Last fall, I sat in on forty hours of master gardener classes on all sorts of topics. What else was I going to do in the breaks between intellectual tidbits besides daydream up a new space? So, out with the old and in with the new:

This digital representation is not at all to scale, but that is why I will be taking a lot of pictures along the way to show what each area looks like. This is more of a roadmap for when I post pictures and talk about the individual areas, to mentally organize where they belong. All of this rests, by the way, on 0.20 acres chock in the middle of town.

Now – to the changes.

Raised Beds

The raised beds have not gotten smaller (despite their drawing appearing thus), but instead we have plans to increase the gardening space by adding more cinderblocks and compost to the ends to create more of two “E”s facing each other. There are also three cattle panels on the north-south ends of the beds which have been bent into an upside-down “U” shape to grow plants on a rugged, and inexpensive, trellis. These archways also provide a pretty path to walk down the center of the raised beds.

Our compost is going quite well – as a mixture of traditional composting techniques and vermicompost – and we’ve utilized a bit of it this year in refilling the raised bed and some of the holes in the cinderblock (in which we also plant).

We would still like to eventually build a greenhouse-chicken coop-rabbit hutch combo building in this area, but this year is not the time for it. We’re also still waiting to see if urban chickens will be legalized within our town limits for residential properties.

Many of the beds have been planted for the upcoming year (I’ll share more later) and Aaron has been slaving away making arched raised bed covers out of PVC and chicken wire to help keep the squirrels, cats, and other animals out of my raised beds. The covers can also have plastic thrown over the top to create row covers for this winter to help expand the season. I’m extremely happy to have them and very grateful that my husband has been helping me so much – while I am only  nineteen weeks pregnant, I’m much slower than normal.

Ornamental + Edibles

We have tilled up a lot of the yard this spring and turned it into more gardening space – removing weeds and grass as we could. It is now mulched and ready to be planted. Some blueberries have already taken up residence and a 100 gallon pre-formed pond liner was purchased to put into one of the corners.

I’m hoping to use a lot of permaculture principles in this area to create a beautiful, relaxing, and still usable space to look out on from our new patio. Our yard was never really big enough to run around in to the degree the kids would have liked (particularly with four young ones), so we utilize the park which is just a few blocks away for that sort of activity. Instead, this is a haven for reading and relaxing, watching wildlife, and connecting to nature.

Our peonies, shasta daisies, and grape vine are all doing well in this area. The vertical “living fence” garden is nearly planted and ready to be hung up again after overwintering inside.

Patio

The forms for the patio are nearly complete and the ground has been leveled in preparation for the next steps. All of the patio pavers have been purchased and are waiting on pallets. Once the forms are completed, a tamper will be used to ensure the ground is compacted. Then, layers of gravel and sand will be carefully created. The pavers will go on top with soil in between the pavers in which we hope to plant some sort of low-lying creeping vegetation. In addition, we intend to built an outdoor kitchen complete with grill, sink and water hookup, fridge, and counter space for food preparation. Overhead will be, eventually, a beautiful hand-constructed peaked pergola – most likely with some sort of clear cover to help keep rain out. Also part of this plan are raised ornamental and edible beds on two sides (the outdoor kitchen on the third) with an opening out to the yard on the final side. A sliding glass door will be installed on the backside of the house with stairs over one of the raised beds to access the patio from the house.  Vining plants will be used prodigiously on the pergola supports – tentative plans include hops or clematis.

Pollinator Garden

A lot of work has already been done on this area, as well, this spring with all the grass and weeds suppressed, mulch put down, a path created, and dozens of pollinator-friendly (bees, wasps, butterflies, etc.) plants in the ground. Most of the plants are natives and most are perennials that are supposed to be safe for our gardening zone. We’ll see how it works – look forward to an upcoming post with much, much more detail.

Hostas and Ferns

Not much has changed here with just weeding ongoing. I need to add more ferns and also, after taking those aforementioned gardening classes, I’ve gotten lists of shade-friendly flowers that I can add in to that area to make it more vivid and lush. While I’m anxious to get started – I have enough going on in the other areas that it is going to have to wait.

Fruit Bushes

Here are where our raspberries are. I’ve already planted eight more canes of two different varieties in the hopes that we can get many more raspberries this year. We also cleared out some canes last year which never produced and we have a suspicion may have been blackberries.

Mint & Fruit Trees

The mint is doing well and spreading like crazy (as hoped). We’ve done a lot of work on this area this spring which involved a skid loader, a very happy man, some landscaping rocks, landscaping lights, and a lot of muscle. The area is now terraced (is that the word I’m looking for?) and ready for apple trees to be planted. I’ve been doing research and looking for dwarf apple trees with little success. What I had a lot of success with, though, was finding local non-box-store gardening stores with columnar apples. I think I’m going to end up going that route with three greens, a red, and a golden right off the bat. I end up with more variety in types of apples if I use columnar intend of dwarf and I get to experiment – I like the idea of having some other columnar fruit in the backyard which won’t take up as much space or shade nearly as many plants. That’s a win-win for an urban garden!

