Mog Cottage Urban Farm

Carrots Have A Circadian Clock?

2012-02-03T11:38:00.000-08:00

Wow, another thing to keep track of and stash in our gardening repertoire. In the Feb/March addition of Organic Gardening magazine, Michele Owens writes an interesting article on the internal clocks of veg. The premise is if our turnips or radishes aren't mature before they bolt it could be because they weren't planted at the right time of the year and consequently, the length of light they need at certain growth stages is off kilter. According to biologist Takato Imaizumi of the University of Washington who is interviewed in this article, a plant's cells have an internal clock that rhythmically produces proteins that degrade and activate genes again in 24 hours. So, what I gather is that carrots and peas have regular internal sleep/wake cycles. If planted at the wrong time, they get jet lagged.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking in between fits of laughter- "What?!" Yep, your crop failures may not be from planting seeds before the soil temperature is warm enough for germination and the seeds rot.Your bolting lettuce may have hypertension issues from too much sun light, not too much heat. This theory may have some merit though. Imaizumi divides veg into 3 different categories: long-day flowering plants, short-day flowering plants, and day-neutral plants.

Long-day plants include carrot, cilantro, lettuce, peas, radish, spinach and turnip just to list a few. In other words, these veges need longer periods of light to flower. If you live in an area that often has cold springs, like the Pacific NW, long day veg planted in the spring languish until the weather gets warmer. Warmer soil also happens to coincide with more light. Many of these root crops are biennials that need a prolonged cold snap that triggers flowering in summer the following year. This mechanism is supposed to keep them from flowering the first summer, long enough to grow a good edible bit to harvest. Our prolonged cold spring may fool them and thus, when the days get long, they bolt. The plant germinates then shoots for the flowering stage because its internal clock says that's what it's supposed to do.The result is you get underdeveloped plants that flower before they're ready to harvest. The cure? Plant the seeds after the solstice for a fall crop. They develop well because they wouldn't flower until the following summer.

You may be surprised, but tomatoes can get too much light. They're short-day flowering plants. Ever notice that many of your tomato plants finally flower in the late summer to fall when the temperature starts to drop down too much to ripen the fruit? Indeterminate tomatoes just grow and grow and grow foliage until they bust out of their supports, then flower away in mid to late August. The sunlight promotes the vegetation, but the length of light promotes the flowering. This revelation may be why we need a greenhouse to really grow good tomatoes. They need the warmth, but not the light for the fruit to mature. In fact, many of the short-day crops grow better in warmer climates such as, pineapple, black-eyed peas, okra, pomegranate, sweet potato and as mentioned, tomato. Night and day are more evenly distributed all year compared to us, but the temperature doesn't drop to low to croak them before harvest time. Blueberries, June-bearing strawberries, common beans, cucumbers and raspberries grow here, but are either hardier or are at the mercy of our climatic swings.

Day neutral plants include alpine and everbearing strawberries, apple, many of the brassica crops, peach, pear, rhubarb and some cultivars of beans, cucumbers and corn, to name a few. These plants either like it hot or cooler.

Some crops are even sensitive to where they originated latitude-wise, depending on the variety. They evolved to survive at a certain latitude and therefore, light level. Although obviously not a veg, if you think about it, chickens require 16 hours of light a day to lay eggs, thus the seasonality of there egg laying cycle. Where do chickens come from (and don't say "eggs," duh)? Certain areas of the tropics, close to the equator where days are long enough to produce the 16 hour days without the big seasonal light/dark swings that we experience in the Northwest. I know of one backyard chicken aficionado who turns on the flood lights in his hen house until 2am during the winter months so he gets year-around eggs.

Unfortunately, if your long-day plants experience SAD, supplementing their fertilizer with melatonin won't work. However, the taxonomists are developing varieties that tweak that internal clock so we gardeners can grow things that otherwise would be difficult. Not only are our day lengths a consideration, Western Washingtonians experience prolonged cloud cover that can feel oppressive. That's another dimension to consider. Choosing varieties that are not only climate conditioned to ours, but also come from a similar latitude will help to ensure a successful crop.

Unfortunately, this bit of information is just one more thing to keep track of in the art of veg gardening. I could wallpaper my house with all of the charts I'm supposed to keep track of when, what, where and how to plant my veg. In this case, I think I'll start with the Solstice thing and see how it works out.

If you do too, let me know how it works out for you.

Spring Cleaning

2012-02-01T15:39:00.000-08:00

transplanted leeks

Now that the worst of winter has past - one can only hope - it's time to take advantage of the sunshine and get out there to start cleaning out those beds! It's best to do it now for several reasons. First, you won't feel so overwhelmed when all of the chores hit you at once when official planting season begins. Second, you can assess what you have left to harvest and harvest it while jogging your memory of what worked and didn't work. Third, the ground is wet which makes it easier to pull out weeds. Finally, you can take inventory of your seed stash and see what you have and order the cool stuff before it's out of stock. This is the perfect time to get reacquainted with your garden.

Filderkraut cabbage - in at 8.8 lbs

I've spent the last two days bending over and yanking out tons of grass, shot-weed and old vegies out of the blueberry mound in the parking strip and in the raised beds. I harvested another giant Filderkraut cabbage. This baby weighs in at 8.8 pounds of spicy, cabbagey goodness. I'll make a soup then probably try my hands at sauerkraut, which is what this variety is traditionally used for.

Today, I planted French shallots and potato onions. I know, I know, I'm a little late as they should have gone in last fall, so I'll have to see how they do. Since I let some of my leeks go to seed, I now have leeklets coming up. I transplanted those in the same bed with the purple sprouting broccoli. Yep, that's what I said. My purple sprouting broccoli is back! It's shooting up new foliage from the same root systems and old stalks from 2 seasons ago, acting like a perennial. It has survived 6 inches of snow, ice, and below freezing temperatures this year. That stuff is tough! I got a lot of bang for the buck with that one.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli is back!

For soil replenishment I'll need to get some compost, corn gluten and mulch. The onions like a layer of mulch and I also want to tamp down the weeds. Corn gluten helps keep the weeds from germinating and adds nitrogen. It's also screaming yellow-orange, so best to mix it into the top layer of soil. I would like to get a load of arborist chips to put down on the parking strip where the blueberries are, but minimum deliveries for the free stuff off of Craig's List is from 6 all the way up to 15 yards! Although I would also use it around the raised bed's pathways, that's a lot of yardage. I would have Mt. Wood Chip in the driveway for awhile. I suppose I could let the neighbors have at it as a sort of mulchapalooza. Hmmmm. This might be the trick to getting Roland to get rid of those dead vehicles in the driveway. He works better with a deadline. I think I'll get on Craig's List and see about getting a load delivered next week.

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Mog Cottage Cafe

2011-11-06T12:45:00.000-08:00

The last of the tomatoes this year

In my estimation, the worse thing about planting tomatoes in the beginning of the season is cleaning them out of the beds at the end of the season. After trying to squeeze the last bit of redness out of this year's crop (as any good gardener in this area would do) the first frost last night prompted me to finally cave and I spent the morning cutting out vines and pulling up stakes. The clamps that were holding the stems up on the stakes were maxed out and difficult to remove. I saved all of the tomatoes worth keeping, red and green, and piled them in a large bucket. Not surprisingly, this load was probably my largest crop. Anyone who's tried to grow tomatoes in this region knows what I'm talking about. The carnage left behind looks rather disheartening though; many of the cherries and red zebras had ripened but split due to all the recent rain. There they lay all over the ground and the bed. Now I'll have to clean them up or I'll have rogue plants coming up next spring. In the mean time, squish, squish, squish getting around the beds.

Purple sprouting broccoli - it's baaaack.

The tomatoes that did the best this year were the red zebras, romas and cherries. The giant yellow brandywine suffered blossom end rot and languished, like giant tepid yellow blobs on the vines. Other self-planted crops came up among the masses including fennel, celery and surprise, surprise, purple sprouting broccoli. In fact it's doing rather well. I was planning to sow in garlic and onion in this bed, but now I have a personal bet as to how long I can keep this broccoli going. Two plants have survived and re-sprouted. The stupid stuff just won't die! I envision purple sprouting broccoli with trunks the size of sequoias in a few years. I guess this is the official brassica bed, crop rotation be damned!

I have several good recipes for fried green tomatoes and it's a darn good thing we both like them. I'm going to Google search for more recipes to use. I'm sure there are plenty and I'm sure a lot of them will be from the Pacific Northwest. If you have any green tomato recipes you'd like to share, pass them along...please!!!

The Halloween Hangover

2011-11-02T10:19:00.000-07:00


Blueberry bed turned graveyard.

Halloween at Mog Cottage is always exciting. We decked the place out, converting our planting beds into makeshift graves with all the Styrofoam molded headstones, bones and ghouls we could manage to scrounge up at the Dollar Store and the Used Food Store (What Roland calls the Grocery Outlet). During Halloween night, we place lighted candles under each head stone and up the front steps to light the way.

Enough trick-or-treaters flooded our doorway to scarf up most of the candy, but not before we managed to OD on the stuff ourselves. Although Roland and I are pretty fussy about our chosen sugar delivery systems, the problem is we buy what we like and a lot of it, in anticipation of the costumed hoards of rug rats. On top of that, we buy it well in advance of the day it goes out the door because we want to make sure that what we want will be on the store shelves. When it comes to certain candy, neither of us has a bit of will power. Deep down, we probably don't care. It's only once a year, right?

