June Blooms

HipHops

We're into our second year with the hops grow and we're excited to bear witness to the formation of our first flowers and cones!  Our 'Cascade' vines were the first to get going this year.  They have a prime spot in the front flower bed and they climb up our tall porch posts.

Cascade hops

After last year's derecho-pocalypse storm, we lost many of the 'Nugget' babies that we planned to plant in the new trellised hops bed.  Not to worry though, these plants are just begging to propagate themselves, so I overwintered several cuttings indoors and planted them out this spring.

Nugget hops

We also planted two new varieties from rhizomes this year -- 'Magnum' and 'Perle'.  We're hoping to do a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone for a forthcoming brew and these are critical ingredients.

I have a serious plant crush on these hops vines.  They're beautiful in every way!

See?  Told ya so.

Grand Canyon Garden

Earlier this spring, I had the supreme pleasure of joining my parents and a good friend on an epic journey to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (and back to the top!) on foot.  There are no words suitable enough to describe the beauty contained within those canyon walls.  A trip to the rim, although amazing in and of itself, just does not afford you access to all the secrets that this amazing place has to share.  What got me the most though, as you might imagine, was the plant life.  April seems to the best time for catching the canyon in bloom.  Do yourself a favor and GO THERE!

"April is the Cruelest Month"

....so says T.S. Eliot... and so says me.  This month has always given me the heebie jeebies.  For a few years, it seemed like all bad things tended to happen during this tumultuous time.  Thankfully, life has calmed down recently but I always seem to be bracing myself when April comes around.  Always expecting the worst.

The worst that has happened this year is that winter has pretty much failed to turn to Spring.  Hey - if this is as bad as it gets, I'll take it a million times over.  As I type this though, it is snowing outside.  SNOWING.  Again.  Heavily.  Not what I had planned for April in Virginia.  The cold weather crops will just have to patiently wait in the greenhouse for now.

What can one do in such dire circumstances you ask??

Drink homebrew, of course!

Thankfully it turned out drinkable!  Round two of beer brewing will commence soon.  This time we'll try the Shining Star Pale Ale from Northern Brewer.  After this next batch, I'm on the hunt for a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone.  

Vernal Snowquinox

Snow on daffodils?

Really, spring?

Sweet Slip Success

I've been growing sweet potatoes for just a few years now and have enjoyed them immensely.  This past year provided a solid stash of taters that we're still eating from just a week shy of the Spring Equinox.  It has been incredibly satisfying.  They have stored very well this time around.  Thankfully, our basement is not heated and hovers around 50F all winter.  Apparently, this is the perfect temperature.  I don't have any rotting or wilting sweet spuds to speak of. 

I was very careful when digging them this year.  Not many injuries to the skins and I held off on removing any dirt.  I stored them in large bins in single layers separated by newspaper.  We still have several layers to work through.  For the first time, several of the stored sweet potatoes put out sprouts.  I've tried, for several years to grow my own 'slips' from the previous years' harvest and have failed miserably.  I tried the kindergarden style toothpick method in a glass of water.  Also, the planting of the potato in the sand.  I've also tried just putting them in regular potting soil.  I was met with rot every single time.  This year, things were looking good since we had sprouts.  I tried the kindergarden method again but without the toothpicks, and it worked like a charm.  Mind you, it took several weeks in a warm greenhouse to get that sucker growing, but it did.

The stem grew long enough that I was able to take two cuttings and left a few inches on the sweet potato so that it could grow out some more.  The cuttings are rooting in a glass of water now.  I will plant those once they root and allow them to grow out a bit.  Once I have a full plant (closer to our June planting time), I will take cuttings again and allow them to root.  These will be the 'slips' that I plant out into our garden.

I'm very excited and our local garden center probably will be too.  I'm THAT customer that calls them almost daily in late spring to find out if/when their slip shipment will arrive.  They're a HOT item in our area and they move quickly, so it's easy to miss out.  Many online sources for slips are just insanely expensive so I was determined to make this happen on my own.

I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch, but things are looking good for another excellent sweet tater year!

Sweet potato sprout (post-cuttings)

Spring Forward....

This past Sunday, we entered into DAYLIGHT SAVING time (please note the lack of the 's' at the end of saving - it's one of my weird pet peeves!  There is no 'S', people!).  Anyhow, sorry....yes....Daylight Saving time.  Hoorah!  Anyone who likes to do things outside knows how great this moment is.  No more racing home after work to catch the last seconds of daylight.  We've got a little buffer now.  Last I checked, the globe of fire was still casting beams at 7ish!  Yes!

As if we found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, our first day of Daylight Saving was coupled with amazing weather.  Highs in the 60's and blue skies.  Oh me oh my.  I was able to get out and get my hands dirty in the garden for the first time this year.  Butterfly bushes and grasses got haircuts, the overwintered and neglected spinach got a clean-up and a reapplication of row cover, weeds were pulled (weeds!  even in winter!) and volunteer garlic and onions were neatly rearranged.  Also, (and I will pay for this later) I removed the dead tomato skeletons that I was too lazy to take down in the fall.  Serious fail.  I'm sure the tomato area is now a harbor for disease - namely blight.  You see, my vines were all twist tied to the cattle panel - which, by the way, worked GREAT - and it seemed to be an insurmountable task in the fall when I was busy traveling overseas for work and prepping for presentations at national meetings, etc...  Then the holidays hit and then it snowed and then....here we are.

But regardless, a beautiful First Day of Gardening was had, and it was finished with a Mike's Lemonade.  The traditional post-work beverage of choice for the warmer months.  Scandalously sweet but quite refreshing after a long, dirty day.  Yes!

In other news, all of the chickens are dead.  The perpetrator has been located.  Owner has said he would tie up said perp and the news on the street is that he has most certainly NOT made an attempt to do so.   The saga continues.  We miss the chickens very much.  On the last and final murderous day, one of the ladies had left us a final gift...an egg...after several months of no eggs...quite frustrating.  To add insult to murder, the egg was crushed in the attack.  One final blow.  We will rebuild, but we need to get this situation under control first.

And so, I leave you for now with some things that are happening in the warmth of a greenhouse....