Sad Day in Squash Land......

I hate quitting.  Giving up.  Surrendering. But if gardening doesn't teach you anything else, it'll teach you that sometimes the little guy wins.  Little guys like Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers, Powdery Mildew and Sooty Mold.  And even some sort of unidentified angular trapezoidal squash bug thing. 

So it's with a heavy heart and a sad sigh that I say a fond farewell to my hydroponic squash plants.  Goodbye zucchini.  You gave me 4 really good squashes before you succumbed to powdery mildew.  Goodbye yellow and white patty pan.  You tried really hard to get going, but the fungus got to you before I could.  Goodbye yellow "One Ball" squash.  I was very excited about your first BIG squash, and sad to see the rest of them wither and die. 

You, "Tromboncino."  I will miss you most of all.  You promised three feet of bright green zucchini-like goodness.  You looked a bit like a marital aid.  You, of all the varieties, looked like you were fighting better than the rest.  I have 5 of your baby squash to try in a meal this weekend to remember you by.  I thought it best to harvest what I could before we took you out of the bin.

I'm sorry we didn't realize you all were fighting for your lives before it was too late.  I've learned that if we are going to plant you again, it'll be during a cooler time, and with more air flow around you.  And we'll start preventative spraying with worm tea from the start, because that's more effective than trying to halt fungus and mildew  once it's already in progress. 

On the bright side, your free-ranging volunteer patty-pan cousin is doing really well (so far).  He's HUGE, and while is has a few leaves showing powdery mildew, and we've lost a few baby squashes to sooty mold, he seems to be bravely and happily holding his own in the yard... never been watered, never been fertilized except for two applications of worm tea.  He's often covered in Lubbers and something has laid eggs on his huge leaves.  He might be dead by the time we get back from Arizona, but for now, he's a real trooper.

Onward.  Today, the squash plants will be replaced with yard-long Chinese Red Noodle Beans and Super Sugar Snap Peas.  We'll keep a close eye on the cucumbers that were in the bins next to the squash, because they can be susceptible to the same things that got the squash.  We managed to get a good number of cukes last year, so maybe our luck will continue this year.

Another day, another humbling garden lesson learned.

Allow me to show you my bloomers

Ahem.  Now that I've got your attention...  Here is what's blooming in our daylily garden today.

I'm a garden geek.  People who barely know me understand that pretty quickly.  What goes even deeper than my love of growing things in general is the soft spot I have for the  daylily.  We actually don't grow any other plants that are this ornamental and non-functional.  I love that it's a different bloom every day, on a different plant every day, for several months in a row.  There is nothing like going outside first thing in the morning before it's so ungodly hot and seeing who is there to meet you in the garden.  Sometimes it's a double, like Affair D'Amour, or a spider like Chevron Spider.

                                                                                                                                                              

Sometimes it's a bi-color like Athlone, or one with pinched sepals like Cameroons.

This is our best year for daylilies yet.  I think the cold snap really gave them a break and let them rest up so they could put on a show for us this year.  Of course it wasn't in time for THE show, but still.  We get a private performance every day, and will until possibly September.

I can't take any of the credit for them being this healthy and happy.  Jay does all the hard work. I am generally the one who picks them out, and sometimes I point here or there, but in the last year I've been pretty 'careless' in my placement.
When we first started, I was SOOOO detailed and persnickety about making sure I didn't have two pinks together, and that I had the big ones in the back, and the earlies mixed in with the mid- and late-seasons.  As the years have worn on, I've realized that the tall ones don't necessarily bloom the same time as the shorter ones, so it doesn't matter (to me) if they're in the back or not.  I'm just happy to see each of them whenever and wherever they decide to come out and play.  I used to be very detailed in my tags, too.   At first, I noted the variety name, the hybridizer, year of introdution, height, size, season and genetic type.  The last batch we came home with got the name of the variety and hybridizer and the year of introduction.  I became less obsessive about the technical details and more laid back about them and just being glad they are growing and blooming.  If I ever want to dabble in hybridizing, the details will be important, but for now, knowing the name and the hybridizer is probably good enough.