So, Roland and I scarf on sugar for a good week prior to Halloween,spend another week finishing off the leftovers, then another few days in withdrawal. Even our dog joins in, sneaking tootsie pops out of the bowl when we're not looking. We find sticky, artificially flavored corn syrup balls behind the sofa cushions among the stashed chewies. Yesterday, Roland discovered one of the confectioners thoroughly stuck to the side of our cat, Vinnie. He's now missing a sizable clump of fur trying to dislodge the thing.

Now, I could attribute the theory that these fall/winter holidays are timed right to a candy industry conspiracy when carbohydrate cravings in many of us escalate. These companies know that seasonal darkness and it's ensuing depressive state drives people to pump up the dopamine levels among their grey cells. What easier way to do that than with a culturally accepted legal drug of choice: sugar. So the Halloween holiday often becomes fast, cheap and out of control. In fact, I consider Halloween a kick-off to the confectioners binge that continues until after Easter. People don't need candy much after that because the sun is back and people see the light. The next food binge after October 31st, of course, is Turkey Day. At least we have 3 weeks to come down from this holiday before the food fest.

Front porch - pretty scary

In the meantime, it may take that long to take down all the decorations. Hmmmm. The hanging artificial spider webbing strung across the front porch rather suites the place, don't you think?

17 Pounds of Potatoes in a 50 Gallon Tub

2011-10-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

This year I planted the potatoes a little differently than I did last year. They went into the claw foot tub as usual, but instead of just poking them down a few inches I dug out 2/3rd's of the soil and then planted the potatoes. I stored the excess soil in garbage cans to use later. When the potatoes sprouted their foliage several leaf layers above the soil, I added more soil up to just below the top leaves. When they grew more, I added more soil until they reached the top of the tub. I would then usually mulch with straw, but the foliage was so dense I couldn't adequately add it, so skipped that part this year. When the foliage died back I harvested.

I got quite a few potatoes this year, more red than whites. The main problem I'm facing when harvesting is damaging the potatoes with my shovel. Some of them got sliced in the process. When I use a fork, they got skewered. I attribute this problem to having to dig in close quarters. Of course, I also had some escapees in the process (pictured above). However, I received some great advice from a gardening cohort on how to grow potatoes when you don't have huge amounts of plantable area in the ground. Garbage cans. What a great solution; potatoes grown in a vertical garden!

Next year I'm procuring a classic style garbage can for each variety of potato I plan to plant. I'm using galvanized cans, not those flimsy plastic things made out of petroleum products. Some folk use old tires. Although it is seemingly a good way to re-purpose some of the zillions of old tires that pollute our environment, the thought of planting something I'm going to eat in a petroleum product that God knows has what nasty chemicals leaking out, doesn't sound that organically appealing.

To plant the cans, it's important to have good drainage. I'll be drilling 3-4 drain holes in the bottom of each can and then elevating them on some bricks. I'll start with a foot of soil on the bottom of each can and then plant the potatoes. As with the tubs, I'll add soil as the potatoes grow taller. You'll need to fill a couple of extra cans with soil to use later or have a tarp covered pile stashed somewhere. When the potatoes are ready to harvest, I'll simply push the cans over to spill onto tarps and pick out the potatoes. Skewering and slicing problem solved. Just you and a friend pick up the soil with the tarp and pore it back into storage.

I'm not using potting soil (way too expensive) but an organic planting mix with plenty of compost to keep it fluffy and to add nutrients. A good organic phosphorus based fertilizer mixed in such as, fish bone meal will help increase the yield.

One last tidbit of advice: urban gardeners, keep your cans well away from the sidewalk so dogs don't get tempted and pedestrians don't toss things into them you wouldn't want to eat. Even with the lids off, one never knows, as the cans will be fairly empty looking for awhile.

Come next spring's planting season, I'll let you know how this technique is working.

Garden Coaching: The Hybridization of Filers and Pilers

2011-10-22T09:04:00.000-07:00

Since I've gotten into the horticulture game, I've been made aware of a fairly recent phenomenon; garden coaching. Now, the imagery that comes to mind are pot-bellied plant geeks with clip boards hovering over the gardener yelling encouragement over how to plant zinnias. Cheerleaders with giant dahlia-like pom-poms are doing their cheerleader thing on the sidelines. In reality, garden coaches are rather an outdoor version of indoor organization coaches; helping gardeners clear the clutter of their beds and come up with creative ways to use what they've got to work with. People pay big bucks for the advice.

Last year I wrote about the difference between filers and pilers in the garden world (http://mogcottageurbanfarm.blogspot.com/2010/07/crop-rotation-according-to-filers.html). I think a major amount of a garden coach's clientele are pilers. Filers may hire a coach as a desire to balance their lives with some piling attributes such as, lightening up about gardening. Pilers want to incorporate filer attributes such as, incorporating some order into a hodgepodge called a mixed border. The concept of mixed borders must have been invented by pilers.

Pilers often can't make up their minds because they want everything and are subject to impulse buys at the nursery. They just know that they can fit that fancy new cultivar somewhere. It's hard for pilers to edit out plants. They gravitate towards an Italian style that one of my hort. instructor calls "Oneofeachie."

Filers can't make up their minds in fear of making the wrong choices. They're often so worried about making the wrong choices, they often do, at least in their minds. I usually get free plants from filers. I only get free plants from pilers after they've seen a garden coach. I guess that makes me a piler. Guilty as charged.

Fiddling with Filderkraut

2011-10-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

This year I was so intently focused on the fact that our tomatoes actually turned red, I rather neglected other crops in the garden. Almost daily, I zipped by the bed of brassicas as three cabbage plants got bigger and bigger. I had planted a variety of cabbage called Filderkraut last spring. The Territorial Seed package description states:

This arrow-shaped variety was bred for the cold regions of Europe so that self-reliant gardeners could make batches of sauerkraut for winter consumption.

I liked the idea of an "arrow-shaped" cabbage; the ones in the stores are mostly round with the exception of Napa cabbage. We are also rather self-reliant, I guess, even in an urban environment. We're probably more self-defiant than anything. We both have 'Kraut' genes, too. The problem is, neither of us eats that much sauerkraut, even though Roland is Swiss. In fact, he doesn't eat cheese, mustard, vinegar, mayo, or salad dressings either - but that's another post. In spite of these noble brassica's original purpose, I was thinking more along the line of making soups and stews.

By the time my focus shifted (when the weather turned colder - like it ever got hotter much this year), one of the heads was so heavy, it flopped over in the bed. To harvest the thing, it took some large loppers to cut through the 3" caliper stem. The leaves pretty much shaded out everything within a 5 mile radius and worst of all, this behemoth of a brassica became a snail and slug nursery! I spent the better part of harvesting this thing stripping off the layers of outer cabbagey leaves and disposing of the mollusks that hid deep down in the crevices near the base. After all, Roland doesn't eat escargot either. After that, I managed to wash off any goo residue and stored it in the refrigerator. Mr. Roland stood for a portrait of him and the cabbage for scale.

Growing monster vegetables serendipitously gives you a good excuse to have to clean out the refrigerator. Luckily, the fridge has heavy duty shelves as the thing must have weighed close to 10 pounds. Cabbages can be as dense as bowling balls.

The cabbage leaves have a rather peppery flavor. Even at this large size, it cooks up tender and goes great in soups and with pot roast. It's comfort food time, so I don't think I'll have much problem using it up, although it's taken us several weeks to eat down just this one cabbage. There are several more just like it still waiting their turn; however, they haven't flopped over yet, so I figure there's time. I wonder if they'll sweeten up like Brussels sprouts do after a frost. Oh, did I mention? Roland won't eat those either.

I may have to try my luck at making sauerkraut. After all, I seem to have good luck growing brassica crops. I remember Roland telling me that his dad scraped the mold off his batch every couple of days while it was doing it sauerkrautie thing. Luckily, Roland will eat it. Go figure.

Guerrilla Zucchini Distribution

2011-09-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

It's been zucchini season and we've been swimming in them. With the last minute warm weather in September, the tiny little fruits exploded into footballs overnight. If you recall, this is the retaliatory zucc that I planted in the parking strip during our permit hassle. Roland attributes it's current size and the subsequent bumper crop to all the cow pucky we got from SDOT. People who walk by it stop and stare. Between the giant zucchini plant and the giant sunflower, our yard has become the neighborhood botanical freak show.

I looked up the record for the largest zucchini grown and the world record squash was grown by renown giant veg. grower, Bernard Lavery from England. It weighed in at 65 pounds. In moments of delusion, I like to think that I might have been able to at least match that record if I left all but that one squash on the plant and let it go nuts. Like the giant pumpkins it was probably inedible, but if it happened to be usable, it must have supplied a 5 gallon bucket of gratings. By the way, Mr. Lavery is the author of "How to Grow Giant Vegetables."

Dispersing zucchini can be tricky. Neighbors and friends either love it or run at the first sight of you walking towards them with the large green appendage shaped objects in your arms. Luckily, we've been promised ample supplies of zucchini bread from grateful recipients, and I look forward to it. I haven't had much time to bake myself, so having someone else do it and share is fine by me. At some point, you'll run out of people to disperse it to. I still have a shelf full of the prolific fruit in the fridge, so I'll either have to grate it and store it in the freezer, make copius amounts of soup or resort to covert, guerrilla operations.

