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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Spring 2012 in full swing

June 6 will mark the third year John and I have called our home Home.  For many reasons spring is always an exciting time, but owning our own home makes this time of year all the more special.  Each fall we plant a variety of bulbs in the front flower beds.  Come springtime we have a more colorful and diverse bed of flowers.  It is wonderful to see what all the new additions look like.  We haven't quite achieved the ever-blooming flower beds that we've imagined for so many years, but we're nearly there.

This year we're able to focus our attention on the backyard, now that major improvements have been completed with the house itself.  The Master Plan is to turn a good portion of the lawn into raised beds where food can be grown.  Last week we planted three blueberry bushes.  Plans for three additional raised beds are in the works and will be built within the next couple weeks.  One bed will be for melons (watermelon and cantaloupe), another for squash (Butternut and pie pumpkins), and a third for strawberries.

The raspberry bush that we planted two years ago is doing great.  It produced a few dozen raspberries last year but now that the bush has quadrupled in size, we hope to have twice as many delicious ruby fruits to nosh on this year.  At the end of this month we will be adding two black raspberry plants to Wright Gardens.  Tasty.

The purple lightning tree we've been longing for will soon be delivered and planted in our yard!  We visited a local nursery earlier this week and selected the tree from six that were available.  It is in a 15 gallon container and roughly 7 feet tall.  I agree with John's assessment, it has good arms.  For those of you wondering what the heck a purple lightning tree looks like, the proper name for the tree is Eastern Redbud.

In the early spring, when the tree flowers, tiny magenta flowers cover the leafless zigzag branches.  The bark is dark brown, almost black, so the end result (to our eyes) looks like purple lightning.  After the tree has finished flowering the tree produces medium sized heart-shaped leaves.

A new gardening helper is our landscaping cart.  John isn't as thrilled about the cart as I am but I'm so happy to have it.  The cart can carry up to 550 pounds and is easily steered around the yard.  The sides of the cart can fold down for easier loading/unloading, and came with a snap-on liner so smaller media such as gravel, soil and mulch can be transported as well.  I even plan to use this cart when there is a large haul of groceries to bring inside, or those times when I bring home two or three 40 pound bags of cat liter.  Wheels!  What a nifty invention.

Chet is curious about the cart.

Finally, we finally have a clothesline!  The posts were permanently put in the ground on Tuesday and, after giving the concrete ample time to set, I installed the cross-bars and strung them with line this afternoon.  I have wanted one of these old school heavy-duty clotheslines for many years and now, just like my Great-Grandma Anna, we do.  Two loads of laundry hung on the line to dry this afternoon with ample room to spare.  Ah, it's the little things in life...

Hello, radish!

A falcon flying over the house

What'cha doing, Mama?

Garlic Row

Red Parrot tulip

Yellow Parrot tulip

Spring has arrived

Spring has arrived a bit early, I might add.  Not that I'm complaining.  The temperatures this past week have been marvelous and I've been busy outside.

The flower beds nearest the house have been cleaned up and dressed with a fresh blanket of pine bark mulch; a cobble stone border has been added to the perimeter of the main flower bed; a broken fence post has been replaced as well as a rotted picket cross beam, and many weeds have been removed from the garden bed... with many more to go.  Tomorrow's plan is to pull the remaining weeds from the garden bed, amend the soil with peat moss, mushroom compost and some fresh top soil, and then sow cool weather loving veggie seeds such as kale, carrots, beets and Brussels sprouts.

About a dozen garlic sprouts are visible above the blanket of leaves and hay!  More sprouts keep appearing daily, and they seem to grow about an inch per day.

So far, I'm enjoying the hell out of my forced sabbatical and an accomplishing a great deal of writing in addition to various tasks around the house.

Happy Spring, chickens!

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Sowing seedlings indoors

It has been a relatively mild winter in the Chicago this year.  It's been cold but not the painful bone-chilling cold that Chicago winters are typically like.  The snow blower was used only twice to clear the driveway and the temperatures have been relatively mild.  This fact was punctuated when we spotted various crocus varieties as well as daffodil greens above the surface of the soil this past weekend.  Seeing signs of life springing from the soil is always exciting.  We're looking forward to seeing the new tulip bulb varieties we planted in the fall flower.

Seeing the crocus and daffodils reminds me that it is nearly time to get seedlings started indoors.  Definitely a project planned for the first weekend in March.

