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Great Gardening Experiment part 3

04 Wednesday Nov 2015

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squmpkin1Squmpkin

In the previous episode, the vines had taken over the entire garden, two walls of the barn and gone over three fences. Pumpkin vines, squash vines and sweet potato vines were hopelessly tangled together. Aside from the fact that this made getting around in the garden to check on the plants impossible for me, it also confused the bees who were doing their jobs collecting nectar and distributing pollen. It’s a great trade when it works. The problem here is that all squash blossoms look alike to a bee. They will merrily buzz from zucchini, to mayo arrote to pumpkin. This isn’t a problem when they buzz from zucchini to pumpkin or from the mayo arrote to the zucchini. It is apparently a problem when they buzz from pumpkin to mayo arrote.

While checking the garden one morning, I discovered several new mayo arrote squash developing on the vines climbing the stall walls. Following the vine, checking for more, I found a bright orange and green squash about the size of a baseball, hiding in the leaves. Mayo arrote squash are a very pale color with light green mottled stripes. As they mature, some of them will develop a few bright yellow streaks. None, however, are orange. There are a few types of squash which can cross pollinate. Mayo arrote and pumpkins are, apparently, two of those types of squash. We have a Squmpkin. A BIG squmpkin. It’s entertaining, but not something that needs to be repeated. When we plant next spring, we will be sure to keep the two well separated.

Because we had gone quite garden/free food crazy, we decided to start another bed in the backyard adjacent to the patio. For years there had been a large lush creosote bush in that spot. For unknown reasons, that bush suddenly died and had to be taken out. The bush had provided a good bit of shade on our west facing patio. I wanted to replace it with something that would provide shade, but couldn’t find anything suitable so the spot remained bare. As we watched the vines in the larger garden doing their best to turn the barn into a tall, green mound, we realized that a small garden in that spot could not only provide food, but if we gave vines something to climb, we’d have shade as well.

patiogardenWe used old pallets we’d gotten for free at a local business and slid them down over T posts for vines to climb. We added the poop trifecta in the enclosed area where we have planted large leaf and sweet basil, oregano, parsley and sage (the rosemary bush is by the front porch. Sorry, no thyme). We also added our manure mix along the outside of the pallets where we will be planting grapes next year. We’re hoping the vines will do well because those pallets are less than attractive as is. If we have no luck with grapes, we’ll just plant more squash because heaven knows those vine like crazy and will turn those ugly pallets green in no time.

When we put in the larger garden, we had only planted one half. It doesn’t look like we only planted one half, but we did. By end of summer, we’d collected enough poop to fill the second half about 18 inches deep.

arizonajohngardenofdoomAridzona John in the Garden of Doom

Once we added the manure to the second half, the squash, pumpkin and sweet potato vines saw all that pristine earth and we’ve had the devil’s own time beating them back. We’d thought those vines would have died off by now, but it’s November and we’re still waiting.

In the second half of the garden we planted artichokes, brussels sprouts, cabbage, corn (probably a mistake but what the heck) a wide variety of lettuces, and both red and white onions.

artichokebeets cabbage lettuceI had posted on our local small town Facebook group that I needed old chicken wire and leftover bits of hardware cloth to protect the seeds and sprouts from those birds with divining powers. We ended up with an abundance of free wire that just needed a bit of straightening to make protective tents. I noticed this morning, however, that I’m going to have to hit the plants with a bit of Neem oil as some of them are mildly bug chewed. Everything has sprouted well and looks happy, except the onions. We’ve had a very few onions sprout. However, when we were out and about last week we picked up a tray of red, white and brown onions to plant just in case. If the others sprout, terrific, there’s no such thing as too many onions in my kitchen.

Meanwhile, the squash vines are still producing and still spreading. They’ve reached the hay room fence and have also spread over the top of the south facing stall wall. There are 5 new squash on the south facing fencing alone and 4 more growing within the main garden. The squmpkin is almost completely orange now and quite a bit bigger than a basketball. Time to hunt down more squash recipes.

novembersquash1 novembersquash2 novembersquash3 novembersquash4Definitely going to serve squash dishes for the post Thanksgiving Juggling Feastival.

