THE SEED CATALOGUES

Seed catalogues, or catalogs, depending on where you live, start arriving at most gardeners’ homes just about three weeks before Christmas. That is plenty of time for us to get all the gardens put to bed for the winter and a good taste of the winter to come. We are already longing to be in the garden instead of in the house.
If there was a National Contest of Seed Catalogue Receivers, I would be the winner hands down, all I would have to do is wheel in with my stacks of goodies and everyone else would give up and go home.
The reason I get so many catalogues is no surprise: I order from nearly every one of them.
I am so tired of being in the house that by the time the first one arrives all I want is spring and as quickly as possible. With that in mind, as I look thru each one I find something that I have never seen before, that I have never tasted before, that might be better than what I planted last year, germinates quicker, grows bigger, tastes better, there are countless possibilities.
One year I pledged only to order from a few, postage costs were increasing and all gardeners know you can pay double or more for postage on one packet of seed than the seed alone costs. So, I made lists, I crossed off, I substituted, I added, I eliminated, and at the end had a meager few places to order from.
So, the stack just sat and percolated and I stewed, I would walk by, but I would not open even the top catalogue, the list was made and that was that. I kept busy with my planting charts and plans for which seeds would go in the ground in which place.
Then March hit and with it a snow storm to stop all thoughts of spring, couldn’t go outside, couldn’t even get outside, it snowed for 14 straight days, 7 feet on the ground, then the snow stopped, it started to warm up and the 7 foot that was on the roof fell right in front of the front door – I was stranded, totally stranded until someone could come and dig me out!!!
I paced, I fiddled with everything, I cleaned house, and on day 3 I sat down beside the stack of catalogues and started to go thru them, I was going to throw out what I wasn’t going to order from.
Then like a bolt, cabin fever hit me, and if you have never suffered from this, it isn’t a pretty sight, I started tearing thru the catalogues, making new lists, adding up orders, writing checks, getting them ready to mail. I started a new garden chart, I incorporated all the new wonderful plants that I would have if summer ever came.
Day 4, the scoopers came and dug me out and I raced to the mailbox with my hands full of seed orders.
And, peace once again reigned in my world, the seeds were ordered and I would have a new bigger, better, more fun garden the coming summer than ever before!

The Awesome Auger

When you live in the land of hard clay and solid rock you are instantly drawn to things that dig holes more easily. My collection includes a rock splitter, a pole driver, a sharp shooter, a mallet and chisel and a very high pressure nozzle for hydra blasting. So, when I saw this wonder tool on TV called the Awesome Auger I was enthralled. Not only did I buy myself one- I bought both of my girls one. It turned out to be almost as advertised. With that thing attached to a drill and a hundred feet of heavy duty extension cord I could dig some holes!
In the spring we visited our daughter Lee . I was excited to present her with her new toy. She looked at the weird contraption in my hands with squinty eyes and a cocked head. Without much enthusiasm she said ,“Interesting”. That’s code for yucky. There was definitely a chill in the air. Even the steel of the auger felt colder in my hands.
However, the next morning found me and “Augie” happily digging holes for the seedlings lee and I were planting. Lee was planting and patting the dirt snug. When we got to the last few holes Lee said “Let me try that”. Yea! She was warming up. All went well and on the last hole Lee released the trigger and let go of the drill.
But the drill didn’t stop! Suddenly the auger was bouncing across the ground like a manic mambo dancer; I’d swear it was chasing Lee.
“What the ………….” I stood frozen for a few stunned seconds. Then I thought, as comical as this looks, there is real danger here. Just as it was catching her, I ran to the cord and jerked the plug out then skidded to a stop beside Lee who was sitting on the ground. She was rubbing a badly bruised leg with a nasty abrasion and glaring murderously at the Auger.
Of all things…This is a girl who is proficient with a chain saw, skill saw and heavy equipment much bigger than she is . And with never so much as a ding.
That afternoon at our daily family council (happy hour) Lee’s husband, Bo, proclaimed the auger;
Unwelcome in polite society,
Banished to the mountains forever
And
Put under lock and key until transport could be arranged.
I repressed the urge to declare the whole thing the drill’s fault. Some things are better left unsaid.
And given the bad juju between Lee and the auger I really couldn’t say that with certainty.
Could I?

