Before and After

It must look as if I abandoned the blog, but I only went on vacation.  Several days away made a real difference in the garden, though, and I really appreciate my mother-in-law having kept it well-watered in my absence.  Heh.  “Well-watered.”  Because it’s well water.  I crack myself up.

Before pictures, taken on June 21:

Sweet pea.

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Baby cucumber.

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Carrots finally began to sprout!

 

After pictures, taken on June 27:

True leaves beginning to show on the cucumber sprouts.

The square where these cucumbers live actually sprouted both sets of seeds.  The other double-planted square of cucumbers has only sprouted one set of seeds, though, so I don’t even know.

Sweet pea, a little bigger.

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Radish symmetry, French breakfast style.

Curiously, the French breakfast radish in each corner failed to sprout.  I find the symmetry oddly amusing.

It’s starting to look garden-like!

I’m really pleased with how well things are turning out.  We should be able to begin to harvest lettuce and radishes in another couple of weeks.  My son and I split the very first produce, though, when I thinned out a few extra beet sprouts, and they were delightfully sour-green tasting, full of the promise of the eventual sweet roots.

 

 

June 17-23, 2012 Weather Report

Blog note: Apologies, I set this to auto-post, then went on vacation, forgetting to update the weather report while I was away.  I will fill this in properly when I get a bit of time.

 

Sunday, June 17, 2012

• High: 87°F
• Low: 43°F
• Wind: 31mph, gusts to 44mph (12:00pm); 32mph, gusts to 43mph (5:00pm)
• Wind chill: n/a (12:00pm); n/a (5:00pm)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: 7% (12:00pm); 9% (5:00pm)
• Overall: Fair and Windy (12:00pm); Fair and Windy (5:00pm)
• Lunar phase: Waning crescent (2% of full)

Watered: 15 min. total

Monday, June 18, 2012

• High: 87°F
• Low: 54°F
• Wind: 21mph, gusts to 30mph (12:00pm); 21mph, gusts to 29mph (5:00pm)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: 9% (12:00pm); 8% (5:00pm)
• Overall: Fair and Breezy (12:00pm); Fair and Breezy (5:00pm)

Watered: 12 min.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

• High: °F
• Low: °F
• Wind: mph (whole day average)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: % (whole day average)
• Overall:

Watered:

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

• High: °F
• Low: °F
• Wind: mph(whole day average)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: % (whole day average)
• Overall:  Clear (whole day average)

Watered:

Thursday, June 21, 2012

• High: °F
• Low: °F
• Wind: mph (whole day average)
• Wind chill: n/a (12:00pm); n/a (5:00pm)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: % (whole day average)
• Overall:    (whole day average)

Watered:

Friday, June 22, 2012

• High: °F
• Low: °F
• Wind: mph, gusts to mph (12:00pm);  (5:00pm)
• Wind chill: n/a (12:00pm); n/a (5:00pm)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: % (12:00pm); % (5:00pm)
• Overall:  (12:00pm);  (5:00pm)

Watered:

Saturday, June 23, 2012

• High: °F
• Low: °F
• Wind: mph (12:00pm); mph (5:00pm)
• Wind chill: n/a (12:00pm); n/a (5:00pm)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: % (12:00pm); % (5:00pm)
• Overall:  (12:00pm); (5:00pm)

Watered:

Another Visitor and Some Refreshments

Content note: This post contains images of an insect, specifically a butterfly.

It’s amazing the diversity that shows up in the yard, much of it coming to take advantage of our bumper crop of dandelions, though we do offer a few other treats for the weary insect traveler.  Once I can identify the various blooming plants around here, I’ll be looking into whether they’re native plants, harmless imports, or noxious/invasive species.  Anything in that last category will have to go (and a job of work it will be, over a whole acre), but I’ll be looking to replace it with something native that fills the same niche.

Yesterday’s flashiest visitor was this swallowtail butterfly.  I think it’s a Pale Tiger Swallowtail, due to the almost-white yellow patches, and the extra orange on the hindwings.  If there were less orange, I could see it being the much more common Western Tiger Swallowtail, but the spot pattern suggests that it is the less common variety.  Which is kind of exciting, really, to get an uncommon species right here in the yard.