Great Gardening Experiment part 2.

29 Thursday Oct 2015

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prettysquashblossompollinationAt the end of part 1, the vines had covered the garden. Pumpkins were mingling with sweet potatoes, squash were mingling with everything. Smaller bushy plants were being overrun, and even the mint I had planted was struggling to breathe under the heavy load of squash vines. Any time I wanted a nice jug of mint tea, I’d have to crutch my way through vines and then lift those vines up enough that I could reach the mint. The bees were having a tough time carrying pollen from boy flowers on top of the squash canopy, to the girl flowers underneath the leaves.

The other problem we were having at the same time was the invasion of the bermuda grass. Two varieties of manure in our fabulous poo trifecta, were from ponies and goats that were eating bermuda grass hay. The hay here in Aridzona is lousy. It is full of weeds, often has dark brown spots, and has so much human trash that when I get a “roadside” stack of 88 bales, it looks like it actually was baled off the side of a highway. The hay is also quite often cut too late and has gone to seed. Those seeds pass through the start of the pony and goat digestive systems and emerge fully functional from the other end. If you’d like a lush lawn, go offer to remove the poop from Phoenix barns where the horses are fed bermuda. Just spread that around your yard and water it for a few days. You’ll be the envy of your lawn growing neighbors.

I had read that squash would deter weeds simply because the leaves are large and profuse. The weeds need sun too, supposedly, and the squash vines would completely shade the garden, preventing weed growth. Not so much, no. We pulled enough grass out of the garden in the first month, to feed all the ponies and goats for a week. As the vines grew and the garden became more and more inaccessible, did the shade deter that grass? Oh heck no. The grass was spreading as rapidly as the vines and actually grew taller than the squash leaves.

vinesandgrassAs pumpkins and squash began developing it was difficult to find them thanks to the proliferation of vines and grass. Many times we didn’t find them until the pumpkins turned orange. We’ve had quite a few surprise squash and pumpkins  While the vines were small and the garden young, we did our best at weeding. After the vines took over, and the desert heat reached 115, we gave up. I do still grab great huge loads of bermuda to clear it away from any pumpkins I find, but that’s as far as it goes. The ponies love to get those grass handouts and I often come out of the garden with enough to feed one pony supper. The garden isn’t there to feed the horses.

Thankfully, the local hay became less seedy when we began to fill the second half of the garden with the poo trifecta. We still have grass along the edges, but we keep it covered with tarps hoping it will die before it over grows my winter veggies. So far, no luck there. The fact that it is so determined to grow in my garden makes me wonder why professional hay growers here can’t manage a decent crop of bermuda. Perhaps they too should go around and collect the poop from all the people that pay top dollar for their crummy hay.

If the copious amounts of bermuda have slowed the production of heirloom squash I haven’t noticed. I have gotten a great plenty of fruit on those vines. I would have expected more pumpkins with three plants sending out healthy vines so long that they’ve escaped all of our fencing and are currently aiming for a neighbor’s house 2 acres away.

While the vines have not been affected noticeably by the bermuda, the sage, basil, multiplier onions, scalloped squash, zucchini, yellow squash and strawberries have been stunted at best. I had given up on my sweet potatoes at one point because the sprouts had been completely buried first by pumpkin vines, then by bermuda. Amazingly the sweet potato vines worked their way upward to the tops of the pumpkin umbrellas and have now joined the other vines taking over the garden and making their way through the fencing and into the wider world. The basil actually managed to grow out from under the canopy. Right about the time the grasshoppers invaded.

