Gardening under fire...and VICTORY

No, literally. A fire broke out across the highway from our home on 9/8/12 (yes, this is recent news due to the fact that I am a very slacky blogger). Here is a link to my Pinterest tribute to the Horsethief Canyon Fire: 

http://pinterest.com/wyodawn/horsethief-canyon-fire/

Helicopters and planes have been a part of my gardening life for weeks now. I've occasionally had to invent an errand and leave the house to escape the constant drone of engines above our house.

The view from our driveway about an hour after the fire started

A helicopter over the garden

Day 1 of the fire from the top of our neighborhood (P.S. huge thanks to firefighters who kept ours and many other neighborhoods safe. These are some seriously hard-working people)

Smoke still fills the valley, but the 3000+ acre fire is almost fully under control now.

(those are my neighbor's sunflowers. Here is an unofficial Teton Gardening trophy to her for the biggest freaking sunflowers in the neighborhood. Go girl!)

A picture I took today from above the valley 

And, now...on to the VICTORY part. It's the little things that make me jump up and down in the driveway, causing the neighbors to stare. But, when I tasted my first tomato of the season (finally!!) it was worth it.

See that?? Yeah, that's a tomato, sans blossom rot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was told I over-fertilized, under-fertilized, over-watered, under-watered. Finally, through the power of the almighty Google, I came to the conclusion that my tomatoes were calcium deficient.

CALCIUM CHLORIDE, people. Get ya some.

I now have the delicious, rot-free tomatoes I knew I could. I started spraying them once a week with calcium chloride. Tips on the bottle that seem to ring true: 

-once a week

-at dusk (so as not to cause burning)

I did still apply fertilizer once a month-Happy Frog organic tomato fertilizer is my favorite, but be warned *dogs love to stick their faces in this fertilizer*

Heaven

Who can help but smile when it's summer and the garden is going crazy?

We started our raspberries two years ago, added more last year and got about 5 berries, and finally...

YES!!! This is our second batch, but we ate the first one too quickly to share a picture with you.

Tonight's dinner: chard, spinach, salad greens, and raspberries. I was home alone, but I resisted the urge to eat all the raspberries myself, because my husband loves them. And I'm not a jerk. 

A second batch of garlic scapes - the real reason I grow garlic.

(ooh, and that's the new wildflower bed behind the fence...more on that later

Here is what I made with them the other night. I'm not really a measuring kind of girl unless I'm following someone's recipe who is a measuring kind of person. Sorry about that. But if you try this, you may want to adjust your amounts to your taste anyways. This is a super fast and really delicious dinner. The teenager had three helpings. 

Ingredients

1 box of angel hair pasta

A few tablespoons of olive oil

Grated parmesan cheese

5 or 6 scapes

Thyme

Basil

Tofu (if you're into that)

Chop scapes, thyme and basil together (can be done by hand, I used a Cuisinart chopper). Prepare angel hair according to directions. Toss scape/herb mixture, olive oil, and parmesan in with the pasta and serve. I served with a side of spinach from the garden. YUM.

(If you choose to use tofu): drain and press tofu and saute in a pan with seasoned salt, italian seasonings, whatever floats your boat. I like to pan a flat pan lid on top of the tofu while it cooks. It speeds ups the process and gives the tofu great texture.

Happy gardening and eating! 

*!#$^&* Tomatoes!!

I know, my last post was SO upbeat! SO "you can do this Wyoming gardeners!" Well, I have failed at my own advice. I think I have blossom rot. A gardening center employee told me she doesn't think so, but in her defense, this was after I told her I had 2 beautiful tomatoes hanging on beside all the dead blossoms.

I only had 2 tomatoes on my Big Beef plant. As a friend was admiring them today, I made a sad discovery.

One second I was all "look at my beautiful tomatoes!"

And then I turned one over. Aw hell....day officially ruined.

A (blurry, sorry) picture of one of the bad blossoms. They are drying and falling off.

The hope I'm holding onto - healthy blossoms and buds about to bloom.

Here's my theory, based on my recent, very (un)scientific research: 

TOMATOES DO NOT LIKE HUGE FLUCTUATIONS IN TEMPERATURE. 