Talk to Me

Does anyone have experience with columnar apple trees? What does your yard look like?

Here’s the minimum list for this upcoming year’s garden:

Plants

Raspberry, Heritage – 5 plants
Blueberry, Pink Lemonade – 2 plants
Blueberry, Bluejay – 2 plants
Raspberry, Caroline – 5 plants
Blueberry, Top Hat – 2 plants

Seeds

Gourmet Organic Arugula
Bean, Trionfo Violetto
Cabbage, Kalibos
Carrot, Touchon
Broccoli Raab
Kale, Lacinato
Kohlrabi, Gigante
Lettuce, ButterCrunch
Lettuce, Winter Marvel
Lettuce, Yugoslavian Red
Lettuce, Red Grenoble
Lettuce, Green Salad Bowl
Lettuce, Red Salad Bowl
Pumpkin, Casper
Golden Giant Amaranth
Dragon Tongue Bush Bean
Saint-Esprit à Oeil Rouge Bush Bean
Ianto’s Fava Bean
Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole Bean
Scarlet Runner Bean
Envy Soya Beans
Chioggia (Bassano) Beet
Romanesco Italia Broccoli
Brunswick Cabbage
Amarillo Carrot
Atomic Red Carrot
Cosmic Purple Carrot
Lunar White Carrot
Purple of Sicily Cauliflower
Tendercrisp Celery
Chinese Yellow Cucumber
Applegreen Eggplant
Astrakom Eggplant
Edirne Purple Striped Eggplant
Japanese White Egg Eggplant
Thai Yellow Egg Eggplant
Di Firenze Fennel
Anaheim Pepper
Black Hungarian Pepper
Cayenne Long Thin Pepper
Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper
Jalapeno- Craig’s Grande
Leutschauer Paprika
Little Gem Lettuce
Bonanza (luffa/sponge)
Kiwano – African Horned Cucumber
Boule d’Or Melon
Ground Cherry
Strawberry Spinach
Wonderberry
Bronze D’ Amposta Onion
Noordhollandse Bloedrode Onion
Stuttgarter Onion
Lincoln Garden Pea
Sugar Snap Pea
Rat’s Tail Radish
Saxa 2 Radish
Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach
Bush Buttercup Squash
Butternut Waltham Squash
Galeux D Eysines Pumpkin
Table Queen Bush Squash
Thai “Kang Kob” Pumpkin
Costata Romanesco Squash
Lemon Squash
White Scallop Squash
Yellow Scallop Squash
Albino Bullnose Pepper
California Wonder Pepper
Golden Cal Wonder Pepper
Quadrato D’asti Rosso Pepper
Tomatillo Verde
Yellow Riesentraube Grape Tomato
Amana Orange Tomato
Brandywine Tomato
Costoluto Genovese Tomato
Amish Paste Tomato
San Marzano Lungo No. 2 Tomato
Fox Cherry Turnip
Boule D’or Turnip
Purple Top White Globe
Ali Baba Watermelon
Marketmore 76 Cucumber
Giant Musselburgh Leek
Hollow Crown Parsnip
Wilhelmsburg Rutabaga

Already Have

Unknown raspberry varieties
Mint
Concord Grapes
Strawberries
Asparagus
Green Purslane
Oregano Vulgare
Lavender
Common THyme
Russian Taragon
Broad Leaf Sage
Summer Savory
Yarrow
Borage
Genovese Basil
Licorice Basil
Lemon Basil
Slo Bolt Cilantro
Cinnamon Basil
Thai Basil
Marsh Mallow
Sunflower
Parisienne Carrot
Hardy Hibiscus
Echinacea Purpurea
Rue
Several perennial flowers unlisted

Need to get/decide on

Potatoes
Garlic
Mushrooms
Pollinator Garden Flowers (many)
Shallots
Rhubarb

About half these are plant varieties that are new to me – it should be an interesting year. The other half I plant nearly every year. Some of these seeds are absolutely doomed to fail. But, I thought I’d try anyway since I might be surprised. Yet, I still have this feeling that I’m going to hit July and realize I completely forgot about something.

Talk to Me

Have you tried any of these seeds/plants? What did you think? What am I missing?

Yesterday I talked about what was covered in the class given by Deb Walser on raised bed and square foot gardening. Today I’m going to talk about what I specifically learned and how I’m going to apply that for next year.

