If you’ve been following along with us this spring you know we’ve been working on our vegetable gardens. Whether you are planting in containers, raised beds or straight into the earth a little planning goes a long way. Check out the link below to learn about how to help your garden produce wonderful edibles all season long.
This past April our crew spent a day in our community. We worked with Kitsap Community Resources and helped beautify one of their transitional housing units. It’s an honor to be able to help KCR as they provide so many needed resources to those in need in our community. We also partnered with A&L Topsoil who donated the mulch we needed for the project.
Of the many things I can list as one of my favorite things, rain is not one of them. As of today we have a 110% of our total rainfall for May, it is only the 5th. Lots of people just moan about it but the brave, raindrop-dodging gardener eagerly waits for a break in the rain to run out to see what is happening. We are all hoping that spring will be the rainy season and we will be rewarded with a long hot summer.
My plants are actually holding up well under the deluge. They are bravely showing their tender petals and fresh greens. Come with me as we take a quick tour of my garden and see what’s out there.
I am a big fan of color and texture. Flowers don’t always thrill me but sometimes they just demand my full attention. Then again blossom and texture can go together. This Magnolia Twanensis is fabulous this year with gigantic buds and plenty of them.
Peonies have light texture with delicate, tissue like petals. They are holding their heads up high and looking beautiful even through the rain. This is peony kinkaku is new to me this year.
This peony was rescued from a house that was being torn down. She needed a good home and I was happy to give her one. I usually get only 2-3 blooms on this tree and they are worth seeking out.
I have had this spider azalea (rhododendron ‘linearifolium’) for 10 years. It is one of the plants I take with me every time I move house. I think it will come with me again. Now it is happy with lily of the valley at its feet and Ranunculus aconitifolius ‘flore pleno’ in the background.
It is also rhododendron season here in the Pacific Northwest. They can look dull and uninteresting much of the year but right now they are the queens of the garden. Both of these large rhododendrons were from the previous owners. They are full and lush. I will share my secret for fabulous rhododendrons all year round in a future post.
This sweet white rhododendron is rhododendron fragrantissima. Still in the pot it gets a special place by the door.
The excess moisture is what primroses thrive on. This candelabra primrose is happy in the mud and falling rain.
This blue aquilegia has just a touch of red in the bottom of the petals exactly the color of the barberry behind it. (It is actually Barberry ‘orange rocket’ but when the leaves are just coming out in the early spring they are very red).
So, that’s what is happening in my garden right now. How are you faring with the rain and yuck? What are you seeing in your garden?
Send us a photo! You can email a photo and description to info{at}plantswomandesign{dot}com or upload it to our Face Book or Twitter pages. We’d love to see what’s going on in your yard and may have a little happy to send your way.
Hello everyone, Kristen here with our completed lettuce container. We had one of those perfect moments when the stars aligned and weather cleared giving us about an hour or so to get out and play in the dirt. If you missed our previous post with the instructions click HERE. My assistant for the day was my daughter, E (gloves and princess spade provided, via Easter basket, by the Plantswoman (aka G-ma)). When E found her basket she was so excited to have garden gloves and a spade all her own. She asked me if she could be a Junior Plantswoman and I told her that would be just fine. So, with out further ado here is our first, unofficial, Jr Plantswoman here to show you how we planted our lettuce seeds.
After preparing our pot as outlined HERE we installed our supports for our future beans. We used some branches we spotted on the college campus while walking home from school a couple weeks back. I had a true “I am my mother” moment as I stopped the stroller, ran over to the maintenance crew and asked if I could have some of the branches they were pruning. After the foreman gave me a funny look he said I could help myself. I’ve been saving the branches for an indoor project but I can spare a few for our lettuce containers. That being said, while Jen’s branches may bloom since she cut them fresh, I highly doubt my branches will do anything as they are pretty much dried out.
Once the support branches were secure we added our seed. E really wanted to dig holes for each seed so I had to catch her before she dug in, literally.
She spread the seed…
…covered it with more soil…
…and pressed the soil down lightly (for a 5 year old that is).
This is where we ran into a problem. The tutorial Jen and Susan did said to gently water with a wand attachment. We don’t have a wand attachment. It’s not that we can’t get one but we didn’t have one at that specific moment so we improvised. This idea is all over Pinterest and I thought we would give it a try.
To make your own milk jug watering can you’ll need:
Once you’ve rinsed out your jug thoroughly take the thumb tac and push it through the lid numerous times. Then take the tac and make a hole or two by the handle of the jug to help the jug pour correctly. Fill your jug with water (since E was going to do the watering I only filled it half way), put the lid on and water whatever your heart desires.
I’m pleased to tell you this little jug worked fairly well. E said it was super slow but I was okay with that because the whole point of using a wand attachment was to make sure you don’t wash the seeds away.
And the absence of a water powered wand made sure I didn’t get soaked in the process either.
Our finished container doesn’t look like much. But give it time, it will be bursting with fresh, organic, baby lettuce in no time. And if you find you have a little water left over in your jug why not take a walk around your yard and give any thirsty plants a drink. Or better yet, have your kid do it.
We hope you’ve enjoyed learning all about lettuce with us. Did you follow along with us? Send us a picture via email to us at info(at)plantswomandesign(dot)com. We’d love to see it!
