"The rains came down, and the floods came up..."

This weekend was very wet.  The forecast on Saturday was for seven inches of rain in the next seven days!  There's more flash flooding and wet basements around the area -- Nicole is worried that the rivers will flood and cause her work to get very busy again.

Alex went on a Boy Scout trip that was cut short by the rain, but while they were out there, they discovered a treasure trove of morel mushrooms.  We fried those up and ate them last night, and they were delicious.

Yesterday, during a break in the weather, we made some progress on the garden.  Our marigolds looked a little stressed (not sure what's going on there -- we watered regularly), but Anna planted them around the tiered garden, Alex did a great job of knocking back the weeds in the garage bed, and we put up trellises and cages around our tomatoes and peppers (and replanted the cayenne and orange bell peppers that had gotten eaten).  Additionally, we laid out straw in the circle bed, and did some general clean-up of the garden and flower bed areas.  We're heading back into lots more rain this week, but looking forward to a visit from Nicole's sister Britt this weekend!

Our salad days

We got some crazy wind and thunderstorms over the past few days.  It knocked down half of our remaining ornamental pear tree in the back yard, so yesterday, we had Bobby's Tree Service come and take the rest of it down, clean it up, and haul it away.  They did a good job -- there's just a low stump left, for which he's sending out his contractor to clean up later.

For dinner, we harvested the first of our greens.  Mixed with some chives (and store-bought cherry tomatoes), it was delicious and quick.  Yum.

First harvest

So, last night, we made the first harvest of the season: about two cups of chopped rhubarb.  We took the leaves and made an insecticide out of them (for Nicole's roses), then took the rhubarb and mixed it with some store-bought strawberries to make a compote.  It was delicious over ice cream!

We mostly took a break last night, but most of our plants all seem to be doing very well.  Most of the sweet potatoes we planted on Sunday are drooping a little bit, but we think they'll be fine.  We did lose one celery plant, and our purple cayenne (we'll try replacing that once the rain clears up).  All of our beans are now up (except the black beans), the cucumbers have sprouted, and the broccoli is beginning to come up (although we will need to weed that portion of the bed).  All of our herb pots are coming up, and the allysum around the cherry trees are sprouting, as well.  We weeded a million little tomato sprouts out of the raised beds, but the peas and greens are also doing wonderfully.

It's fairly nice today, so I anticipate some more work outside this evening.  Hooray for spring!

Breaking Ground

Today, I am exhausted.  We may have overdone things a little bit this weekend.  But we got so much done!  Saturday, we ran into Rock Island to rent a sod cutter, then stopped by mom & dad's on the way home and dropped off some tomato and pepper plants to them.  We had to make another quick trip into Davenport to drop the kids off at a wedding, but then, we headed home and removed all the grass from the newly-reshaped front garden and retaining wall, moving the grass to the hole in the west lawn, where those trees were removed and the grass has never come back yet.

That evening, mom & dad stopped by with a birthday present for Nicole and I... our very own gas-powered mini-cultivator!  The timing couldn't have been any more perfect -- we were not looking forward to trying to break through all that clay soil manually, but with this tool, we started Sunday morning after going out for some bags of compost, and by Sunday evening, the entire bed was cultivated; we had compost mixed in; sweet potatoes, nasturtium, and dwarf blue kale had been planted; and the veggies were covered in cocoa mulch.  Absolutely amazing.  But, hence our sore muscles today.  Whew!

Our hope is that the sweet potatoes will cascade down the retaining wall, along with the ornamental purple sweet potato vines and nasturtium.  Then we'll have some short kale with taller kale and chard behind it for an interesting background. On the other side of the bed, we'll acidify the soil and plant blueberries and an azalea. Nicole asked last night about putting in a few ornamental raspberries, too.

We finished everything up just in time, as when the sun was going down, a thunderstorm moved through and gave us quite a bit of heavy rain.  Fortunately, the mulch held fast, and we had put in a "dam" of paving stones to keep water from rushing down the hill and washing everything away until it can establish itself.

"Wouldn't you like to be a pepper, too?"

I took some more time off yesterday afternoon to get some more plants in the ground, hoping for rain tonight.  All of our eggplants (Pingtung Long), hot peppers (Jalmundo, Conquistador, Purple Cayenne, and Sweet Banana), and bell peppers (King Arthur, King of the North, Orange Bell, and Golden California Wonder) are now planted in the gardens.  I also put in a row of black-eyed peas and arugula.  It appears, though, that I accidentally grabbed an extra package of last year's generic arugula instead of the wild arugula I bought for this year.  Oh, bother.

It's been dry for a week now, so we've been diligently watering our fresh-planted seedlings, until they can put down some real roots.  Our potted basils are starting to sprout, as is the kale and chard I have in the greenhouse.

Nicole and I went to a community hosta sale after work yesterday and picked up several new hosta, including "Wolverine," "Battle Star," "First Frost," "Fire Island," and "Andrew."  Then, to kill time before my rehearsal, I stopped by Teske's and picked up a French Tarragon plant and some more Alyssum seeds for around the garage garden.

Happy Mother's Day!