You might want to grab a cup of coffee. This is a long one with lots of resources.

First, an introduction to my garden:

My Raised Beds – Cinder Block

One of the very first years that I grew anything in my raised beds. The piping is gone, now, and the compost bin is near that back wall of the garage.

There is now a compost bin where the wheelbarrow is resting and eventually a cold frame will go in where the windows are.

I built my raised beds early in 2008. They are constructed out of cinder block layered two high. My six beds are each about three feet wide by eight feet long on the inside dimensions. They are four feet wide and nine feet four inches long if you include the cinderblocks. I constructed my six beds by laying out hardware cloth onto the ground and then covering it with a double or triple layer of newspaper and cardboard. I dumped in pure compost from a local free source. That’s how I began.

I attempted to layer plastic over thin PVC pipe (see above pictures), but I found that as the sun warmed it up and plants grew up to the pipe, it flexed. That has been removed.

My beds are now a mixture of the original compost, compost that I make in my bin from food and plant material, worm castings, and rabbit manure (composted). I haven’t done anything special with them (such as covering them) in years, but I did fill all the holes left by the cinder block with more of the compost and I use it to companion plant and put herbs. Every year it gets compacted and I just stab the hole vigorously (with PASSION) with my long thin gardening tool and the plant is good to go for the year.

When I selected my beds, I chose the one part in the yard where I could feasibly put them. They are behind the garage and out-of-the-way of the multitudes of playing children. The chain-link fence is on the north-east side: we selected a chain-link instead of solid fence to control shadows. There are shadows from the garage, but if we put the raised beds on the other side of the yard, they would have been incredibly awkward and shadowed by our solid fence, neighbor’s garage, and the hill itself. See here:

Standing at the pergola-topped gate, the garage door to my right, and looking into the yard. The raised beds are hidden behind the garage to the right of the photo.

Despite not having 100% full sun every day, we have had amazing success growing everything we’ve tried – including eggplants, jalapenos, and more. Remember – full sun really just means six or more hours of direct light. It’s very difficult to get full sun in my yard given that my town is full of trees and I live on the north side of a steeply sloping paha.

I left for vacation and my tomatoes went wild. In the foreground are about ten tomato plants. In the background growing on the fence you can see Scarlet Runner beans.

In fact, sometimes I think we have too much success as shown by this photo taken after we’d been gone on vacation for a week and a half. The chain-link also doubles as a place to grow my Scarlet Runner beans (my FAVORITE so far). The beautiful red blossoms and the vigorous plant are amazing as a living way to separate my yard from my neighbors’.

15 Things I’m Doing Different This Gardening Year

Deb brought some ideas that were new to me to this class. I was very excited to ponder how I could apply them to my garden. Other ideas have popped into my head since then as a response to things I’ve seen in gardening magazines or around the blogosphere.

1. I want to paint the cinderblocks.

I’d like for them to match my pots that I use on my vertical garden fence. I know that paint is a silly thing to do, environmentally – and particularly on porous cinderblock, but the grey of the cinderblock does get me down and it isn’t very visually appealing. I also happen to have leftover paint.

Even more than just painting the blocks, I might place bits of tile and mirror on the cinder block. The tile and mirror would also match the project I’m considering on my fountain.

2. Utilize more square foot gardening techniques as per Deb’s lecture.

Here’s a picture from someone who has cinder block beds AND square foot gardening. Those people are obviously pretty awesome. One way in which I’ll incorporate square foot gardening is by purchasing chain-link fence tension bars to lay out into the grid (thanks, Deb!). I can write in permanent marker on them to denote what the crop is in the square and next year I can clean it off and paint over the words in preparation for the next year’s use. I’m also going to try to find some resource books to learn more about the technique. It sounds very promising.

3. Mix in some vermiculite into my compost.

Deb informed us that vermiculite, which is a natural mineral used as a soil conditioner and for soilless mediums, can also be purchased in the installation area of your big box stores for much, cheaper than in the gardening center. While I am a huge believer in shopping locally and supporting our local garden centers, that stuff can be expensive. Especially in the quantities I’d need. I will be adding some vermiculite to my compost mixture to improve aeration and drainage and to help retain some water.

4. Use scissors to thin.

When I direct-sow my seedlings, instead of pulling them out of the raised bed, I am going to cut the weak off at the soil. This way I don’t disturb their roots. I’ve had issues before with trying to pull them out (or volunteers) and accidentally yanking out other tender seedlings. We’ll see how well this method works – weeds will require more intense (imagine me flexing right now) efforts.

5. Interplanting.

While I do some interplanting, I certainly don’t do a lot. I would really like to research this. So far I’ve been more interested in companion planting which seems very similar but yet somewhat different. For companion planting I was referred to Carrots Love Tomatoes.

