Putting the garden to bed

Over the years, I have prided myself on how long I can keep the tomatoes growing in the garden. Before we moved here in 2013, I used to take sheets outside and cover the tomatoes any time it looked like the weather would be cold enough to freeze. I haven't done that since we've lived here. Part of the reason is that with our daughter, her husband, and their four children living in our basement, I have no place to store the greenish tomatoes for later ripening. One thing a lot of people don't know is that if you have tomatoes that even have a little bit of color on them indicating that they are turning from green to red, you can pick them, store them, and they will eventually turn red. They don't taste the same as vine ripened tomatoes, but it gives a little more life to your garden.
This year I had mixed results with my garden. Early on, the peas and lettuce did well, but I had less success with my onions. Later on, the beets grew like champs, and the chard just keeps on coming, but the biggest Atlantic Giant pumpkin I grew was about the size of a bowling ball, and the tomatoes, which last year I had coming out of my ears, were sporadic and small.

Pea vines, weeds, and the forks that were supposed to keep the cat out
and didn't work.

Picked beets sitting in a basket for later use.

The picked Atlantic Giants, along with the tomatoes and chard.

My lens cap adds a bit of comparison as to the size of the tomatoes.

Chard was the biggest success of the season. Anyone want some?

About a month ago I began removing things out of my raised beds, until now, all that's left to be removed is the tomato plants (they still haven't died of frost, but they are no longer producing much at all), and the chard, which is growing like a weed. I am off today for Veteran's Day, but planning on hiking, so on my next day off (not counting Sunday) I will rip up the tomatoes and chard and put the garden to bed for the winter.
There were several bright spots in my garden this year, but the best surprise I had was that when I inspected my grape vines, which to all appearances were hardly growing, I found three unexpected grapes. I had planted them in the spring and expected nothing. They are Concord grapes and they were just past their prime, but hadn't started to wrinkle, so I ate them. So sweet! I can't wait for next year!

More signs of fall

You wouldn't know it around here with the unseasonable temperatures. For the past few weeks, we've been hard-pressed to find any temps below 80. I'm waiting for a little cooler weather to facilitate the most productive time for killing bindweed (better known as wild morning glory), and other noxious weeds.
Despite the warm weather though, there are some signs that fall is coming on. My tomatoes, which were coming out of my ears, have slowed their ripening process--just not enough hours of warmth in the shorter days. Pumpkins are quickly being bought up from the nearby vendors. We just bought a couple to make jack-o-lanterns with from Ream's, on sale for 13 cents a pound...and since it was the last day of the sale, we were picking from the last five or six they had, literally. With the recently announced pumpkin shortage, I'm not thinking we'll see another sale like that between now and Halloween. Just a couple of weeks ago though, we were up in Perry, Utah watching some guys unload pumpkins at one of the fruit stands up there.

Unloading pumpkins--a sure sign of fall.

With the shorter days, it also means that I'm leaving for work before the sun rises. This has created an opportunity to take some shots of the dawn sky. I wish I could remember to set up the good camera on a tripod and get a wonderful shot, but instead, I just think about it when I'm already nearly late for work, so I pull out the cell and snap a shot. Like this.

The Moon, Venus and Jupiter have been close together in the morning.

Before long, it's actually going to cool down enough to turn on the furnace, and to spray the weeds. Summer, with its hikes, fishing, and barbecues will be done. But fall and then winter have their own unique activities that make them special as well. And who's to say that you can't hike, fish or barbecue in the fall and winter? I do all of these activities year round. We've cooked our Christmas Eve steaks on the grill outside when it was snowing. It was a wonderful experience.

There will be more wonderful experiences in the days and years ahead. We need to look at each day as a God-given opportunity to grow, learn, and love. Of course, there are often challenges to endure and to survive, Those are part of life. Some times may be hard, but if we keep our eyes focused on what's truly important, and our trust in God, we will eventually become not spectators, or unwilling participants, but victors. And I kind of like that.

Gardening tips and other advice

Many years ago, I took the Salt Lake Master Gardner's Course and got my certificate. Prior to that time, I had a great interest in knowing how to grow things, but not a lot of know-how. It was a great class, taught by Larry Sagers who was the USU Extension Agent for the Salt Lake area, as well as the expert on the KSL Greenhouse program that was featured on Saturday morning radio.
Since that time, Larry has passed away, and I have grown numerous gardens. I've had the opportunity to teach gardening at community education programs and at other gatherings. I will never know as much about gardening as Larry did, but at least I know how to grow things respectably--something that I once didn't know.
One rule of thumb that we learned was that most things are best transplanted in the cooler parts of the year. The reason being is that heat caused plants to go into stress. Fall is generally an excellent time to transplant anything because the plant is less likely to go into stress, and will go dormant for the winter within just a few weeks.
The other day, my friend asked me about how and when to transplant irises. I answered the "when" wrong, and I'm not sure I gave a very thorough explanation of the "how".
I did some further checking, just to make sure and I found that the best time to divide and transplant irises is after the flowers die back, but before fall, which generally means sometime between June and the end of summer . The reason being is that irises can get root rot pretty easily in a wet autumn and transplanting predisposes them to it. I found this great article on how to do it. Clickety-click.
There are exceptions to every rule, and when to transplant irises is one of them. Now I know.
As for the how, the above article gives a good explanation, but here's a video that should help: Dividing Irises
Happy Gardening!

