Diggin the Dirt on Flowers

Fellow revelers, help me out with the following question that was posed:

What types of flowers are the readers out there growing? I’ve almost ignored flowers since I started my renewed interest in the garden. I have a few calendulas (pot marigolds) growing in a small pot, and a handful of neglected bulbs in the ground along one fence which keep coming back year after year. Any ideas on some nice flowers to grow?

As for me, in the front yard I have my famous day lilies from Wisconsin alternating with the hostas (which bloom every year now that they’ve matured – this is one of the things that I very much love about hostas, which can otherwise seem kinda bland).  Again behind the front row of flowers/hostas, I have some white small flowers whose name I cannot remember.  I want to say nasturtium but I know that’s not it (anyone who can take a peek at my photo here, and help me out, please do).  The native plant garden is just behind that, with a black-eyed susan that’s now giving me plenty of blooms.  I love having this in my yard.  It reminds me of the Replacements song, I Saw Susan Dancing in the Rain.  I think next year I may grow daisies just b/c of Prince’s song that has the line in it: I’m blinded by the daisies in your yard…

Onto the steps, where I have zinnias, three pots for each of three of my favorite people.  In the backyard I have begonias, and upstairs petunias so I can sing the song, “I’m a lonely little petunia in an onion patch, an onion patch, an onion patch…and all I do is cry .. boohoo boohoo.”

A few days ago I bought some bulbs at Home Depot because they were 75% off, and they looked pretty.  Hard to resist.  I’m planning on keeping them for next spring, though I’m not sure how well they keep (I’m assuming there will be no problem with them but have no experience to go on here).  They’re gladiolas and dutch irises (LOVE the smell of these).  A friend, many moons back, gave me crocus bulbs but it was in my pre-garden days and I never did get them in the ground.  I may get some next year; these would be inspired by the Joni Mitchell song about having crocuses to bring to school tomorrow…

QUESTION: Has anyone else’s garden been inspired by a song? Any recommendations for any particular flowers?  I used to keep marigolds around some of my vegetable plants but haven’t needed them this year.

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Mystery Mushroom Poopy Plant Alien Invading Ruthless Abductor

So this is what I saw upon opening my eyes after several days of nothing.  I was in the yard, inspecting the mysterious beast that had been the object of my obsession since I first saw it, when the next thing I knew, I was passing out.  I fell to the ground, and all the rest is black.  I can’t remember it.  I don’t know what happened, or where I was.  All I remember is wearing an ill-fitting wig, swimming through some post-apocalyptic swampy water, briefly visiting the Vatican only to be quietly shooed away from the gates, then finally landing in an interview with a very severe suit-bound woman.  I couldn’t put the words right to satisfy her questions and the next thing I knew, here I was lying on the ground, face to … uh, face with my weird little plant.  It was whispering something to me when with a “poof” it suddenly disappeared.  Now you know, I’ve been doing daily posts since I started this blog almost two months ago.  My recent lapse (by a day?  two??) had nothing to do with my mother’s visit, or her insistence of cleaning my house and my following her cleaning up after her, putting things back from where she moved them, or any of that stuff.  (She left this morning, shortly after I came to in the back yard).  You all do know, don’t you, that it would take nothing short of being abducted by random, wild, scary mystery mushrooms to make me miss a day of checking in with you.  Heeeeeyyy, wait a minute.  It’s all starting to come back to me …
 

QUESTION: please send pics of a plant you want to ID.  This one remains a mystery.  Potent, though.

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Poopy Plant

Here is the mysterious bugger that appeared in my backyard two days ago, half past 9 (at least that's when I spotted it). Today, just as suddenly, he was gone. (I don't know why I'm assuming this one was a he - really I don't. I swear.) I'm not sure if he was placed here by aliens or removed by same, but it sure was a curious site out there, surrounded by nothing but a few flies. Oh, yes, that is poo on its, ah, head. I don't know whose - maybe the critter that released that seed in my yard. I'm aware all this is a bit much information (and if ever there was a time to revive the term "grody," here it is). Notwithstanding, here's my ... QUESTION: what the ???? Anyone ever seen anything like this before? Anyone know where it went?