6. Go even MORE vertical. MOAR VERTICAL!

Right now we have a gorgeous pergola-topped gate that Aaron designed and built. It has a wonderful lattice on both sides of the gate. In addition, we have two pieces of lattice flanking our garage door. More Scarlet Runner will be grown here.

On the left you can see raspberries and blackberries - the blackberries have all been removed. In the center you see a vining flowering plant the hummingbirds love. To the right of that you can see the lattice and pergola-structure.

We also, as mentioned above, use the chain-link fence as a place to grow Scarlet Runner beans. However, I want to add even more vertical gardening space (now I’m chortling like Tim the Toolman Taylor). Deb mentioned using cattle panels as archways – check out Ben’s photo here of his cattle panel vertical gardening. If his gorgeous photo isn’t enough to tempt you, read Mother Earth New’s article about vertical gardening – that’s gardener pornography right there. Yes, I said it.

First we will use three cattle panels to go between the six raised beds on the north-south orientation. Go ahead, scroll up and look. Later, we can add another eight on the east-west orientation (two in each walkway). The cattle panels will butt up against the exterior of the cinder blocks and will also get staked into the ground.

7. Add a mirror.

Sounds simple, right? I was reading a really interesting blog by HolleyGarden at Dreaming of Roses about adding a mirror to the garden. I happen to have an oval-shaped mirror down in the basement. I fully intend to add some water-resistant paint to the wooden supports and set that sucker up in my garden. This really doesn’t impact my raised beds directly, but if I can pretty up that area, I will.

On the note of prettying it up, I would like to dump a load of mulch in between all the beds. They are constructed, by accident, to where our reel motor can get between the beds, but it’s still a hassle I’d rather not have. Maybe some day I could grow a fragrant thyme in between the beds.

8. Make little seedling protection cages.

Every year I lose some of my seedlings to squirrels and birds. It seems inevitable that my cute wobbly little seedlings will become a scrumptious delicacy for the local wildlife. I feel like shooing them away and saying, “Look. I planted those grapes over there and I never harvest them. They’re ALL yours. Go eat those! Leave my sprouts alone!”

They never listen and the grape vine weeps.

This grape vine feels sad that the birds prefer the seedlings to its moist delicacies.

I’m going to make these cages out of hardware cloth. Great suggestion, Deb!

9. Create a cold frame and start my season earlier.

Deb had a slide that showed a piece of rigid plastic lying right on top of her raised bed. It let in the light, warmed up the dirt, and trapped the air. DUH! Why did I never think of this before? In addition, I could use passive solar techniques like black jugs filled with water. The cold frame can also be made of old windows or anything that will block the cold air and let the sun’s warmth and rays through (it does not need to be clear). I’ll be talking more about cold frames when I discuss another class from Not A Lot of Plot.

10. Create row covers and let my season go later.

We will be taking rigid PVC pipe (never let it be said we don’t learn from our mistakes) to construct a pentagon-ish shaped row cover that we will secure hardware cloth to and then layer plastic over and under. We’re hoping to ensure at least two inches of air cushion between the two layers of plastic. It gets really cold in Iowa and I’m hoping to keep the plants inside pretty warm!

One of the nice things about the cinderblock construction is that we can slid the PVC pipe right into a wooden 2″ by 4″ that is resting inside the cinderblock hole. Add in some clamp to keep the PVC from being lifted by the wind and blowing away, and we should be in business.

We’ll see how it works.

11. Succession planting.

I need to pay more attention to succession planting so I can maximize yield out of my beds. This will also, of course, be part of starting my season earlier and running it later. What would be really neat is if I could eventually get good enough that I could grow things – in the freezing cold Iowa weather – year round. Christmas Eve fresh and local spinach salad, anyone?

12. Interplanting edibles and ornamentals.

I know that this isn’t really part of my raised bed, but it sort of is. My raised beds are great and they produce TONS of food. But, I’m greedy. I want even more. This year I am going to make a concerted effort to start enough seedlings to pack my raised beds but ALSO pack my new ornamental bed next to my raised fence.

I made this bed in 2011. It will be a mix of ornamentals and edibles and will eventually wrap the entire yard.

13. Start ALL my own seedlings.

I have been a seed starter for years, but in the past two years I have been so busy with my former full-time job that I only half-heartedly tried. This year with my new indoor plant table/greenhouse, I’m going to be starting hundreds of seeds. I have lights, I have a fan, I have warming pads. Let’s rock this thing!

14. Build my new cold frames-slash-hot beds. Yes, give me your manure.

I’ll discuss this more in a future post.

