Seedum varieties

The research of identifying plants is actually one of the things I find most interesting about living in this house, with with these gardens. Perennials are relatively low maintenance. And, gorgeous relations like these seedum varieties show diversity within a classification.

I took these photos, and found similar looking ones on Google which led me here.

Cherry bomb

Cherry tomatoes, and Sweet 100's looking good so far. This is the first year growing them in pots on the deck. I'm meticulously watering daily for fear of them drying out since not being in the ground. So far, so good.

Sheet composting

My garden is to me what knitting is to my friend, Peggy. She finds God in the intricate ins and out of knitting needles, and I find God in the soil. Somehow, in the quiet, in the healing properties of the fragrance of dirt, there's something about creating space for God to grow something beautiful, and sometimes delicious! Having rich garden soil makes me happy. It's the foundation, the base, upon which everything grows better.

My co-gardener and neighbor, Jen, has added several timbers to her small shade garden to raise it up about a foot. We'll need 13.5 cubic feet of soil to fill it in, and she's priced it out at well over $100 just for soil to fill the 6'x6' garden. Top soil is the least expensive to purchase, but has no nutrients for yummy veggies. And then we remembered that there's a huge pile of grass clippings and plant scraps that we started a couple of years ago. We had every intention of making it into a nice compost pile, but it's really just a little dump to drop the excess yard and kitchen waste.We're running out of time, since it's the first week of June already. But we've decided to research a little and see what we can find out.

I read this article about sheet composting, which is really a better story about keeping a low maintenance garden. Hmmm...maybe it'll be a good idea.
But, what I think about sheet composting, is that we'll add in layers of those grass clippings and whatever broken down materials are actually in that compost pile, and amend the soil with that, in addition to the peat moss and maybe a bag of organic compost with manure, too. I've got to remember to bring over some worms from the other garden. They'll have a blast decomposing the new stuff. :)

Gardening neighbors

Last year was a thrill to bring in veggie for my co-workers and I really do miss that piece of gardening this year. Although I love to snip fresh basil from the herbs I've planted in a pot on the porch, I have had to rely solely on the neighborhood super center for groceries, or my mom's weekly visits to the Minneapolis Farmer's Market every Saturday. She brought me some tomatoes and sweet corn today.

My neighbor, Renee, has only been in her home for a year now, and this is her second year of veggie gardening.Under the shade of a towering cotton wood tree, her little 9x9 garden gets mostly sun during the daytime. And although she is not keen on eating tomatoes, she grows romas and some beefsteak tomatoes to make into sauces. She also has been very kind to hand out cucumbers as they spring forth from her garden. 

The one dose of color that has come early is some hot red chili peppers. She's not sure how hot they'll be, or if they'll even eat it...but it's much more fun to watch these plants grow than it is to eat.

Now...what did I plant there again?

One of the things I love about my garden in Minnesota, is that during the main growing seasons, there are such different things sprouting at different times of the year. Some plants have bright early spring blooms and then fade off, some come up in the spring, bloom in the heat of summer, and then fade as we move towards the fall. Some, like my rose bushes, continue to flower all season long, and surprise me with brilliant colors of magenta and pink during the cooler September and October temperatures. Still others have newly sprouted buds and are just about to bloom, like my perennial purple asters and the stonecrop in bright pink, waiting to turn to copper and then auburn... recently visited by bumblebees.

I have to hand it to the person who planned the perennials that sprout up for me now. What a treat to come outside and see color in bloom, not just in the changing colors of the leaves on the trees, but amongst the flowers in the front and corner gardens.

But what about those transplanted coralbells I mentioned back in July? http://secondhandyard.blogspot.com/2010/07/so-mulch-to-do.html
I hate to say it but I think they died. I just stopped watering them and I think they just shriveled up and died! Of course, I won't really know until I see if anything survived the winter and comes forth from beneath the mulch into the spring. I'm grateful for being able to check back on my posts to remember the progress I made last year, and even earlier this year.

I have completely neglected my garden this year...and these are the times that I am extremely grateful for good mulch techniques, wet rainy and hot summer weather, and sweet hardy perennials like hostas, ferns and hydrangea that simply continue to grow.

The ants go marching 2-by-2...

hurrah - hurrah.
Now that I've got that song in your head for the rest of the day - or longer - let me tell you about the little critters in our yard.
We have recurring, regenerating, reanimated, reawakened, reconstructed, reestablishing, renewing, renovated, and often reproduced ant structures around our home, garden and lawn.
As much as I hate chemical pesticides, for fear of them leaching into our drinking water supply - I just have to use them or we'll be infested again and again! Thank goodness most of our issues are outside the home - but once a year in the spring we get a few culprits scouting for goodies from our kitchen window.
I've sprayed Ortho Home Defense around the perimeter of the outside of the home two years in a row, and it's working wonders! A little of the same inside around the kitchen window, and that's all it's taken.
But...outside is an entirely different matter. There appear to be two main types of ants, but there could be a variety of them.
I've now put down some liquid ant bait by Terro near the front pine tree where there appears to be a very large (about a foot in diameter) colony of them...and in the veggie garden where the ants were ready to bite me as I was preparing the ground for planting. Earlier in the spring there was another large mound in our front yard, right in the middle of the grass.
This morning going out to the car, the cracks inside the garage floor are now covered in ant hills. I set another bait just outside the garage, hoping they'll take it back with them to the main nest.
Oh...hurrah...hurrah...
Does anyone have any organic methods for getting rid of ants and other insects?