THE SEED CATALOGUES

Seed catalogues, or catalogs, depending on where you live, start arriving at most gardeners’ homes just about three weeks before Christmas. That is plenty of time for us to get all the gardens put to bed for the winter and a good taste of the winter to come. We are already longing to be in the garden instead of in the house.
If there was a National Contest of Seed Catalogue Receivers, I would be the winner hands down, all I would have to do is wheel in with my stacks of goodies and everyone else would give up and go home.
The reason I get so many catalogues is no surprise: I order from nearly every one of them.
I am so tired of being in the house that by the time the first one arrives all I want is spring and as quickly as possible. With that in mind, as I look thru each one I find something that I have never seen before, that I have never tasted before, that might be better than what I planted last year, germinates quicker, grows bigger, tastes better, there are countless possibilities.
One year I pledged only to order from a few, postage costs were increasing and all gardeners know you can pay double or more for postage on one packet of seed than the seed alone costs. So, I made lists, I crossed off, I substituted, I added, I eliminated, and at the end had a meager few places to order from.
So, the stack just sat and percolated and I stewed, I would walk by, but I would not open even the top catalogue, the list was made and that was that. I kept busy with my planting charts and plans for which seeds would go in the ground in which place.
Then March hit and with it a snow storm to stop all thoughts of spring, couldn’t go outside, couldn’t even get outside, it snowed for 14 straight days, 7 feet on the ground, then the snow stopped, it started to warm up and the 7 foot that was on the roof fell right in front of the front door – I was stranded, totally stranded until someone could come and dig me out!!!
I paced, I fiddled with everything, I cleaned house, and on day 3 I sat down beside the stack of catalogues and started to go thru them, I was going to throw out what I wasn’t going to order from.
Then like a bolt, cabin fever hit me, and if you have never suffered from this, it isn’t a pretty sight, I started tearing thru the catalogues, making new lists, adding up orders, writing checks, getting them ready to mail. I started a new garden chart, I incorporated all the new wonderful plants that I would have if summer ever came.
Day 4, the scoopers came and dug me out and I raced to the mailbox with my hands full of seed orders.
And, peace once again reigned in my world, the seeds were ordered and I would have a new bigger, better, more fun garden the coming summer than ever before!

I AM SO PROUD

I am the first one in my family to go to gardening school!
Pooh on all their BSs, MSs and PHDs, I am now a
Master Gardener in training.
Yesterday was my third lesson. Already the mysteries are beginning to reveal themselves. Who knew that soil (you can’t say dirt) needs to be 25% air, 25% water and 50%other stuff. Needless to say that it’s hard to figure out how I will get to that from the hard clay and rock that is my mountain home. But now that the secrets of the universe are within my grasp I have faith.
I must say that everything is a bit more complicated than I thought. It’s a miracle that anything I did before brought forth so much. Just think of what will happen now. I started out taking copious notes but it occurred to me that everything is probably in the book issued us. The history of the world could be in there it’s about 6 inches thick. My time is better spent listening to the stream of experts that come to talk to us.
Being a noticer, there are many things I have noticed about this group. The first thing was that nobody in the group is excessively fluffy. In fact, I may be the fluffiest person there. I’m working on that. The second is that while they all take the course seriously, no one seems to take themselves too seriously. I like that. The third is that it’s not clubby, I like that. We are there for a purpose. And I’m learning so much! I like that!!!
One of the things I have long thought was verified by our speaker yesterday. The plant can’t distinguish between nutrients provided organically or chemically. Nitrogen is nitrogen is nitrogen. So spending outrageous amounts of money on the idea that everything must be organic is a choice, not a law, even for good gardeners.
I will give you some trivia every week from the course.
Did you know that a tomato is a berry? Did you know that an Irish potato is a stem? Did you know that all tree nuts are fruits?
That’s all the news for now. See you next week.

BIRDS

I love birds and my neighbor loves squirrels – can you see the collision coming?

