Fall 2012

A recent harvest from the garden included leeks, tomatoes, Georgia Flame peppers, a butternut squash and a Golden Midget watermelon.

Watermelons are round and therefore easily roll off surfaces that aren't level.  This is why the watermelon pictured below is practically split in half.  The sound the melon made when it hit the lawn was a wet thudchrrrusscch.  My mouth began to water as the sweet fragrance of warm, ripe watermelon filled the air.

It's delicious!

It's late in the season but the orange bell peppers are finally beginning to blush.

The Brussels sprouts and kale are loving this cooler weather.  I learned my lesson last year and won't up-root the sprouts stalk prematurely.  These mini cabbage-like veggies thrive in cooler weather.  Perhaps we will have fresh Brussels sprouts with our Thanksgiving dinner this year rather than just the greens as we did last year.

The strawberry bed is lush!  Next June, we should be knee deep in strawberries.  Next week straw will be added to the top of the bed to protect the strawberry crowns from the winter cold.

Beautiful zinnias.  Flowers will always have a place in Wright Gardens.  Aside from looking lovely, they brought so many bees, butterflies and dragonflies to the garden.

"Beauty is only a byproduct... The main business of gardens is sex and death."

-- Sam Llewellyn

The onions, although growing, don't seem to be growing quickly.  I dug one up that had tall greens but where the onion bulb should be, there was a white pea-sized nub.  It smelled fantastic but an onion bulb it was not.  I'll try digging up another tomorrow and if it looks the same as the first, I'll leave the rest in the ground to over-winter.  Hopefully, by doing so, come late spring, an armful of onions will be pulled up from the Earth.

Garlic!  It's nearly time for it to be planted.  Wright Gardens will be growing 50-60 bulbs of garlic again this year.  Next week the garlic beds will be prepped and the soil amended with fresh top soil, compost and peat moss.  Then, in three to four weeks the garlic will be planted.

In addition to Chet's Italian Red, Georgian Fire and Chesnok Red, a forth garlic variety will be planted this year - Spanish Roja.  Mmm-M.

"I appreciate the misunderstanding that I have had with Nature over my perennial border.  I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass , and tries to correct the error."  -- Sara Bonnett Stein

Friday afternoon, my beloved and I attended a bulb sale at the Chicago Botanic Garden.  We came home with a just a few bulbs to add to our flower beds.

Muscari armeniacum (Grape Hyacinth) - 15 bulbs

Tulipa 'Blue Spectacle' (Double Late Tulip) - 20 bulbs

Tulipa 'Sensual Touch' (Fringed Tulip) - 10 bulbs

Tulipa 'Sweetheart' (Fosteriana Tulip) - 10 bulbs

Nectaroscordum siculum (Sicilian Honey Garlic) - 10 bulbs

Fritillaria imperialis 'Aureomarginata' (Guinea Hen Fritillary) - 1 bulb

Fritillaria michailowsky (Guinea Hen Fritillary) - 5 bulbs

Allium 'Silver Spring' (Ornamental Onion) - 1 bulb

Allium 'Globemaster' (Ornamental Onion) - 2 bulbs

Allium 'Gladiator' (Ornamental Onion) - 1 bulb

Allium schubertii (Schubert Onion) - 1 bulb

Crocus flavus 'Yellow Mammoth' (Crocus) - 10 bulbs

Iris reticulata 'J.S. Dijt' (Dwarf Iris) - 25 bulbs

Chionodoxa forbesii 'Pink Giant' (Glory of the Snow) - 25 bulbs

Just a few... Our spring beds are going to look glorious!

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Fresh and fruity with a side of mantid

The weather is perfect and everything is growing vigorously.  It seems like in the course of one week everything in the garden has doubled in size.  With the exception of the French green bean seeds and the soybean seeds, everything else that was planted in the garden has sprouted and is doing well.