Life is still awesome!

With sputters and starts, this week has gone amazingly better. First of all, it has been great that Ann is home. That is the most important thing.
I also was able to get back to exercising, though with a hitch on the first day back. About 15 minutes into my run, I pulled a muscle in my calf. That was on Tuesday. That night, I started filling the remaining two of my raised beds. I worked for an hour, then a friend showed up and we got all except 1/2 of them full before he had to go home. I needed to quit anyway, as I was beat. I took Wednesday off from exercising to finish filling my raised beds with soil and had that done at about 9 p.m.
Thursday was my day off and it was supposed to begin raining in the afternoon. My goal was to go and buy my plants and get them in before the rain began. I got that done.
I ran again on Friday, with just a twinge of pain in my leg. Saturday, I tried it again and sort of re-injured my leg. I'm thinking I'd better stick to every other day for a while, until I'm sure it's healed.
Either that, or hobble for the next few weeks. At any rate, the last couple of weeks have been an understandable setback from my July 1st deadline of getting down to 185 or lower. I'm still going to try and do it though. Last night I weighed in at just shy of 191, so I've got about six weeks or so to lose six pounds. I think that's possible.
And, it has been a better week. The Lord has blessed us with the rain (we have not had to water our lawn yet this year), and especially with Ann being able to get well enough to come home.

A good week coming

Ann got out of the hospital on Friday, I'm almost done taking antibiotics for my diverticulitis outbreak, and my garden soil pile should be drying out because the parade of storms has finally died down. It's looking like a great week ahead. Ann will be happier and on the mend, I'll be able to get back to exercising and feeling good, and I'll be able to also get my raised beds finished and hopefully planted by the end of the week.

Yeah, it's gonna be a good week.

Raised bed garden project

I finally completed actually building the frames for my four raised beds. Here's a pic:

Picture strategically taken to not show my messy back yard.

Now, all that's left is digging out another section of sod (if you feel, like I do, that cutting out sod by hand is the worst garden job, raise your hand!), roughly six feet by twelve feet, moving the beds into position so that I can create a nice decorative path in between them, filling them up with good garden soil, and planting. The goal is to have all this done by mid-May. Wish me luck!

Snow at last

April snow showers bring May flowers? The biggest storm since the winter of 2013-2014 hit the Salt Lake Valley and deposited 9" in our city of West Valley. Too bad I was sick today, and stayed home from work and won't be able to do the same tomorrow for a last gasp ski day. I would dearly love to go.
The good thing is, by the end of the day, I was nearly back to normal. The kidney stones or whatever it was that was causing great pain, had largely subsided, praise the Lord. I went out and took a few pictures of the snow.

Yesterday, as part of the "Titanic Day" the heavy winds blew over our fence.

The lilac bush was collapsed by the weight of the snow.

I think it's going to be a few days before I can work on the raised beds again. And clean up the yard.

Anna is our little snow lover and has been waiting all season for enough snow to actually play in.

It has been snowing off and on all day and we couldn't be more grateful for it. The Lord has answered our prayers. Last I heard, Snowbird had received 22 inches and it was still snowing.

Getting the garden ready

Yesterday on my day off, instead of going out and having fun, I did yard work. Yes, it's that time of year, and since I've sacrificed much of my time in the evenings to watching the NCAA basketball tournament, my time to actually do meaningful stuff is on my days off. Thankfully, March Madness doesn't last that long.

So Ann and I drove down to Riverton to IFA to pick up some blackberry plants. Just last week we had gone to the other IFA and they were out of them (they did have one left, which I bought). I made sure I called first. When I got there, they had a lot to choose from and I ended up purchasing two more blackberry plants, a boysenberry plant, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a huckleberry plant. I snagged that one right up, huckleberries being one of my favorite berries and all, though I'm thinking that I may not have success with it actually living. I remember quite a few years ago, Larry Sagers on the KSL Greenhouse program mentioned that it's very difficult to get huckleberry plants to actually grow in the home garden. Most of them are found in the wilds.

There's actually a place up near Bear Lake that has some huckleberries growing naturally. To the best of my knowledge, it's the closest place to my home that they are growing, and it's quite a drive, so if you don't time it right, you either find them still unripe, or you find that the bears have eaten all of them. If you really time it wrong, you find the bears still there.

I got those planted and also got the metal sheets for my raised beds cut. It actually wasn't as difficult as I imagined it to be--the saber saw worked well for the task. I'll still need to build the frames and fill them up with a combination of sandy loam and compost before they'll be ready for planting. Yeah, I'm thinking the cold season crops aren't going to happen this year.

The rest of the day I did just a few things, including moping because I hadn't actually taken the day off and done something fun.

Secretly though, I enjoyed getting those blackberry and that huckleberry plant in the ground. I'm looking forward to some good berries in a couple of years. And next week, I'm actually planning on getting out and hiking on my day off, so there's great things in store in the near future.