15. Create a PVC-pipe hydroponic system.

I came across this article about vertical gardening a few days ago and had a brainstorm. The author discussed using PVC pipe to create a vertical hydroponic system by suspending the pipes nearly horizontal on chains. I sent it to my husband with a warning that it was ugly, but we have plans to pretty-it-up. (Thin copper sheeting wrapped around the PVC pipe?) This would be a great place to grow all my lettuces so that I have more room in my raised beds for other crops. It could be taken down, cleaned out, and stored over the winter. The plan is to have it on the south-west side of the garage hanging under the to-be-installed gutters which will feed into another rain barrel. Now I need to learn about how to set up a hydroponic system!

Talk With Me

Have you completed any similar projects? Are you inspired to make some changes in your yard or to put in a raised bed, vertical gardening space, or square foot garden? What do you think will work and what do you think won’t work?

If you’d like to read more about our yard here at EmSun, check out this past summer’s series. You might want to start with Our Plans for 2011.

A woodpecker resting on a tree at Indian Creek Nature Center.

Deb Walser is a pretty well known master gardener in Linn County. While I couldn’t even begin to name all the various things she is involved in, she is probably most well recognized for being on the Expert Hour with 600 WMT with other master gardeners. My favorite? She’s a vermicomposter. You probably saw that coming.

Deb was giving the class on raised bed gardening during the event.

Raised Bed Gardening – The Class

Deb discussed a little about the master gardener program and about the challenges that gardeners face when they are attempting to create a traditional garden – all the plowing, the tools required, the watering needs, and the back aches. I can tell you from my experience, that is very reminiscent of traditional gardening. You start the year by tilling the garden and it never really gets easier.

Square foot gardening and raised bed gardening is nothing like that. Once the beds are in place, you will rarely have to put a full shovel into the dirt! (I amend my beds every year with a little more fresh compost, but I never have to root around). Deb referenced the book by Mel Bartholomew called All New Square Foot Gardening as she discussed the concepts. She discussed the benefits of square foot gardening (such as extending the season, better use of space, easy harvesting) as well as where and how to create your square foot garden and raised bed. Location, location, location! Then she discussed what you put into your raised bed.

Deb shared ideas for extending the season, interplanting to have more crop, and vertical gardening as well. On the topic of interplanting, she referenced the book Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening by Louise Riotte. Deb went over the water needs in a raised bed and harvesting information. She referenced PM 534 from Iowa State Extension for more information on harvesting in our area.

Learn More

Want to learn more about square foot or raised bed gardening? You can ask questions of me in the comments or you can attend the Winter Gardening Fair being held at Kirkwood. On Saturday, February 18th, the following class will be held:

Raised Bed/Square Foot Gardens—Wil Carew, LCMG
Get off the ground, save your back and start gardening closer to your hands and eyes. Wil leads this class to get you started with the benefits of raised beds, covering the principles, examples of beds, construction techniques, trellis/cloche use, and protecting crops from critters. Square foot gardening in a raised bed will increase your season, decrease weeding, and save time. Benton 322

Wil Carew is another compost-loving master gardener and I bet he’ll do a great job with this class.

Talk To Me

Do you have raised beds or do you use square foot gardening?

Tomorrow I will continue this mini-series with Part II: 15 things I’m Doing Next Year in My Raised Bed

The program (from the above link):

Can you see why I’m excited? I’m taking my camera and my notebook, so hopefully I’ll be able to come back and share some information with you all!

Since early 2008, I’ve been keeping an eye on Genie of The Inadvertent Gardener. I almost met her one day while I was at an event, volunteering for Local Foods Connection. After that, I started reading her blog, because Laura (of LFC) had so many good things to say about her. After her move to California, she became a very sporadic poster. Now the blog is hardly ever updated… Except for Green Thumb Sunday on occasion. Genie posted a lot of Green Thumb Sundays when she was in Iowa City and I always looked forward to them. Today, I decided to participate (although the original meme-creator doesn’t seem to really be doing it anymore, so I won’t be linking up and what not).

I’ve got some news on the gardening home-front. Things aren’t going well. I’ll let you judge for yourself. I’m showing the error of my ways and baring my soul. Be gentle.

The Living Room

First, I want to introduce you to my living room. It’s a bit of a mess. (Did you ever see Shadow’s tour of our yard? It’s an old tour and doesn’t really look like that anymore, but you’re welcome to poke about.)

From left to right, I’d like to point some things out. Here’s a visual aid I created for this website back in September.

Area #4: the plant table and shelves. You may remember when I had Aaron construct me the plant table. It was really meant to be used for full-grown plants. It isn’t working for seedlings. More on that later.

Area #1: the fireplace and TV. There are two things over there that need fixed. First, there is a computer hanging out over there that needs to be hooked up as our new media server slash other computer geeky type things. Second, the terrarium is still empty. Oops.

