Olla-Podrida: carrot growing

Showing posts with label carrot growing. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Deck Gardening UPDATE

A month and a half ago, I showed you the new beginnings of what I had hoped to be a thriving deck garden, when I planted carrots on Mother’s Day. (You can read that post here.) I thought it was about time that I gave you an update. Naturally, like all gardeners, the hope is that everything planted will grow and thrive like Jack’s beanstalk. That is not often the case.

Carrots

Here, in the Mississippi Valley, we have been weighed down with the most intense heat I can ever remember having this early in the year. We went directly from winter right into the heat of summer. Early May brought us 90° temperatures, and with rare exception, we haven’t left them since. The upcoming week will bring us upper 90s/low 100s.

French Radishes

When you have a deck garden, one of the most important things is keeping your potted plants watered. With this intense heat, that means hand watering nearly two dozen plants (Additional plants are in the covered area, some are on the patio below, and I water those with a sprinkling can from over the side of the deck. I hate to think how that looks to the neighbors, so we won’t even go there), up to three times a day. Essentially, these past six weeks or so, I have made a career out of watering plants.

Zucchini

Thankfully, they are doing quite well. This week, be still my beating heart, I saw the beginnings of a zucchini. Prior to that, every day I would get a male flower (and I know the flowers are edible, but I never got enough at one time to make harvesting them worthwhile), but patience (and fertilizer) paid off, as here you can see a zucchini on the way. I cannot tell you how excited I am about this. I have a recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Cake that looks amazing, and I think that is one of the first recipes I’m going to try. (Note the tone of optimism in my voice…confident that I am going to get more.)

Cucumber and Black-eyed Susan Vine climb the bottle tree.

One of the most exciting things about my garden this year was the inclusion of a bottle tree. I have always wanted to have one of these, so was thrilled to death to be able to finally make this addition. The wine bottles I have been collecting of the course of two years. As you may have guessed, I’m not a big wine drinker. One bottle, made its way to the tree via a neighborhood party. I still need five more, and I had better get them soon because the black-eyed Susan vine that I am training up the tree is really starting to grow. In addition, at the base of the tree, I have a bush cucumber. Despite the fact that it is a “bush” variety, it, too, will climb, so, in my mind’s eye, I am going to have a beautiful, colorful bottle tree, laden with yellow blossoms and fat cucumbers, all thriving amidst a swirl of butterflies. We’ll see how that works out.

I think the birds spotted my tomatoes before I did. I wondered why they were standing along the railing staring at the tomato plant. I just know they’re waiting to punch holes in a couple of the tomatoes and take their leave. At any rate, a couple of them are on the way.

Similarly, a couple of green peppers are also on the way, and the tomatillo plant (that is shockingly spindly) is showing some blossoms as well.

Red and green peppers both grow in one pot.

This slow starter has nearly 50 blossoms! Salsa verde anyone?

While cleaning out a drawer, I found a package of multi-colored string bean seeds that were stamped “2007.” I know that seeds remain viable for quite a long time so I figured, what the heck? And I planted a couple of them. They grew! I have no idea what color string beans I’m going to end up with, but that’s half the fun.

French radishes border the edge of the pot that contains the string beans. The carrots are doing very well, at least the tops are. I have no idea what’s underneath this delicate green foliage. Truthfully, it doesn’t matter, I love the way these look.

Giant Multicolored Zinnias are doing well.

Zinnias, that attract hummingbirds, goldfinches (who love to hang onto flower stems, and pluck out the petals with their beaks in order to reach fat, fresh seeds — and because they’re so cute I let them), as well as butterflies. I planted these from seed, and I’m happy with their progress.

Lemon Grass

Italian Flat-leaf Parsley

Sage

Thai Basil

In addition to all of this, I also have herbs (not enough), and two citrus trees. Despite being laden with fragrant blossoms, neither one of my trees is showing much. I’m told that’s because they need fertilizer. So, having purchased a special citrus variety of fertilizer, I treated them early this week, we’ll just see what happens.