We hope we’ve inspired you to get out and grow some lettuce. Next week we will see how Kristen did with her lettuce container and then we will be done with our lettuce focus… for now. As the first crop of the season we want to get you up and growing with us. Be sure to swing by our Pinterest board to see yet more information on lettuce and a few more recipes. We will be adding to this board as we find additional items we want to share with you.
photo Boyd Hagen
Last week we talked about cut-and-come-again lettuces. We want to pass along a great article from www.vegetablegardener.com. THIS article is excellently written and has great information regarding cut-and-come-again lettuce including types and the author’s favorites. Enjoy!
photo credit www.almanac.com
We know, we know, we’ve spent a fair amount of time lately talking about lettuce. Are we done yet? Not quite. We want to share a few helpful links about lettuce growing. You know, just in case you want more information or there is a question we haven’t answered yet and you are just dying to know.
First up is this wonderful article from the Old Farmer’s Almanac about growing lettuce. We’ve shared some information from the Almanac in previous posts and it proves to be a great source of info through and through. The article covers the subjects of planting, care, pests, harvest/storage, varieties and even recipes. If you try the Lettuce Soup let us know how that goes for you.
So this happened last week… By the time the snow stopped we had about 3/4 of an inch.
Since we are new to the Chicago area I’m in the habit of looking at the weather every morning, most of the time before I even get out of bed. The day I took this photo I looked at the overnight low and noticed it was saying 26.
Time to call my Plantswoman.
After I planted my herb container Susan and I talked about when to put my herb container outside. We estimated it should be okay to put them outside once the weather was reliably above freezing just to give the little guys a head start. I am in a zone 5B and the plants in my container should be hardy to 10 degrees. I put the planter outside about a week ago and the herbs wilted a little in protest. By the time our 70 degree day came over the weekend they were so happy. As I talked with Susan, over text, the forecast went from 26 to 24 and snowing. ARG! To be on the safe side we pulled the planter back to it’s inside perch in our (mostly) south facing window.
What was at stake here? Happier plants. We could have left them out there in the cold and snow but they wouldn’t have come out of it looking very appetizing. We are past the Almanac’s frost date but even then it’s 50% chance.
Let’s talk lessons learned…
Jen planted lettuce last week. Since I want to get a jump on getting my lettuce going too, I checked the Almanac to see when our last frost should be and they said April 20th. I’ll check one more time before planting though. Those containers are heavy and the thought of housing two of them inside won’t make me or those plants happy.
What are you planting, or getting ready, to plant?
Hello friends! Kristen here with an herb pot I successfully planted this past weekend using the Little Bytes tutorial we posted last week. This winter has been terribly cold and really long here in Chicago. I’ve heard that our spring is something like two weeks late. After a week of waking up to fresh snow we are so ready for spring to get here. Last night we had our first thunder storm of the season so I’m taking that as a sign that the end of winter is here.
We live in an apartment with a shared back yard and we love to cook. Buying fresh herbs can get expensive so planting our own herb container was high on our priority list of things to grow this year. When we started talking about planting an herb garden I went to buy supplies and the garden centers had NOTHING. The small amount of potting soil and compost they did have was still encased in ice and snow and completely frozen to the core. It took two of us to get the bags I needed out of the pile. I let the bags of soil and compost thaw out in the basement until I was ready to use it.
For comparison sake Jen and I have the same containers and plants. Since I am a little early in our season I just couldn’t find any plants at my local nurseries so, Jen and Mom sent me some plants to play with. When they got here they were a little sad but, not to worry, once they were nestled in their new soil they perked up and are just fine now. Before I started to plant I got all of my supplies together.
I noticed that I was lacking some important gardening implements… Like a small shovel or spade and gardening gloves. I made due with a large kitchen spoon this time around but I will be getting some tools before next go round.
It looks like Jen had a hard time pushing the drainage holes through on her pots using bigger tools. Knowing that, I tried to sneak up on it and used a pair of scissors first. Perfect!
The tutorial calls for a filler of some sort. So, I “shopped the house” to see what I could find. I found the box from our Kureg machine on the porch that was recently freed from the snow and found some Styrofoam pieces inside that would work. I needed to break the larger pieces into pieces that would fit all the way to the bottom of my container so I scored the pieces with my scissors and then broke them over my knee like you would a stick. Some of them I just jumped on and that worked too. Because my filler pieces were so big I didn’t feel like I needed to place additional drainage helpers over the holes.
Planting went quick and easy. I tucked the plant tags along the perimeter of the container as close to the plant as possible. I’ve got very few extra brain cells available to remember plant names so having the tags close to hand is a must.
Though it was sunny the day I planted, the temp was only about 35. So, these lovelies get to hang out inside until the threat of freezing is over. I think they will get to go outside this week sometime. It’s been so nice to have a bit of green inside I may be in the market for additional indoor plants. I’m thinking some succulents or something like that. My mom has a wonderful collection of succulents that I just love every time I visit. I may steal that idea.
So, did you plant an herb pot this weekend too? Send us a picture! You can share it on our FaceBook page, tweet it to us on Twitter or email us at info[at]plantswomandesign[dot]com. We would love to see what you came up with!