Area #2: the couches and media shelves. I have great plans for this area which include moving an antique armoire from my laundry room into my living room to hold our PS3, XBox 360, PS2, and Wii games and accessories. In addition, my workout equipment would go into the armoire. It’s a little junky and needs fixed up; it’ll also need restained. It’ll be a lot of work. You can’t see much in this photo, because my brother is hanging out on the loveseat playing Skyrim and I cropped him out.

In addition, I would like to replace the black and tan shelf in the corner with something that matches our plant table. Currently there are two shelves sitting side-by-side. They are made out of laminate (the boards) and plastic (the uprights). I would like to create one shelving unit that looks very similar, but it would have galvanized pipe uprights and wooden plants that are stained to match the plant table.

Area #6: my desk. I really need to clean that sucker up. You can see the terrarium I’m working on which is a Christmas gift for a friend, the dried flowers I got at my master gardener intern graduation (from the classes, but I’m still an intern until I get my 40 hours of volunteering in), and a stack of papers that need filed. Don’t worry. That’s the small stack.

Area #3: the library. This highlights three things for you. First, I really need to dust. Second, there is a receipt from Target somehow on the floor and I didn’t bother to pick it up before taking the photo. Third, I really need to sort and alphabetize the huge stack of books on the third bookcase in and third shelf down. I swear, I’ll get to it.

I used to have many, many more books. (And there are also boxes full in the basement.) I pared down to just the ones I re-read on a regular basis on the three bookcases on the left. The bookcase on the right is non-fiction and homeschooling texts. This library is mine. It does not include all the children’s books (of which there are nearly this many) in the playroom. Of course, it also doesn’t include the hundreds of books on my Kindle.

I no longer purchase physical copies of books unless they are books that I really, truly enjoy and/or have nostalgic value. I donated many books that did not fit these requirements. But, this post is NOT about books. (Sadly.) It’s about plants. (Enjoyably.)

The Plants

Now that I’ve introduced you to my living room, I’d love to introduce you to the plants within it. I’ve already told you about many of my plants, but now I would like to show you. I’ll also point out the problems (that I mentioned earlier) and then I’ll discuss them in depth later this week.

The Plant Table

The seedlings that I planted into the pots from my living fence are not doing well. They sprouted, but then they became stuck in the cotyledon stage (I don’t know if this is really a stage, but it is what I’m going to call it). There is currently a tank full of lettuce seedlings on the bottom shelf and a variety of seedlings in the upper shelf and bottom shelf on the metal trays full of white gravel.

The table is wrapped in plastic, has a heat lamp and four daylight bulb lamps of various types as well as a fan that blows across the top of the pots and circulates air throughout the table. None of this seems to be helping my problem which include the stuck seedlings and a fungus gnat infection. (Like I said, I’ll discuss this more in depth later this week. Promise. I’m writing up the post right now; it’s just that this one has gotten to be way too long.)

The Various Pots

In the plant-table area (on the flip side), we have a nice Lisbon Lemon tree and some hindu rope mixed with a cactus. One of my cacti which I had for over ten years died. It was to the right of the white cactus. I shouldn’t have planted a cactus with a succulent. In addition, I think the fungus gnat larvae might have helped. I won’t get into the evidence as it skeeves me out. The lemon tree desperately needs replanted. I was going to make concrete pots for the lemon trees, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’m a bad houseplant keeper.

Near the television area, we have eleven pots of plants. The spider plant isn’t property planted yet, it’s just sitting in the pot. My mother-in-law dug it up out of her yard to give to me (it wouldn’t overwinter), and I haven’t planted it properly. In the green pot to the right of the spider plant used to be a tea rose begonia, but it died. I’m going to plant some asparagus fern in that pot.

The other lemon, a variegated pink Eureka lemon and another vining jasmine-type plant. The vining plant above and this one both need to have some sort of structure on which to vine and I haven’t gotten to that. And, again, I haven’t repotted this tree like it desperately needs. By the way, do you see the awesome lemon on my lemon tree?!?

The dining room has a few more of the precious potted plants.

…it also has something else that’s precious to me.

Kai says, “Hi!”

Talk To Me

That concludes my tour of (most) of my houseplants and of my living room. Do you have houseplants? Which ones?