Now putting zucchini's on the doorsteps of unsuspecting neighbors is rather tricky. It's important to avoid any neighbor on your block or even the next several blocks in a radius around your garden, because they'll probably know you're the source. So, here's how to do it. When walking the dog at night (an excuse to be out late), descretely disperse the zucc's on easily accessed front porches outside the designated radius zone. Think of it sort of like a stork delivering bundles of joy. At least zucchinis don't cry. There is the chance that the squash will get tossed into the compost or garbage. People may even mistake it for a bomb at first. You wouldn't want to be responsible for causing undue concern and authoritarian excess. Best to attach an anonymous note with each delivery. Chances are good that it wouldn't go under handwriting analysis. But, hopefully you live in a progressive, gardener infested non-paranoid neighborhood where folk understand how these things work and out of guilt, can't bare to waste perfectly good food. Of course, the zucchini could turn into a summer version of fruitcake and in a karmic sense, end up back on your front porch at some point, looking a little shop worn.

Fried Green Tomatoes Anyone?

2011-09-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

Finally, the tomatoes have been ripening as of mid-September and have been on a role only to have the weather turn this week. I suppose I should be grateful for the two weeks of redness. I would've been really bummed if we had a total repeat of last year. It sure seemed that it was heading that way, only to turn around mid-late September. This region is known to get Indian summers and this year has proven that true. We actually had temperatures into the 80's, just in time for the first days of Fall. Oh, the irony of it all. A real Shakespeare comedy. I was hoping that if we got hot weather into October, this might turn out to be a descent tomato year.

The cherries tomatoes are the first to ripen. It's the larger varieties that hang on to their greeness longer. The next smaller size after cherries are the romas which have started turning red along with the Red Zebra, a pseudo heirloom variety. The Yellow Brandywines are sitting there and have even developed tomato blossom end rot as I neglected to supplement them with calcium when blooming. I finally fed them some Epsom salts solution in hopes to deter any future problems. Of course it helps to test your soil for magnesium and pH levels, something else I neglected to do this year. Epsom salts helps tomatoes take up calcium from the soil. The properties of the two key components of Epsom Salt: Magnesium and Sulfate is what helps. Dissolve a tablespoon into a gallon of water and water around the roots. I use about a 1/4 of the mixture for each plant. You can also mix in 1 cup per 100 sq. ft. of soil before you plant, according to a salt web site. Of course the site promotes Epsom salts as a wonder drug for all your plants.

We didn't bother with a cloche this year, and actually have a larger yield this year. I attribute that to planting the tomatoes in a more exposed bed, that gets more sun and heat, two components that are a must for tomatoes. Now that the weather has gone south, I'll be out there just before the first threat of frost to harvest all the green one's left on the plants. Fried green tomatoes anyone?

I like to can, but just don't have the time to do it this year. Luckily, I subscribe to "The Cheap Vegetable Garden" blog and recently read a really good idea for dealing with the bowl of tomatoes sitting in my fridge. Mr. Cheap cuts his tomatoes in half, scrapes out the seeds and hard core, then grates them. The gratings store in the freezer well to be used for sauces later. He doesn't do the boil thing to remove the skins. The skins peal off during the grating process. He takes the skins and puts them in a dehydrator or low temperature oven to completely dry out. He then crumbles them and stores them to add to dishes like an herb for an intense tomato flavor. Sounds like a plan to me. I'll let you know how it goes. If you'd like to read the complete instructions on the powder part, go to

http://www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/2011/09/how-to-make-tomato-peel-powder.html

Pole Apples for the Small Yard

2011-09-22T07:26:00.000-07:00

Now that Fall is here, it's time to reap the bounty of apples; all 15 of them. Not impressive to seasoned fruit producers, but the number of apples we got this year is triple compared to last year. We planted a series of what is referred to as pole or columnar apple trees. Pole apples are great for the small yard and work well in large pots. They get around 9-12 feet tall and have no branches. Instead, the fruit spurs grow out of the trunk, so the apples hug the trunk all the way up. Best of all, there's no need to prune and how easy is that for harvesting! These trees do well in pots and only require 2 foot centers if planted in the ground.

The number of varieties is limited; only 3 are available that I know of: North Pole, Golden Sentinel and Scarlet Sentinel. 2 red/greens and a golden. We have 2 North Poles and a Scarlet Sentinel. We also have a dwarf honey crisp and a Rainier cherry. God knows where those are going in our limited space once they grow out of their pots.

Our recent North Pole acquisition is the tallest, and came from a local nursery, 40% off of course. Although there isn't any fruit on that tree this year, we have great expectations for next year. Providing the pollinators show up. I might have to dig out the paint brush.

Another 100 Pounds of Potential

2011-09-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

In order to squeeze every last ounce of space out of the front yard, Roland constructed a short dry stone wall next to the driveway. This wall levels out a sloped area and allows another bed to go in. The dirt fill came with the stones when they were dumped off. The stones were left overs from a job site and delivered by our personal excavator, Dr. Dirt. Being the scrounge that Roland is, he naturally found a use for them.

Roland raided his wood stash and built another 4x8 foot bed 3 feet from the existing bed to the north. The wide clearance allows things like wheel barrels and big butts to pass through that isle to access the hypothetical garden tool shed and composting area. Actually the tool shed is in progress and awaits the roof to get finished and is being used for tools: saws, nail guns, routers.....but that's another story.

Since we had more than enough soil in the parking strip, I raided around 9 wheel barrels full from there and filled the bed. This new bed adds approximately 32 sq. feet to our planting area. If I follow an intensive planting plan, theoretically this bed should yield around 100 pounds of carrots. Not that I want to grow 100 pounds of carrots. I rely on tanning bronzers to turn my skin orange.

After constructing the bed, Roland topped it with the typical cat proofing grid/row guide to keep the little monsters from thinking that we built it for them. I'm sure Mamah will have something to say about it, anyway. Anyone who owns cats knows that everything in the house and in the yard belongs to them, whether they really want it or not. And if they can't have something, it really belongs to them.

The bed will need some compost and fertilizer to finish it off for spring planting, but being the patient person that I am, I christened it with a rogue kale start plucked out of the carrot patch.

As you can see, it's thriving.

SDOT's Covenant

2011-09-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

We finally got our parking permit. It only took 4 months of haggling. It ended by stripping down the original design to a shell of it's former self. Gone is the dog proofing fence/pea trellis. Gone is the hardscaping along the curb. Gone is the oh so potentially slippery pebble mosaic. The last argument with SDOT involved the amount of hardscaping one can install without paying the 174 pieces of silver. The guidelines for the free permit say nothing about the amount of hardscaping allowed, only that it includes it. So, SDOT arbitrarily sets the rules. In fact, after plan number 3 was faxed in with a follow-up call to the head of engineering, "Liz" (remember Liz?) stated that as soon as they receive the $174 they'll send us the permit.

"But the guidelines for the free permit states that it includes hardscaping!" Roland complained.

"Oh, that only includes some hardscaping," answered "Liz." "You can install some flagstone."

So, upon faxing plan number 4, we finally received our permit. The free "Street Use" permit is 3 pages of font size 6 legalese and is best read with a jewelers loupe. It includes all sorts of things such as, terms, conditions and requirements:

SDOT is the supreme authority who rules over your parking strip right-away and thou shall not have any property rights before us.
Thou shall work within the requirements set forth within the Right-of-Way Improvements Manual.
Though shall be redundant and contact SDOT with all of the previously submitted information 72 hours prior to starting work upon penalty of $300 dollars.
Thou shall not block traffic without another expensive traffic blocking permit.
Thou shall not damage utilities upon penalty of fines and payment for damages.
Work performed within the public right of way shall occur in compliance with the City of Seattle Noise Control ordinance.
Thou shall not perform work during the holiday season only in specific downtown areas that have nothing to do with your location.
Thou shall pay our lackeys $150 per hour to come out when needed (such as when the neighborhood snitch strikes again) and inform you as to what you've done wrong in accordance to our arbitrary decision making abilities, misinformation and how anal we feel that day.
Thou shall not bear false witness towards SDOT and if you do. . .
Thou shall be responsible for legal fees incurred against such offense.

So after reading all of the commandments, we buried the papers under a pile on the desk and went to work. When it comes to property use, living in Seattle is not for the independent minded, which is why there is a paucity of Libertarians around, I think. But you know the saying, when dealing with lemons, make lemonade. So, we reinstalled the flagstone that was originally in the old mess, but now somewhat moved over for a larger planting area on the north side. Instead of the dog proofing God-forbid-fence/pea trellis, I planted a lavender hedge and mounded the soil up down the spine of the bed to discourage canine snooping. Along the ridge of the mound went 3 types of blueberry bushes: 2 Darrow Highbush, 2 Sunshine Blue and 2 Pink Lemonade in honor of our friends at SDOT. I lined them up along the top in order to make it easier to install netting (probably another God forbid), if needed. If burning bushes were edible, I would have planted those. I also installed some brick and stone around the sunken water meter box in order to keep the soil off of it and the water meter reader happy.

Blueberries like two things to grow well: acid and moist but well drained soil. I added spagmum peat moss and soil from my house up north and mixed it all together with the garden soil we brought in. The soil from my place has a pH of 5.2, perfect for blueberries, and along with the acidity and moisture holding properties of the peat, should provide a nice, cozy home for the blueberry bushes. It is important to thoroughly wet the peat down first in a bucket or wheel barrow because applied dry peat will suck all the water out of the soil and water starve any newly planted bushes. It's suprising how much water is actually needed to saturate peat. It takes a lot of stirring with a shovel along with a constantly dribbling hose, as peat looks wet on the surface until you stir it and find large dry areas.

