What Happened Last Year in the Garden

If you have a scanner, it is sometimes a good idea to scan in the seed packages you've planted. It's easier and faster than keeping a notebook, and typically easier to find the information in subsequent years. This photo is an example, and I just saw it in one of my pictue files.

It made me remember the oddities of last year's garden. The radishes were easy to grow, and profuse, and we had far more radishes then anyone could want or that you could give away. The Eggplants were okay, but were on the small size so we can do better in the way of nutrients.

The strange tale is of the Cauliflower, something I had never tried growing. All of the plants came up very well and looked healthy. However, only two of the plants produced. The strangest thing was that the two cauliflowers which did "fruit" were terrific in size and very healthy looking. The other plants looked great but had no cauliflower buds.

So when I researched it (something I should have done beforehand), I found out that there is this thing you have to do to the plants. You have to "blanch" the leaves at the appropriate time. But then I wondered how I got those two beautiful looking plants without having done anything to them, either.

If you've got the answer, let me know. It's gotten too hot already to plant the cauliflower this year, so I'm going to be well prepared for next year. Adding chunks of cauliflower hearts to a soupy spaghetti (along with some spices) is a hearty and healthy dish which can feed the barracks....<

Photo Eastern Milk Snake Identified

 
















It was almost a year ago I found this speciment of a snake dead in the road not far from our house. It's a rural area, and I'd seen plenty of garter snakes, a rattlesnake or two, black snakes, and water snakes, but this was a first. The Eastern Milk Snake is not poisonous. This one is small, obviously young, about 15 inches in length. Most likely killed on the road at night, since they're nocturnal. They feed on small rodents, salamanders, other snakes, frogs, bird eggss.... it's not particular. For some live pictures of this snake, along with some of its cousins, you might want to click on the link. That blog is by a Canadian naturalist/photog/outdooors person.

No matter how hard I looked though, I still haven't discovered why this snake is called a "Milk" snake. I'll keep working on it...

Foxglove and a Fox: A True Tale Mixed With Some Folklore

So I'll tell you the true part first. About five or six years ago, there was a foxglove I planted in the wrong place. When later I wanted to attack with the weedwacker, I moved the foxglove plant into the large flower garden at the side of the house. I thought it died. It was a no-show for years, but one year it popped up, but didn't bloom. I forgot about it, then.

But Voila!...a couple of weeks ago, there it was--the old foxglove plant. I wasn't sure until yesterday when it flowered. Now there was no doubt about it.

Now the weird thing--I was sitting here pecking away after my workout when our GSD has a conniption of such large proportion that I thought she'd take out the window. Jumping to my feet, I caught sight of a quickly moving dog-like animal, moving so fast I couldn't tell if it was a large fox or a small coyote.

So the fuzzy part derives from when I looked up the Foxglove plant, which is indeed linked to the fox. There is a myth, handed down to us from the English Middle Ages, which says the fox steals the blooms and puts them on his feet so that he can slip quietly into the henhouse. Yeah, well don't believe it then. I do.

Anyway, the Fox Glove and the Fox were in idyllic environments, as both foxes and fox gloves like to make their homes on wooded hillsides, such as the one that slope away from the house.

The other thing I learned about Fox Glove is that the Latin name for it is Digitalis Purpurea. Fox Glove is a poison, but it is also a medicine, used to stimulate the heart.

Organic Heritage Tomatoes

We're trying something new in the garden. We're giving up on the hybrid tomatoes. The output on the hybrid tomatoes has been great, but the seeds--not so great. You can't use them to propagate new tomatoes as you can with the "heritage" seeds.

It was late February when I planted the organic heritage seeds in a seed-box. When the plants grew up, there were some noted differences. The tomato plants looked different from the starter plants you get from home and garden stores. Another odd thing. Some weeds came up, too. I don't know if the soil was contaminated with weed seed or whether weed seed got mixed up with the heritage tomato seeds.

It doesn't much matter. Maybe I'll begin cultivating a new hardier brand of heritage weeds. More to the point, I put the heritage tomato plants (grown from seed) out into the garden and they're looking strong. Right now, they look a lot more like Tomato plants. Still, the leaves are a bit different, as they are not a hybrid recognized species.

It's cool so far--I think of the Indians when I'm looked at them. BAck in the day of the Indians, most plants were different--especially the corn. Some people refer to Indian corn as "flint corn."

A Tale of Two Iris Species

Deer resistance is an ever popular topic among gardeners and horticulturalists who live in deer country. This morning very early, I went outside to count the deer. There were five, but this time they were on the east side of the house when typically they are on the northwest slope where shrubs and flowering plants abound. Among the flowering plants are two types of Irises, a cultivated variety and a wild variety. I had thought that both varieties were deer resistant since the earlier developing stalks and leaves of the cultivated Iris are nibbled but largely left alone. At least, that was my observation through April of this year.

But now, in the middle of May, the Irises have flowered and I can see that my observations regarding Irises are only half right. The deer do not so much like the Iris plants as they do the flower buds. The Iris leaves and stalks are most abundant and look healthy, but the tips of the stalks, where the blooms would be, are clipped and empty.

Meanwhile, just twenty yards away, the wild Irises are flourishing, left alone, elegant, slender, and somehow regal. And then I have an experiment in progress. There are many so-called “deer-resistant” sprays and treatments advertising that they will repel deer but few of them work. However, and that is a big “however,” there is an expensive and foul smelling product manufactured in the Pennsylvania sticks that does seem to work. I have applied it to the cultivated Irises. I’m not sure how well it works though I am sure it is having some good affect. That is why the deer were this morning on the Southeast side of the house where there are no flowers or shrubs.