Some of you might remember that I used to have a black thumb – in fact, I’ve killed cacti galore. Plants rarely survived my negligent touch. I’d either overwater them or underwater them (nothing like a 9 month drought – although there was one survivor from that time). Things started to turn about shortly after my grandfather died and I decided his legacy must go on: I must learn how to keep a plant alive. I gathered quite a few houseplants from various sources and they were thriving up until our cruise earlier this year. Sadly, the week that we were gone, my plants got together and plotted their own demise: they decided to bite it. We have no idea what happened but we guess it’s a combination of a lack of light and water combined with cold while we were gone. The stems turned soft and mushy and decayed by the time we came back. Crazy. Only a few things survived – the most remarkable was the ten-year-old cactus that survived that nine-month drought in its infancy. It’s a tough bugger. The peace lily had to be cut all the way back and my deceased grandmother’s Christmas cactus looked half dead itself. The jade plants, surprisingly, looked fine while the aloe was shriveled.

With the mass suicide of most of my houseplants seven months ago, I grew despondent, threw my hands up into the air, and swore I’d never buy another houseplant. I figured I’d just stick to the vegetables and flowers outside. They were doing well enough, after all.

I changed my mind recently when we had a class on houseplants for my training to become a master gardener. I decided that I couldn’t survive the winter without some greenery after months of weeding and talking and plucking and harvesting and digging and enjoying. Winters are hard for me. I’m cooped up in the house. It’s chilly inside and freezing outside. The kids have nowhere to run off their excess energy. Sometimes, I just need to look around and feel peace. Besides, I’ve been trying to grow lemon trees inside for a few years now, ordering them from Logee’s, and they always die within a few months. However – I heard from an acquaintance that Peck’s had their citrus trees on sale for 50% off – and wouldn’t you know it, their houseplants were, too. Great.

Nate and I took some time to hang out together and we went shopping. It was a long day of multiple stops, but our last one was at Peck’s. Not only did I buy one Lisbon lemon that I’d originally went there for, but I also bought eleven other plants.

My new plants:

• Citrus limon ‘Lisbon’: Lisbon Lemon
• Citrus limon ‘Pink Eureka’: Pink Eureka Lemon
• Radermachera sinica: China Doll
• Ficus elastica ‘Robusta’: India Rubber Tree Plant
• Dracaena marginata syn. Dracaena reflexa var. augustifolia: Dragon Tree [with a braided trunk]
• Tradescantia pallida: Wandering Jew
• Sansevieria trifasciata ‘Laurentii’: Mother-in-law’s tongue (I’m not sure this is what I’ve got – we’ll see as time goes)
• Kalanchoe blossfeldiana ‘Lanin’
• Epipremnum aureum ‘Marble Queen’: Devil’s Ivy
• Hoya carnosa: Hindu Rope
• Espostoa ritteri (?) or Cephalocereus senilis (?): A white-wrapped cactus
• Syngonium podophyllum: Arrowhead Plant (keep away from people/animals who will try to eat it)

Plants I already had:

• Crassula ovata syn. Crassula argentea: Jade Plant
• Schlumbergera: Christmas Cactus
• Spathiphyllum wallisii: Peace Lily
• Aloe Vera
• Unknown Cactus

Between my houseplants and my plant table, I think my winter will be sufficiently green. That said, I’m still looking for a few more houseplants. Soon enough, I’ll have a jungle.

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Do you have houseplants? What kinds? Which is your favorite?

The Past

A couple weeks ago, I was sitting at my new desk in the living room pondering our furniture arrangements. We’d recently moved furniture that was in our various bedrooms around to other bedrooms (as we’re wont to do as our family size fluctuates often) and had some extras that didn’t fit or weren’t needed. As a side note – I think we’ve finally gotten a satisfactory arrangement for all ages of children that may live with us so that we don’t need to move anymore. Phew! With all this misplaced furniture lying around waiting for a new place in our home, I’d started to see my living room in a different light.

We’ve had problems arranging our living room. It’s humongous, awkwardly shaped, and it has a vaulted ceiling. There’s a wonderful fireplace and we put an HD TV over the top of it (no problems yet). We often spend time in this room, curled up on our couch and love seat gazing out the windows at the snow and rain or watching the fire, reading books, or watching our favorite television shows and movies. In the summer, it’s still a hubbub of activity, although of course there’s more activity outside. The living room also functions as the gateway to the downstairs bathroom, the “library” area, and the kitchen. There’s a lot of traffic in here and a “hallway” of sorts has been born.

We have many different pieces of furniture in our living room and we’ve been trying to consolidate it and unify everything. I’m happier when I’m in a well-designed and beautiful space and it promotes peace in my life. To this end, and with all the extra furniture that’s been lying around, I’ve been taking stock of our pieces.

