What is growing is either suffering from immediate harsh sun; bleaching flowers or crisping leaves. The new peony and penstemon I bought this year will have to show me what they got next year because they are looking shot.

As far as amending the soil in the front yard, I was using this one spray that was seeming to work miracles, but not enough to let some plants thrive. I’ll have to find a way to dig up the soil and amend it for next year. If I do it now, I’m hoping that I might at least be able to plant in the fall. Everything is just so stunted that I feel like this year is lost. Let’s hope that I’m wrong.

I found a half hour on Saturday to work on my smallest veggie bed. This year it is the bed of experimentation. I’m growing scallions, romanesco broccoli and cabbage all from seed. I had to rearrange it a bit due to the horrible soil I got that is nearly pure clay. Because of that, my scallions are too clumped together and the broccoli and cabbage grew on bent stems. I spaced these all out a bit better and hope they survive because today they are looking ragged.

Today, Sunday, I planted all of my tomatoes, eggplants, okra, watermelon and lemon cucumbers in the remaining beds. The artichokes have a few baby buds and the peas finally have blooms. My Kentucky Wonder Beans are looking a little runtish. Unfortunately, with trying 4 new things this year, I ran out of room for the zucchini and other squash. Decided to fill in the front garden with these, making it a true cottage garden. I had to plant the seeds in the sunniest of spots remaining inside the fence because the thought of them being outside the fence bugs me for some reason. The soil in horrible, so I’ll take the next day or two to think of alternate places to throw a few seeds in. There’s always the border around the backyard. I just consider that iffy since we don’t have a soaker hose in place there yet. Maybe it’s time to just put one in since I plan on focusing my efforts on filling that in next year.

I was hoping to email both Angela and Brian before the weekend ended, but I guess that will just have to wait until tomorrow.

Oh yeah, one branch on the thought-dead rhododendron has blooms. Maybe I’ll just move the poor thing one more time to see if it will survive after all. My peonies are also looking a bit runtish. Will give them a good dose of bulb food when it’s time to cut them back. They were barely over a foot this year. Got plenty of blooms from them, but the plant is supposed to be about 3′ tall.

A couple of wrenches were thrown into the weekend plan. The biggest and hardest for me is that the dogs will not be coming back from “summer camp” aka the kennel until Tuesday instead of Monday. Apparently not enough people would be picking up their dogs on Memorial Day, so ours have to stay one more night. It kicks me in the gut just thinking about it.

Otherwise, we just have to pack and we’re all set. If it doesn’t rain tomorrow, I will water everything not on a sprinkler one more time. By the time we get back it should be good gardening weather. Maybe I can kick butt on garden projects that are easier to do when I don’t have two schnauzer supervisors inspecting everything I’m working on…very closely…as I’m working on them.

It’s me again, GM 2010. I’m writing to remind you of a few more things to make gardening easier and hopefully more successful.

You’ve got enough iced mocha cups now, both with and without holes on the bottom. Remember to put the ones with holes into the ones without holes, but make sure the ones without holes have a little water in them. This will let you water from the bottom, which is better for the roots and will also reduce the frequency you need to water. Plus, if you use fish fertilizer, the top cup will block most of the smell and your house won’t smell like a pond. Just make the holes a little bigger because I’m not sure the water is getting soaked up as regularly as it should.

The plastic salad bins worked great as a greenhouse for the eggplants, consider getting at least one carnivorous plants for the gnats that may appear again (name it Audrey III), get the italian veggie seeds at Rail City and remember to start only half of your flower seeds indoors. Start the rest of the flower seeds outside, once you know what the seedlings look like. That way, you’re not pulling up poppy seedlings because they look like dandelions.

Oh! Before I forget, your lilac is going to look all fallen over as it did this year for the first time. Either remember to prune or trellis it somehow, because it looks like crap.

Smooches, GM 2010

After running errands with Ralph, I consolidated what was left in the living room and was able to fit them all on window sills. The card table was put away and the plant holder is now back on the porch. I fed the compost bin, tried seeing if I could root some cuttings from the winterberry bush and started cleaning up some of the nursery pots to store away for next year. I’ve learned so much this season that I’m already looking forward to next season.

Of the two tomatoes I started (black zebra and Tula black seaman [no joke, that's the name]), the zebra started slower but is now looking more developed than the Tula.

Ralph has decided to only use one of the Topsy Turveys this year for his Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes, so I may use the Topsy Tree for some of my seedlings. I also have a pot that a now-dead indoor tree used to inhabit. I will probably fill it up with sugar snap peas. In previous years I would only plant like 6 sugar snap peas because the plant quantity seemed like a good amount, but the average harvest was usually only enough to use as garnish (5-6 pods per plate). In one of the garden beds, I’ve planted 10-15 sugar snap peas, but this will allow me another set to harvest and to move in the shade if needs be. Plus, if it has a decent yield, I can always take out what’s in the bed for other plants.