She proudly told me last winter that she had “raised” an entire litter of squirrels in her yard. I took a deep breath and responded in my nicest tone – OH.

I feed the birds, more regularly than I feel the humans that live here, and nearly as often as I feed my beloved dog. I buy special feed for the birds, I know what food each kind likes to eat and I furnish it. I cut oranges and put grape jelly for the orioles in their feeder. I have the thistle feeder, the sunflower seed feeder, and the mixed seed feeder. My neighbors are no longer shocked to see me in my jammies filling a bird feeder.

This year I have one less feeder as the squirrels ate the bottom wire mesh out of a feeder my step-mother gave to me. Now all my feeders are squirrel-proof, a complicated system of heavy wire cage around the feeder which only birds can get thru, baffles, greased hangers, I have it all. And no one has told the squirrels that they cannot get into these feeders so they try several times each day.

This summer I had a new bird, a hawk. I don’t know what hawks eat, and I don’t feed him, but I think he eats small rodents and he spends a lot of his time perched on a post in my backyard. I do not discourage him, I look at him as a second line of defense against the fat little squirrels, even my most imperial tone doesn’t discourage them more than a few seconds.

My dog will not chase squirrels as she has figured out after several attempts that she cannot climb trees, so why put forth the effort. The odds there are too uneven.

This winter, as the trees all lost their leaves, I can look out my window and see dozens of bird nests in the branches. I think I have identified the hawk nest, it is the largest of all the nests and in the maple tree in my front yard.

So, I watch my hawk (I have taken possession of him as much as anyone can a hawk), I feed the birds, I chase the squirrels, who aren’t one bit afraid of me and will run up a tree and cuss down at me, and I know I must truly blessed to have such a circus going on in my backyard.

My own little garden greenhouse

I am trying something new this year. Lee bought me a contraption that looks like a giant garment bag with 4 shelves. The shelves will hold 3 trays each of starter pots. The whole thing is covered with a clear plastic cover. It has a door with zippers on each side which gives you wonderful access. I have never had any luck with tiny seeds, this year I am determined. Did you know that the wave petunias are around $3.00 a package of seed? That they take 90 days to bloom? Which is why I planted them the 1st of February. Each seed is coated with something. I use my buddy's toilet paper roll method for the dirt but I only filled the roll 2/3 up with potting soil, the last 1/3 I used a very light sprouting mix. My thinking is that the light sprouting soil won't support the root growth needed. I watered everything well with a turkey baster put the trays in there , put a heating pad in a plastic bag set on medium on the bottom shelf and zipped it up. Most of them sprouted!! Yea!! I have gotten this far many times, Some thing happens between here and the second leaves. I am hoping that this closed, moist enviroment will make the difference. I haven't had to water them in a whole week. Everyday or so I spray a little fine mist into each shelf area. What do I do next? I could use some garden tips for fine seeds.

Pavlov Had Nothing on My Mother

Many of us remember that Pavlov was a scientist that always fed these dogs to the sound of a buzzer. Over time the sound caused the same response in the animals as the smell or sight of food.

Extreme salivation

I think it’s called conditioning.

My premise is that many parents, worldwide, unwittingly use this as a training method for their children. The most heinous use of this conditioning is in potty training. Mothers, turning on the water in the wash basin to encourage their tots to make the same sound in the potty.

Future gardeners beware.

Now, I never asked my Mother and she never said but I have empirical proof that this diabolical method was used on me. As a young person you don’t even realize this has happened. As you reach your senior years the conditioning reasserts itself with a vengeance.

An avid gardener, I love to be outside. The day slips away before you know it. At some point during the day you begin to realize that you have to go.

“In a minute,” you tell yourself. You are vaguely aware that this happens several times. You’re busy and you keep putting it off, not wanting to spend a second of this beautiful day inside.

Finally it’s almost time to start dinner. Just one more quick thing!

And you turn on the hose!

Thanks, Mom

A Prairie Dog's Rebuttal

In a previous blog my blog-buddy described prairie dogs as “just big, mean, and ugly brown”. I read that blog and I was so shocked I couldn’t believe that AP hadn’t had her eyes checked in the last few years and had lost her mind when it came to describing things!