To help plan the layout of our garden, I used a nifty Vegetable Garden Planner tool offered for free by Mother Earth News: http://www.motherearthnews.com/garden-planner/vegetable-garden-planner.aspx  The garden planner helps you determine your first and last frost dates based on your zip code, and you can easily see how many of a particular variety of plant will fit in a row or section in your garden.  Seeds packets include this information, too, but the planner makes it easy to see everything in one place.  Enter the dimensions of your garden bed and then get to planning.  The garden planner even provides some information about companion plants.

Also helpful are the Freeze/Frost Maps provided here by the National Climatic Data Center.

This will be the first year that I'll be planting flowers within the garden bed.  Marigold, Zinnia, Cosmos and Borage.  The flowers are companions of nearby vegetables, and will also attract many beneficial insects and pollinators to the garden.

A list of what will be grown in the Wright Gardens this year are included in the 2012 Garden planning has begun post.  We're happy to share the seeds we have with anyone who is interested.

Oh, and for those of you who wish to save seeds of your own at the end of the season, give these seed packet templates, offered by the Heavy Petal gardening blog, a whirl.

The spring equinox is just one month away!



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2012 garden planning has begun

The winter season is just beginning to tighten its grip, but a couple weeks ago a bit of summer sunshine arrived in the mailbox in the form of two seed catalogs.  Since their arrival, I've spent quality time with both catalogs (Seed Savers Exchange and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds) and have pretty much read them from cover to cover, circling items that interest me.  While both catalogs include many photographs of the vegetable and flower seeds they sell, Baker Creek's photographs are exceptional.  It's food erotica, folks.  Have a look for yourself.  

There are many large, bright photographs that really showcase the vegetables.  The tomato section alone in this catalog is inspiring.  A vast selection of tomatoes is one thing but their catalog has sections dedicated to Green, Orange, Pink, Purple, Red, Striped, White and Yellow tomato varieties!  This attention to detail really speaks to me.  It also helps me to narrow my selection and keep half of the garden from turning into a tomato jungle.  No other vegetable says summer like a delicious ripe tomato, but it is a challenge to keep from growing seven or more varieties of tomatoes.  I want a more diverse garden this year and to be able to grow the brunt of our produce and herbs.  Perhaps I’ll enlarge the garden and have a raised bed dedicated to tomatoes.  Until then, here’s the list of what will be grown in the Wright Garden this season:

Atomic Red carrots
Tendercrisp celery
New England Sugar Pie pumpkins
Tokio Verte soybeans
Crapaudine beet
Golden beet
Long Island Brussels sprouts
Waltham Butternut squash
Snow’s Fancy Pickling cucumber
Blue Curled Scotch kale
Prizetaker leek
Minnesota Midget muskmelon
Burgundy okra
Australian Brown onion (yellow)
Bianca Di Maggio onion (yellow)
Flat of Italy onion (red)
Long Scarlet radish
Georgia Flame peppers
Pasilla Bajio pepper
Serrano Tampequino pepper
Jalapeno Traveler Strain pepper
Emerald Giant bell pepper
Orange bell pepper
Quadrato D’asti Giallo bell pepper (yellow)
Quadrato D’asti Rosso bell pepper (red)
Golden Midget watermelon
Djeena Lee’s Golden Girl tomato (orange)
Costoluto Genovese tomato (red)
Mama Leone tomato (red)
Black Icicle tomato (purple)
Empress Beans

In addition to growing a truly epic garden this season, I also plan to begin saving seeds from as many vegetables as possible.  At the end of the year, I’ll be sure to include a list of the vegetable seeds we have available to share.

Here’s a helpful website that discusses the prevention of cross-pollination in tomatoes.
http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/tomato/2005025852004159.html

Victory Seeds provides a step-by-step process for saving tomato seeds using the fermentation method: http://www.vintageveggies.com/information/seedsave_tomato.html

Also found at the Victory Seeds web site is a guide to saving seed: http://www.vintageveggies.com/information/brook_seed_saving.html

Before you know it, it’ll be time to get seedlings started. Have fun planning your garden!

The garlic has been put to bed

It is officially fall when it's time to plant garlic, and our cloves were just put to bed.  We planted copious amounts of garlic to ensure that we have plenty to eat, share, and store next summer.

Last year I waited too long to order garlic to plant.  By the time I attempted to order some, which really wasn't that late in the year, garlic just sells quickly, every variety was sold out.  I would have ordered garlic from just about anyone but there wasn't any to found.  Thankfully, we had two bulbs of garlic remaining from our summer harvest so they were sacrificed and planted.  8 cloves yielded 8 bulbs of garlic this summer.  8 bulbs sounds like plenty but it really isn't.  Not nearly enough for the remaining summer months and to last throughout the winter.  Not to mention not enough to be able to share with garlic-loving family and friends. Once you've eaten homegrown garlic you will not want to use what's available at most every market.  The flavor of store-bought garlic pales by comparison.  Lesson learned: Order garlic early.  And I did.  Five bulbs each of two different varieties and three bulbs of a third variety.  There are currently 60 cloves of garlic planted in our yard right now!  If only you could see the wide smile on my face as I typed that last sentence.