This is my first time ever growing Cosmos. I am happy with their progress.

This is the end of the update. I will check in next month and keep you abreast of the progress. What have you got growing?

This post is linked to:

Happiness is Homemade Sunday

Dishing It & Digging It

Cooking & Crafting with J&J

Inspire Me Tuesday

Reader Tip Tuesday

Tuesdays with a Twist

The Scoop

Dream, Create, Inspire

Wonderful Wednesday

Wine’d Down Wednesday

Thursday Favorite Things
Funtastic Friday
Best of the Weekend
Pink Saturday
Snickerdoodle Create Bake & Create

Grace at Home

Friday at the Fire Station
Create, Bake, Grow and Gather

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Sunday, May 13, 2018

Deck Gardening: CARROTS

I have huge issues with holidays, I think I always have. It goes back to when I was a little girl, and had to be good on holidays. Frankly, I thought I was good all of the time, so the fact that there was a certain day that I had to be extra good was a bit stressful. Being an only child was stressful as well, particularly when my mother told me that I was a difficult baby (I never slept — I still don’t), and that, after me, she decided she had had enough. Yeah, that made me feel great. It also meant that I was the whole show, and had no one else with whom to share the joys…or burdens. Then, as I got older, and my mother expected gifts from me on every holiday, even the less celebrated ones, it became stressful as well, because back in the lean years, I couldn’t afford to buy a gift for someone who could have easily enough afforded to buy anything she wanted. So that was stressful.

Mother’s Day was the absolute worst! Eventually I became a mother myself, but that didn’t mean that I ever got to relax and enjoy the day, no, it just meant that my burden was compounded. I still had to buy a gift for my mother, only as an adult, I also had to provide a home-cooked meal. That meant that from the moment my feet hit the floor on Mother’s Day morning, I not only had two young boys to take care of, but also a house to clean, and a dinner to prepare. It was a nice day for her, but it was always a nightmarish one for me, something she never understood.

My husband Jim was always very sweet to me on Mother’s Day, giving me a lovely card, and generally buying me one of my favorite things, lots of plants for the garden. Now that he’s gone and my mother is gone, my day is mixed with anger and sadness. To compound things, today would have been Jim and my 23rd anniversary. So, today, I am ignoring it as much as I can, and focusing my attention on what I hope will be a successful deck vegetable garden.

Today I am planting carrot seeds. I bought a nice variety of organic carrot seeds in various colors from white, to scarlet, purple, and yes, orange. I think carrots are beautiful when they grow because the lacy tops, swaying in the breeze are so tranquil and pretty. I also love carrots both raw and roasted; a variety of colors is going to make for some beautiful dishes. I have no idea what I’m doing here, I have never grown carrots before, but I’m giving it a whirl using this wonderful Guinness galvanized bucket that son Andrew gave me a couple of years ago. I love this bucket, generally it just hangs out in the garage, and I was thinking today that I really should enjoy it as a part of my garden. So, here goes.

The first thing I did with the bucket was to drill a large drainage hole in the bottom. Then, in order to keep it from getting too heavy, I wadded up a little bit of bubble wrap and put it in the bottom, probably about 2 inches up. Then I filled it with an organic indoor/outdoor soil mixture that contains both a slow release fertilizer, and moisture-grabbing medium.

I intend upon planting these carrot seeds throughout the summer, in order to stagger my harvest. They mature in 60 to 70 days, so they have to be planted early to avoid the winter frost. I love the names of these varieties, as well as the cuteness of the seed packets. I am always sucked in by cuteness. In studying the varieties, today I have chosen to begin with the carrots called Red-Cored Chantenay. According to the information that came with these seeds, these are carrots that have wide shoulders, a tapered root, a blunt rounded tip, fine-grained texture, and a red core. Don’t they sound beautiful? We’ll see.