Our temps have been going from 40 at night to sometimes 90 during the day. As stated in my last blog post, I believed 45 degrees was when the plants should hide in the garage. 

I was wrong. There, I said it.

60 degrees, Wyoming gardeners, 60 degrees. So, the plants are coming into the garage every night now. I'm also going to try calcium chloride, as recommended for blossom rot. I will pick some up and report back.

Sigh...

The Elusive Wyoming Tomato

I know a few people who have given up on growing tomatoes in the Teton region - some for lack of desire to deal with it. It indeed takes some effort.I usually buy my plants around the beginning May. I always have good intentions to start from seed, but...we know how good intentions go sometimes. 

Here is the awesome tomato cart my husband built that renewed my desire to grow tomatoes. Generally, if the weather will be below 40 degrees, I roll the cart into the garage. Sometimes in May and October, the cart doesn't leave the garage all day.

I don't know anyone here who has had good luck with growing tomatoes in the ground. You may be able to cover them every night and be successful that way, but I haven't tried.

 

Some of this year's crop.

Some of the bounty from last year. I don't remember what the variety was called, but they remained orange/yellow. They were delicious but didn't do well due to some kid of disease. So I went back to the standards this year: Sweet 100s and Big Beef. I have also done well with Patio tomatoes and Early Girls.

I just think tomato plants are about the best-smelling thing on earth and you can't beat the way home-grown tomatoes taste. For months after I run out of my own, I can't bring myself to buy a store-bought tomato. They kind of taste like cardboard after you've grown your own. 

Some things I've learned about Teton tomato growing

• it only takes one cold night to lose months of tender loving care of your tomatoes
• rumor has it that tomatoes are tastier if they do not get below 40-45 degrees
• prune off suckers (the little shoots that grow in the middle of the "Y" of branches) early. Then the plants can concentrate on the tomatoes and not a bunch of unnecessary leaves.
• buy good, organic fertilizer that also helps with blossom rot
• all the dogs in the neighborhood enjoy being snout-deep in said fertilizer. Nothing you can do about it.
• you can enjoy tomatoes until January or later by saving them in a clear container. They will ripen from the top down.
• you will have more friends when the tomatoes are almost ripe
• It is totally worth it, yum!

Neglectful gardener returns

Poor, neglected blog. The good news is, the garden is not as neglected. Before I left on a 5-day trip, I bought 4 tomato plants and planted seeds (cilantro, basil, oregano, johnny jump ups, poppies, marigolds, sweet peas, snap peas. It could have been a foolish choice before going out of town, but the family came through for me and everything is alive!

Strawberries, tulips and chives

  

The rhubarb before and after. Blooms popped up while I was gone. In this picture, I have trimmed the blooms off of the left side. Here is a nice, simple article on why you should not let the blooms stay.

http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=415

Raspberries! (We're excited, can you tell?) These were transplanted from my neighbor's yard over the last 2 years and this is the first year they have really taken off. They already have blooms and if my husband has anything to do with it, he will have those berries before the birds do.

This catnip and the pansies returned from last year. I may dig up the catnip and put it in a pot underground before it totally takes over. Of course, the cats will not complain about over-abundance. Last week, I planted poppies in the corner, johnny jump ups between the pavers, and basil and oregano in with the catnip.

The tulips are done on the south side of the house, but the north side is amazing right now. I get all my tulips and daffodils from Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Woodburn, Oregon. When we lived in Portland, we went to their Tulip Festival every year. It's an amazing place.

This is the new bed I made this weekend. I've been wanting to extend the bed around the corner of the house, and we've been wanting to not have to mow around the dogwoods anymore. Win, win!

Next blog post: addressing my tomato addiction and sharing some tips for growing tomatoes in the Tetons

A little garden humor

Careful out there friends - digging is a gateway drug!*

*from www.faceyourfarmer.com

Speaking of digging - the salad greens, spinach and chard seeds went in yesterday after a beautiful trip down the river. (our first ever April river trip - oh, blissful, happy, early spring!!) The greenhouse frames' windows are all fogged up - good things are brewing in there!