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Mysterious Plant from Outer Space (RFP on Communal Garden Journal)

Ralph’s comment:

I like that idea.

I’d like to have a communal type of garden journal as an experiment, too, with people from different places commenting on something each day. For example, today I saw a new plant I’ve never seen before.
It looked like it maybe had the consistency of mushroom, but was red with some yellow toward the head.
I have NO IDEA what this is. It looks like it could be evil, especially since I think it was born with some poo on its head. I don’t know whose poo it was.
Pics to come.

QUESTION: what’s the best way to identify a plant of unknown origin (short of tasting it, which I’m not inclined – particularly on this one).

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Ralph’s Guest Garden Update

Excerpting from a comment today…

My in the ground garden is not doing very well this year. Thank goodness for containers. I just came in from collecting some seeds and watering the yard. I have a new found and deep unbelieving of anything the weather forecast says when it comes to rain. I know forecasting isn’t the most precise thing, but really. They are trying to tell me the temperature and sea levels in 100 years but they can’t tell me the weather for tomorrow.

This year I think the biggest change in the garden will be planting things for a fall harvest. I got a new winter seed catalog, ‘Summer planting means winter harvest’ from Territorial. Maybe I’ll have better luck in the cooler weather. A lot of the ‘leafy stuff’ grows well into the cold- I will put that to the test. This year I left pumpkins out. My vines got really big but nothing came out of them. Eventually they died, I guess from bugs. If my zucchini doesn’t grow again this year I think I’ll leave it out next year. I am thinking maybe less variety next year but more of what I do plant.

One thing I’ve heard of a few times but haven’t done yet is start a garden journal. I would use a paper notebook, although an electronic one would work. To me some things are better on paper. Is anyone using a garden journal or thinking about it? …

Thanks Ralph, for your comments and today’s …

QUESTION:  Is anyone out there doing a garden journal?  I used to keep a notebook where’d I’d write down what I was planting (since otherwise, if they were unsuccessful, I’d forget what I’d tried).  I haven’t done that lately but I do think of the blogging as something of a journal.  I’ve been keeping journals for most of my life (I think 3rd grade is the earliest I remember), so I can see how this is like doing the online blogging thing is like journaling, but it’s different because, as open and honest as you want to make it, the fact of the matter is you’re still writing something anyone can read.  I think it’s hard to let go of that fact (and maybe better not let go of anyway).  Of course, depending on who’s around you, a journal, too, is something that might not end up being for your eyes only.

I think that keeping a gardening journal could be very helpful, as I think the act of gardening is transformative, and observing by recording a thing that’s transformational helps bring it into focus.  However, I think I’d have a hard time deciding whether it would be a more touchy feely kind of thing or if it would just be a record to help remember what’s underground, and how it’s behaving.  What kind of journal would yours be? Go ahead … gimme the dirt!  (I’d love to see an entry if anyone’s up for opening up their deepest darkest secrets from their own gardening – or other – journal)!

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OMG

Cukes! These are from the homemade self watering containers.

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How Could I Not?

This is a 20 lb. bag of organic potting soil from Long Island Compost. $2.99/bag at my local cheapo kinda dollar store, one of many on Church Ave., Kensington side. Of course I love the sunflower but the question is how’s the dirt in the bag. I will report back, and give U the dirt!

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Weeding the Garden

I’m emptying my basement of everything in it.  I figured it was getting to be a fairly expensive storage space, given what rents go for today.  I hate that there is so much I’m throwing away but I also recognize that to repurpose, reuse, sell, or even donate all the items I no longer need would require additional time that I’d really rather spend doing other things – like gardening.