Grasshoppers don’t much like squash leaves and bermuda grass, more’s the pity. They’ll nibble at squash leaves, but then leave for tastier and more delicate fare. They have a great fondness for basil, mint (oh yes they do), sage, peppers and beans. I have made tea with some pretty ragged looking mint and spiced up a few recipes with holey basil, but they didn’t leave enough of the bean and pepper plants to allow those to produce anything edible at all. I probably wouldn’t have gotten any basil at all if the grasshoppers had been able to work down through the grass and the abundant vine to get to the entire plant. They could, however, reach the bush bean and the pepper and ate those plants to the ground. I’m glad I like squash.

 Neem oil seems to deter grasshoppers fairly well, but it often needs to be reapplied on a weekly basis. It can also harm bees so the best time to use it is in the evening once bees go home and try to avoid spraying flowers. I’ve also heard that a simple solution of a few drops of dish detergent mixed in a spray bottle of water will deter pests. I’m just not sure I want to douse my fresh herbs with much of anything. I don’t know if Neem oil alters flavor, but since I have a hard time getting the smell and taste of Dawn out of my pots and pans, I know I don’t want Dawn flavored basil. I have simply resigned myself to eating holey basil. Once chopped I can’t tell it’s grasshopper chewed and, as a friend says, “You can’t taste the holes”.

In spite of the desert heat, in spite of the monsoon winds that blew down my corn stalks, in spite of the grasshopper invasion, in spite of the abundant crop of bermuda and mostly in spite of my own inexperience, the garden has, for the most part, thrived. I have had fresh veggies every week since August. Granted, it’s mostly been squash, but I’ve also had mint for my tea, onion greens and a little basil to flavor my meals and I’ve managed to get a couple of ears of corn that the ants didn’t find first. As a matter of fact, the garden has thrived so well that I can’t get down that nice neat alleyway at all. There is just enough room in the garden to open the gate.

vinesblockingalleywayVines at the gate

vinesonstallandhayroomfenceVines growing up the stall wall by the second half of the garden.

vineonstallsandgatesThis looks more like Hobbiton to me than Aridzona. I had to wrap the vine over the top of the gate as it was threatening to strangle anyone entering the garden.

vinesovercorralfenceThe vine escaping over the southern side of the fence and making it’s way out into a larger corral.

vinesovertwofencesThe vines escaping the short layer of chicken wire on the east end of the garden and climbing up the outer perimeter fence. It has now gone completely over the outer fence and is beginning to crawl toward the house across the street.

I have made squash bread, sauteed squash, squash and basil soup (hey that was pretty good, Bev was right, I didn’t taste the holes in that basil at all), squash stuffed with italian sausage, bell peppers, onions and mozzarella, squash casserole, steamed squash, raw squash and pumpkin cookies. All in all, the experimental garden could be considered a success in that it has provided a lot of food and cut my grocery bill down to paper products, pet food, detergents and cheap meat.

One variety of the heirloom squash will grow quite large. We’re talking soccer to basketball sized. One such squash grew larger than a basketball and was dubbed Squashzilla. I took Squashzilla to the local swap meet just as a show and tell, hoping to get people interested in desert gardening, and ended up selling it to someone who was likely going to use it as a jack-o-lantern because they didn’t seem too interested in the many meals I told them they could get out of it. They were willing to pay 5.00 for one squash so I sent Squashzilla home with them, but not without a pang of regret. That squash would have fed me for two weeks.

squashzilla2Squashzilla

 squashzillaJohn holding about 18 lbs of squash, including Squashzilla, the day we harvested them. Braveheart is the photobomber in the background.

The Great Gardening Experiment will be continued with the Winter Garden in the next day or so.

The Great Gardening Experiment part 1.

27 Tuesday Oct 2015

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beautifulfood

Give a woman a zucchini and she’ll eat for a day.Give her seeds and chaos ensues.

In early June, in temperatures in excess of 105, in the middle of the AriDzona desert, John and I decided to attempt a garden. Well, okay, I decided to attempt a garden and John kindly did most of the work. We’re still trying to find ways to cut bills and earn extra money for living expenses. Ten dollars at the grocery doesn’t go very far. Ten dollars worth of seeds can, as it turns out, feed us for several months. “Fresh” vegetables from the grocery also don’t last very long. If I’m lucky, a week. More often than not, three days. Green onions, overnight. Frozen veggies were my diet.

