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I may not have the prettiest Wisteria you’ve ever seen, but you can’t say it isn’t floriferous. Last year was different. I had at most two or three blooms on the entire tree. Visiting my in-laws was discouraging, because their Wisteria is amazing–it winds along the perimeter of their roof for yards and yards with many, many blooms. I was jealous and frustrated. Maybe I had a different species? Maybe it was because my wisteria has been cut back to be a tree rather than a vining plant?
Fortunately, my good mother-in-law was willing to share the secret: Wisteria must be tortured before it flowers. She said something about hitting hers with a heavy chain. Weird. But then I remembered how as an overly devoted 12 yr old I had killed my Nasturtiums with kindness–only realizing after the fact that giving them good soil, plenty of water and lots of care is the worst thing you could do for them. Some plants just don’t reproduce until they feel threatened. If you want flowers, you don’t baby them, you stress them!
So, last summer, I got out my big pruning shears and my Wisteria tree was quaking, it was so stressed. I walked up and put a couple of big gouges in its trunk. Sorry innocent one, but you do want to propagate don’t you?
I forgot about it. Winter came, and I hibernated.
Now:
Last summer’s gouges are almost healed. I suppose I should gouge it again after it finishes flowering this year?
Pretty! But there’s no place like home. (I’m pretending I didn’t see that [final? fingers crossed] display of snow and cold).
We have popcorn popping on the apricot tree:
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree
and daffodils and hyacinths:
Could someone tell me why I didn’t plant more bulbs? I need better follow-through. I keep buying bulbs and then not planting them! That’s an expensive mistake and a sad one, when I see these and think there could have been more . . .
To cover the garden with sheets or not to cover, that is my question. I have several nice looking tomatoes–nice except that they are still so green. I would like to save them, but they are ripening so much more slowly now than before. If we are to have just one or two days of freezing temperatures, followed by several warm days, then covering is probably worth it. If it going to be near freezing almost every night all month, then probably not.
I have become so disenchanted with the cucumber and so exhausted by the zucchini that I don’t much care what happens to them any more. I do play favorites– I would pretty much be willing to cover my basil every night all month if I thought it would work.
We did cover last night. It did work. Things that were covered survived (except for small branches on the tomato plants that broke off) and some of the things not covered shriveled (But apparently that cucumber laughs at cold!).
In other news, this is my birthday week. A sudden attack of paranoia prohibits me from revealing exactly when or exactly how much, but this is the oldest I have felt in approaching a new birthday in a long time (since I turned ten? eighteen? thirty?) I am not yet forty, but to me this particular birthday means “almost forty” and it is a weighty feeling. I wonder if when I turn forty it will still feel weighty or if I will be used to it by then?
Anyway, I am getting pretty old. I have seen the first few silver hairs. I am almost too old to have children. A lot of the milestones in my life are past. Weird. When did this happen? I wasn’t paying attention.
And what next? My zucchini is wilted and pathetic. Hopefully, I am not. What does my new season bring?
The good: My one plant is unbelievably productive. I have had a harvest this large once a week for several weeks.
The bad: The skins are tough. I usually don’t bother peeling cucumbers before I eat them, but you have to peel these. These cucumbers are very prickly. They are hard to handle–for example, when picking them without gloves. The worst thing is that occasionally they are horribly bitter. There is no way to tell if the cucumber is bitter without cutting into it and tasting it. This is a problem. Since I can’t eat 14 cucumbers a week, I need to give many away. But I’m embarrassed when my friends tell me I’ve given them poisonous tasting cucumbers! I’ve read that “water stress” causes bitterness, but I don’t know if this is true. These cucumbers do not keep well in the refrigerator–they are good for only a couple of days.
New cucumber variety recommendations, anyone?
I love shallots. Shallots are one of the many joys Cooks Illustrated has introduced me to. Shallots are much milder than onion and garlic. They are perfect for flavoring salad dressings without overpowering them. They aren’t crunchy like onions when raw. My favorite recipe that uses shallots is Fast Buttery Peas. Thyme, butter, and shallot make an amazing trio. That recipe changed my feelings for vegetables forever.
The fork is to show their size; I don't eat them raw!
Anyway, enough about cooking shallots, this post is actually about growing them. I was startled to find shallot starters at the local nursery this spring. I had never heard of anyone growing them locally. The large bag of shallots I like to buy at Costco around Thanksgiving seems to claim that you really need to grow them in France.
Well, it isn’t true. I haven’t figured out the science of shallot growing yet, but my shallots did fine nonetheless. I waited until the green tops (very similar to onion) dried out and then I picked them.
I think next year I’d better pull them sooner! Although an old Cook’s Illustrated article claimed that “most shallots (whether they have one clove or four) are approximately the same size” (not true!) a more recent article acknowledged that a shallot can be small, medium or large. The test kitchen, they said, uses only small or medium shallots because almost all of their recipes call for less than 3 tablespoons minced shallots. (Cook’s considers the yield of a medium shallot to be about 3 Tbsp minced). My largest shallots yield much more than 3 Tbsp minced–I’m going to have to make some big batches of salad dressing!
I need to find a cheaper source for shallot starters, because even though shallots tend to be rather expensive at the grocery store, I don’t think this was much of a money saving venture when you figure in all the watering I had to do in our desert climate. However, a clear bonus is that my shallots are very fresh and firm and it is almost impossible to find shallots of this quality at the grocery store.
One final note: If you decide to grow your own shallots, you may be horrified to see how many slugs they attract. I was. Interestingly, the slugs did no damage to the shallots that I’m aware of. The tomatoes were another story!