After the fish fertilizing and seedling thinning, I think I have some better ways of starting seedlings for next year if I have to do it indoors. I feel like I’m blabbing.

I didn’t realize the plant swap was so soon. I thought I had at least another 2 weeks. I’m not sure my offerings are looking too healthy right now. Might post that on the forum and see if others are suffering the same fate. We’re all in the same area, so there is a chance that it’s not just me having a black thumb. I’ll make sure everything is well-watered and then bring them all out in the sun tomorrow. It just feels like a bad gardening day.

A blue jay decided to build a nest above one of our back patio lights; the one closest to the grill. Between a metal patio roof, light fixture and grill, I’m worried that the eggs will cook rather than incubate. Ralph thinks we should move it before eggs appear and the bird get territorial.

I mulched the Disney rose bush because it’s looking pretty bad. I hope, hope, hope it survives. If it dies, I’m going back for another. I absolutely love the blooms.

I think I figured out what is happening to my blackberry lilies. Either doves or quail are doing their butt-imprints and snacking on them…including the ones I just planted. If any are left, I’ll be very surprised. Two of my 5 dahlias have fallen over. I’m half tempted to think that the doves or quails had a hand in that as well because it looked like somethings tried to uproot my tulips, too. Might it be raccoons?

Had to replant some things for the swap. Since I hate the wind, I didn’t go out and peek at the seedlings I left outside to harden off and they dried out.

Other than that, I’m at a point where I just want to see if what I have and what I’ve planted are going to get to a good start from here on out. This is the last night in the next ten days at least where the night will be in the 30s. The lows are projects to stay in the 40s for most of the week with low 50s showing up by next weekend. *crosses fingers*

That being said, I’m finding that I’m losing my patience with clients where I normally wouldn’t. I would never let them see that, but when I’m alone I do sit and grumble, rail against indignities and claim to cut them off after the current project is completed. But, as I soothe myself with the thought of “it’s almost Portland time!”, I wonder if it’s just me and my burnt-out state. Granted, there are one or two clients that I know I’m getting my chain yanked by, but what about the rest?

Am I literally at a serious breaking point? Can it be fixed, healed or mended whether or not I actually reach that point? Do I let the dam break in a non-client environment and just see what comes out of the wreckage? I’m trying so hard to not let the seams burst, but what if bursting in a “controlled environment” will do me more good than trying to keep it all together? Does it sound stupid to just have a good cry right before the trip so that I let it all out and go on the trip with a clean frame of mind?

This all sounds so silly, high school and trite when I say or write it, but I know what I’m feeling does not feel right. I’d rather try all the possible options rather than just let it eat at me until I lose all love and passion for creative work. I never want to lose the high I feel when I’m doing something creative. I do want to lose the guilt I feel when I see all my art supplies or see the portfolios and projects of others.

It’s worth fighting for, and if fighting means allowing myself to crash & burn, break and/or bawl uncontrollably like a baby so that I can bring myself back up, I’ll do it. It scares the hell out of me, but I will. 22 days until Portland.

If you forget and you sow early, you totally deserve the crowded areas around your windows, the gnats you detest so much that you forewent indoor plants for so long to avoid, the sad-looking seedlings that look like they won’t make it, the pain of hardening off too many plants that you didn’t winter sow (in and out, in and out, in and out), the realization that your Spring Cleaning efforts are almost all for naught after one weekend of said hardening off, the legginess of more than half of your seedlings because you don’t have a grow light.

Isn’t that what you should be doing right now, instead of fussing over seedlings? Spring Cleaning, finishing up any indoor projects before the warm, non-windy weather beckons you like a siren and doing more of the personal art projects I hope you accomplished in 2010. On nice early Spring days, did you spend the time to amend your clay soil in the front yard? The soil that make planting any new plants or seeds a pain in the ass? Have you at least mulched?!?!?!?

Please remember that late April through most of May is windy, and you hate the wind, don’t you? You’ll neglect things outside on the really windy days and realize that you may have to redo a lot of what you have already accomplished because you started too soon.

If you’ve found a way to create a hoop house, cold frame, cold tunnel or other contraption to lengthen your growing season, do not forget to only start with seeds you know you can replace/resow if they don’t make it your first year using your newfangled thingamajig.

DO remember that you liked using iced mocha cups for starting eggplants and tomatoes and that baggies over red plastic cups (for Sugar Baby watermelon, lemon cucumbers and zucchini) will only work if, as soon as the plant is big enough to not fit in the baggie, it should be near planting-out time. Beans grow fast and do not need to be started indoors.

Remember to try wintersown gardening. If you forget your reasons, look at token’s blog for 2010. He had hundreds of plants that were hardy and good-sized to work with.

Exercise patience, don’t use the generic Ace soil in the white bag and remember to order & use the nifty spray you found that reduced the clay-i-ness of your soil.

Best wishes,
Michelle 2010