I was on Facebook, as too often happens, when the sudden determination to garden struck. Someone posted a gardening question. I answered her question with another question, which led to other other people asking other questions, until a couple of gardening experts joined the conversation to provide tips, which led to Google, which led to a site called Native Seeds/Search which led to me sitting here tonight, blogging about the garden. Please tell me that happens to other people.

Because we’d only grown zucchini, once, in the backyard and had no luck with anything else we’d planted, I decided that heirloom seeds from vegetables developed in the southwest might offer the best chance for a successful harvest. Packets of three varieties of squash, corn, onions, and basil were chosen and excitedly ordered. Again, because I’d had luck with zucchini, I picked up a packet of zucchini seeds, a packet of white scalloped squash and a packet of pumpkin seeds. Another local gardener supplied us with seeds from her pumpkins, carrots, and parsley as well as several sweet potato slips. We bought a very inexpensive slow drip system at Home Depot and we were ready to begin the grand gardening experiment.

wholearea

Note the two halves of the garden with that nice alleyway down the middle.

We had a lot of 2x4s left from our furniture building spree, so we used those to box in two sides of a small corral rather than buying the traditional 4x4s. We’d had to sell most of the horses when Billiam became ill, so we put one of the now empty corrals to use as the garden. It was near a rarely used hose spigot and it had been in use by horses for 6 years and had a good buildup of fertile dirt. At the time we began the garden, we had no end of pony and goat poop and a kind chicken owner willing to bring us all the chicken poop we might want. Now, we have our own chickens producing poop, but that’s another adventure post entirely.We didn’t buy special soil or fertilizers because we had a fertile poo trifecta right here at home!

The problem we had when we were growing zucchini was the wildlife. Cottontail rabbits and ground squirrels devastate almost anything we try to grow, even cactus. John and I knew we had to deter the garden predators before we could begin to plant seeds. The little corral was fenced for ponies with steel rail fencing, covered with wire no-climb fencing, with a three foot tall section of 1/4 inch hardware cloth around the bottom to keep out rattlesnakes. This wasn’t going to work to fence out rabbits and squirrels so we picked up several rolls of chicken wire. This garden thing was an experiment remember. This was the first part of the experiment that failed.

We didn’t think to bury the bottom of the chicken wire, so the rabbits simply dug under it. The squirrels didn’t bother digging under, they just sucked in their little cheeks and slithered right through those 1 inch holes in the chicken wire. Back to Home Depot for smaller chicken wire. This time, John buried it a foot down all the way around except for the end of the garden that attaches to the walls of the barn. We’d deterred the rabbits, but the squirrels dug trenches under the stall walls inside the barn and mowed down the sweet potato slips and the pumpkin slips we’d been given. Deterrents alone would not work. We were forced to engage in rodenticide.

Once we had cleared out the ground squirrel populations nearest the corral, we replanted more sweet potato slips, a pumpkin slip, replaced all the seeds the squirrels had dug up and planted the I’itoi’s Onion bulbs I’d ordered. That’s when we discovered we also had a bird problem. I thought I had gotten poor quality seeds until I planted the onion bulbs. Every day for two weeks I’d go check the garden for sprouts and find no sprouts, then I began finding onion bulbs laying all over the garden. There wasn’t a squirrel moving on that entire corner of the property, the rabbits could only gaze longingly through all the fencing at those sweet potato and pumpkin leaves. I thought perhaps mice or rats so I set a few traps out in the dirt near the onions and caught a bird. A bird with divining capabilities because it knew precisely where the seeds were buried and gorged on them. I guess he/she didn’t like onions so just pulled up the bulbs and tossed them aside. Up until then, I thought the nice birdies were just keeping the garden safe from bugs. HA!

