Our first tomatoes

Corrie and I each had one tomato in our dinner salad tonight. I know we'll be up to our ears in tomatoes soon.

Nice tulip photo

I don't know why I've remiss on blogging-bloggy things have been happening. Here's a photo of some nice tulips in the butterfly garden.

First and second flowers

Here are the first and second batches of crocus this year! The second ones just flowered today.

Too many tomatoes

I'd like to give a shout out to the third grade class... oh wait, wrong audience.

I can't remember picking this many tomatoes in any previous October. This is the bowlful I picked tonight. I tried to pick the ripest ones in case the colder temperatures do the rest of them in. Even though I love tomatoes, I have to say that I'm not terribly sorry they're reaching the end of their season. The plants are overgrown and need to be cleaned out.

Here's what I've been up to

Not alot of energy for blogging between weekly trips to Omaha for garage sales and birthday celebrations, or between watching the resident kitten for long periods of time. I have a few photos of Tip from this week-she should now be 5 weeks old.

I found Tip sleeping on top of my shoe! Corrie and I agree that's how we felt when we got home from work today.


Here she is awake, still on the shoes. And to compare size, Tip with mom:


I've been busy picking tomatoes, too, which is good. Here are a few. They're becoming salsa tonight.

first tomato (sort of) and first kitten photo

Here's our first tomato of the season-one from the better boy variety. It has a little blossom end rot to it, I'm afraid, but I think the rest is still edible. (I call this "sort of" our first tomato because I already picked a smaller early girl that had more rot to it than tomato. I'm not going to panic because it seems like our first tomatoes each season have this, then the rest are fine. I realize I should take more steps to prevent this in the first place.)


Also, the first photo of our outdoor kitten! Mom and kitten have moved out of their hole onto the rooftop of their hole. Look closely-the kitten is batting Itty Bittiest in the face.

The Informed Gardener

I came across The Informed Gardener by Linda Chalker-Scott during the BEA conference in May. It was one of the new books the University of Washington Press, whose booth was right across from ours, was promoting front and center in their display.

The beautiful cover first caught my eye, but I first suspected the book might be geared towards gardeners in the Pacific Northwest, since that's where it was published. That wasn't the case, though-it will be a useful book to any gardener in any part of the country. This is a collection of columns that the author had written since 2000 on various horticulture myths and misconceptions. (Her most current columns can be read on her web page.)

The book is broken down into six sections, including Critical Thinking, Understanding How Plants Work, How/What/When/Where to Plant, Soil Additives, Mulches, and Miracles in a Bag/Bottle/Box. Each column is neatly broken into sections: the myth, the reality, the bottom line, and a list of references. One of the myths she dispels is that watering on a hot sunny summer day (like today!) will scorch your plants' leaves. After explaining various causes of leaf scorch (including too little/too much water, salt, and poor root health) she recommends in her "bottom line" section to water plants anytime they show signs of drought and to preferably do that watering in the morning, to avoid over-fertilizing, and to make sure the plant site is optimal for root and shoot growth.

One of the other practices she takes issue with is backfilling a plant or tree hole with soil additives. I've always thought it was a good idea to add a little organic matter when I'm transplanting tomatoes or other plants, but she argues while the roots may grow vigorously for awhile, when they reach that edge between the organic matter and the native soil they may turn back towards the organic matter rather that reaching outward, which establishes a weak root system. She also suggests that the organic matter is too porous, and water will tend to move along to the native soil. Her recommendation is to instead add the organic matter as a top dressing, which you can continue to maintain without disturbing the plant.

I enjoyed this book. It was a fast read that encourages common sense, efficient, and cost-effective gardening. I'll probably re-visit it next spring before I head into the next gardening season.

I went on a gardening vacation, and all I got was rain

Well, half the week we had rain. I'm wrapping up my annual vacation week that's supposed to be dedicated to all things gardening, and while the beginning of the week was great, we've had rain 3 of the last 4 days. I did get 11 hand-grown tomato plants in the ground (3 better boys, 3 early girls, 2 brandywine, 2 black brandywine, and 1 jellybean) as well as a couple of bell pepper plants, bush bean seeds, onion sets, snap peas (I think it's too late for them, but Corrie wanted some peas) and also corn. (also not my idea but I was willing to give it a shot.)

