I know nobody comes here to read about my garden. So be it. For those who are curious, My columbines came up this year, and are starting to bloom. Both are dark purple. Neither one came up within 20′ of where I planted the original one, but that’s alright with me. They grow where they want to. The renegades traditionally bloom a washed out mauve or off-white, but these are both dark, and the best of them is knee-height. That’s the kind of columbine you get in Colorado. If you don’t want columbines to come up everywhere, like mint or beebalm, just pick off the seed heads before they spurt seeds in late summer.
Roses, columbines, and foxgloves are among my faves, along with irises. The daffys, tulips, and hyacinths are pretty much toast by now. My “cottage garden” might not look exactly Shakespearean, but I still grow some of the same things he mentioned in his writings.
As for the veggies, we’ve got spinach, red leaf lettuce, cauliflower, four different varieties of peas, half a dozen varieties of hot peppers, eight heirloom eggplants, and two dozen heirloom tomatoes. We started all the peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes from seed. What we still need to get are a couple of tomatillo plants. They can easily get to be 8′ tall, and half as wide, so they do need a little space, but they are very productive.
I have extremely high hopes for our gardens this year. The veggie garden is fenced-in. The flower gardens are not. The fruit trees look good, but probably only the pear tree is old enough to produce fruit. The Fuji apple and paw-paws will have to wait another few years. I hung a bar of the original formula “Irish Spring” soap off the pear tree, to keep the deer away. Deer HATE the stink of the original formulation of Irish Spring soap. A bar of soap looks stupid, hanging off a branch in an onion bag, but for $2.25 an 8-pack for the bar soap, it’s a whole lot cheaper than using specialty anti-deer formulations in spray form.
I love gardens. I look forward to some day living where I can have one again.
I am so jealous! Your garden sounds so beautiful!
The only thing that seems to grow in mine is black-eyed Susans, which I suppose I have to grow since it is my state’s flower, LOL!
I am going to try for roses, orchids and tulips at some point in my life!
We also have Texas Sweet onions, Jersey Knight asparagus, and some russet potatoes planted, outside of the veggie garden. The onions and taters are experimental, and if they don’t produce much, it’s no loss. The asparagus is coming up, but will not be harvestable for another couple of years; it’s perennial, and takes a couple of years to get established. For now, we can enjoy the fern-like foliage. We may have to fence it in, but it’s not that large a plot, so it won’t be too expensive to do, if it proves necessary.
I love to hear about your garden, especially since you are a bit ahead of me here in Massachusetts. We have had incredible tulips this year–apparently they love the snow. My roses look like they’ll do well, too. 🙂
I love spinach… what sort of environment does it need to grow?
I figure it likes sandy soil, given that in the days before it was pre-washed and bagged, we had to soak it in the sink to get the sand and grit out. However, we have dense, rocky clay, so we just backfilled with dirt from our compost heap (which is mostly leaf mold), when we planted it. The one concession we made toward drainage was to plant it as high up the hill as we could, so the water would drain down the slope, away from it. Seems to be working, but it’s probably still a little too early to tell.
Original formula Irish Spring soap, huh? I’ll have to give that a shot on our fruit trees. They’re both just starting to bud out (we’ve still got snow here for cripes sake!), but the deer have been cruising the neighborhood lately looking for tender snacks.
Hey would that soap trick work to keep the massive population of deer up here in the mountains away from my Abe Lincolns?
Probably would. I know people who belong to garden clubs who swear by the stuff, but tell me it has to be the original formula, not one of the newer scents.
I worry less about my roses for the simple reason that I’ve planted stuff like sage, Russian sage, rosemary and lavender among them. That seems to be enough to make them leave those alone, but our fruit trees are just out there in the lawn. There’s a deer crossing sign at the far end of our property, by the road. The town wouldn’t bother spending the money on that if there hadn’t been a whole bunch of deer-hit type car accidents over the years.
The deer have left our lavendar and sages alone, too. But they do eat other plants that are right next to them.
I happen to adore your Orchid posts and I’m jealous you have the time and space to do it all.
