Showing posts with label squash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label squash. Show all posts

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Update - Yard and Garden - July 15, 2007

Update - July 15, 2007

Vegetable Garden; doing well enough.

Progress of seeds I planted;

-- Corn plants are looking now like corn you see in corn fields.
-- Beans, coming along, not too impressive yet
-- Squash - zucchini doing okay; yellow summer squash doing okay; acorn squash planted late but they started then failed overnight one night (slugs?? or was it because I decided to fertilize and the acorn squash plants were too new to take being fertilized.
-- Cucumbers - well, there are plants, but it's not too impressive yet.
-- Beets have popped up and are shaping out nicely. Note; beets seem to do well here.
-- Radishes planted and harvested already, much less nibbling by critters this year.
-- Elephant Garlic is doing quite well but can't tell till I harvest the bulbs.
-- Garlic (normal size) seem to be doing okay, can't see any flowering though. The transplants at the back of the house failed.
-- Pumpkins - only one or two, the rest failed.
-- Green, Red, Jalapeno peppers - failed
-- Dill - failed
-- Carrots - two plants growing - the rest I accidentally stepped on when they were newly coming up and they were damaged, okay ruined.



Progress of transplants from garden center;

-- bib and red lettuce - okay and growing well. Note; red lettuce adds color to the green garden. Use again!
-- spinach - failed.
-- tomato plants - doing well, one plant has tomato forming.
-- pepper plants - seemd to be doing okay.
-- cucumber plants - hard to tell, still so compact and small.
-- pumpkin plant - slow but growing.
-- onions - doing okay. Separated each bulb and planted 2 batch crops in garden.


Newly planted vegetable bed by front door;

After Sweetie recreated the entrance area at the front door in front yard, he created a new bed for planting. This year I wanted to use it for more vegetables. Since it is strictly clay, I needed to amend it with compost and top soil, before planting anything. It is too late in the season to plant seeds, so I picked up some vegetable plants at the garden center at our one and only department store in the region -- Dennis Company. I'm grateful they carry vegetables, herbs, flowers favorable to our climate and area. It makes for a somewhat limited line to choose from, and it's about 75/25 that what I buy will do well in my yard.



-- Squash - flying wheels squash (looks interesting on the label!) - 1 plant.
-- Squash - hubbard squash - 2 plants.
-- Squash - acorn squash - 2 plants.
-- Peppers - varieties - jalapeno - 2 plants, pimento - 2 plants, green - 2 plants

When Sweetie began this project he finished up another project at the other corner of front yard, bricking in and squaring off that corner. I had started last year to create a tiered flower garden effect to replace the brick step tiers he took out. We discovered in our digging that PO had apparantly tried to create about 4 steps, using bricks, from the garage up to the front yard. Over the years, it got buried, so we found a treasure of bricks and attempted to make it workable. It wasn't too workable, which is probably why it got overgrown in the first place.

He took the bricks to use elsewhere, and that left the tiered effect, which I was prepared to design into a tiered flower garden. I started with some plants late last growing season, and they hadn't much chance of setting up in their new places, so when he decided to change the corner, the plants were amenable to being transplanted.

I'm not real sure now what those plants are by name, so I'll have to backtrack and see what I blogged last year. One is hellebos, and three others to be identified.
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Thursday, June 21, 2007

Three Sisters; Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden


link; Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden


"Most of the tribes in the eastern area of what is now the United
States practiced agriculture. It is well known that maize, potatoes,
pumpkins, squashes, beans, sweet potatoes, cotton, tobacco, and other
familiar plants were cultivated by Indians centuries before Columbus. Early
white settlers learned the value of the new food plants, but have left us
meager accounts of the native methods of tillage; and the Indians, driven
from the fields of their fathers, became roving hunters; or adopting iron
tools, forgot their primitive implements and methods."

The University of Minnesota
Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden
As Recounted by Maxi'diwiac (Buffalo Bird Woman) (ca.1839-1932) of the
Hidatsa Indian Tribe

Originally published as
Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians: An Indian Interpretation
by Gilbert Livingstone Wilson, Ph.D.
(1868-1930)

See the very detailed and clickable contents at

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/buffalo/garden/garden.html

(hat tip to yahoo group; Old Ways Living)





I absolutely did Not know this - but I do now. I have often heard of The Three Sisters, without full recognition of the relationship. I will be planting my corn, beans and squash in a quite different pattern this year. In fact, I think I will plant it in that sunny space behind the house and actually name it My Three Sisters Garden. I came across this in my morning reads - attributed to a post at one of my listserv groups by Sweet Spring Farm.



*The Three Sisters*

The "three sisters" of New Mexican agriculture, corn, beans, and squash,
were hundreds of years ahead of their time. This system serves as the basis
for inter-cropping systems currently being used around the world as tools to
increase agricultural productivity in areas facing food shortages. Why is
this such a successful system?

Simply stated, each of the three sisters serves an important role. To
understand the system, one should first consider the three plants
seperately. Growing corn in rows is a good idea but wastes valuable planting
space. Beans require some sort of support system and must be staked up to
grow. Finally, both squash and corn require additional nitrogen in the soil
to produce adequately in New Mexico's typically sandy soils, which are also
prone to losing valuable moisture due to evaporation.

As corn reaches for the sun, beans may grow up the strong stalks and the
necessity of building a support system or frame is reduced. One must plant
corn some distance apart, leaving the ground bare; however, planting squash
between the rows of corn reduces soil moisture loss as the squash foliage
acts as a natural mulch, reducing soil temperatures and helping to "hold"
moisture in the soil where it may be used by the plants and not lost to the
atmosphere. Finally, beans have the unique capability of being able to "fix"
atmospheric nitrogen, pulling it from the air and improving soil nitrogen
status; essentially, "fertilizing" the other two sisters.

Contributed by Dr. Dann Brown, Professor of Botany, Eastern New Mexico
University

http://ddl.nmsu.edu/kids/webquests/3sisresources.html
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Hydrangea

Hydrangea

Dahlia

Dahlia

spring color bowl

spring color bowl

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