The original area where garlic has been planted currently holds a variety called Chet's Italian Red.  It is an heirloom variety from Chet Stevenson of Tonasket, Washington, found growing wild in an abandoned garden along the roadside.  The information card from Seed Savers Exchange goes on to say that it is a good garlic for eating raw because the flavor is not too strong.  Softneck, 12-16 cloves per bulb.

A new long and narrow garden bed was formed specifically for the garlic between the backside of the raised garden bed and our fence.  Georgian Fire is planted in one half of this narrow bed and Chesnok Red in the other half.

Georgian Fire was obtained from the Gatersleben Seed Bank (#6822) in eastern Germany.  Described by chefs as a truly "white hot" garlic.  Raw taste is strong with a nice hotness that is not at all unpleasant.  Great for salsa and salads.  Hardneck, 4-6 cloves per bulb.


Chesnok Red (aka Shvelisi) originates from the village of Shvelisi, Republic of Georgia.  Beautiful purple striped paper with red cloves, easy to peel.  Good lingering taste, retains flavor well when cooked.  Rated as one of the very best for baking or roasting.  Hardneck, 8-10 cloves per bulb.

The garlic is planted two inches beneath the soil, which has been amended with mushroom compost and peat moss, and then covered with a six inch layer of straw.  The garlic needs to be insulated against the cold.  In the past I've used a combination of leaf cover and straw with excellent results, too.  In the spring, the mulch covering helps to prevent weeds, retains moisture in the soil, and provides the soil with additional nutrients as it breaks down.

Garlic!  Who's ready for some?

The power of the butterfly bush

When we planted the butterfly bush in the front yard we were hopeful that many butterflies would visit our yard.  We also figured that the bush would attract many different types of bees.  What we didn't expect to see is a particular winged wonder that visited the bush this afternoon.  For all we know this insect has been visiting ever since the bush began blooming this year and it took this long for us to notice.

While I was cutting the front lawn and ready to make a pass along side the butterfly bush I noticed movement from a yellow and black insect flying around a flower head.  My initial thought was that it was a rather large bumblebee, but in the next instant I observed that this creatures flight pattern was like that of a hummingbird!  My next thought was, Oh my gosh! Could this be a very tiny hummingbird?!  Trying to keep my cool so I didn't scare whatever it was away, I began rapidly knocking on a porch window and calling for John.  Finally, I just sprinted inside to grab the camera before this thing flew away.

Once armed with the camera, I spent about thirty minutes observing and photographing this marvelous insect. It flew like a hummingbird but had legs like a butterfly or moth.  Its manner of getting nectar was like that of a butterfly or moth, too.  A very long needle-like tongue that probed the center of the flowers.  No beak and too many legs, and its hind quarters appeared sectioned.  It made me think of a shrimps tail.  What I was beginning to think is that this was some sort of unique moth.  It was only about an inch and a half in length.

Once the front lawn was cut, I plopped myself down in front of the computer and excitedly searched for North American/Illinois hummingbird species.  Hummingbirds.net included this note:  If you're having trouble identifying a small flying creature, especially if it has red or yellow near its tail, take a look at Moths of the United States or The Butterfly WebSite.  Bingo!  A photo of the insect in question was included next to that note and it looked just like what I saw.  A quick search of the regional checklist at the Moths of the United States website led me to Hemaris thysbe - Hummingbird clearwing.  It is the only moth with the word hummingbird in its description so I feel pretty confident that I've identified this moth correctly.

There were two of these hummingbird moths drinking nectar from the bush this afternoon.  I'm so happy to have spotted them and learn of their existence.  I love when magical events like this happen, especially when you're not expecting them.


Talking about the butterfly bush and remembering how large it was when we brought it home (three short slender branches with a single tiny flower head) compared to it's size the past two years, got me thinking about how the front yard has transformed to its current state of beauty.  Included below are a few photos taken of the front yard in 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively.  We've done good! 

May 14, 2009 (The house was officially ours!)

November 2010 

April 2011

May 2011

August 27, 2011

Home Sweet Home.

For folks who receive an email as new posts are created, please feel free to visit the blog itself or share the URL.  http://wrightgardenchronicles.blogspot.com/  Included there is a lovely photograph of our back yard.