starting seeds

heirloom tomatoes, mini watermelons, and fennel this week

end of summer

As the equinox draws nearer this week, the last of the summer flowers are floundering in their soaked beds.

This has certainly been the season for slugs, fungus of all types, powdery mildew and the like. The autumn mums, however, have somehow avoided much of the fuss and are well on their way to happy this week...lending some freshness to an otherwise tired idea. Another bright spot amid the muck--the hydrangea--have, since August this year, been turning subtle shades of green and maroon that I find rather comforting.


Rear bed, hydrangea in upper left.


Creeping Jenny constitute the only bright spots in the rear beds.

And the marigolds and sweet alyssum are still shining long after the midsummer lettuce patch was cleared away to make room for a fall sowing.
The last of the junior phlox fight powdery mildew beside spent lavender and just blooming pink mums.
In the edible category, cucumbers continue to pour in, despite some foliar powdery mildew.

And late blight finally arrived in the vegetable patch this month, starting on the cherry hybrids and moving to all three tomato plants very quickly. Since the season is drawing to a close, I decided to try to save some of the fruit, which seems to be tougher at resisting the spots than the leaves. As luck would have it, I'd already harvested a few dozen pints of cherry hybrids, so I wasn't too sad to pull and dispose of the entire plant. I cut out all of the cankers and infected leaves and stems on the brandywine and striped german, but left them on their stakes. This worked, for the most part, and we've been continuing to enjoy heirloom tomato basil salads and bruschetta for the last few weeks. Here you can see that the central stalk is all that is left of these two plants. These are nearly 9 ft tall and house at least a dozen more tomatoes, waiting for the plate, if they can hang in there. Last year I was swimming in green tomatoes in early October. Ah, well.


Nasturtium taking off as the weather cools off.
Beets ready to eat.

cucmbers, cucumbers, tomatoes and storms

On the cutting board today:

We've been eating cucumbers, cucumbers and more cucumbers this month. Tzatziki, cucumber and mint salad, cucumber sticks, cucumber rounds, cold cucumber soup, cucumber everything. And the hudson valley has had so much rain that I can hardly keep up with the harvest. Tiny little fetal cucumbers morph into giant monster kirby cuke blimps, quite literally, overnight.
Next to the pile of cucumbers on our countertop are two of the dandilion pots I've been making lately along with a handful of rudebeckia from the garden.

Thus far, my three tomato plants have shown no signs of late blight in spite of the havoc it has wreaked everywhere else during this cold, rainy summer (knocking firmly on wood). I've been harvesting the cherry hybrids since late July and I've got a dozen softball size heirlooms hanging in there through some incredibly strong storms. Two did fall a few nights ago and I have put them in a paper bag with a banana in the hopes that they will ripen off the vine.

The beets are doing well in spite of encroachment from the cucumber and jalepeno plants. Barely visible in the front here are the strawberry pips that Vika dug up for me from her garden in Nantucket. They are liking all this rain.

Meanwhile, the phlox and delphinium are barely surviving the slug fest in the front garden. Rain rain, go away for a little bit, ok?



The same storm that pummeled my brandwines also brought down a large Norway maple branch a few nights ago which landed upright, impaled in a rear flower bed. While John and his dad turned this overnight "tree" into a pile of firewood, I snapped a photo and decided we'd have to plant a real one in that very spot this fall.

Peas and beets in June

The garden enjoyed the rains and 70 degree weather in much of may, and I've been mostly neglecting it these last weeks...just letting things grow as I work on another huge project. The early spinach came in all at once and my mom has been helping clip and freeze the overflow. Nearly 6 feet tall now, the sugar snaps are finally blooming and fruiting out in early June, although they don't like the 80 degree noontimes.


6 different varieties of beets are adjusting to their outdoor beds, hopefully well out of the future reach of the tomato and cucumber plants this time. Two jalepeno pepper plants have been transplanted for a few weeks now but don't really appear to be growing much. Perhaps they are waiting for warmer skies.

I gave away most of my extra tomato seedlings and put in one each of the Striped German and Brandywine heirlooms and the F-1 cherry hybrid. I get striped zebras and sungolds aplenty from my CSA share so I thought I'd try something different this year. No sign of cutworms yet.

And finally, my herb garden is beginning to ballon with cilantro and parsley volunteers leftover from the seeds of last season, chives, sweet and purple basil, fennel, dill, thyme, and several varieties of mint.

spinach, peas and seeds

While tomatoes, beets, marigolds, lettuce, cucumber and morning glories were sprouting under lights this month, the peas and spinach that I had direct sewed with my mom's help in March were emerging.