Now, I'm perfectly aware that peat moss is not the most sustainable product, however, I only use it when absolutely needed for optimum growth of certain plants, like blueberries and heathers. This is the first bag I've purchased in probably 10 years. I've invested quite a bit of money in these bushes (even on sale), so feel justified in judicious use of certain organic soil amendments for optimal plant health.

Future plantings along the slope of the mounds will include other edibles such as lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) and creeping raspberries (Rubus pentalobus). I would like to plant other shrubs such as currants, space permitting. North of the flagstone is tagged for larger crops such as the zucchini (the SDOT rebellion plant, remember?), artichoke and cabbage.

I'm considering taking out the 2 raised beds on the north end in order to provide more room for these plants, but that will be next year's project. It will probably require another permit as the current one is only good for 3 months. Best to work on the Sabbath, I think.

A Clever Use of Antique Garden Furniture

2011-09-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

My fellow co-hort and neighbor, Mary, sent me a picture of a clever use for an antique outdoor metal chair. She went to Lowes and purchased several of those sedum bricks some sphagnum moss, covered the bench seat thus creating a sedum seat (or seatum). Having purchased several antique Victorian chairs myself, she inspired me to do the same. One 11x22 inch sedum brick and a bag of moss did the trick, covering both seats.

I simply laid down a layer of the moss, hosed it down and then applied the sedum mass, tearing off the excess to get a circular shape. I then packed more moistened moss around the perimeter to hold in the soil edges and watered again. Very simple and and visually effective. Best of all, it's another good excuse to parooze garage sales.

However, these chairs were admittedly an impulse buy at Pacific Galleries, having put in a rather high absentee bid, I managed to stuff into the denial part of the little gray cells the fact that the buyer's premium, commission, and sales tax, etc. would add another 30% to the winning bid. So, I ended up with a pair of $250 chairs with no place to go, really. They sat out in the yard for months as lawn ornaments until they now became lawn ornaments with sedums planted, which I feel greatly justifies the original acquisition.

Proud of my handy-work, I showed them to Roland who only shook his head (with a role of the eyes) and said, "It's amazing what they're doing with sedum technology these days."

Bashful Giant

2011-08-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

We've been letting plants come up where they may in the lavender beds this year. Included in the rogue plants are several beautiful purple poppies (and the California variety that gets promptly pulled out), a wayward Russian kale and a giant sunflower. The sunflower is the most impressive with a 3 inch diameter trunk and a flower that's at least a 19 inches across. I attribute its enormous size to its DNA but also to the fact that it planted itself close to where we recently planted our cat, Bonnie. Cat's grow giant sunflowers, I guess. The rose we planted over her isn't doing to bad, either.

Unfortunately, the public walking up the sidewalk isn't able to ponder its incredible size as the flower head started facing due SW, away from public view and now its weight has given it a droopy, sad presentation, sort of Charlie Brownish. There's evidence of squirrel activity, though. Empty seed shells have been discarded in the depression around the top rim of the bloom. The squirrel sits up there and reaches under for the ripening seeds. Luckily, he can only reach under so far, so hopefully he won't get them all. But there is evidence of the varmint chewing his way down the bloom! Luckily, mostly collect the seed for next year's planting rather than to eat. They're just fun to grow. This particular plant might have been planted by that very squirrel, last Fall, which is rather funny that he picked the largest variety to perpetuate his food stash this year.

Admittedly, we've been feeding a squirrel on our front porch for dog entertainment. It sits just outside the front window staring at our dog, Snorky popping a gasket barking at it and bouncing around the back of the sofa, frustrated with the glass barrier. When the squirrel alarm goes off, we toss some peanuts on the porch. The fun lasts about 10 minutes, then Snorky spends the next hour keeping vigilance in case it comes back. He sits on the top of the sofa back with his front paws draped over the wood frame, head resting on them like a bored kid hanging on the back of church pews. The whole routine usually ends with snoring noises coming from his direction. Our useless cats sit on the porch and watch the whole thing happen without moving a whisker. The squirrel is so brazen that it literally climbs over the cats to get to the randomly tossed peanuts, acting as if they are part of the furniture. I guess that's what happens when they're all well fed.

Who the Heck is SDOT?

2011-07-17T11:15:00.000-07:00

Several of you wanted to know what SDOT stands for. Technically, it is the Seattle Department of Transportation, but I have a few titles of my own that are far more descriptively accurate of this entity:

Seattle Department of Totalitarianism
Seattle Department of Tyranny
Seattle Department of Torture
Seattle Department of Turkeys (although I wouldn't want to insult these intelligent creatures)
Seattle Dysfunctional Office of Twits
Seattle Disorganization of Twaddle

Of course they serve a real function of keeping our roads drivable enough, managing the remnants of our infrastructure. In fact, they are actually trying to become rather progressive. This transformation is evident in that the plethora of potholes which exist remain unfilled because SDOT can then claim they use a permeable paving material as part of the city's storm water management plan.

And of course, our experience is all part of the City of Seattle's push to make the city government more "people friendly and accessible," so said Mayor Mike McGinn during a conversation we had with him when he was campaigning at a Seattle Tilth event. Consequently, SDOT is making sure that they follow that prime directive, no?

Bloomin' Bureaucracy!

2011-07-16T14:54:00.000-07:00

If you think the lovely City of Seattle or government in general for that matter, can't get anything done on a large scale, try applying for a permit to landscape your parking strip. This process is a microcosm of the bigger picture and pretty much illustrates the inefficiencies and dysfunctions pervasive in our government system.

After years of out of control grasses, daisies, black-eyed Susans and dandelions in the parking strip, we finally pinned down Dr. Dirt who happens to live 2 blocks away to come over with his excavator and dig it all out. He hauled the refuse away and brought back 6 yards of soil. We had visions of large edible annuals, blueberries and espaliered apples planted in order to expand our food supply and beautify the area. We wanted to build a small fence along the length on the sidewalk side in order to keep out the K9P. I had visions of a stone mosaic border between the fence and the sidewalk (to accommodate the one foot setback required) and bricks along the parking area as a firm walkway. It was going to be beautiful. Then SDOT showed up.

I wasn't present, but while Roland was working out in the yard, some woman from SDOT appears out of the blue (they know, somehow they know) and tells him that we can't do anything until we have a permit and have to cover the new soil with a tarp so it doesn't run out into the street, less we get a large fine. She also stated that we have to have a 3 foot set back from the street, and a one foot setback from the sidewalk (that's 6 feet wide) less someone trips over something. We can't plant any fruiting trees. She also informed us that the City owns 2 feet of land on the house side of the sidewalk (city right-of-way). When Roland asked her about all of the non-compliant parking strips just on our block she replied, "Well, those people didn't get caught and we don't make them tear it out (our 2 raised beds in the strip are non-compliant - oh, darn)."

"Then, how do people know that they need one?"

"Well, it's always been the law and we don't do a very good job at letting people know that they need one."

At least the thing is free. So, like good little proletariat citizens, we went to the SDOT web site and filled out all of the on-line forms. Around a week later, we got a computer generated e-mail stating that our permit has been approved and go to such-and-such link for the details. It ended up being the link to nowhere. The next e-mail from a "Rex" stated that he needs a sight plan (surprisingly, he didn't need GPS coordinates, satellite photos, and a note from Roland's mother). So, having been a draftsman in a previous life, I drew up the plans to scale and we faxed them off to "Rex." After a week or so, we didn't hear anything back from "Rex" and when Roland called in on several occasions, "Rex" was on vacation, took the day off, out to lunch, etc., etc. Finally, he made a WTF call and was told that "Rex" was "on (perpetual) vacation and that our permit application would be handled by "Liz." Roland was told that "Liz" would get back to him. In the mean-time they asked Roland to re-fax the plan to "Liz" because they claimed they never received the one sent to "Rex." She actually did send an e-mail to Roland confirming that they got the plan, bless her heart.

Several weeks went by and no "Liz" call. Instead, "Jennifer" calls back and says, "All my God, there's a fence on your site plan! You can't do a fence blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...the worlds going to come to an end....It's a $174 fee for the permit." So I redrew the plan, and fence was transformed into a pea trellis. Roland faxed the revisions off to "Jennifer." Apparently, "Jennifer" got swallowed by the computer generated paperwork monster and has disappeared.
We never heard from "Jennifer" again.

In the mean-time, Roland gets 3 more computer generated e-mails telling us that we haven't given them a start date nor scheduled an inspection for permit number blah, blah, blah and a 4th e-mail threatens us with massive fines with if we do any work, block traffic, or obstruct the freeway. etc:

Our records indicate that you have not performed any action on your permit application for at least 10 days. Please provide the following: JOB START CALL REQUIRED FIELD REVIEW If you no longer wish to obtain this permit, please respond to this e-mail to notify us that you wish to cancel the application. Your permit application may be cancelled after ninety days if we do not hear from you. To review the status of your permit application, please go to: http://olp.seattle.gov/DP1/Metroplex/seattle/login/wiz_login.asp

and,

Before beginning work in the right-of-way, you must notify Street Use to verify your start date. Notice must be provided 24-72 hours prior to the start of work. The notification must include: 1. Permit Number 2. Job Site Address 3. Start Date 4. Brief description of work 5. Job site contact name, phone number and email address If you do not fulfill this requirement, a No Job Start penalty fee will be assessed in the amount of $300, or such other amount as may be established in accordance with SMC 15.04.074.