Stopping for a snack.

Check out my 4 inch wingspan!

Woah, it’s a little windy out here. Almost fell off!

Beauty in motion.

Some of the tasty flowers in the yard.  I have no idea which qualify as wildflowers, and which qualify as weeds.

Blue trumpets, about three inches high.

 

Orange blossom ground cover.

Orange blossom closeup.

Pointy. Yellow. Wildflower or weed?

June 10 – June 16, 2012 Weather Report

Sunday, June 10, 2012

• High: 64°F
• Low: 39°F
• Wind: 18mph, gusts to 32mph (12:00pm); 30mph, gusts to 41mph (5:00pm)
• Wind chill: n/a (12:00pm); n/a (5:00pm)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: 13% (12:00pm); 12% (5:00pm)
• Overall: Fair (12:00pm); Fair and Windy (5:00pm)
• Lunar phase: Waning gibbous (55% of full)

Planted:

• 1-2: Lettuce. Rouge d’Hiver.
• 1-4: Lettuce. Forellenschluss.
• 1-6: Lettuce. Salad Bowl.
• 1-8: Lettuce. Mesclun mix.
• 2-2 to 2-4: Pea. Sugar Snap.
• 2-5 to 2-6: Cucumber.
• 2-8: Spinach.
• 4-1: Radish. German Giant.
• 4-2: Radish. French Breakfast.
• 4-3 to 4-4: Carrot.
• 4-5 to 4-6: Beet.
• 4-7 to 4-8: Turnip.

Watered: 10 min.

Monday, June 11, 2012

• High: 71°F
• Low: 32°F
• Wind: 9.6mph (whole-day average)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: 38% (whole day average)
• Overall: Hazy (smoke from High Park fire in Colorado)

Watered: 10 min.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

• High: 74°F
• Low: 39°F
• Wind: 13.8mph (whole day average)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: 33% (whole day average)
• Overall:  Hazy (smoke from High Park fire in Colorado)

Watered: 10 min.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

• High: 85°F
• Low: 39°F
• Wind: 12.9mph(whole day average)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: 27% (whole day average)
• Overall:  Clear (whole day average)

Watered: 10 min.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

• High: 78°F
• Low: 45°F
• Wind: 7.3mph (whole day average)
• Wind chill: n/a (12:00pm); n/a (5:00pm)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: 37% (whole day average)
• Overall:   Clear (whole day average)

Watered: 10 min.

Friday, June 15, 2012

• High: 79°F
• Low: 50°F
• Wind: 5mph, gusts to 18mph (12:00pm); calm (5:00pm)
• Wind chill: n/a (12:00pm); n/a (5:00pm)
• Precipitation: 0.16 inches
• Humidity: 22% (12:00pm); 37% (5:00pm)
• Overall: Fair (12:00pm); Fair (5:00pm)

Watered: 8 min.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

• High: 77°F
• Low: 45°F
• Wind: 9mph SE (12:00pm); 7mph NE (5:00pm)
• Wind chill: n/a (12:00pm); n/a (5:00pm)
• Precipitation: none
• Humidity: 45% (12:00pm); 29% (5:00pm)
• Overall: Fair (12:00pm); Fair (5:00pm)

Planted:

• 3-3: Carrot.
• 3-4: Carrot.

Watered: 15 minutes total

Visitors

Content note: This post contains pictures of insects, including beetles, a bee/wasp, and a butterfly.  Also, kittens.

There have been a lot of different visitors to my garden and nearby resources.  I’ve seen a couple of different bumblebees and what I think was a cabbage white butterfly, but they declined my request for a photo.

I’ve picked a few of these coppery beetles out of my garden, and I think they’re a variety of June beetle, which I grew up calling “June bugs” as they clustered on the window screens on hot summer nights as they tried to get at the lights inside, buzzing loudly as they flew.

June beetle?

I’m not sure what sort of beetles these are:

Tiny beetle is tiny.

Dandelions are tasty.

I’m not sure whether this creature is a kind of wasp, a kind of bee, or a kind of fly.  The narrow wings make me think its a wasp/hornet, but it was not aggressive, so I snapped a shot.