Although I may freecycle a few items (I’ve used it before for other things I let go of, and was fairly happy with its usability).  I clutterbust somewhat regularly though.  It’s a healthy purging, I find.  Inevitably good things (note, not “stuff”) come from it.  So usually I just set as much out in front of my house as I can, without using any space on the sidewalk.  This can get tricky because there’s not a lot of excess real estate in Brooklyn, even down to front gate space.  That’s why I love things I can hang on the fence, like hangers!  At about midnight, I put a small store’s supply of various plastic and wooden hangers, no wire ones (yes, mommy dearest), and within minutes a neighbor appeared out of nowhere.  As we started talking, she collected up the plastic hangers, stringing them across her arm.  As it turns out, she is married to a gentleman down the street who has been very encouraging about my little garden plot, stopping by every so often to ask and admire.  I’ve loaned him a wonderful little crazy rake I have that tills the ground in no time.  Once again, I found myself talking with someone who I have lived near for more than ten years and had never met before.  I hate to say this but I honestly don’t even remember seeing her before — I feel like I’ve been wearing blinders for a very long time now.  Gardening is showing me that good things happen when you just put a little effort into it.

There is no question in my mind, as I sit here sweaty and spent, that gardening and all that goes with it is absolutely like raking through the things in life – concrete and otherwise – that bog you down.  This has been a difficult process because my mind was trained to think I “need” more than I do.  It is helpful though, too, as I’m thinking about what more I want to do (and, more importantly, not do) with my garden for the remainder of the summer, and am also feeling grateful that once this is done it will be one less thing to pull me away from my gardening.

QUESTION: Do you have to give something else up to make space for something new?  Will you be adding or subtracting anything from your garden this season?

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Forage for Borage

I had asked, if I had just one plant left to plant, what should it be and why.  An answer I received was borage.  Forage for borage?  I like the idea.  Here’s the comment, and why I will probably take the suggestion and plant with it…you can put it in a salad.  And it sounds a little different from your standard garden fare.  I think I will be planting this weekend, but I’m not sure whether I’m going to plant from seed or a small plant.  I’ve been wondering about the question at the end, as well, and what to hear from other folks whether you’re tending more toward plants or seeds.

Here’s Ralph’s comment…

Maybe take a look at Borage. An edible herb I use in salads- something of a cucumber taste. Small leaves are best since they are ‘hairy’ and it gets more like thin bristles on large leaves. They make small blue flowers which the bees seem to love- the reason I got it. They produce lots of seeds about 1/16 inch long so they’re easy to collect, or just let them fall as they may. Last year mine got about 2 feet tall, and they seem to grow pretty fast from seeds.

Check out red clover too. Another medicinal herb and it’s great for building up your soil. I put these in salad too and have it growing in the ‘wilds’ of my yard. While researching it a while back Sloan Kettering came up on Google. After accepting their disclaimer they had a section on herbs. Red clover was there and it said there is some evidence of it’s fighting cancer, but more research is needed. Gee, that’s one of the things herbalists use it for. What a coincidence.

I downloaded a free PDF of a 600+ page book out of copyright that’s about using various herbs medicinally. It’s from the 1880s if I recall. I wouldn’t use it (or anything else) without confirming what it says, but it is full of information on identifying and preparing herbs. If anyone is interested I’ll try to find a link to it.

[Here’s Ralph’s question …]

How is everyone starting their plants? I use almost exclusively seeds, my niece has great luck buying small plants. What’s your preference, why?

[Here’s my follow- up…

QUESTION: anyone else have any experience with borage?  I’ve been doing a combination of seeds and plants.  I was surprised that both beets and carrots sprouted up from seeds this year, as did my pumpkins, and they’re really taking over.  I have to start thinking more seriously about seeds though.  I do tend to keep the ones I don’t use over the winter in my basement.  I also take seeds from the plants I grow and try them again the next year but haven’t had much luck with that, including some really beautiful pepper plants (cayenne, habanero and jalapeno) that I had last year, whose seeds gave me pretty much nuthin this season.  Maybe I’m doing something wrong?  Go ahead .. gimme the dirt!

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