Two weeks later on Monday, Roland makes another WTF phone call directly to SDOT questioning the e-mails and the lady on the other end says, "OMG, your permit hasn't been approved! Don't touch anything, don't plant anything, don't walk on it diagonally, breath on it, don't look at it for more than 60 seconds!" She also stated that the e-mails don't mean anything. She then transfers Roland to "Liz" and he gets her voice-mail and leaves a WTF message . "Liz" finally calls back the following Friday afternoon.

Happy, bubbly "Liz" said that she would allow a fence up to 18 inches tall otherwise it's a tripping hazard (huh?), and no pebble mosaics because they kill people by the thousands when walk on (apparently, folk in Europe are more agile). Roland says, "Fence? we're calling it a pea trellis."

"Liz" replies that the plan says it's a fence which means she's looking at the original lost plan. Then she tells him that we can start anytime as soon as we pay for the permit.

"WTF! I was told it was a free permit!"

Well, apparently as soon as any hardscaping or structure goes in it's a $174 permit fee. However, there's no charge for planter boxes not higher than 5-1/2 inches tall or they're a tripping hazard (huh?).

Now we have to submit site plan number 3, sans the hardscaping, indicating strictly vegetation and topographical details of the mounds (and any planting boxes we wanted). And, apparently people getting out of cars can trample on any low, slimy, slippery vegetation, but as soon as you want to put down a harder surface for good footing, cough up the bucks.

The permit process is obviously a bait and switch operation - they dangle the free permit in front of you, but really, who doesn't add some sort of pavers, rocks or other non-vegetative product into their landscaping design!

So, after 2 months of this rigamarole where in limbo. The project started with noxious weed removal and we ended up in noxious government weeds. In defiance, I planted a zucchini. Take that, you parking strip Gestapo!

And I wonder why the viaduct hasn't been replaced or the 520 bridge expansion is taking so long, or where's the light rail? Silly me.

More to come on the SDOT plot...

You Think You Got Weeds!

2011-07-02T09:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a long winter, as most of you have probably come to that realization on your own. Here in the PNW, it's been rain with a chance of sun this Spring. June temperatures have barely left the 50's much of the time. Now that June is behind us, July is actually starting out rather nice, a phenomenon that doesn't usually happen until July 5th.

Now that the weather's been getting warmer, it's evident that the weeds have been waiting in ambush; tiny miniature landmines waiting to explode at the first opportunity. One minute you're contemplating what to plant in all those empty spots in your garden (OK, well last Fall), then you wake up to the answer that nature gives: super sized weeds in every nook and cranny. Some are well over 5 feet tall. They're making up for lost time this year.

Somewhere in this explosion are specimens I have actually planted such as, blueberries, weigela, iris, and several perennials, but you'd never know it. In fact, I had forgotten exactly what is there as I haven't been paying too much attention to the beds over the winter. It was Christmas in June, as I uncovered cultivated surprises underneath the spurge.

Common knowledge among horticulturists is that weeds indicate a disturbed soil. I think in this case, weeds indicate a disturbed mind. How many of us have started grandiose projects that languish for years because we have more ideas and ambition than time. Part of what's supposed to be where the weeds have taken over is a path to the deck. These beds have been a work in progress since I've been in this house for over 10 years. I've been spending most of my time at my BF's place, Mog Cottage in Seattle, that my place has been mainly a mail stop. Having started this project in the front section in the courtyard, I have around 90 feet to go to the deck. Do I want to lay a simple gravel path? No! I want to do something with stone and brick as an artistic expression, silly me. So, with everything else in my life, this project has found itself continuously put on hold. When I do have some time, I find myself getting out of the weeds (if you're not familiar with culinary terms, being 'in the weeds' indicates being overwhelmed in the kitchen).

Spending hours yanking out butter cup, nightshade and spurge, it's a never ending battle. Some weeds are easy to yank out, while others, such as that hideous buttercup, spread by the most minute root remnant left behind. It doesn't help that I don't like to use chemicals. The water table here is very high and the neighborhood borders a wetlands.

I've stuffed my yard waste container and waited an entire week for it to get emptied so I could stuff it again. To add insult to injury, Waste Management missed it this week. Now I've got piles of pulled weeds waiting to get gathered up and disposed of in the yard with no place to go until after next week. I guess I'll double up with additional bins along with the yard waste container pulled out into the middle of the street so they don't miss it! The garbage dude's name must be Murphy.

The Desire for Really Big Melons Blows Up in China

2011-05-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

Once again China's food practices hit the news, but instead of poisoning people or animals things blew up farmer's faces, so to speak. Apparently farmers in the Jiangsu province got a little over indulgent with the growth enhancer, forchlorfenuron, on their watermelon crops and along with higher than normal precipitation, created a perfect storm of exploding watermelons.

Now, you might think that it's a major tragedy for these farmers to lose their crops, but producing watermelons from a country that values karma, you could say that their farming practices came back to bite them. The desire for higher yields and faster production for the market activated the greed gene and now they've lost their entire crops within 3-4 days. Pow, pow, pow, pow.

Being one who appreciates black humor, I couldn't help myself but break out in hysterical laughter upon hearing about this incidence as I visualized water melons exploding in the fields like land mines. Perhaps future harvests will have to be done from armored vehicles. Looking at the photos of the aftermath, I'd say some of the melons resembled big red and green popped popcorn. Many were simply cracked in pieces.

The farmers want to blame the seed that came from Japan, as apparently some of the melons that didn't get sprayed with the growth enhancer also blew up. The melons that were sprayed started exploding within a day or two of the treatment. Of course there is the possibility of drift or chemical leaching into neighboring farms. As investigators have not come up with a solid reason for the exploding melons, I can't help but think that, as with most agricultural catastrophes, it's probably a combination of things; weather, temperature, timing, ignorance and in this case, growth enhancers. A lesson in humility? perhaps. It is also a lesson in how better farming through chemistry often isn't. Mother nature always wins and it's better to work with nature than try and always control it. Bad farming practices have plagued agriculture since its beginnings. Human fixes seem to present unintended consequences causing more problems that require fixing. This seems like just another example of human hubris.

A lesson for us PNW veg gardeners? Since we don't grow watermelons on this side of the mountains this particular crop isn't an issue for us. But with all of the rain we've been getting this year, don't use forchlorfenuron on your zucchini.

Here's an article and video about this story from the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13421374

It's Spring and the Purple Sprouting Broccoli is Back!

2011-04-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

As you know, it's been a while since I've posted anything. With horticulture classes starting up again for winter quarter, and the bleak, cold weather to boot, it's been nearly impossible to find the time or get motivated. I've been a total couch potato, stuck to the sofa with the laptop glued to my thighs doing homework or playing computer solitaire. A grim existence. Veg. Gardening has been far from my mind and the garden looks it.

With all of the crappy, cold weather we've had in PNW world this winter, you'd think nothing edible from last season would've survived. I planted the garlic, onions and fava beans last fall, and they have started to show their greens through the straw as expected. But, the Purple Sprouting Broccoli that was so enormous, looked pretty done-in from the big freeze this winter. It was all leaves and no florets last summer and I was hoping it would winter over better than it did. All the leaves drooped and most of the large stalks turned mushy and became these tree-like snags sticking up or flopping over in the bed.

But recently, I've become an optimist (yeah, that's what I said) because when I went to take stalk of the beds to see what prep work needs to be done., low and behold, some of the broccoli has resurrected! Just in time for Easter. A sign from God! OK, maybe not, but I am bursting forth with Purple Sprouting broccoli florets at this very moment. In fact, if one of the plants wasn't flopped over like a ground cover, it could be trained as a standard topiary tree, like what is done to roses. Hmmm, maybe I should try and stake it up. I'll let you know, if I succeed. The others are sending out new shoots all along the barren stems. I should have a bumper crop of PS broccoli this spring. Yay. . . .Crap! There's a white cabbage moth fluttering about.

Pinky's gone missing!

2010-12-15T14:29:00.000-08:00

Our 13 year old big boy, Pinky, disappeared the Friday before Thanksgiving. He went outside that Friday morning and never came back. At first we thought that he might have been locked in someone's garage somewhere, but it's not like him to wander off like that. He is getting a little arthritic, so he pretty much sticks around the laundry room or huddles on the front porch with several others in our herd.

Before his disappearance, he had an operation for an infected ear growth. It healed very well and he seemed to be fine. He was on antibiotics the whole time and wore the cone of shame. We had him barricaded in the laundry room for 2 weeks. After that, it was business as usual. The morning of his disappearance, he was acting rather strange though. I found him sleeping on the bathroom rug and then he started pacing around the bathroom when I was in the shower. Roland let him out and that was that.

We checked Seattle Animal Shelter, and left a notice in their log book (I could have come home with several replacements! That's why I don't volunteer there.)

Apparently a coyote had been spotted a few blocks away, so that might have been his demise as he is fat and slow, so would make for good tender vittles. Maybe he had an underlying illness and had a kitty stroke or something and crawled into a crevice within the back yard vortex. He could be anywhere. Roland did have a poke about when Pinky first disappeared and didn't find anything.