We have about 100 named varieties and probably half again as many unnamed/unidentified or seedlings of unknown parentage (daylily bastards) as well.  Most  of them are in pots over by the chicken coop because they were in the yard near or in the same spot the coop was going to be, so we moved them into a shadier area during construction.  Another raised bed has only daylilies and the occasional weed.  Jay is going to build raised beds for all the potted ones so they'll get the benefits of more root room like their raised bed buddies. Once all of them have permanent homes, I'll do a good inventory and get an accurate count. 

We're also fostering about 60 plants left over from our show and sale.  With much luck, they'll be ready to sell at our booth at Greenfest next March.  Every time I think we're out of room and can't possibly get more, we come home from Greenfest, or our annual show, with a few new petal-y friends.  One I can't wait to meet is called Android Dreams, that one of my favorite people in the whole wide world hybridized.  It looks like rainbow sherbet.  Hand to God.  It's got a scape on it now, so in the next few weeks, we'll get to see if it's as happy here as it was in Plant City.  The spot where the recently-removed ficus trees is MUCH larger than I thought.  I be we could fit another couple hundred daylilies in there, but nobody would ever get to see them.

Vermi-WHAT?

A little over a year ago, we bought a Worm Composting Bin from Carl and Bernie Moro of  Our Vital Earth. Bernie and Carl were guest speakers at one of our Daylily Club meetings.  They brought their Can O' Worm systems, along with samples of their worm tea and worm castings.  We were very interested in reducing our kitchen waste, and composting more effectively than with the outside compost pile (which, in our yard,  really is just a salad bar for wayward possums.)  Bernie and Carl told us about how they went to Australia to learn more about Vermiculture (which is the growing of worms) and Vermicomposting.  The containers are made from recycled battery cases, and are ubiquitous in Australian households.

We brought our composter home and set it up.  It was really easy.  It came with worms and starter bedding and a DVD that I've since misplaced and had to order another one.  You start with just one tray, fill it with kitchen scraps, and watch them go to town.  As the months go on, you add a tray until you get all of them going.  The bottom of the composter is a water reservoir, with a spigot on it.  Once a week, I drain off the liquid before I feed the worms.  They will eat about 6 - 7 pounds of vegetative kitchen scraps per week.  I went to the thrift store and bought an old ice bucket to use as a kitchen scrap collector. There are prettier commercial counter top compost buckets, but I wanted to reuse something.  I've got my eye on a nice bamboo one in the Gaiam catalog....

The worms get a load of scraps every week, and eat almost all of it.  There are a few things that we've learned about what worms like and don't like.  They will eat almost everything, but they don't like corn husks or avocado peels.  They will glom onto the inside of an avocado shell and eat all the green stuff out, but they won't actually consume the peel.  You can pick up a peel and it will be packed full of worms.  They don't get to celery root , melon and squash seeds fast enough, because I've had several baby celery, melon and squash plants trying valiantly to grow in the dark of the bin.  They like egg shells, but they must be crushed really fine.  Tea leaves are a favorite.  We go through a lot of tea in a week, and my Facebook friend Ann, who runs a tea shop, will give me her tea leaves from the store.  Starbucks always has bags of coffee grounds you can get for freesies, too.

We get about 3 quarts of worm tea a week.  Worm tea is really liquid body waste. Worms can't urinate, so by pouring water over them every week, the waste gets washed off their bodies and collects in the bottom level of the bin.  Bernie calls it the "pool in the basement of the worm condo."  The castings are the solid body waste of the worms, and they tend to leave that behind as they move around.  The lowest tray has the highest concentration of compost, so that's the tray we harvest from every month.  Worm castings are an excellent organic fertilizer, and the worm tea is also a good fungicide in addition to being a fertilizer.  I know I can tell a huge difference in our daylilies just from using the worm castings and worm tea.  They are all giving us our best season ever this year.

You don't have to use the commercial bin like we have, but it sure is easier than a homemade one.  We made homemade ones at one of our daylily club meetings a few years ago, and it was much more of a hassle than this system.  

I really like knowing that I'm putting less waste in the landfills, attracting fewer varmints to our yard, and using no chemicals fertilizers to leach into the water table.

Here is a link to a slide show of how I harvest the castings every month. 