We put up pin wheels to scare the birds. Those worked an hour or two. We left the traps out, and that seemed to let them know we were serious. The traps made us feel awful though so, thanks to another Facebook suggestion, we covered the onions and replanted seeds under tents made of leftover chicken wire and bits of hardware cloth. That finally did the trick and by late July, eight weeks after starting the garden project, the seeds were sprouting, the vines were spreading and all we needed was razor wire and spotlights to make the garden look like an exercise yard at a penitentiary. This is when I started learning about heirloom squash.

Recall please, that all I’d grown were zucchini. Zucchini is a squash. It grows in a sprawling bushy style. There isn’t much information on the interwebs about the heirloom squash I grow because very few people remember they exist and even fewer people grow them. The packets told me a little of their history and what they looked like when mature. I planted two zucchini, one yellow squash, one white scalloped squash and two or three each of the heirloom varieties. As the heirloom squash plants sprouted and grew, I learned that not all squash grow in a sprawling bushy style. Many, if not most, vine like mad. At one end of the garden, I had three pumpkin plants happily taking over a 20 foot area (I knew they vined, I just didn’t know how much they vine and I had planted three). At the opposite end of the garden, nearest the barn, I had 6 to 8 heirloom squash vines attempting to take over everything else.

Garden9915Note the vines escaping over the fences and the diminished alleyway.

The corn I’d replanted and carefully covered with chicken wire, was struggling to survive in the shade of giant squash and pumpkin leaves. Every day I’d go out to check the garden for poachers, rearrange vines and pull vine tendrils out of the wire tents. I finally gave up and planted a new row of corn and gave up the basil for lost. The original corn and it’s wire tent are now buried beneath the sweet potato vines, pumpkin vines and the squash vines that weren’t happy with just their end of the garden and which are now mingling with the pumpkins and potatoes. This mingling of vines presented yet another unforeseen problem I will describe later in the garden chronicle.

This saga will be continued in a day or so.

January Cure assignment Flowers and Kitchen

10 Saturday Jan 2015

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laundrypurge1After Laundry Purge

This weekend’s assignment is to buy flowers. This is a great idea and I understand the concept, but at this point unless I plop them on top of the washing machine they are impractical. Obviously, I need to go ahead and print out the entire January Cure schedule so I don’t do things like decide my big project will be gutting the laundry room the day before I’m supposed to deep clean the kitchen <cough>.

laundrypurge2Laundry Closet Purged

There were small appliances, beaucoup light bulbs, cleansers, sponge mop heads from mops long gone, vacuum bags, dog grooming supplies, and tons of miscellaneous gleefus accumulated here for lack of a better place to put it. I purged the heck out of this room. Filled the dumpster for the first time ever. The purging of the laundry room was a resounding success. However, all the leftover stuff had to land somewhere while I was cleaning those near empty shelves. That place was every available space on already cluttered kitchen counters.  I have, thus, doubled the work for myself in the weekend project of getting rid of kitchen clutter and deep cleaning the kitchen. ARGH!

kitchenclutter1kitchnclutter2

Before I get started, let me tell you an amusing story about that laundry purge. Notice in the photo of the closet shelves, that there are no longer any sliding doors. John removed them for me. The space is tiny. The door into the house had to be closed while he removed the sliding doors and took them, one at a time, outside to the barn. I was in the house. I did not realize he had leaned one of the sliding doors against the interior door so that he could open the outer door. I opened the interior door to take a peek at his progress which, of course, caused the sliding door to begin to fall. I did mention how tiny this space is right? This space is, in fact, shorter than a door. I made a desperate grab to catch the falling door, missed, the sliding door hit the exterior door slamming the interior door against my arm and pinning me to the door like a rabbit in a snare. Thankfully, my cell phone was in my pocket and I had the presence of mind to grab it and call John before he got back from the barn and tried to open the exterior door. Unfortunately, his cell phone was not in his pocket and it began ringing uselessly about 15 feet away from me in the bear trap. In desperation I pulled, twisted, maneuvered, pulled, twisted and maneuvered my arm out of the door (thank god fat can be manipulated and there’s an argument for having that piece of pie). The problem of a possibly amputated arm became how now to get into the laundry room.