Pinky is somewhat shy and scroungy, so I doubt anyone would want to carry him off (except the coyote). In fact, Roland kept insisting that Pinky's just big boned and really is an athlete. I said, "Yeah, like a Sumo Wrestler!" His very large blue eyes in proportion to his head, along with the way he 'beaches' himself on the furniture, makes him look like an arctic seal pup.

So, the one cat that shouldn't have gone missing, has gone missing. You'd think several of our problem children would get into trouble first such as, Mamah, who entraps herself on a neighbor's roof periodically or of course, Floyd. But Pinky? Call this one a new Mog Cottage unsolved mystery.

Floyd is Back to Being Floyd Again

2010-12-15T14:09:00.001-08:00

I know it's been a while since I've said anything about Floyd. Well, $7500 and 3 near death experiences later, he's now doing great! His nickname is now European vacation.

We switched his regular vet to one who is sympathetic to cats with distended colons and feels they can live a productive life. The new vet told us that he needs a high fiber diet and may need to get flushed out every so often. So far, Floyd's been dropping poops around the place on his own. His bladder never seems to be very full, so we haven't been squoaging him so much. In fact, when I was cleaning out the tomato bed and had the cat proofing grids off, he jumped in and immediately peed. I was so happy to have to shoo him out of there.

Roland's been feeding him an abundance of cat treats to fatten him up and it seems to be working as he has been gaining weight (up to 10-1/2 pounds) but has also turned into a cat treat beggar. He sits on a stool next to the desk and yowls until he gets some. Spoiled thing.

Also, he has been getting periodic acupuncture treatments by a vet that comes to the house. It seems to be helping as Floyd is walking better and getting some continence back. This vet is also having us give him cranberry pill supplements to help with bladder health. That's a battle at times and Floyd has gotten good at spitting the pill out, even holding it in his mouth into another room before getting rid of it. We also have to trap him early in the day of his appointment, otherwise he goes missing. Somehow, he knows, even though the appointments aren't on a consistent schedule. The vet calls first to make sure Floyd's around. Roland has been bartering some of the cost off in exchange for his carpentry skills to work on a yurt in the guy's back yard (he lives in a log house). As you can tell, the vet lives an alternative lifestyle.

Floyd is still gimpy, as his back left leg makes him look like a ballerina in first position when he stands. When he runs, it flails out sideways more than straight back. But, I think it just adds to his charm, which is why we saved his bacon in the first place. Now to keep him out of further trouble before we have to take out a mortgage.

Purple Sprouting Slime & Other Storm Damage

2010-12-15T13:24:00.000-08:00

This Fall has been rather rough on late crops. After 8 long month of waiting for the Purple Sprouting broccoli, the Thanksgiving week snow took its toll. Now, you're probably thinking, "Why didn't she put up a hoop house to protect it?" Well, the answer is two-fold.

First, it would have had to be a circus tent as the stuff was huge and swung over the sides of the beds. Second, I got stuck at my place in Arlington during the whole event and Roland was rather, shall we say, inattentive due to an unconscious desire to see its demise. So far this Fall, we've gotten 1-1/2 servings of broccoli heads off the stuff, not exactly a sterling amount considering it's output of leaves and the 3" diameter trunks on each plant.

Now the yard smells like rotting broccoli. The constant pounding rain hasn't helped either. The only saving grace is that the new growth at the top is still good on most of the plants...and still just leaves. Geotropism is taking over and the ends are bending up. The stuff is tough! I'm going to clean up the rotting carnage and hopefully, the broccoli will make somewhat of a comeback. I found the long lost bale of hay exposed that was buried beneath the foliage and the celery is now getting more light. I'm going to mulch the other beds now that I have a little spare time until January (winter quarter starts).

High winds several weeks ago took out the Cathedral to the Peas trellis. Snapped it right off at the base! It almost looks like it was just taken down and laid across the beds. Roland never was satisfied with the way it turned out as he found the mahogany to be too brittle, and plans to make a new one out of cherry. I told him not to make it so tall.

In the mean time, I've cleaned out the parking strip beds and have planted fava beans and crimson clover for the winter. I followed the advice of an old Sicilian guy who plants his beans 4-6 inches down, depending on the type of winter (mine went in 6" down as we're supposed to have a cold one this year). He stakes them in the spring and usually harvests them in early summer. I'm planting heat lovers in those beds next year, so I'm hoping that the beans will be done and the tomatoes, peppers and zucchs can go in.

I've finally cleaned out the rotting tomato plants, removed the plastic off the cloche and planted garlic and shallots in that bed. My Reemay shipment just came in, so that's going over the cloche and in goes some winter greens.

The swiss chard and leeks road the storm well, although the chard is getting smaller. My other root crops and kale are also doing well, not being eaten alive this time of year. Now I have a hankerin' to make a pot of soup.

The Last of the Tomatoes - For Sure this Time

2010-11-11T15:57:00.000-08:00

Indeterminate: Not knowing when to quit.

Well, Now that it's half way into November, I decided it's time to whack-a-doodle the tomatoes. As you can see, they have been rather late bloomers; their saving grace having been a well protected cloche enclosure. Altogether, the harvest was rather lacking this year.

I managed to harvest about half ripish and half green - the green being the heirlooms, of course. The vines were a sorry site; that look of desperation when they want to ripen just those last few fruits but the cold has thwarted that determination. Despite the cold, they've managed to keep plugging away. I was even whacking new blooms until late last month! They haven't been watered for weeks, either.

Now, it's time for fried green tomatoes and maybe a little Salsa Verde. Anyone have a good recipe for the salsa?

The Top 10 Things To Do While Waiting for Purple Sprouting Broccoli to Flower

2010-11-04T13:07:00.000-07:00

10. Contemplate tearing it out.
9. Create a Purple Sprouting Advent calendar to count the 240 day period to maturity.
8. Measure the diameter of the trunks (and I mean trunks!) and its height every week.
7. Find the largest leaf and submit it to the Guinness Book of World Records.
6. Stake it up so it's not flopping over from it's own weight.
5. Find out how many critters are living among it.
4. Fertilize it just for kicks and giggles.
3. Figure out how the heck you're going to protect it from frost and wet, heavy snow.
2. Hold a neighborhood skit for kids on Jack and Broccoli Stalk...

....And the number one thing to do?

1. Make a list of all the crops you could have planted instead!

What To Do With Your Dormant Beds? Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T18:41:00.000-07:00

As usual, we've procrastinated until the last minute to get the Halloween decorations up. Like, did it today. I cleaned out the two beds in the parking strip and thought, "hmmm, those look like cat-proofed graves."

So, we dug out the scant Halloween decorations purchased last week and I planted head stones and faux bones in them. Of course, the bones are Styrofoam, otherwise they would add some calcium to the soil. But I did chop in the old pea and bean remnants for nitrogen. Spiderwebs went up the Cathedral to the peas for that extra Gothic touch.

Now, our wacky weather has totally confused some of the crops. Since one of the remaining zucchinis is still blooming and producing fruit, I left it. I figure it's a built-in pumpkin patch of sorts. We're still getting ripe tomatoes, for Pete's sake.

We put candles in front of the tomb stones so when it got dark, trick-or-treaters can see them. We've been getting all sort of compliments from the parental units as they bring their costumed charges by. The cats have scattered, but the coons show up between door bell rings. Being masked bandits, they fit in with the street crowd. They're always greedy for cat food and are professional tricksters for their stolen treats. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them didn't mug one of the little kids for their candy.

So, if your beds are out where the public can see them, be creative in ways to spruce them up for holidays. Maybe I'll wrap them like giant presents for the holidays. Roland suggested graves for Santa and his elves. Sick. Hmmmm. I do like Edward Gorey.

Rain, Rain, Go Away! And Take the Spiders With You

2010-10-10T11:16:00.001-07:00

Well, despite the cold, wet summer, my tomatoes have finally started to ripen - in October! We replaced the cloche plastic for now, just to keep the rain off of them. Unfortunately, I've been picking the larger varieties in threesies every week; not enough to go through the trouble to make into a sauce as the previous harvest goes bad by the time the new one is ready. We've been eating them like apples.

We've had a brief window of fairly nice weather at the beginning of this month. I've taken advantage of it to do some fall harvesting in general and clean out some beds.

We harvested 11 pounds of potatoes out of one of our claw foot tubs, which I think is a respectable amount. I managed to stab just a few with the garden fork while digging them out. The marigolds loved the tub, so I planted them back in after the potatoes were removed.

We also harvested quite a few onions. And after letting them cure under the cover of the front porch, I've braided the stems together and have them hanging in the kitchen to store.

Now, it has started to rain AGAIN. In fact, it rained hard all last night. My zucchinis have a terrible case of powdery mildew, so I have written them off now. My sugar pumpkins haven't fared much better, but the pumpkins attached are still green. One is just starting to turn green. I don't care about the Halloween thing, I just want to make pumpkin pie.

Other crops have done well in this type of weather...like Purple Sprouting broccoli.

There seems to be an over abundance of spiders this year. I guess it's a sign of fall. There's nothing like a 'Hairy Wappler' staring at you from in the bath tub. It seems that every time I walk out the door and down the front steps, I run into at least one web. I then do the 'get the spider outa my hair' jig, wildly flailing my hands around me head while my eyes are cross-eyed. I have past trauma with spiders, you know. One time, when I was a kid, I climbed through a coral fence and my head smacked into a web. When I stood up, the spider was hanging right between my eyes! I yelped so loud, my horse thought the world was about to end. It was, for me. It probably was for the spider too.