I’m anxious to hit the local green houses! My grandma just plants a few planters of flowers anymore, but we love to wander around looking at the plants.
I not only have a black thumb, but black hands. 🙁
The only thing that I have been able to keep and flower are two peony plants. My astilbe’s are hit or miss every year. Damn squirrels and chipmunks got my bulbs again.
Our garden is hard clay, tilled with fresh garden soil, compost, and or peat moss. My wife has only been successful with tomatoes, green and red peppers, and basil. Onions were hit and miss.
I think we are going to to try and chives a couple of radish plants and maybe green onions this year, if it ever stops raining.
Are you having crappy spring weather also? We actually had *snow* Saturday morning intermittently until it finally warmed up and turn sunny. And there was frost on the cars this morning.
Our last snow event was April 16th. When it has been above 40, its pouring out.
We’re still getting frost occasionally as well.
Living in an apartment I’m not at liberty to go really hogwild with the plants but… http://autoaim.org/auto_chilis.jpg …at least I can try
Anyone fancy some spicy salsa? I’ve got a feelin’ there’s going to be plenty of chili around here soonish ;D
Mmm. Spicy salsa. We planted most of our tomato and pepper seedlings yesterday. Tomatoes = roma, jubilee, brandywine, and beefsteak. Peppers = habanero, cayenne, serrano, jalapeno, poblano, hot banana, marconi, and ordinary bell. We tried planting anaheim seeds, but none of them ever germinated. That’s alright, because hot banana is very similar.
I’m still waiting for our local garden center to get in tomatillos. The owner said he did order some, so it’s just a matter of when they get delivered.
mmmm that’s what I miss about one of my former jobs. Some of the regular hispanic customers would sometimes bring us in a jar of salsa.
I planted only tomatoes, peppers, and cukes for veggies this year. I have a variety of herbs such as cilantro, dill, basil, and mint growing, and the strawberries are spreading out further than ever. (We gave up on trying to contain them to one corner.)
The perrenial garden got some lupines added this year, and everything else has doubled since it was planted last year and is coming up nicely. The beebalm is a little overwhelming actually. I don’t think there’s much else to add, as it has to have room to fill out and it will probably get crowded this year. But I’ll divide and spread the love to other areas, making new garden paths as I go.
LOL at your strawberry problem. That’s just the way they grow. The good news is that if they stray too far, you can rip out huge chunks of them with no harm done.
If you can figure out a way to get lupines to grow, let me know, because I love them, and have tried to grow them, but they always thumb their blooms at me, and scream “ninny ninny, next year’s not happening!” Same deal with larkspur, which I also love.
Beebalm is in the mint family. I transplanted one shovelful from my old garden spot to where it is now, and it’s doing what mint family stuff does.
If it’s overgrowing its space for you, don’t bother snipping off the growing tips. Rip it out where you don’t want it, but don’t clear-cut it.
I let catnip grow semi-wild, because I have a use for it. Aside from giving my kitties treats, it makes a nice tea, when dried.
Well, when we first built the paths last year we went overboard and put in a large variety of plants, so I have a little of everything. I’ve never planted lupines before, so don’t know what luck I’ll have with them. I really like them as well, along with foxgloves.
I love foxgloves, too. They just will not even do the usual biennial thing for me. They give me the Pacione. Oh, well, I can always put in some snapdragons.
The small buxus sempervirens in my bedroom window died on me. However, somehow nettles started to grow there so now I’ve got a flowerpot of nettles in my bedroom. I figure I can let them grow another couple of weeks and then make some nettle soup. 😀
Just thought I’d let you know:
http://nickolauspacione.blogspot.com/
We were discussing the status of his Blogspot account yesterday, over on the LegionofNitwits forum. I was torn between hoping the Blogger staff had finally come to their senses and closed his account, and being bummed that the evidence of his mental instability and chronic rage was gone forever.
LOL Oh Nicky Nicky Nicky your statement about people in their 30s lacking true maturity is just as true for you. Mature men don’t go crying to mommy to fight their battles when they don’t get their own way.
