Jaundiced veggies?

My toms and radishes look like they have jaundice!

I could see this yellowing from the upstairs windows, it was that pronounced. I'm getting worried that the freeze we had the other night wasn't so benign as I thought it was. Here's what's going on. We went from happy radishes that you saw a few posts below to this:

Literally the change was overnight. The tomato went from happy tomato in a few posts below to this saggy, droop thing this morning:

Oddly, the limbs are incredibly stiff. They only have the appearance of being floppy. When I pulled radishes for tonight's dinner, I noticed the soil beneath was still relatively wet. We haven't had rain since Monday or Tuesday of this week. Could it be too much water? If so, we're in trouble because it's raining again today. Too chilly? For the tom, I could see it, but not the radishes. They're in the same bed, so I think what's affecting one is affecting the other. There were no pests that I could see.

Any ideas?

On a better note, here's tonight's dinner I pulled from the garden just now. That's 8oz of lettuce and spinach and three radishes (I didn't check their weight). Not too shabby if you ask me.

A blog by any other name..

When one decides to start a blog, it's the name of said blog that intrigues, it entices, it inspires.

And then you have mine. The coming up with a name is what held me back from writing anything resembling a blog, and then when you finally put one down, you have this conversation:
Girlfriend: "Hey, I checked out that blog you sent me. Not too shabby."

Ribbit: "Thanks. I'm having fun."

G: "Listen (pause), I have to ask. You're not planning on harming your family are you?"

R: "Noooo....not today. Why?" (note irritated, understated tone)

G: "Well, calling it 'The Coroner's Yard' doesn't really inspire confidence."

I actually thought about that as I was typing in the title for the first time. Ok, I thought about it because I initially typed it wrong. But it is what it is. It's not the yard proper, although if I had more sun back there it would be the whole yard, but it is most certainly the corner yard. And that, my friends, is the way it will stand...until I chop down that oak and commandeer the ENTIRE yard!

On a gardening note, I bought an ichiban eggplant today for a left over container that was itching for something in it. Hopefully it will produce more than a black beauty. Here's keeping fingers crossed it will produce anything at all!!!

Ribbit 1 -- Mother Nature a big whopping 0!!!

We survived! We survived!!!

The temperatures got down into the mid 20's last night. I was convinced that in spite of the straw on the peppers and the straw, bags and buckets over the tomatoes everything would have been toast.

The peppers laughed.

The tomatoes guffawed.

The lettuce stuck its tongue out, wagged its fingers by its ears and said, "nanny nanny, boo-boo."
Yup. They're mature like that :)

The peas, eggplant, and tomatoes that were moved into the garage did well also. The only problem seems to be that since they've been under cover for two days, they're experiencing a bit of sunburn. The peppers are leaning towards yellow as are the newest leaves on the toms. Don't know if it is a temporary thing or if it will just get worse. It was something I should have thought about, however.

I just finished unloading the last of the two cubic yards of compost that I bought from a local landscape supply. The first was a "plant mix" which seemed to me to contain more red clay than anything else, and the second was a good 'ole-fashioned compost mix. Here are some of the exciting things I found in the compost mix:

• Sticks


• Small rocks


• Used condom


• Bottle cap


• Something unidentifiable but fuzzy


• Sweet-n-low packet

I know what you're thinking. Who would have seriously thought you could compost a bottle cap!? Sometimes you just shake your head and move on. (*wink*)

I had too much left over, and since the man has redrawn the no-compost-pile line, I put the remaining compost in rubermaid tubs in the basement. Do you think it will keep?

Have I caught you up yet?

Last semester, I gave an assignment to my students to blog about their research papers as they wrote them. It was an exercise in organization, frustration management and group therapy. Whereas they did enjoy the process, as with everything that involves teenagers, they stated that I was hypocritical for loving blogs so much and yet not having one myself.

I do love blogs; I follow the ones I read religiously. Blogging can seem so overused especially if only for a limited purpose like, say, gardening. Again, please insert whiny teenager voice pointing out the hypocrisy here being that all I follow ARE gardening blogs AND what's worse, this thing here that I've started looks awfully like a blog to me. :)

I figure, hey, give it a shot. Besides, it's keeping me busy and away from grading those research essays! No one really has to see the blog except for me. Maybe in time I'll send the link to a few friends or family...most of whom would most likely laugh amusedly, pat me on the back, look sympathetic, sigh and move on.

Below this post, or rather you'll have to look to the side for the very first post, you'll find the goings on of the last year's transformation from container gardening to SFG. Most of these postings originated as posts of mine on GardenWeb's SFG forum. I tried to date then accordingly.