The sunflower blooms are getting smaller and smaller now. Roland has harvested some of the seed for next year, and the squirrels are harvesting the seed for whenever. I suspect the whole neighborhood will have an abundance of sunflowers next summer.

Our dog, Snorky, practically bursts an artery when he sees a squirrel outside. He spends a good part of the day looking out the front window for squirrels. Walks consist of squirrel patrols. Lately, walks have been short because of the rainy weather. Squirrels are smart enough to at least stay out of the rain as we don't see any while we're dumb enough to be in it.

Not that I'm not a north-westerner. I've lived with this kind of weather my whole life. Now I'm sick of it. Normally I love the fall when we get Indian summers and the air is crisp and clear and the leaves are drop-dead gorgeous. There's something about the gray weather that just deadens the colors though. The leaves droop or just fall off before you can appreciate their beauty. Which is why I don't plant tulips for spring. But that's another story.

You Know Fall is Here When Your Brocolli Blows Over & Your Cloche Blows Away

2010-09-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when you don't use UV protected plastic. Actually, this sheet lasted all summer and was cheap, so I'm happy I got a summer season out of it. I figure I can now change out the cloche cover to Reemay for the the winter.

Roland and I were out of town for the weekend, and when we came back, this plastic destruction we found plastic destruction. Apparently, a strong wind blew through during the weekend that also managed to break off some sunflower heads, blow over several of the very top heavy Purple Sprouting broccoli plants and ultimately shred the plastic on our tomato cloche. Luckily, I had just done a major prune job on the tomatoes, so they were situated below and behind the broccoli that acted like a wind screen - sort of like Bolleana poplars in a farm field.

Fall brings out the nesting side of me, where I just want to sit in front of a fire and knit or make all sorts of soups and stews. Luckily, we've had good bean, potato and onion crops, just the ingredients for soups and stews. We've been pulling out a few carrots and I can probably salvage some of the celery that got rather shaded out from the broccoli takeover. It's good to have a ready supply of soup making ingredients out of the garden by Fall.

I've just gotten a variety of winter seeds delivered from Territorial Seed Company in which I've started to plant for starts such as cabbage and root crops. As soon as the tomatoes are Tango Uniform, I plan to plant garlic and leafy greens under the cloche. The Reemay should allow the rain through, but keep the frost off and protect the crops from crushing snow, assuming we get some in this Pacific North Wet climate. Our snow is often referred to as 'Cascade Concrete' as it comes down wet and heavy and packs into sheets of glare ice. Any snow balls that happen to find their way to your head, without the protection of a helmet, can cause a concussion.

The squirrels predict a cold and wet winter this year. They've started to scurry about early this season, gathering nuts and seeds while sometimes unsuccessfully dodging cars. The trees are rapidly changing colors and the Katsuras seemed to have dropped their leaves early this year. Fall is my favorite time of the year as I love the leaf colors and the crisp hint in the air. This summer has been colder and wetter than normal, weather which has also extended into September, the time of year that is usually our Indian Summer: Warm days and crisp nights and many a blue sky day. Indian Summers give one last boost to crops and rain free gardening days to harvest and clean out the garden beds. By mid-October it's all over.

Of course, the tell tale indicator of Autumn is the Harvest Moon. The Equinox is this Thursday, September 23rd, and the moon will be full that night. Looking out my living room window, the sky is clear enough to see the moon in its almost full stage. Other names for the Harvest Moon are 'Gypsy Moon', 'Wine Moon', 'Elk Call Moon' and 'Singing Moon'. We actually get to experience a 'Blue Moon' this year. It occurs on November 21st. It's an additional moon cycle (designated as the 3rd moon as the 4th moon cycle is referred to as the 'Late Moon') within a season and doesn't occur very often, thus the saying, "Once in a Blue Moon." The next one isn't until 2013.

So, I'm taking advantage of this rare window of decent weather and tending to the final crops, getting the beds ready for Fall planting and making sure that the garden structures are, if anything, wind proof. Then it's to the kitchen to freeze extras and make soups and stews to get through the pending dark, cold months. I might even do some canning as the tomatoes are finally getting ripe.

Ball & Burlap: The Ties that Bind and Break Our Backs

2010-09-13T15:16:00.000-07:00

Every so often, I get this incredible desire to live vicariously through someone else's garden. Well, I was in such a mood the other week when I was helping my friend Nancy with her business and said, "Gee Nancy, while I'm up here why don't we take advantage of this opportunity and do a plant nursery tour and possibly get some trees and shrubs for your yard."

Nancy, and her husband Jim have several acres in the county outside of Bellingham. They also needed some landscaping help; their yard consisted of arborvitae and rhododendrons in full sun. OK, to be fair, there are some Japanese maples and small conifers next to the front entrance to the house.

She agreed that her yard needed some livening up. Jim reiterated on several occasions that that their yard is paved with good intentions because Nancy has killed many a potted nursery specimen by not getting to the 'planting it in the ground' part. So, the agreement was that whatever we got, I had to help her plant it. No problem. Part two of the agreement consisted of not planting anywhere that would interfere with Jim's plans for that spot and to make sure that what we plant in the lower turf area likes very wet feet, as the ground is very waterlogged much of the year. Other than that, we could do what we wanted, in which I interpreted spend what we wanted. Nancy, though, is a bit of a fiscal conservative and had a budget in mind.

So, off we went to explore the nurseries with a list of trees and shrubs that I thought would work well in her yard and (I have to admit) were some of my favorites. The first place we went to, Cloud Mountain Nursery, near Everson, was not far from her house. It's a grower operation, so the prices were really good. Many of the large trees were under $100. We picked out a Paperbark Maple (Acer griseum), Katsura (Cercidiphyllum Japonicum), Double-File Viburnum (Vibernum plicatum var. tomentosum), and a Golden Dawn Redwood (Metasaquoia glyptostroboides spp.) that happened to be half off because it was so root bound. Nancy, (having a Human Services background) felt compelled to save that tree. This nursery didn't have any Bald Cypresses (Taxodium distichum) for the mushy parts of the yard, so she paid for what we picked out and put them in will-call. Off we went to Kent's Garden and Nursery on Northwest Road.

Kent's had the Bald Cypress, but Nancy chose to hold off on those at the moment. Instead, she found the clearance section and ended up with 3 Western Red Cedars, a Montpilier Maple (Acer monspessulanum), and several Smoke Trees (Continus coggygria). The next day we explored Bear Creek Nursery, south of town. This nursery is situated in a most lovely setting among Douglas Fir trees. They also had the signature tree we were looking for: Robinia pseudoacacia 'Frisia'. However, while we were walking around, Nancy became very adamant about not buying anything that day. Every time I showed her a cool looking plant, her reaction was, "I'm not buying anything today!" in between, "Did we get that yet?" However, after an hour of proclamations, she was the proud owner of the Frisia Locust and a lovely Japanese maple.

Nancy spent the week picking up her finds with the family pick-up and I came up this last weekend to help her plant them all per our agreement. I also brought up several free specimens that I had procured from various sources that would have been to big for my yard.

Of all the days to plant, we picked the one day all summer that would rain all day! In fact, the weather went from a soggy drizzle to a down pour then back to a soggy drizzle, never completely stopping. But, that was the day we could both plant, so we got on our ad-hoc rain togs and out we went with shovels in hand.

We started with the Katsuras, which were still sitting in the back of the pick up. Nancy had originally purchased one, but when she went to pick up her plants, she purchased another one being enchanted by their amazing fall foliage. They were in ball and burlap, but you couldn't tell, as the root ball had busted through from sitting in the nursery mulch and became this mass of tangled roots and mulch a good 36" in diameter. Of course the things also weighed the earth! And of course the nursery loaded them into the pick-up with a fork lift, a luxury we didn't have. Luckily, Nancy and Jim own a riding lawn mower with a small dump trailer attachment. So, with the reluctant help of the fellas, we all heaved the things over, one tree at a time and rolled them off the truck bed onto the mower trailer and then gently dumped them near where they were to get planted. The rest of the operation would involve bruit girly force as the men retreated to the basement man cave to play with power tools. Wimps.

In digging very large holes, we were getting sufficiently wet and muddy as the rain began to come down in torrents. I found myself blindly swinging a Mattock while looking through dripping, steaming glasses (a foot down into the ground lay hard pan - gotta love NW glacial till!). I finally gave up with the glasses and stuffed them into a pocket. I figured I could see better without them. I gave up on my hood as it was restricting my movement, so lived with dripping hair. The weather wasn't that cold, just very wet and I was actually sweating from excursion. While peeling back the burlap around the roots, I tried to remove some metal ties, but proceeded to break the handle on Roland's Mattock and had to borrow Jim's (with instructions not to break it). Nancy brought out some wire cutters to remove the metal clips from their grip and we managed to spread out the burlap after rolling the trees into their respective holes. Of course, the holes are never deep enough when you think they are, so the whole exercise involved a sort of an sizing procedure, pulling out the trees, picking and digging a deeper pit, adding compost and then dragging the trees back into the pit, twisting and turning them so the best side faces the out and then filling in the holes. Tape measures would have instantly useless in this weather. We improvised with shovel handles and thumbs for measurements. An hour later, we had planted our first two trees.