The thought of just building a new laundry facility and a new wheelchair ramp, oh I dunno, out a window somewhere, occurred. I’m seriously contemplating removing the interior door and adding a sliding barn door there anyway, so my second thought was “Just get the damned Jigsaw and we’ll cut the interior door out of here now and be done”. John, thank god my kids grew up watching MacGyver, found a steel rod, bent it into a Z, managed to open the exterior door enough to stick the rod through, catch hold of the lodged door and lift it up out of the way and got it out of there. That process typed out much quicker and easier than it actually took, but he got it done and we were back in business.

This is amusing now because A. I didn’t lose an arm and B. didn’t give the local fire department an interesting story to tell news crews. My grand plans for being Donna Reed once again thwarted by my inner Lucille Ball.

Okay, now to get back to the Cure. John just left for work so I promise not to try anything remotely lethal until he gets home.

January Cure, Assignment 5

08 Thursday Jan 2015

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Today I am supposed to sit in an area of the house where I rarely sit and contemplate on a problem area, envision the room empty, and rebuild that problem area in my mind, imagining how I want it to look and function. Can I just say here that there probably isn’t a place in my house where I couldn’t sit for hours doing this? Not even on my freshly changed patio and backyard. There’s always something that could be added, changed, something that could work better. I’m beginning to see that the January Cure, isn’t. It’s the 2015 Cure.

Today, I have meditated on the Office/Outbox. While this room is being used as the Outbox, there’s nothing I can do to start the changes I need in there, but I can imagine them and begin the plan. It’s an odd rectangular room with one window,  4 bookshelves, a wall shelf,  a double closet, a desk and a trundle bed. Even without the collected gleefus that’s been shoved in there from every closet and corner I’ve cleared, it doesn’t function well and it’s anything but attractive. I need it to function as a guestroom/office/craft room. It will need to accomodate a sturdy queen sized bed, craft table and computer desk. It will also need to be accessible to wheelchairs. Umm.. yeah.

The second half of today’s assignment is to pick a project from my list to do this month. I’m ignoring their “this month, in about three hours” recommendation. I’m staking claim on the <insert heebie jeebie causing music again> Laundry Room. This room has been the number one problem in this house since the day we moved in.

The laundry room is really a short hallway leading from the main house into the garage. It’s also the only wheelchair accessible point of entry to the house. It’s also where everyone enters when visiting. Why no one uses the front door I don’t know, but there you have it. The doors were build wide enough to allow for wheelchair access. But the room itself is so short that when both doors are open they overlap and bang into each other. invariably knocking into the sliding double doors behind them which hide the laundry closet. With the front loading washer and dryer in there (I chose front load because it’s easier for me to get clothes in and out from my wheelchair), I can’t back up more than a few inches while opening either appliance without knocking one of the sliding double doors off it’s tracks. Bottom line, the room is a nightmare.

This will be my month long, every spare moment, project. I have wood, I will build storage. My son and I build a backyard filled with furniture including a beautiful storage bench, I know we can insert a storage bench in the laundry closet. I have drills, I will remove doors. I have imagination, I will figure out something to cover the entry into the laundry room so that I don’t have to stare at the washing machine.  I will build a better over head shelving system that actually works and that I can actually reach. The room will have a “landing strip” and a way to hang coats. All in a space the size of some walk in closets. Well, that’s the plan anyway!

First I’ll get rid of the clutter. There’s a lot in there. Good things I’d use if I could reach them, but most of it is stuff I’ve long since lost the use for. John is home today and can reach the things on the shelves that are too high for me. This will be a clutter free area by the end of the day.

Before

laundrybeforelaundrybefore2