I thought of the huge village of prairie dogs that live close to Lowe’s and beside the hospital. I love the prairie dogs, love, love, love them. They are a pretty brown and so fat that when they run it’s more like a ball of fur rolling along. They have shiny hair, the cutest little button brown eyes, and need braces on their teeth so badly that they look like they are smiling all the time.
When Petco was built they had to move their entire village further to the west, and managed to do it before any of the heavy construction started. They live on 17th Street and the intersection of highway 61, and they are pretty street-smart little animals - it is rare to see one squashed on the road.

Every trip to Lowe’s requires a detour to the back of the lot where I can sit in the car and talk to them. They seem to like to visit, they stand up by their tunnel and chatter right back to me – we smile at each other, something people don’t do too much these days.

They must build the most inventive tunnels, some end right at the curb of 17th street, and they will stand there and watch the cars go by, and yes, I always slow down, roll down the window and say “hi little guys”.

Now, here is the point that AP and I would merge on thoughts, while I love watching them play and run around and I like their village of tunnels, I do not want one for a pet and I absolutely do not want one (or a colony) in my yard. I can understand why farmers and ranchers don’t want them in the pasture, but no one is ever going to farm or ranch behind Lowe’s, so it’s a good home for them.

And the moral of this blog must be –

Beauty is in the Eyes of the Beholder! (And I am a prairie dog beholder!!)

Now I'm Getting Excited!!!

I know, I know. It’s only almost February. But that’s gobs closer to March and that’s almost SPRING!

Dee (my precious daughter-in-law) and I were talking a couple of days ago, about the garden of course. That girl is a genius. She is the real deal. They have just moved into what they hope will be their forever home on five acres. Already she and J. have put together (2)-4x4x4x4 compost bins made out of pallets and are happily going about getting them started. In the high country we call this bear bait, but most places it will work.

Now this is the genius part, they left the space of one pallet between the compost bins and will eventually have many more in a row against the fence line, all with one pallet space between them. All of these empty spaces are meant to be little green houses, using the heat that the compost bins generate naturally to protect the tender plants. All you need is clear plastic on two sides and the top, thousands of toilet paper rolls filled with potting soil, seeds and water and your garden is weeks ahead of schedule. I’m thinking that they might be to some extent, self watering.

You just roll up the plastic on warm days and keep them covered other times. Dee, being the genius she is, figured out that the soil would be too nitrogen hot in those spaces for seed to flourish in the ground thus the rolls(check a previous post about this great idea).

They could be rubber banded together for easier care and set into egg carton trays for watering. Like all the corn could be together.
Are you getting the idea that on the whole this is as close to free as you get in this life?!
The idea has endless possibilities. One of the best is -where do you put your deck and patio plants when winter come?

The play “The Little shop of horrors” comes to mind.

“You gotta Feed Me!”

You could actually walk around the house without fear of disappearing into the rain forest never to be seen again.

Bravo Dee!!

The Gardening Plaque

I received a handmade plaque several years ago which hangs above my desk; the bottom is a flurry of flowers and coming up each side is a sunflower standing proud all made of felt and embroidery. The plaque has the embroidered words “Tickle it with a hoe and it will laugh into a garden”.

I look at this plaque at least once a day and probably have done so since the day I received it; I’m still trying to figure out just what it means.

If you hoe something, don’t you cut it off, dig it up, do away with it? Or, when we hoe does it just pop up at another spot in the middle of the garden?

Does it mean we need to hoe to have a garden that laughs – a lot of gardens have made me laugh, the ones with 25 of that person’s favorite concrete ornaments, or the ones that obviously were planned by someone with an abstract vision – were they all hoed?

And, why was I the recipient of this gift – I hate to hoe and to be very honest I am a weed puller – I love to pull weeds, I love how the garden looks after I have pulled the weeds, I like the order of things when they are cared for. Was my friend telling me I needed to hoe and get finished quicker, or that they didn’t think I was a good weed puller, or was the gift because I love to garden, it mentioned garden, so I must love it.