This Mother's Day weekend, as has become tradition in the Manasco household, we hit up several area plant sales and subjugated the children to forced slave labor in the flower beds. It was a surprisingly chilly day (we actually moved several of our tender plants into the garage Friday and Saturday nights), so we donned some warm apparel and set off in search of unique plants at bargain prices. We went to the Port Byron library, the Silvis greenhouse, Our Lady of Guadalupe, the RI County Fairgrounds, Black Hawk Park, and the RI Botanical Center. We procured:

• Several huge potted grasses for the front yard
• A couple of coleus for Anna's bed
• Three sweet potato vines for the retaining wall
• Two dwarf blue kale for the retaining wall
• Three short cosmos for the vegetable garden
• A couple of tall cosmos for the raised beds

Our last stop of the day was at True Value in Moline, where they were having their annual Mother's Day bedding plant sale. We got four full flats of annuals -- lots of impatiens, vincas, marigolds, and some random flowers for hanging baskets.

Anna and Alex were of huge help: they planted almost 100 vinca and impatiens around the back patio garden. We also planted our new grasses and about 20 caladium around the front of the house and got the (slicing) cucumbers in the ground, along with the zucchini, butternut squash, and pumpkins.  Oh, and on Sunday, we attended an Arts Festival in Davenport, where Nicole picked out a couple of cute copper animal garden ornaments.

Then on Monday, I took the day off of work and spent the entire day preparing for or working in the garden. It was glorious. First thing, I went into town and purchased a couple of straw bales and some final seeds, then planted some kale and chard in the greenhouse, waiting for the weather to warm up. Around lunchtime, I got outside and planted thyme along our back patio walkway, some alyssum around the cherry bushes, and put in all of our tomato plants in the vegetable garden. I also turned over the area for the black beans and peppers, although I didn't quite have enough time to finish them. This week looks to be pretty busy, and then things get wet again for a while, but the next time we have some time and its not raining, I'd like to finish the peppers, black beans, green beans, and plant the last of our herbs (dill, basil, and savory). We are also going to need to get some pea sticks set up, along with another trellis for the black-eyed peas.

Making our garden grow

The forecast calls for rain tonight, so after picking Alex up from swim practice and while Nicole took Anna to bass lessons, I hurried to get a few more things planted this evening.  We now have broccoli (regular and Romanesco) planted down by our rhubarb patch, pinto beans planted by the side of the shed, and yin yang beans near the top of the top garden plot.  Additionally, I begain clearing away the weeds and burn-off residue from the garden, and labeled those plantings that had not yet been labeled.

I did notice that something had nibbled several leaves off of our freshly-planted celery plants.  We'll have to keep an eye on that.  I want to get the nightshades planted this weekend, build two new trellises (one for the top garden plot, one for the raised beds), and finish clearing out and weeding the lower garden plots and the garage garden.

In terms of growing progress, both sets of peas are now up, along with the radishes, mesclun/lettuce, and beets.  The crabapple trees are in full bloom (see picture on left above), and the front yard smells very strongly of flowering cherry.  We can start harvesting rhubarb, chives, and loveage at any time, and the strawberries are in bloom.  It's a good time of year.

Busy bees

Too busy for full entry.  Must sum up:

This weekend, we stopped by Wallaces.  Fun was had.  Came home with three blueberry bushes, two roses, some herbs, a grass with a purple flower, some wormwood, and lemon thyme.  Trenched celery in the garden; rue and lemon verbena in herb pots.  Pulled weeds.  Planted roses and re-arranged flower beds.  Edged front beds.  Got mildly sunburned.

Monday, we planted carrots in the garden; basil (sweet, purple, and thai), cilantro, chamomile in pots, spread weed & feed, laid out new shapes for front and side beds.  Noticed peas, lettuce, and radishes poking through the top of the ground.  Watered for good measure.  Remembered to wear head covering this time.

"It's May! It's May! The lusty month of May..."

Boom!  Just like that, it's now 80 degrees.

We got quite a bit done over the weekend.  We repotted our peppers and eggplant, and started putting some herbs in pots.  We planted four rows of peas, four rows of sugar snap peas, mesclun, lettuce, spinach, beets, and a few radishes.  We completely ringed the circle garden in onions from mom & dad, and replanted any garlic that didn't make it through the winter.  We have asparagus, loveage, and rhubarb up, and even some leftover raddichio that must not have come up properly last year.

In landscaping news, our daffodils are beginning to wane, but the grape hyacinth is going strong, and all of the tulips are popping.  Our cherry tree in the front yard exploded into blossom yesterday (with our first 80+ degree day of the season), and Nicole moved around several hosta and organized that back bed.  We want to put in another Julia Childs rose and move the peony over to the west, but otherwise, that flower bed is looking really good.  In the front yard, we plan to reshape the flower bed, and put in some annuals.  Nicole also wants to straighten out the tulips in some of the footprint beds, now that we know what we have.

We stopped by a few plant nurseries, too, and picked up a variety of flowers for Nicole, and two four-packs of celery for me.  They wilted like crazy in yesterday's heat, but I gave them a good drink of water last night, so hopefully, they will perk up.