In today's world, the weather is really throwing us for a loop. After weeks of weather where the low was a measly 40 or above, we're having two days of below freezing temps. Last night it only seemed to get below freezing for an hour or two. Tonight is going to be worse.

I've moved all of the peppers, eggplant, SSPeas and other tomatoes and beans in containers either in the garage or basement. Hopefully they can all survive the two days without light. I was conned into planting tomatoes and peppers in the SFG by the man and the boy. It was far too early and we all knew it. I put plain straw over the peppers which seemed to work well last night. One of the green bell has a beautiful flower about to open, so it will make me sad to loose it if it doesn't work as well as tonight. For the tomatoes, which each had several flowers open yesterday morning, I decided on a different approach. I read somewhere that one man had put plastic grocery bags and then 5 gallon buckets over his toms and they survived low temps. I thought to add the bit of straw on the toms, the bag over the straw and the bucket over the bag over the straw. (sing:and the green grass grows all around, all around...) The sun is out now, even though the highs are only in the high 40's, so I'm hoping the buckets and straw are soaking in that heat and not cooking the plants underneath We'll see if it works.

I pulled two radishes to put in our dinner tonight. I actually pulled a third one, but you could see where the root maggots that decimated my peas had gotten into that radish as well. So far, the rest we've pulled have seemed fine. Hopefully it was an isolated incident.

Yesterday I took the truck and trailer to the landscape supplier and got myself a yard of what they called "plant mix" it was billed as a combination of compost, mushroom compost, humus and native soil "perfect for raised bed gardens". I unloaded the entire trailer last night and I must say, I wasn't too impressed. It was chunky and most of the clods were what seemed to be straight GA clay. I broke those up as much as I could as I was unloading it. The yard didn't quite fill up as much as I needed it to, so I sent the man today to go get me a yard of straight compost. We'll see what that looks like when we add it together. IF I can add it together. I need to empty the trailer tonight as the man needs it tomorrow, but I only have one dinky shovel and no wheelbarrow so it's one shovel load at a time.

That, and it's bleedin' cold out there with the wind whipping like it is. If you've got a frost warning like we do, good luck tonight!!!

March happenings

Monday, March 30

I must say I'm thrilled with the garden expansion this year. I went from containers in the summer to two 3x3 boxes in the fall to what you see here. I still haven't filled the largest box, but the other boxes seem to be doing very well.

The dog and I had a sit down and talked about the recent rash of tomato beheaddings. Through his dumbfounded expression, I gather he feels he's just a stone-cold killer at heart, but the tomato cages I've pulled out seem to scare him enough to keep him away for now.

I've proven that growing last year's lettuce wasn't a fluke. The lettuce this year looks great and when I was thinning the red radishes, I pulled up:

IT'S A REAL, REAL RADISH!!! I was excited.

Here are some more pics: Broccoli And finally, we had our first meal from the garden. I was just thrilled. I tried to frame my picture as nicely as Granny does, but for some reason, the leg lamp just doesn't scream elegance.

The dogs ain' gonna make it

When I went out to lay the grid on my beds this morning, I woke up to this:
Upon closer inspection, I saw this:
and this: I realized I had let the dogs out early this morning and they did their fair share of running around. I should have realized what they were doing when they wouldn't come inside to eat breakfast. This digging is not unusually and some of you may remember the China project they dug in the back yard large enough for my child to be unable to crawl out of on his own, but SNOT BALLS!!! I had left the door open for them to come inside. I raced back in with visions akin to the ones I have when I realize they've been let in after digging in the red clay. It's been raining here two to three times a week and I just knew the malamute to be filthy with his white furry paws and face because you know he didn't stop at digging, he most certainly had to eat some for good measure. I grabbed the can of spot shot, ready to follow their manure laced bread crumb trail, and couldn't find paw prints to lead me to the culprit. As the panic began to subside I found the mastermind well enough in the front room: See the mud on him? Neither did I, even though I know him to be the orchestrator. There wasn't even a residual speck on the carpets to clean. I don't know if I'm so mad at him for digging in my beds or if I'm more impressed with the mix's ability to shed water. We've all heard it and seen it to be so with our vegetables, but here, my friends, is the ultimate proof.

Trellis!

I put the trellis up today. It's not so much form as function, but I think it will hold up. I didn't know how much weight the top bar would hold, so I tool my 22 mo. old girl and hung her from it. She held on, but she's a bit of a runt weight wise, so I hung the boy from it as well for good measure. If it can stand up to them wiggling, I think the wind will be fine as well.