It's a little difficult to see all of the tomato plants-Corrie installed cow fencing around most of them to serve as a really gigantic tomato cage.

When I couldn't garden, I did some minimal cleaning of the house and also worked on my Burnie fridgies. We also took Luther to his annual vet appointment which is no small undertaking, and we saw DeVotchKa in concert at the Slowdown in Omaha. It was a really good show, really nice club. There aren't many seats there, it's mostly set up for standing room, but we were lucky enough to get a high table in the balcony. (if you ever go and want a seat, get there really early!) I didn't take my camera because I get too distracted by it and forget to enjoy the live show, but there's one video on youtube right now of one of the last numbers. I'm not sure why they took the video from this angle rather than from a vertical perspective. You can't see us, but we were eye level with this woman at her highest point on the fabric.



I also finished watching season 1 of Flight of the Conchords. Thank you, Amy L. for introducing me to this show! I can't stop talking about how much I love it. The humor and songs are great! I think I might dress up as Mel, their lone fan, for Halloween this year. Unfortunately, I just figured out that they're performing in L.A. this Friday while I'm in town for BookExpo America, but their show is sold out! Maybe I'll run into them somewhere. I'm going to keep my eye out!

Happy Earth Day!

Following closely behind my love of red tulips is my love of yellow tulips. Here are the most recent blooms in my yard.


We also have some pink hyacinths blooming-I planted 5 bulbs last year, it appears only 4 made the cut.


Jana pointed out that my yarn crafts aren't coming up much in my blog. (Their time will come, probably around mid-November all the way into December when I start cranking out the Christmas decorations and gifts. My goal this year is not to be finishing my Christmas crafts in the car on the way to Omaha for Christmas. That was cutting it a little close.) So here's a nod to Jana-I was trying to finish Corrie's pillow tonight when my orange helpers got in the way.


That's ok, I still need to buy buttons for the pillow, so it wasn't going to get done tonight anyway.

My first tulips

It's amazing what a couple of 70 degree days will do! These red tulips went from mostly green to full out red all on Saturday.


I think red tulips are my favorite. I love these yellow centers. When she was little, my sister used to talk about how someday she wanted a yard full of tulips so she wouldn't have any grass to mow. I don't think she understood that a tulip's bloom time is very short, or sometimes non-existent, like what happened last year when we had literally frigid weather in late April/early May. Corrie claimed I personally killed all of the tulips last year, but I beg to differ.

I planted some spinach and lettuce seeds yesterday. I hope they don't wash away like my seeds did last spring.

Grow little plants, grow!

Maybe it's the warmer weather that triggered it, but I just realized that I think my seedlings should be bigger than they are at this point in their growing process-I'm a little panicky. I just transplanted most of the tomato plants to bigger containers last night, so hopefully the extra room will help. I guess there still is another month until the frost date, so I shouldn't worry so much. I won't be moving them outside anytime soon.


Congratulations go out to Td, who from what I have seen has the first tulip in Lincoln blooming in his yard.

Thrift Store Goodies

While shopping for an April Fool's chicken at my local thrift store, I spied this game from the 70s that I wasn't familiar with: Constructo-straws. The package looked too complete and a very good deal at $3.99, so I bought it.

It didn't take me long to find someone who did know and love this game; my friend, Amy L. said she and her brother played it a lot when they were kids. (although is it really a game? I guess not. Just a toy.)

I thought maybe I had the very first daffodil blooming in my yard in Lincoln, but I saw a bunch on campus already in bloom, so mine isn't that special. It still looks really nice, though.


The tulips are a large mass of green now, and the crocus still look very nice. I didn't realize they closed up at night, so I made sure to get a good photo while there was plenty of daylight.



Corrie got a hankering to build a real compost bin today so he could have a place to put the stuff that had decomposed nicely in the bottom of his old truck bed, but he got as far as sifting the twigs out and then informed me that the compost bin would be part of his 2015 yard plan. (I don't think he really means that-I think/hope he means he wants to do some other re-arranging in the yard before he settles on a permanent compost location.)