Drum roll please...

And the husband of the year award goes to...

THIS guy!

Who has been taking care of me while I've been sick and disgusting, AND made me these for my birthday!!!!

Aren't they beautiful?? They're everything I've ever dreamed of (yes, I am that big of a nerd)

The clear part is plexiglass, so they're not very heavy. They can be propped up when needed and then removed and stored when summer is in full swing. 

Now I really, really can't wait (and don't have to wait) to start planting! The salad greens, chard, and maybe some herbs will be planted here SOON. 

Starting from seeds

I ran into a friend at the hardware store yesterday and we helped each other pick out some seeds. We both learned a thing or two - he inspired me to plant Blue Flax this year, and I inspired him to start sunflowers and snap peas soon, yes - outside! Trust me, they're tough. And our growing season is short.

Sunflowers are usually the first thing I start. Every year, I have experimented to see how early I can push the window. When I planted later, the sunflowers were just starting to open when we got our first snow. Last year, I planted around May 1st and the results were amazing!

October 6th - first snow - but at least they all got a chance to open! You have to be quick around here!!!

I planned to show you my seed planting today, but my body has other plans and is confined to bed. I did purchase seed-starting mix yesterday, and I have peet pots ready in the garage. As soon as I'm better, it's on!

Here are the seeds I purchased yesterday. Just buying them is enough to make my gardener's heart feel all warm and fuzzy.

Tomorrow: Birthday goodness!

Spring, woo hoo!!!

Sometimes it doesn't happen until May or June, but Spring is definitely, really, already here! Besides summer when I could spend all day in the garden, this is my favorite time of year. It's so fun to watch things come up.

Chives

Rhubarb

Garlic

Most of the beds are ready. I pulled all the dead stuff out and got out the garden weasel (love that tool!!!) 

 There are still some Halloween pumpkins that haven't broken down all the way. I would leave them, but the dogs are pulling them out and eating them...so I'm going to rake them up and add them to the compost bin.

Stay tuned!

Tomorrow: Seed starting begins

Monday: I make you stupid jealous over my birthday gift 

Rawr - happy spring from Roo

In the beginning...

...There was dirt. 

Or more specifically, rock-hard Wyoming clay. We were fortunate enough to qualify for a Habitat for Humanity house and were able to help build it from the ground up. We started from scratch, so everything you see in our yard was grown, built, or put there by us or volunteers - every shrub, tree, plant, blade of grass, and structure.

Here's a pic of my daughter and I on our empty lot

Eight months later, Nancy Freudenthal (first lady of Wyoming at the time and all-around amazing woman) and volunteers help dig the sprinkler lines on a Women's Build Day.

Gunther attending the move-in ceremony. He was adopted the day before from the Habitat ReStore. 

 Since our neighborhood used to be underneath the Snake River hundreds of years ago, the yard frequently bloomed large river rocks, which were saved for the flower beds. Our entire first summer was not spent gardening - it was spent with shovels, rakes and a wheel barrow, transporting piles of rocks and attempting to make the yard level. 

Sod was not in the budget, so we grew our lawn from seed. All around us, neighbors laid sod while I cursed. I fortified the dirt with some high-quality topsoil, just in places where it was particularly needed, as bringing in a yard full of good soil would have been too costly. 

Our first beds went in before the house was even complete, thanks to a Habitat volunteer. I showed up on my lunch hour to say hello and I had veggie beds! The fence went in several summers later. 

The first flower bed - First Tulips and Crocus arrive, then Daisies, Hollyhocks, Sage, Snow in Summer, Lupine, Asters, and Delphinium. All those rocks were lugged from various parts of the yard.

The most amazing Mother's Day gift ever - my husband built these beautiful cedar beds. My nephew lived with us one summer and created the mulch path.

It took 6 summers for the yard to evolve to this point...but of course it will never stop evolving. There will always be another project on the horizon!

It was an overwhelming amount of work at the beginning. My neighbor, who also started most of her yard from scratch, gave me a piece of wisdom I have held onto: "one project at a time." Focus on one part of your yard that you would like to change and go for it. Little by little, it comes together.