Daylily Silly

We had our annual Bay Area Daylily Society (BADS) show and sale on May 1.  We have the first show of the daylily season in the country.  Some of the people in our club are very proud of that fact.  Personally, I wish it was a week or two later in the month because we always get more blooms right after the show.  We've entered flowers for 4 years now, and have received ribbons for something each year, usually yellow, but occasionally a blue.  This year we did better, we got a purple, which is considered a "Major Award."  I got the giggles over that because it reminded me of the Major Award in the movie "Christmas Story" (remember the hideous leg lamp?)  Anyway, we got a Major Award for our daylily H. Pink Ambrosia.  My friend Timi said that 'Nothing Is Better Than a Leg Lamp" but I'm pretty tickled anyway at our purple ribbon. I actually like the flowers that we only got Red and Yellow ribbons for better.  They were H. Happy Hooligan  I like that cultivar better because it is speckled and a double.  Jay thinks it's ugly, though.

Sandy Soderberg won the Best Spider and Best in Show awards this year. She also won for Best Photo in the Single Flower category.  Sandy continues the 'St. Pete Sweep' tradition.  Maybe some day someone from the Tampa side of the bay will take home the top awards.  Maybe even someone from South Tampa.  Hmmm.. Now there's a thought.

As a result of my feeling really bummed out that we never have had more than 3 blooms to bring to the show, and feeling a little left out of the fun because the same people seem to win every year, I had a bright idea to also have a photo category.   Like in any club or committee, he who has the idea is suddenly put in charge of it.  Luckily three other very sweet club members, Kyle, Gayle and Terri were willing to  co-chair that section of the show committee with me.  Those of you who know me well know that I positively, absolutely hate being in charge of anything.  Yuck.  I'm really more of a sit-on-the-sidelines-and-provide-comic-relief kind of girl.  I'm not really management material.  You have to take things much more seriously than I do to be in charge of them.  I'm pretty good at having-ideas part, though.  I think we did really well for our first photo exhibit.  There were some bumps, but it all turned out okay.  We know more now, and have some good ideas to use next year if the club decides to keep the photo exhibit as part of the show.  I placed second and third in the Clump and Landscape categories, respectively.  Both pictures were taken at Johnson's Daylily Farm in Brooksville.  Pending Jeff and Linda Johnson's permission, I'm planning on doing a whole post on their daylily and bamboo farm in the near future.

I took some Flip Video of the show, with some fairly Blair-Witch-y footage of the sale in progress, the photo exhibit, and some of the flowers.  It can be seen on My You Tube Channel here.

Happiness is Hydroponics!

I haven't posted about the hydroponic system in a little over a month, so I thought it was time for an update.  I'll start with before (February) and after (last week) pictures.

We've been enjoying eating and sharing with friends (and dogs next door) our snow peas, beets, onions, kale, tatsoi, rape, lettuce and swiss chard.  The broccoli is starting to do its thing and we have one small head of cauliflower forming.  I'm actually surprised that those are doing as well as they are given the heat.  The brussels sprouts aren't producing yet, although the plants are thriving, and the strawberries, while prolific, proved to be disappointing in taste.  Next year, we'll double the amount of snow peas since those have been our best performers so far.  The yellow ball squash, patty-pan and zucchini are all producing flowers and fruit. If I can keep the grasshoppers off of them, we should have a good harvest of all of those.  I need to clear out the beet box and get the cucumber I've been nursing along in the pot I bought it in a month ago put in their place.  We have plans for a bean bed and a pea bed, as well as a place for okra in mind.  I'm looking forward to getting the beans in, especially, since I've got  red noodle beans and dragon's tongue varieties to grow.  The red noodle bean is about 20" long, and the dragon's tongue is a yellow bean with purple streaks on the pod. 

The heirloom tomato "Mr Stripey" was put in before the other 5 heirloom varieties, and has had quite a head start.  We've got some Florida Sweet Onions resting on the shelf under the grill so they can crisp up their skins.

  

It's been a learning experience, that's for sure.  We keep finding things we'd like to have done differently. For example, we would like to turn the bottom bins perpendicular, and spread them out a bit more so there is more airflow, and so the snow peas don't grab hold of everything with their twisty tendrils.   All in all, though, it's been a lot of fun, and has allowed us to feed ourselves, and share with friends.  A good man once told me that food is love.  He was right.  When food is grown with love, it's even better!

Hooray for Volunteers!