And, do I love it? Yes, I do, I admire the felt flowers, the embroidery, the tea-stained linen it was made on, and even if I do not understand the verse I have certainly spent more time pondering it than most things!

And, so grows our gardens, sometimes funny, sometimes a mystery to be solved, a puzzle with one piece missing, sometimes neat and orderly and a week later a riot of blooms that make us wonder what the original plan was.

So, I leave you with these words, “Tickle it with a hoe and it will laugh into a garden”.

WIN - WIN

This time of year I always find myself a little discombobulated. There are many things I need to do but nothing I really want to do. I always try to get the “need to do things” out of the way so I can enjoy doing the “want to do things.”

It’s too bleeping cold to even go outside, it’s too early for planting seedlings inside and the garden catalogs haven’t even come yet. Not much incentive to get to the “Need to do things.”

But….just when life is at its most boring something hilarious happens.

We braved this unbelievable cold yesterday when cabin fever drove us out to go anywhere, anywhere at all, just to get out. Our Puppies are having a bit of stiffness due to age and this frigid weather, so we went to the only pet store in our small town “Paws and Claws” for some chondroitin. They have very little in this shop so I was surprised to see a cage with a live animal in it up front. As I got closer I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Is this what I think it is?” I asked the teen age clerk. “It’s a Prairie Dog” she said brightly.

“NO KIDDEN! How much do you want for him?” This one isn’t for sale, but when we get them in the spring they will be between $300 and $400.”

“NO Waaay!”

Think about it! These things are big, mean and just an ugly brown. They spend most of their time in huge holes that wreck golf courses and they have no personality whatever.

Now compare that to cute little creatures that are a beautiful tan with white stripes. Playful and chatty in nature. If you would pay that for a Prairie Dog, what would you pay for one of these precious little fellows?

Think of it as a beneficent relocation. They are out of my rock garden, have good families and I am a gazillionaire.

Sounds like a “WIN - WIN to me.
Put out the word!
CHIPMUNKS FOR SALE

WINTER GARDENING

You know, it doesn’t matter where you live – well, I guess if you lived on a tropical garden it might matter – gardening in the winter either is non-existent or non-fun. But there are many things that you can do in the heights of the gardening season that will make your winter gardening more fun, more colorful, and grab compliments from all those neighbors who will be so envious of your creativity!!

After the vegetable garden was in last spring – see previous blogs – and with a little energy left, I decided I wanted to reduce the grass in the back yard by half. We have an electric mower, and while it made a huge difference in my mowing – I could never get the gas one started, and I didn’t want to deal with a cord, so I just didn’t do it – just grass, a plain, green, flat yard of grass was pretty boring to look at. So, did I start with a plan – now you know that would not be the Queenly way to garden, so of course I had no plan – but –

The Maiden Grass over behind the garage was huge, I couldn’t see around it, I couldn’t see over it, and it was clogging up my view of what the neighbors were doing, sooooo I divided half of it into 6 clumps and took them to the other side of the yard, tilled about 4 feet out from the fence over there and plunked them in the ground in a wave-ish pattern. That neighbor is boring and nothing to watch anyway, so it also blocked a little of the view.

Next step, I went to visit my sister, and with spades and garden trugs, we went to the family cemetery plots all over the county and instead of digging up the peonies this year away from the stones and tossing them, we put them in the trugs (and only for a few minutes did I feel like a grave robber) and back home they came with me. I put those in between the clumps of grass.

Back to my sisters for boxes of lilac starts - she already had the dug where they were invading her yard, and fit perfecting in the space I didn't know what to do with in the front yard.

My sister-in-law had Bachelor’s Buttons taking over her beds in Vail. One summer visit and a week later I had dug up 4 boxes of the Bachelor’s Buttons and brought them home with me and yes, they too went along the fence.

My nephew had dug all the Iris in his yard and given it to his mother. She had other plans for the area where it was, so another trip to her house and I came home with three banana boxes of Iris – against the house on the other side of the gate. I actually thought planting all those might be the death of me. I have no idea what color any of them will be, so am waiting for my surprise this coming summer and hoping that they aren’t all the same color.

