one point I had a very large garden consisting of more than 33 tomato plants. I had tomatoes coming out of my ears and spent a great deal of time canning and making pasta sauce. I would love to work my way up to that again but considering I am starting all new beds, I am trying to keep it small this year. ;)

I have also seeded flats, bins, pots etc, of Basil, Thyme,True Greek Oregano, and Echinacea.

Chamomile, dill,mint, parsnip (lilly miller seed), bunching onions (lilly miller Organic seed),Cherry Bell Radis (Ferry Morse Organic Seed), Scarlet Nantes carrot (Ferry Morse Organic Seed), Oregon Sugar Pod Peas (Ferry Morse Organic Seed), and Purple Haze Carrots will all be direct sown.

I also found some Rosemary seeds, but the packet says rosemary grows very slowly and unless I had started it indoors months ago, I probably won't be able to harvest any this year. not having grown Rosemary before (zone 8 and we are barely zone 5) I may not waste my time on it this year.

The kids helped start some sunflowers varieties,Moulin Rouge for the color, and Mammoth (grows 7 feet with 18" flower heads) for a "flower fort", and Promise bought Sugar Baby Watermelon - an early variety maturing in 75 days, from Lilly Miller. She took care to point out as she added them to my seed packet pile, that they are in fact a vegetable. ;)