Well, remember the glory of my poppy mallow earlier this summer? I promised to post if it got all dry and crispy.
I think this qualifies.
I believe this isn’t a result of receiving too little water. Although I only water these once a week (they are in their second season) they are a xeric plant. I think this is more a seasonality thing–as with tulips. One week tulips are in bloom, the next week they are drying up. Of course, poppy mallow doesn’t grow from bulbs. So perhaps I am wrong and the reason the mallow flourished so well this spring was the abundance of rain and now they look bad because they have not gotten enough water. I’m not sure, but I think that they simply go dormant in August.
Anyway, my next experiment will be to cut all the crispy parts off in order not to let the mallow distract from the beauty of the Hummingbird Mint (Agastache Ava) and Russian Sage (Perovskia Atriplicifolia) which are currently blooming in their full glory. If the poppy mallow dies from this treatment, I will let you know.
Here is a picture of our tomatoes. They are coming along nicely. So far, we’ve had enough of the full-size tomatoes (Jetstar) to make a big Mozzarella Caprese and we’ve had enough of the cherry tomatoes (Sweet 100 and Sungold) for extensive snacking and a salad. It looks like we will soon be enjoying many, many more.
This is our third year of square foot gardening. Overall, we have been very successful with this method. But this is the first year we have had success with tomatoes.
What I learned the first year: If you strip all the branches and leaves off your tomato plant, it will not do well. It needs those leaves!*
What I learned the second year: If you strip off all the little branches before they have a chance to blossom you will not grow any tomatoes.
What I learned this year: If I have Pdad decide which “branches” are suckers that need to be removed (as opposed to those which are actually leaves and tomato bearing arms), I will end up with many more tomatoes. Apparently, it is best for me to stick to watering, not pruning.
In addition to watering them and making Pdad the designated pruner, I did do a couple of things right vis a vis the tomatoes this year. Instead of buying the large Early Girl tomato plants at Costco (that we haven’t had much luck with) I bought cheaper tiny ones at the local nursery. My theory was that maybe tomatoes are like trees–better able to handle transplant shock when small. Also, I planted them laying down so that only the very tops poked out of the soil. This is supposed to get you a vigorous root system. What it got me was depressed. I kept comparing my plants to other people’s and they were pathetically small. Pdad (who has no acquaintance with depression or despair) stopped me from ripping them out. Now they are bearing nicely. We make a good team.
* I have been almost as pathetically stupid about this as this makes it sound. In my defense, let me explain for those who don’t know that Mel Bartholomew (the Square Foot Gardening Guru) recommends training your tomatoes to a single stem so that you can grow them in a smaller space. It turns out that I am simply incapable of understanding (or is it correctly implementing?) his instructions on which pieces of the plant to remove.
Laziness in gardening doesn’t pay.
Actually, it wasn’t laziness, I was just too busy. But where the proper care of roses is concerned, being too busy too garden properly doesn’t pay either.
I patted myself on the back when I deadheaded all my roses promptly this year. [Yes, they recovered beautifully from their harsh early spring pruning and I had many beautiful blooms.] However, it was past dusk when I finished and there was no time to apply glue. Since the rose cane borers like to hang out at my house, glue is important.
In the rush of the next few days, I think I tried to convince myself that rose cane borers were a problem I had had in the past.
The evidence now suggests past and present. So now my canes are even shorter than before and freshly glued. My plan for next year: An allium forest to surround my rose bushes. The link is to an article that suggests allium will keep those borers away. I love allium anyway, so allium companion planting here we come!
Poppy Mallow Close Up. Pretty, eh?
Some drought tolerant plants, like Firecracker Penstemon (penstemon eatonii), aren’t just drought tolerant, they are drought loving. They do worse if watered too much. Water is not their friend. It can rot and kill them.
In the other category, drought tolerant plants like Poppy Mallow (callirhoe involucrata) are able to survive conditions of very little water. However, given plenty of water, they are off to the races. My experience suggests that when they are well-hydrated, they figure it is a good time to bloom and reproduce. High Country Gardens describes Poppy Mallow as a “gentle spreader.” After our unusual weather (lots and lots of rain) of the past few weeks, my gentle spreader seems to have become an aggressive spreader! It is so beautiful right now that I guess I don’t mind. However, I worry that it will soon begin to look yellow and crispyish (as it did mid summer last summer). If the summer brings an end to the blossoms and a beginning to yellow foliage spread everywhere, I won’t be feeling quite as pleased. I’ll keep you posted.
Poppy Mallow spreading under the Russian Sage along my back fence
Zucchini Joy or I never promised you a rose garden
This was supposed to be a rose garden. It did have roses when we moved in, but they were sick and old and had to go. I had planned to put more roses in, and I planted “Royal Velvet” English lavender in preparation for this, envisioning a lovely vista from the picture window that looks out on this bed from our kitchen.
BUT
Our yard has lots of beds and lots of ornamental plants. What of edibles? In the past couple of years, Pdad felt reluctant to put food rather than flowers on display. But last year’s ornamental kale and jack-be-little pumpkins helped him come around. Food can be beautiful and fun and — delicious. Much as I loved the little pumpkins, this year I wanted a true food crop. So I planted my first ever zucchini. And today I discovered my first zucchini! I don’t know which I’m looking forward to more–Pdad’s grilled zucchini or my zucchini nut bread. Either way, I’m excited.
Given our zucchini plant’s fun foliar issues (is that powdery mildew?), it may not rank as our most beautiful specimen (the blossoms are gorgeous–although they have violated my anti-yellow proscriptions), but today at least, it’s near the top for “most satisfying.”