A few months ago, when we were starting the chicken project, we began by potting up all of our daylilies that were in the back yard, so we could keep them safe during construction.  During that process we came across dozens of tiny tomato plants all mixed in with the daylilies.  I confess. I know how those got there.  Our kitties' daddy/granddaddy/uncle/brother was in our yard a lot, and I admit, I chucked not a few yucky tomatoes from the garden in his general direction on several dozen occasions.  The result of my pitching practice was little tiny baby tomatoes.  That was the first of the volunteer garden army that began to spout up this season.

Next to arrive was what we thought were just weeds growing out of our compost bin.  Due to the proximity of now-deceased ficus trees and our general neglect of proper composting behaviors, the compost bin had gotten full of tree roots and had stopped being 'hot' enough to kill seeds.  I realized one day that those weren't weeds.  They were potatoes.   And nestled down in the potatoes were very pretty little Scarlet Pentas that had been pulled up to make room for something else. 

Around the same time, we noticed that our tatsoi had gone to seed in the hydroponic garden, and some seeds had fallen next to the water tank.  A brand new baby tatsoi plant is now happily growing there in the ground, without any assistance from us or the water system.  We haven't had much rain except for this past weekend, but it seems to be doing fine.  I'm leaving it there, in case the grasshoppers find it easier pickings than the tatsoi that is growing four feet up in the tower.  Maybe they'll eat that and leave my tower plants alone.

Finally came the squash.  Patty pan, to be specific, now that it has made fruit and can be identified. I noticed it when it was small, 5 or 6 leaves, smack in the middle of the yard, on the edge of what we called "the Pile of  Crap" that was chicken coop construction debris.  I skillfully managed to keep it (the PoC) out of most pictures of all of the yard elements, but trust me, it was there in all it's tetanus-potential glory. The squash is about thigh-high now, and growing really well.  I couldn't crop all the PoC elements out of the photo.  I think it's really cool that these plants have just decided to make the best of their situations and bloom where they've not-been-planted.  Yes, it's inconvenient to walk around that squash for now, but I'm glad it's here, and am honoring it's willingness to volunteer in our yard.

Chicklet Update

We've had the chickens a little over a week now.  Progress has been made on the name front for half of them.  The Frizzle is now Phyllis, and the Cochin is now Babette.  We're still struggling over what to name The Twins.  They are all developing their own distinct habits, but really only Babette and Phyllis are showing any signs of personality and behavioral distinction.  The Twins are more skittish (actually, everyone is skittish around me unless I have soybeans or bulgur wheat)  Jay is a much better chicken whisperer than I am, and is more willing to chase them down and force interaction than I am.  Whenever I go out there, The Twins are convinced it's bed time and troop up the ladder into the hen house.  Babette comes waddling over to see if I've brought a treat, and Phyllis starts to follow The Twins up the ladder, but stops half way to see if Babette is onto something.

 

As far as coop improvements go, we've made some adjustments and enhancements.  We noticed the girls are panting a bit (and it's only April!!!) The coop is very shady until the late afternoon, when that western sun hits it and the reflective roof isn't much help. We found an outdoor roll-up shade and attached it so I can go out in the afternoons and unroll it to give them more refuge from the sun.

I also bought a small shallow storage bin.  I am deciding between making it a chicken pool or a sand box.  Both water and sand have cooling properties.  Jay added roosts to the hen house.  They don't get used at night unless Jay picks them up (which they hate) and puts them up on them, but I see Phyllis and the Twins on them a lot during the day.

I got a new chair to sit on in there, and added a small roost across the top of a bushel basket so they could practice.  Here, one of The Twins is practicing. She fell off immediately after I took the shot, but now that I have it full of paving stones, at least it doesn't topple over when they fall off.  I'm hoping that, since they obviously understand the concept of roosting, they will eventually decide it's a neat way to sleep at night and we won't have to traumatize them every night by moving them up on top of their snazzy roosts in the dark.  Normally they snuggle up under the roost bar - except Babette.  She finds a roost in the coop to sit on and has to be moved the whole way into the house at night.

I haven't had as much time to spend with them as I had hoped, but I go out every night for a little while when it's cool and hang out in my chair with them.  I really enjoy just watching them peck around and peep at each other.  Sometimes when I'm at the kitchen window I look out and see them chasing each other around or just flying for no apparent reason across the coop.  I see some occasional chicken chest-bumping, but nothing ever really mean going on.