The tomato plants each have numerous flowers, and even the okra plant is sporting a couple flowers.  Two handfuls of red raspberries have been pulled from the bush (the first handful on Sunday and the second today) and boy are they sweet!  A couple strawberries will be ripe and ready to eat before the end of the week, too.  Many of the red raspberries will be turned into jam.  In fact, our kitchen will be a part-time canning factory throughout the summer.  Whole fruit and vegetables, sauces, jams and pickles will be canned and stockpiled in the basement.

Sparkle strawberry

Burgundy Okra

Toro blueberries

Red raspberries

Jam-in-the-works

Spencer found the strawberry bed comfy.

Garden friend - Twelve-spotted skimmer

The butterfly bush started blooming late last week!  We're eagerly awaiting our first butterfly and hummingbird sightings.

Mantids are everywhere!  They're becoming easier to spot now as they've doubled in size.  They're still relatively small by comparison to how large they become but they're growing fast.  

I wish this blog had a zoom feature because the second mantid photo is crystal clear.
When zooming in on my laptop, you can see the mantid's details, including his pseudo-pupil!
It was very brave and patient while I moved the camera closer and closer to snap this photo.  I thanked it and then left it be.
We love these amazing creatures.

We hope you're enjoying this amazing weather, having great success with your gardens, and discovering wonders of your own.

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Berry nice

Bring on the berries!  Last week I busied myself with the task of constructing a raised garden bed in anticipation of the arrival of strawberry plants we ordered last month.  A long narrow bed frame (25'x3.5') was constructed to accommodate twenty-five plants.  Bare roots were shipped so we aren't likely to have strawberries until next summer, but we're excited about the addition of this edible in our garden nonetheless.

The variety of strawberry we ordered is named Sparkle.  It is a June bearing plant that will yield small to medium sized fruit.  Sparkle is touted as an heirloom quality variety with excellent flavor.  It is one of the three recommended varieties of strawberries for the Midwest region in The Backyard Homestead, which, by the way, is an excellent book.

Much consideration was given to the size of the bed frame and its ultimate location in the yard.  A square bed with a mat of strawberry plants?  A wide bed with two or more rows of plants?  We went with a long bed and single row of plants, mainly, because it will be easiest for John to tend to the plants as well as pick berries.  He's not as enthusiastic about the main garden as he is by the selection of berries growing in the yard.

Along with the strawberry plants we also ordered black raspberry bushes.  These were also bare root plants and right now it looks like two sticks are planted in the ground.  Hopefully, next year we will have a selection of red and black raspberries to eat.  We went with a mid-season summer bearing raspberry called Bristol.

While digging holes for the blueberry bushes a couple weeks ago, I noticed a few sleepy white grubs curled up like a 'c'.  Initially I felt bad for disturbing them, and all of the other life forms upset by the shifting soil, but curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to know exactly what they were.  When digging in the Earth as a girl I don't recall ever seeing any such thing in the soil.  Turns out, the milky white grub is that of a beetle.  But in order to properly identify them you need to pick them up and look at their hind end with a magnifying glass.  The hair pattern on their rump, or rasteral pattern, will tell you if it is the larvae of a May/June beetle, Masked Chafer beetle or a Japanese beetle.  I didn't take the time to look at these creatures through a magnifying glass but I did pick up the ones I came across when planting the black raspberries and, while wearing thick work gloves, popped them like a zit between my index finger and thumb.  Yes, I committed grub murder.  Several times, in fact, on Tuesday afternoon.  All that kept running through my mind is how many of those dang Japanese beetles were hanging out on the leaves of the red raspberry bush last summer, chomping and copulating.  There were many more of the white grubs in the soil near the red raspberry bush versus where the blueberry bushes were planted, too.  Maybe this means that in addition to goats, John and I need to raise a couple of pigs or chickens so they can eat the grubs!  Then I won't have to pop them.  Does that description make you squirm, too?

(A) Lumber is cut
(B) Weed block paper laid down
 (C) It starts to rain when only a quarter of the frame is assembled
(D) It's best not to use power tools in the rain

We need more soil.

Full of soil, topped with a layer of cocoa shells, and ready for the strawberries.

A strawberry crown

View of the backyard from the attic.
A thick layer of straw has been placed on top of the weed block paper between the two beds to form a foot path.

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