Eye Popping Spring!

As a transplant from the West Coast to Georgia back in 2001, I had a lot to learn about gardening in the South, which is a totally different world than gardening out West. Down here the weather is obviously a lot more humid during the Spring and Summer, and cold and usually quite dry during the Winter. In California, there isn't any real seasonal change. The temperature is fairly constant all year.

Unfortunately this means a fairly lackluster, constant landscape. Brown trees, brown grass, rocks, boring when that's all you've seen your whole life. So living here in Georgia has been a real treat. The high humidity and cold Winter allow for a wide diversity of plants, most of which are extremely lush, including the weeds.

One of my favorite weeds is Wisteria. This extremely hardy weed can be trained to grow as a tree, but prefers to climb as a vine. Even though it can be destructive (it will break apart stone, cement, rock, anything it can get it's tendrils into) it is one of the most spectacular spring flowers to announce the arrival of warmer weather.

Even better, Wisteria has a sweet scent that purely identifies it as a Southern glory. I planted my Wisteria vine about 6 years ago along a dilapidated old chain link fence. Next to it I planted honeysuckle and Confederate Jasmine, another glorious Southern jewel.

Every year I pray that March isn't too harsh, because tough weather just beats Wisteria to death, and a hard wind, which we get a lot up on our hill, will knock all the blossoms off in a single storm.

This year we were lucky. Not only did March cooperate, but we had a hot early Spring which forced the Jasmine to bloom a little early. It is a rare treat to see both of these neighboring beauties blooming together so prolifically. In fact I've never seen the Jasmine so full. It's almost top heavy for the fence. I can't help but just stare at the colors together, the bright canary yellow of the Jasmine contrasted with it's color compliment purple.

But best of all is the smell of the Jasmine. The scent is so strong that guests must think we have a sweet old Grandmother hidden away somewhere in the garden. It's almost overwhelming, but it's so pleasant you just want to wrap yourself up in it.

What a glorious place to live!

So Amazing!

God is definitely the ultimate time keeper! I am continually amazed at how well His system works. Down here in the South we judge planting time by lots of different methods, but one of the best known and celebrated is the blooming of the Dogwood trees. In Atlanta we have the annual Dogwood Festival to kick off the season.

Today for me was just another nod to the Man Upstairs for letting me see how effective His plan is for planting and harvesting. I have a young Dogwood tree I planted about 5 years ago out in front of the house, and I have been waiting with baited breath for the little guy to blossom this year, because it's just loaded with blossoms.

And behold, last night the buds began to open. Now this in and of itself is very cool, since somehow the tree knew not to blossom even though we just went through an Indian Summer this past February that caused a lot of other plants to bloom and pollinate prematurely.

But what amazed me today was the realization that many of the garden seeds I planted as long as a month ago all popped their heads through the soil today, all on cue, all on the same day the Dogwood blossomed. Very cool!

Geez... Farming is Hard Work!

Hey everyone, just posting an update for the first real planting week. The weather has been soooo incredible. Today I had a hard time concentrating on gardening. But I had to keep focused, otherwise it's real easy to suddenly find yourself late in the season with empty beds.

So my first project today was to get the rest of my potatoes in the new beds we made this winter. The potatoes I planted today were a Yukon Gold variety.

One thing I do that I don't think a lot of people do is soak the seed potatoes in a sulfur/pyrethrin solution before planting. This helps to prevent scab and fungal infections as well as insect damage.

The neat thing about taters is they can grow in beds that aren't done composting, which is the case with all of my beds I will be using for the potatoes. Here you can see the soil is still largely manure and straw combined with compost and sand and lots of char.

I buried the potatoes in a trench about 8 inches deep, and covered them with 4-6 inches of soil. Once the shoots appear and have several leaves, I'll fill in the rest of the ditch. This is called "hilling" and is important to make sure the potatoes don't grow out of the mound.

My next project was to work on the frog pond. I bought a pond liner, built up the sides and put a drain in using a cinder block covered with screen. I planted lilies all around the pond and set water plants in the shallow end. I also put a small log in the water for animals to use for escaping in case they fall in.