We're ghetto now, at least temporarily

In preparation for a new washer and dryer (the dryer finally gave out yesterday) Corrie moved the old ones out into the yard. Which is more ghetto, the photo that includes the dorm fridge (which works and is great for outdoor parties!) or the one with the old truck with a flat tire? I guess we won't be winning yard of the month anytime soon. I know Corrie will get them off to the metal recycling place very soon.



To offset the ghetto, here are some new crocus I found blooming in the yard. I should really know what kind they are, but I don't.

Naptime

Almost everyone in the house is napping this afternoon, even I took a short nap, and Corrie is also still napping, but I doubt he wants his photo on my blog. Scabbers and Norman:

Todd:


Even the strays, Itty Bittiest and Oreo, are sleeping in Corrie's old truck that's still full of yard waste for a trip to the dump. Yard waste makes for nice cat beds, I guess.


In other news, Corrie is making good progress on installing the tile on the bathroom walls. We're still not sure what to do for floor tile. Almost everything we see is too similar to what we used on the walls. I'm ok with a lighter color that we found the other night, but Corrie said he doesn't like it. All I really care about is no light-colored grout. It's impossible to keep that stuff clean unless you use chemicals that will burn your hands off.


In seedling news, the only thing coming up so far are my red marigolds. I'm hoping everything else will soon follow. Here's the full seed starter contraption that Corrie built a few years ago on a snow day. I have the ability to move the fluorescent bulbs up as the plants get taller, and I can also move more plants up to the higher shelf and install my other lights. There's an ominous glow in this photo.

Mission Accomplished!

After I pulled into the driveway today, I wondered what piece of purple litter had gotten stuck in the flower bed next to the house. What a surprise-it was the crocus I had been searching for!


I guess I should mark this spot for next spring so I don't have to search so much.

In other news, Corrie is gearing up to work on our ongoing upstairs bathroom remodel. When I say ongoing, I mean ongoing. I went back to find some photos of when we tore out the old bathroom, and I was a little shocked to see they dated back to 2004. I'm probably the one who made this mess (back in 2004, dang, I was still in my 20s then-Courtney, you still lived here!):

Here, also in February 2004, our new tub installed. Corrie can correct me if I'm wrong, but I utilized the tub just as it appears here before we had any drywall up. I used to stare up at the 100 year old cobwebs stuck on the ceiling joists.


Slow-forward to 2008: Corrie has almost finished with tile in the shower, and he just bought more title to finish what's going on the bathroom walls. We're going to have to pick another color of tile for the floor, since it was so long ago that we decided on something that we forgot what we decided on!

Happy Easter, everyone!

Evidently I was very excited to be receiving a toothbrush for Easter in 1980. Hopefully I got some chocolate to go along with that toothbrush.

The tulip report is a little boring today-things look about the same as last week. If you look closely through the fence, you can see Junior, the neighbor's dog. Hello Junior!


I started my garden seeds yesterday. I still need to rig up the my fluorescent lights, but the seeds are in the seed starter mix and are ready to go. One of the ways I get through the beginning of winter is I tell myself once January comes, I can go ahead and order some seeds from Pinetree Garden seeds. They arrived so long ago that I had forgotten what I ordered. I ended up with 5 different varieties of tomato seeds. I wanted to try a couple of new kinds this year (regular brandywines and black brandywines) as well as keep up my standards (better boy, early girl, and jellly bean grape) in case the news ones don't work out. Plus I like to have plenty of plants to share with friends. Besides the tomato seeds, I started some cosmos, marigolds, salvia (not the kind you smoke, I don't think), purple coneflowers, calendula, and black-eyed susan vines. It doesn't look too overwhelming right now, but the space the seedlings take up with expand exponentially over the coming months. These little rows will be transferred into small containers, then each plant will eventually get its own container, and by the time mid-May comes, I will be up to my ears in plants.

Don't save all your gardening for the weekend

I hope no one's weekend was ruined because I didn't post anything about the weekly tulip watch. Here's Saturday's photo. Luckily, they're coming along well enough that it's getting more difficult for me to remember which ones I was monitoring.