Wish I had more relatives that wanted to get rid of plants, I could about finish my yard, but have ran out of family resources for the time being.

I tilled in around the back side of the yard two rows wide, and have hopes for a wave of Hibiscus there this Spring.

As I look out the patio doors and squint hard I can see a row of burning bushes along the back fence – this will require another big-time massacre of the yew that is growing there, but I cut it down from 15’ to 5’ last winter, so I think I can manage to finish it this winter. I also see a dogwood and a smoke tree in my plans; I just need to squint hard enough to see where they might go.

If you have snow on the ground, put on your boots, button up your coat and tromp around in the yard, I can guarantee you; more ideas will pop into your head than you will have energy to do when the weather improves. Get a garden hose, and don’t hook it up, just take it to that problem spot in your yard and give it a toss, now does that look like an outline for a flowerbed or what!!!

And, when you are tired and it’s time to come in and get toasty, there are always piles of seed catalogs to go thru for next summer!

Creation

One of the most incredible gifts DP ever gave me was this amazing blender. It is a sight to behold, white base with a frosted glass, tulip shaped globe with flowers etched in the glass. It has a place of honor on our counter and is admired by all. However, DP has this strange thing , he thinks that these kind of things (toasters, microwaves, blenders)should be used only for what the manufacturer intended, like food and Drinks. In my mind this is a very narrow and confining view of the world (and appliances).I tell you all this to set the stage for the important part this blender played in my rock garden.

All of you who have tried gardening on a steep hillside know that the most important thing is to keep water in your planted pockets long enough to soak the soil before it gravitates downhill. Dry rock stacking is just never going to be tight enough. Then I happened on this Wonderful book. The concept was a sea change in my gardening life. There was a formula. With this formula and variations of it I could make rocks and boxes and pockets. I had the power of the universe!!

The formula was very simple:
1part cement
1 part peat moss
1 part pearlite
And enough water to make gooey

All of this is cheap and readily available at your local hardware store…..except pearlite. All that money for that piddly little bag. It would cost a fortune to do what I wanted. Disappointment and frustration settled over me like a blanket. (Which is my best thinking mode.) I wandered the house and garden for days inconsolable.

While passing thru the garage one day I spied the (4)5ft tall bags of Styrofoam peanuts Lea had ordered. I usually averted my eyes because they made me think of the worms but today something clicked in my brain. What was pearlite but itsy little pieces of Styrofoam. I grabbed a bag and hauled it up the stairs.

My first thought was to put a handful of peanuts in a bag and beat them with a knife handle to make them itsy. This unfortunately seemed to ionize them and they floated out of the bag. There would be a capture problem here. Water was needed to stabilize the process.

My next thought was to pour them in a bath tub, fill it with water and go at them with a meat pounder. That thought was discarded before DP got wind of it and made a fuss.

Later rounding the corner into the kitchen, there it sat in a beam of inspirational light,

The Blender!

Surreptitiously, while DP was in the shower, I experimented and found the perfect mix. Two handfuls of loosely packed peanuts covered with water and the frappe setting. Pour the water off in a colander and WALLA!!!!

Pearlite.

Tomorrow was DP’s golf day so I would have a glorious uninterrupted afternoon. As soon as the car was out of sight I was at it. Happily blending and tossing the result in a giant metal bowl. The wind kicked up a little so the garden looked like one of those snow globes with one pudgy elf and a polka dot cat and dog. I was blissful.

The project was not long underway when, there coming back up the drive, was our Car! In a panic I threw the leaf basket over the blender. DP quickly took in the scene, smiled and drawled, “What ya doin?”

I smiled broadly and said, “Nuttthhhinn……..”

His face said “Do I want to pursue this?”

My eyes said “You do not want to know.”

Don’t try this kind of silent communication at home. It takes years of practice to be effective.

With a nod and a grin he jogged up the steps and across to the door, as it was closing he stuck his head round and said, “Don’t forget to unplug the leaf basket.”

I Love This Man!!!