I then moved about a ton of rock from the pasture and surrounding woods and lined the top of the pond and the downhill side to prevent erosion. I still have to put the wood chips down, but I got tired by the time I had put down the weed block around the outside. I'll upload a pic when it's done, but I think it looks pretty good already. What do you think?

The lilies are gorgeous. They are a mix of yellows and peaches and orange. I also have turks cap lillies interplanted. These with the yellow Iris of the pond plants should be stunning. Once these are done blooming, the floating water iris will produce small beautiful purple flowers. The frogs owe me...

The last project was easier. I have been pondering how I was going to set up my pea trellises. I came across a website that showed a simple and attractive solution.

I cut branches and small trees to about 7 feet in height, and simply stuck them in the ground in the pea bed. I will have to anchor them with twine and stakes to prevent them from falling over in high winds, which we get a lot through this particular area of the property, but once the peas grow up the trees and branches it is going to be quite lovely.

The thing I like about this solution is the organic look. It looks like we have small fruit trees in the garden while bare, and will look totally natural once the vines cover the branches. It also takes up less room than a traditional trellis.

The bonus is that once they are all used up they can go right into the compost pile.

OK, that's it for now. I'm bushed!

Tater Tots

Photo by Scott Bauer

Tomorrow is potato day. For those of you who haven't grown potatoes at home, you don't know what you're missing. It is so easy, and so much fun to go out an hour or two before dinner and sneak a few new potatoes right out of a hill and roast them with a sprig of fresh Rosemary from the herb garden. Yum!

I grew red potatoes last year, and we had so many we couldn't eat them all. In fact the sprouted seed potatoes in the image below are the remnants of last year's harvest. This year I plan to can whatever I don't sell at the farmers markets.

However, selling at the markets is something I am planning for in regard to my taters. In addition to the red potatoes from last year, I am planting Yukon and Russet potatoes. I plan to sell some of the red and Yukons as early potatoes, and the remainder plus all of the Russets as storage potatoes.

So in order to prepare, I had to cut each seed potato into pieces containing no more than 3 eyes. Ideally each piece only has 1-2 eyes. More than 3 eyes, and your overall harvest apparently is reduced. So it's a little bit of a trick to leave enough of the potato to feed the buds until they sprout and root once they are planted.

It's also important to let the potatoes dry out and form a callous over the cut. This prevents the seed piece from rotting once it's planted. So that's what I did all afternoon yesterday. By the time I was done cutting pieces, I had more than 400 "tots." That's gonna be a lot of taters!

These are the Russets. I got a little ahead of myself in cutting these. I should have waited for them to have sprouted more, but I want to get them planted this week, so I went ahead and prepped them. Most do have sprouts, although they aren't as prolific yet as my red seeds from last year.

When planting potatoes, dig a trench at least 8 inches deep, and cover the seed piece with the best eyes/sprouts facing up. When the green growth is 8 inches tall, or within 3 weeks, cover all but the top few inches of greenery with more soil.

This should leave you a small green potato top above ground level. All your potatoes will grow in between the seed piece and the soil level. Make sure you keep "hilling" or adding dirt, straw, or compost to keep new potatoes from breaking through the surface and being exposed to light.

For new potatoes harvest at least 60 days after planting, or when potatoes are the size you want. For storage potatoes wait 2 weeks after the vines/bush totally die back. Harvest carefully, especially new potatoes, as they will bruise and injure more easily than the storage potatoes that were properly cured before harvest.

Make sure potato beds have lots of organic matter and compost. I am planting mine in my newest beds, which aren't quite ready yet for other crops. That's the nice thing about potatoes, you can grow them in just about anything, including beds that aren't ideal.These beds have a lot of straw and manure, and were built over the winter. My only concern is that some of the beds may compost and create too much heat, so with those I will reduce the mound and add finished soil to the trenches when I plant. I don't want to bake the potatoes before I harvest!