It's great-now I'm seeing tulips popping up all over the yard. I wouldn't want to guess how many tulips I've planted in the past 9 years-there were several years where I had a ritual of buying 2 dozen tulip bulbs the day before the Buffalo Run in September. I think I did that for 4 or 5 years, so that's easily 100 tulips right there. The ones I've been following in the photos were the very first tulips I bought in a bargain bag at Menards in the fall of 2000. I doubt I paid more than $10 for 50 bulbs, and they've been dug up and moved at least once. Their current and final location is along the fence in the vegetable garden, where they get a lot of sun all winter long. It's probably why they're always the first to arrive in the spring. I can't say all of the more expensive tulips I've bought have fared as well.

I just finished reading a nice little book I received for my birthday, The Curious Gardener's Almanac: Centuries of Practical Garden Wisdom by Niall Edworthy. It's a hodgepodge of gardening tips, recipes, old sayings, fun facts, and neat little design elements. (check out the gardener's cabbage head on the front cover.)

One of the tips that should've been obvious but I really liked anyway was don't save all of your gardening for the weekend. On Monday, it might sound like a good plan to spend the entire following Saturday outside in the yard, but what if you had a really good Friday night inside with some tasty adult beverages and pulling weeds out in 100 degree heat all of a sudden doesn't sound so fun? I don't plan to spend entire weeknight evenings gardening, but I would like to do a few odds and ends here and there. Tonight I was really tired but told myself I'd go out and rake just one bag of leaves and then come back in. Once I got out there, I wasn't so tired, and the one bag turned into two. (plus I saw man with stuffed tiger car drive by.) Here's another fun fact from the book: "Each garden contains an average of one hundred species of spiders and each house contains about ten species." (That's a lot of spider walks, Jana!) I think I'll revisit this book throughout the summer, especially once I have some produce for the recipes.
Hopefully by this weekend if Corrie gets the upstairs re-situated, I'll have some flower and vegetable seeds started under my grow lights. Now the fun begins!

Holmes Lake isn't the only thing in town that's still frozen

The forecast for today said temperatures in the 60s (weather.com says it's 68 right now), so I knew I wanted to get my freshly-tuned bike out and go for a ride. When venturing out on the first really nice day of the year, one must consider the probable high traffic on the most popular trails and chose their own path accordingly. People seem to forget over the winter how to use our bike trails and what the phrase, "on your left" means, so I decided to head farther north than I usually go so I could get on the John Dietrich bikeway that eventually turns into the Murdock trail, which eventually would get me to Lincoln's Mahoney Park. (not to be confused with the Mahoney Park out by the Platte River. I'm not in that good of shape.) I knew before going out that portions of this trail are limestone, and I realized they'd probably be a little messy and get my freshly-cleaned bike messy, too. The fact that there's hardly anyone ever on this stretch was just too appealing to pass up.

I was right-there was hardly anyone out, however I underestimated the limestone messiness. Patches right next to Mahoney Park were still complete snow-covered, so I walked my bike maybe a quarter of a mile until I got on firmer ground. I decided I wasn't willing to do that again going back, so I ended up taking the longer way home by going on hilly 84th street south all the way to the Mo Pac trail, which is one of the busy ones I was trying to avoid. It might've been the heavy winds, but there actually weren't that many people out on the Mo Pac, so I had minimally frustrating trip the rest of the way home. All in all, a pretty good trip!

This week's tulip progress-I still can't find my crocus, but the tulips continue to grow:

Is it ok to just rake up the snow with the leaves?

It's a balmy 45 degrees already today, which if you factor in the windchill last Wednesday, that's a temperature difference of 65 degrees! It feels so good, I'm ready to tear into the yard and do the chores that should've been done last October, or maybe November at the latest. The trouble in Nebraska is the trees just don't lose their leaves until December, so unless we get some nice Christmas weather, the leaves just don't get raked until springtime. I don't think this is all bad, since I hope they serve as insulation to the plants below, but they can't stay there forever. I might try to hold off until the rest of the snow melts, I guess.

I've been periodically surveying the yard (both for plants and graffiti, we had some issues last month) and found signs of the first tulips emerging. They come up every year about this time, and I know that they'll be ok even if there's some chilly March weather.


The rest of the yard looks kind of sad, but it won't be long before there will be plenty of plants to care for and weeds to pull.

The butterfly garden today:



The butterfly garden, just last fall:

I'm hoping sometime this weekend I track down the crocus I've planted! Surely they're ready to come up.