Hornet? Bee? Fly?

This butterfly appears to be some variety of Checkerspot, but I’ve had little luck figuring out which variety in specific.  Feel free to suggest possibilities in the comments!

Some sort of Checkerspot, I presume?

I’m pretty sure this is a deerfly.  It might also have been a Harrier jump jet, considering its sillhouette.

Maybe a deerfly? It looked bitey.

There are some feral cats in the neighborhood, and it’s kitten season.  The trick is catching them before they turn into buzz saws, and finding them homes.  Unfortunately, “buzz saw” usually arrives two or three weeks before “weaned” shows up, and they’re often already tiny fuzzy balls of bitey scratchy pain before we ever see them, but we have managed to catch several over the years to find homes for them where they are neutered or spayed, which helps keep the population down.  I wish there was a Trap-Neuter-Release program nearby, so I could get as many of the adult cats spayed or neutered and some basic vaccinations, so there would be fewer kittens and less fighting, but I have not been able to find one.  We don’t mind the colony much, since we’re kind of rural, and they keep the mice out of the house, but it’s less than ideal for the cats to spend all summer fighting and breeding and then all winter trying to survive long enough to do it all over again.

Still, there’s a lot about kittens to recommend them…

Ginger tabby kitten is contemplative.

Caliby kitten is brave and adventurous.

More Sprouts

There are a few more sprouts tonight.  A second cucumber (the first really was a cucumber), a third spinach, a couple more radishes and half a dozen more beets have come up.  The beets will need to be thinned a bit, since it appears I dropped two or three seeds into a couple of holes, but it’s still not the tedious task that is row planting or scatter planting.

I’m a cucumber!

I also found my first lettuce sprout this evening, one of the Forellenschluss.

Baby lettuce!

The $300 turnip did not make it.  [Moment of silence.]  But a second turnip has sprouted, so there is yet hope for tasty homegrown turnips!

$300 Turnip Two: Electric Boogaloo.

 

Starting to Look Like a Party

Today brought a few more sprouts!  Two more radishes (one of the German Giant variety, to go with all the French Breakfast sprouts), a second spinach, three more beets, and I’m pretty sure a cucumber all arrived since last night.  I wasn’t able to get a great picture of the cuke, so hopefully it will be unfolded tomorrow, and I can confirm it was actually a sprout, and not some random bit of detritus posing as a sprout.

Beets!

 

Radish. Radish. Radish. Radish.  (French Breakfast)

 

Radish. (German Giant)

 

Spinach. Spinach.

And the poor bedraggled $300 turnip is still there, still bedraggled, and I still don’t know if it will recover from being snacked on.

Turnip? Or my first contribution to compost?

 

New Arrivals

It seems that the radishes weren’t the only ones to get a little competitive once the newcomers were in the ground. After watering tonight, I noticed a brand new beet seedling and a shy spinach seedling peeking out.

I’m a beet!

I’m a spinach!

Sadly, it appears that someone munched the $300 turnip.  I don’t know whether the poor wee thing will recover or not, but there are plenty more turnip seeds to be had.  I think I was a bit too close when I snapped this:

Sad turnip is sad.

Lazy Radishes

Readers, the radishes were supposed to sprout in 4-6 days.  I gave them 14, then planted new sections yesterday.  Guess what I found this evening, when I went to water.  Three French Breakfast radish sprouts in the first section!  Two are barely breaking through the soil, so I have marked each with a yellow star to make them easier to find.

Fashionably late.

The $300 turnip is still doing well, too.

Five days old.

Second Planting

Two weeks after first planting, and I still only have the single turnip sprout, so I’ve done my second round of planting today.  As it turns out, the radishes should have come up in 4-6 days, so they’re definitely overdue!

I planted the second square of each type of lettuce, replanted all three squares of peas and replanted two of the three squares of cucumbers (then ran out of cucumber seeds, so the third cucumber square will become something else, maybe spinach, or maybe some more beets, which are like candy you can put in stew).  Then I planted the fourth row in the same pattern as the third row.  I could have just replanted everything where I started it, but I figure this way will let any sleepy seeds that are still thinking about sprouting have a chance to do so.

The new grid:

Second verse, not quite the same.