April 23rd

Peas took nearly two weeks to show any signs of life, but by early April they were starting to look like they'd make it. Only 1/3 of the seeds I sewed germinated--next time I will try to inoculate them beforehand. Around April 10th I sewed a few more in the bare patches.

April 6th.

partially constructed bamboo lattice, April 6th.

April 19th

April 19th

The Spinach seedlings emerged in step with the peas, and by April 19 they, too, were taking off.

history-March 2009

It was evident that spring was coming early this year by John's birthday in the first days of March. The weather broke from the 30s and 40s to a balmy 60 on that weekend and we were able to actually sit and eat outside on the patio when his family came over the celebrate. Wes and Anna built a fairy house on the table out of pine cones and sticks and several of the yellow crocuses that had just opened up that week.



My mom stopped in on her way back from a trip to Maryland on March 14 and helped me dig a new bed for spring greens. We amended it with two wheelbarrows of compost and plugged the dug up grass into the area that the tomatoes had overgrown and killed last fall. I also dug under the patch of winter rye that I planted at the end of last October and let it decompose--readying the bed for the beets and cucumbers I'll plant in it this year. In the potting room under lights I started a tray of tomatoes--brandywine, striped german and an F-1 cherry hybrid early this month along with a tray of several different kinds of beets--forono, yellow tall, red early.
On a trip to Nantucket to surprise Jareb on his 30th, we took a quick walk on the cliff and I checked in on my inspiration roses.


This row of boxwoods and climbing roses on the front of a Siasconset reminded me of England--although a bit more modern and crisp.

Jareb, Vika and baby Fiona at Sanford Farm.

Around Ritik's birthday toward the end of the month he and John and I flew out to San Francisco to surprise our ex-Brooklyn crowd. It snowed the day we left home, but in the Bay area the jasmine was blooming and the weather was so warm that people were in bathing suits in Dolores Park. The end of winter was always the greenest time out there. I was struck by some grass growing on a boulder under the Golden Gate bridge.

history-November 2008

In early July, I planted the three Nantucket rose starts that had come through the rooting ordeal along with two "Super Dorothy" ramblers that I got from an heirloom propagator. One of each went on either side of the cedar arch John had built this spring (super D to the left, Nantucket to the right in this photo). I planted the others in front, hoping they would climb downspouts and someday overtake the house. By November, as Obama's numbers were climbing so were they.

The Norway maple over the barn began to turn yellow, signaling the end of the season. My tomatoes were still producing plenty of fruit, even now as the weather turned cool. Striped zebras and sungolds filled bags and bags. Next year I'll plant less, and perhaps different varieties since the CSA farm we have a share in harvests these same kinds.
Storm King mountain across the river from us slowly acquired burnished hues as well, as winter was fast approaching. I left the leaves where they fell in the beds as mulch, raked the ones on the grass into the compost pile and began looking for wood for our first fires of the season.

history-August 2008

In August, a hot month, the rudbeckia (black-eyed susans) were in full bloom and in the rear beds they were joined by an explosion of heliopsis, which mostly overwhelmed their poorly cited foxgloves neighbors. These would later in the season , along with the guara, become covered in aphids and require hosing, cutting and eventually spraying with a "safe" neem oil solution that didn't seem to do much good. I will keep my eye out for some way to import more ladybugs next season I suppose.

Equally loving the heat, my crowded tomatoes completely overwhelmed all my peppers and threatened to shade out the cucumber plants as well. I let them go, as I could hardly keep up with the number of cucumbers from these two little plants. One I didn't get to until it was nearly 18 inches long. Not great eating, but fun to pick and give away as an oddity.

history-July 2008

The middle of summer is truly the time of plenty. This month, the previously sparse front bed began to really come alive. Guara, junior dance phlox, catmint, hot pink dianthus, lemon coral sedum, yellow roses, blue lobelia and he few magic fountain delphinium that I added as an afterthought all began to bloom.





In the rear, the shasta daisies were doing their best against an army of slugs as the first false sunflowers began to open.



My seven tomato plants had very quickly become massive and by the end of the month I could clearly see that I'd planted them way to close to eachother and to other plants. But the first fruits began to form regardless of my mistakes.




Away on Nantucket for some of the month, I snapped a few photos of the rambling roses that grow everywhere there. These below grow on the cottages in Siasconset near one of my favorite hidden public walks. The little cuttings I took from this same kind of rose in May were rooted in pots back home and I dreamed of the day that they would grow to look like these massive forms.