One piece that we have was built by Aaron’s father (who died from cancer when Aaron was four years old) for his mother years ago. Wanda gifted it to us when we moved into our home as well as many other pieces of furniture including an armoire. The armoire has been sitting in our laundry room for ages, but I’d like to start working on refinishing it and moving it to the living room as well. Then we have the couch, love seat, desk, stereo system cabinet, and shelves my mother gave me; a coffee table (which will be replaced) from my first apartment; an old kids’ toy rack that I turned into a shoe rack; some shelves from Aaron’s mom’s house; a table from our last apartment; and the one piece of furniture (a shelf that holds baskets with our gloves, hats, and sports gear in it) that I bought myself for this house. Sheesh.

The Current

As I was pondering all this information and trying to figure out the layout, I came up with the perfect idea. A plethora of plants being used as a room divider to separate the living space from the traveling space. I needed a place to put my herb plants from my living fence in the winter and I wanted a dedicated place to start seedlings in the spring. Plus, I could sit at my desk (in the “hallway” space) and look out over greenery all winter and bask in the daylight bulbs (do you think they’ll help with SAD?) What could be more inspiring than that to a gardener?

Even better – I wanted Aaron to build the shelf to look like the one his father built thirty or more years ago. I wanted to place them together like a multi-leveled L-shaped shelving unit.

I pitched the idea to Aaron’s mom, since it would require the original shelf being sanded down and refinished, and then I pitched the idea to Aaron. I sketched out my thoughts and considerations. He approved.

Plant Table

The Future

We need to get the fluorescent lights installed for the bottom shelving unit, purchase four more half sheet baking sheets, bring all the pots in from the living fence and plant them (it’s a sad story as to how they’re no longer planted), and sand down and then stain the original shelf to match the new plant shelf.

Talk To Me

I’ve successfully grown a variety of lettuces and herbs and I’m embarking on a few new adventures with houseplants and edibles indoors (look for a post further on that next week). I’m in love with my plant table and the way that it looks in my living room. I’m not sure that it will be incredibly effective as I grow edibles, but I won’t know until I try. I’ll keep you updated. As I make more changes in the living room by simply rearranging furniture, I’ll also show you more wide shots of how the table looks in its surroundings.

What I want to know right now though, is this: Have you ever tried to grow edible plants indoors? Did you succeed? What tips or tricks do you have and where do you grow your edibles?

Remember when I wrote we finished a lot of things this weekend including mulching the backyard? I wasn’t kiddin’.

The Gate and Fruit Bushes

You may remember that this area used to look like the following after we’d built the fence, pergola, and gate.

Here’s the new view from the gate that leads into the backyard:

Here’s the new view looking towards the gate:

This area was always overrun by weeds and incredibly hard to keep under control. I decided that instead, I wanted a nice stone walkway leading from the gate to the “yard.” Part of this has to do with the patio we are going to install. That “fence” you see leading out from the gate is actually a form for the new concrete support wall that will be going up right there. The intent is to grow moss on the concrete itself to have a “living wall” of sorts. It would look similar to this:

Picture taken at Toronto Gardens by an unknown person. Check link for more information.

The support wall will be needed because we live on a hill and there will be a lot of dirt pushing up against the wall which will retain the patio. We’ve flirted with a lot of different ideas on what to do with this wall. I really like moss and that will be incredibly shady, so I think we’ve settled on this idea. We’d love other opinions, though. One thing to keep in mind is that we are not worried about resale value because we fully intend to die in this house!

The mulch became necessary because the light will be severely cut to that area which already is mostly patchy weeds. In addition, I would like to grow Scarlet Runner beans (or something similar) up the trellises to the right of the door and on both sides of the gate. More begonias will be planted in front of the raspberry and blackberry bushes.

Flowers and Herbs Bed

You may remember that when we first bought our house, this is what this area of the yard looked like:

I have slowly but surely been working on this area and I made a plan to finish up the bed I wanted to install this year. I’m happy to say that while at the beginning of the year it looked like this:

And then like this:

It now looks like this:

In the oppposite shot, you can see a little bit of the fountain we partly demolished which is giving me so many troubles. Like the tomatoes, it also shot up and became overgrown with weeds while I was on vacation.

Still To Do

In one of the shots, you can see the fountain which has a stack of red bricks in front of it. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with that fountain area. Ignore the red bricks. They’re a work in progress.

The living fence currently only has one plant living on it (a cilantro plant). While I did plant them full of seeds, they sprouted and died during the huge heat wave that occurred while we were on vacation. I didn’t have anyone to water them, so they died. It was very sad, but I expected it. I haven’t replanted them because I’m bringing the pots in soon to overwinter inside. I will reseed them and nourish them then and hope that the established plants will flourish next year outside with frequent scheduled watering (which was also intended this year).

So, what do you think? Is it slowly improving?

Want to keep up on the “Our Yard” series? Read the other posts here.

(P.S. I start my master gardening internship this week. Do you think we could manage to NOT show them my yard? They may wonder if they’ve made a mistake…