But Melany, he drinks Pabst Blue Ribbon and MGD, instead of chocolate milk. It’s what makes him such a manly man, instead of a child, like all those other 30-somethings. 😉
Hahahahaha real men drink chocolate milk. At least the men in my family do with their kids cause they’re real fathers too =D
And don’t touch PBR or MGD unless EXTREMELY desperate.
For me, it’s a toss-up between chocolate milk and root beer. But, you can’t make a black cow without root beer. 😀
I love chocolate milk, warm or cold! However, if we’re talking poison, a nice Yuengling will do me. Or a red wine.
Hey Karen, ever tried Chocovine? Red wine with choccolate. It’s like drinking a liquified alcoholic truffle. I’m not normally a red wine person, but, YUM!!! They also do a raspberry chocolate version.
— C.
I’ve tried Chocovine, but I couldn’t drink more than a sip or two. I love chocolate and red wine separate, but together they didn’t work so well for me.
Ooooh, that sounds good. Almost as good as the choco-kahula mud slide from Applebees, which I’ll do almost anything for! (I also love the margaritas from Garfield’s.)
I have absolutely no idea what the retarded gibbon is on about now. John Alexander? What? What the… lol
I was thinking the same thing. Who? What? WTF?
Where does he get these names from?! LOL
Good news on the orchid front: a guy in NoCal who previously sent me a couple of orchid divisions, for the cost of postage, agreed to make a trade with me for a division of his Dendrobium lichenastrum.
We sent a couple of emails back and forth, and he decided he was interested in a division of my Stelis argentata. I needed to repot that plant anyway, and he didn’t have one. So, in the process of repotting it, I tore off about 1/3 of it to send him. This time, no postage reimbursement is involved. Seems sort of silly to trade $6 back and forth, like musicians leaving each other the same tip in the tip jar, whenever they see them play in coffee houses.
I find that orchid folks, on an individual basis, are cool. On the other hand, orchid societies, particularly the larger ones, tend to have their own highly political dynamic, which I dislike.
As long as he leaves me alone, doesn’t send me harrassing emails, and keeps me out of his mouth then I am content to leave him alone.
Nicky makes Joe R. Lansdale an offer via Facebook:
Hey Joe I am doing this one project — that the books are set up to be a full box set by the time it’s all said and done. I am trying to find someone to host the anthology and send the money to the Poe Museum — something I do with my own joint sometimes I will send earnings to Feed The Children. I will explain more about the project via e-mail — I have the guidelines in detail there (it is a dark true story anthology with my story as the test story with the GLs.)
Question – when was the last time anyone received a fraudulent paypal bill from our favourite nutcase?
Last one I had was from late last year (Nov-Dec) or maybe January.
Here’s an email I recieved from Paypal when I put in a complaint about the homophobic insults attached to the two bills he sent me late last year…
———————
Dear Marc Lyth,
Thank you for contacting PayPal regarding the emails you have received
from Nickolaus Pacione.
I have reviewed your account Mr. Lyth, and I have checked the abusive
mails Mr. Pacione has been sending you.
This is not acceptable behavior and PayPal does not condone this type of
language. We will now monitor any further information this seller will
be submitting through PayPal.
Again I apologise for this and wish you the best with using PayPal in
the future.
————————-
I wonder if he has actually lost his paypal account. That would be such a shame…
EPIC WIN!
Was this before or after people donated a penny to his chip-in? Also, do his current chip-ins still go to a PayPal account? I remember him being really pissed off that PayPal charged a one penny fee per transaction, which wiped out the donations, leaving him with zilch. That’s when he started demanding donations of no less than $6, and in some cases, even more than that.
Probably slightly before all that stuff… I think.
He did fire off some nasty invoices over that didn’t he? If they were monitoring him at the time… It does seem to be that after those, no one’s had another bill…
mwahahaha
Thought Rusty might like this
http://verydemotivational.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/demotivational-posters-aliens.jpg
My entire rib cage hurts from laughing at that. Thanks, Willie! That was great! 😀
I love fresh veggies, especially fresh spinach!