After the Katusuras, planting got a little easier as we developed a rhythm and a certain soggy level of efficiency. Plus the potted stuff weighed less. We took turns with the pick and shovel and Nancy became the official compost bag schlep. I would move on to the next hole, while Nancy filled in the current one. The fellas were having a great time from their dry location under the deck, shouting at us their occasional opinions and advice such as, "It's crooked."

After the Katsuras, we planted an iddy-biddy Red Bud (Cercis canadensis) along the same row. The hole actually became somewhat wide as we had to put landscape edging around it so Mr. Jim would mow it down. Next came the Dawn Redwood out at the top of the field where the ground wasn't too soggy and would drain. After that we planted a conifer of questionable pedigree. Nancy was told that it was a Douglas Fir, but Roland thought it was something else because the needles weren't Doug Fir needles. Regardless, it was one of the examples of good intentions and needed to get into the ground.

The best gardening tool I've ever purchased has to be my Hori Hori. I've used that knife for weeding and in this case, for rescuing roots bound like a Chinese woman's foot. I carried it right next to my pruners in which as the day wore on, weighed my elastic waist banded pants down around my knees as the rain soaked in and they became as heavy as lead. Really, I don't know how rappers can walk. Also, I was fearing the plumber's southern exposure. Because I was having to pull them up with wet, muddy gloves on, my bloomers underneath were getting a natural earthy patina. The optimist in me didn't consider bringing rain pants, but I would have sweated like a sauna in them anyway. My water proof garden clogs filled with water. I was sloshing around in saturated wool socks, rubber garden clogs, with my britches around my knees, digging holes in the pouring rain in order to help my friend plant 100 pound trees. This was my idea and I was loving every minute of it.

Nancy thought she'd fair better having tucked her pants into rubber boots. Her pants just wicked the water right down into the boots and she was sloshing around by mid day. Plus her back side got sufficiently soaked having sat on a mower seat exposed to the elements.

We systematically planted the Smoke trees, Mock Orange and Maples right along the fence, having to move a good 4 inches of mulch, cut the landscape cloth and netting from the former sod and dig into more sand and clay (that looked the color of baby poo), add compost then plant the trees and move the mulch back in place. Next came the Locust.

We planted this tree in the upper yard next to the fence and in front of a mass of Douglas Firs that were leftovers from an old Christmas tree farm. The beautiful gold foliage of the Frisia just pops in front of the dark green of the conifers. It's the tree your eyes immediately go to when approaching the house. The location was a mother to plant in as the ground was hard and full of large rocks. We had to really amend the soil well and add additional water as, unlike other areas of the yard, this spot was pretty dry.

The fellas became rather impressed as they thought we would wimp out for sure and request their assistance. Upon the risk of never living it down, we did get the fellas to take a tree saw to some of the higher branches on the firs to make room for the locust to grow. They looked like they needed something to do as they couldn't continue with their project in the wet weather. Nancy and I felt sorry for them.

After planting the 3 cedars, we transplanted a Japanese Laceleaf maple that had been 'temporarily' planted in with its pot for several years and had manged to root through the drain holes. After finally planting the last Japanese maple we considered our day done - after clean up. When the last tool got cleaned and put away, the rain stopped.

We planted or transplanted 18 trees and shrubs in all, starting our day at around 9:30 in the morning and stopping at 5:30. We never took a lunch break nor for me, a potty break as I knew I would never be able to get my rain and mud soaked britches back up and gloves back on. We stripped in the appropriately named 'mud room' and headed straight for the shower.

During dinner that evening, Nancy proclaimed, "I'm never going shopping with Debra again!"

I replied, "You lie like a rug. Besides, we still need to get the Bald Cypresses, Mountain Ashes, and Kousa dogwood, never mind transplanting some of the rhodies behind the Frisia and moving those Daphnes to a sunny location."

I also have endless ideas for her birthday now and nurseries offer gift certificates.

Tomato Entropy Produces Fruit Apathy

2010-09-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

Here in the Pacific Northwest it's been a crappy year for tomatoes. The temperature fluctuations have been bi-polar, going from 85 degrees one day, dropping down to 65 degrees the next. Yesterday had clear, hot weather and today it's overcast and drizzling at times. We often get Indian summers around here where our nicest weather is in September. August can be a very wet month at times. The PNW insider joke is that our summers start July 5th, except this year it's been a series of false starts.

I've kept the tomatoes in a cloche all summer long and most are still green. My cherry tomatoes are turning red; less surface area to ripen, I guess. It's a good thing that we like fried green tomatoes.

Despite the tomato inclement weather, there's a lot of entropy going on under that cloche. I've pinched and pinched and pinched stems back and I think it has only encouraged them. I need to bring a machete with me next time I go in there, as my hair gets caught in the foliage and I can't turn around on the path unless I duck. The branches are starting to burst out of the ends. For a piler, 'indeterminate' really means entropy.

Since the tomatoes are next to the Purple Sprouting broccoli bed, perhaps they're getting vibes to get uber big and put out small amounts of ripe fruit. If my theory is correct, I should have plenty of ripe tomatoes by December, when the broccoli is technically ready for harvest. However, there is that little frost problem. I'm hoping someone eventually produces a tomato variety that is hardy to 10 degrees. That person would become rich.

Floyd's Being Floyd

2010-08-31T09:55:00.000-07:00

The last several weeks with Floyd have been rather taxing - and expensive. To start, a week ago yesterday, Floyd managed to escape outside. I was at my Arlington house when this happened so this is Roland's excuse...eh, account.

We've been giving Floyd a little laxative with his wet food to help things along. That Monday morning, Roland came out into the living room to check on Floyd who was in his crate parked on the sofa. A strong odor hit Roland in the face and when he looked inside the crate, Floyd had had a blow out and was covered with poo. In fact the whole crate got it. So, in the shower went Floyd for a good cleaning. Afterwords, Roland wrapped him in a towel and placed in him the kitty curl in a sun spot in front of the screen door.

Roland then went out to his car to get some cleaning supplies and when he opened the door to come back in, Floyd shot out. Apparently, he was healed enough to run like hell, as he climbed into the large wood pile shed along the side of the house, nowhere to be found. I figured he had had enough humiliation for one of his 9 lives. First came crapping all over himself, next came a bath. He figured that the bladder squeeze was next so thought, "I'm outa here!" He was out all night without having his bladder extracted since that morning, and we were worried sick that he was in dire straights. As it turned out, the next morning Roland found Floyd sunning himself and upon seeing Roland coming for him, ran under the greenhouse deck. Roland finally caught him with cat treat persuasion and brought him back in.

Floyd seemed fine, so we let him stay in the bedroom with a litter box and have found out that he is able to use it. So, hallelujah! However, last Saturday morning, Roland found Floyd passed out in the litter box (I always seem to be out of town when these things happen). Roland rushed Floyd back to the emergency vet (again!). He had no discernible blood pressure and a very low temperature reading. X-rays and blood work didn't reveal anything except some liver issues, so the vets at the hospital weren't sure what happened to him. They were thinking that he had a stroke or a hypoglycemic reaction (We declined the $600 ultra-sound test - enough is enough already). They stabilized him and got his temperature and blood pressure back up. After 2 days and more on the tab, Floyd was up and walking around being Floyd again like nothing ever happened. He's home now, back in the bedroom and back to using his litter box.

We are planning a trip to visit my folks on San Juan Island this month. Of course we'll take Floyd. I told Roland that if something happens with him, he'll just have to be helivaced to the emergency hopital in Lake city. No comment from Roland.

Purple Sprouting Entropy

2010-08-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

Entropy: The second law of thermodynamics in that nature tends to take things from order to disorder in isolated systems.

The law of entropy can be applied to the vegetable garden. You see, I had good intentions of planting everything in nice, neat rows all labeled, but alas, entropy took over and as a 'piler' it wholeheartedly sought me out.

Right now, we have Purple Sprouting entropy. As I've stated in a previous post, this particular type of broccoli is meant to be planted in the fall to winter over as it takes 8 months until harvest. We planted ours last April from seed and thinned to around 18" apart. It isn't due to be harvested until this December according to the books. Meanwhile it has grown to gigantic proportions - over 5 1/2 feet tall with the raised bed - while occasionally spitting out flower heads the size of golf balls. And since the weather is getting cooler, it should get really happy and get even bigger; leaves that is. It's taken over almost the entire 4x8 foot bed and shows no sign of stopping. I haven't given it any fertilizer for months. I can't find the labels, but obviously don't need them as you can't mistake what it is.

I think this PS broccoli crop would make great inspiration for a Stephen King horror novel such as, "The Plant: Purple Sprouter" or a campy B grad movie, "Attack of the Killer Broccoli."

I also think that the physicist who came up with the entropy law was a piler.

The Poop Scoop

2010-08-04T16:25:00.000-07:00

I grew up with a firm belief instilled in me on the importance of a good bowel movement. Since Floyd came home last week, he hadn't produced a poo for several days which had me concerned. He was also starting to get a little belligerent about the whole pee extraction thing, so we took him into the vet last Sunday to get another lesson on how to pee him, to pick up some more pain meds and to ask the vet about bowel movements. Floyd ended up getting an enema. Roland and I also got a lesson on how to give Floyd an enema and were plied with a bunch of rubber gloves, syringes and a long tube to take home. After Feline Enema 101, we took our care package and Floyd up to the front reception desk for another financial enema. I told Roland that we should have that poop bronzed.

During the visit, the vet assistant asked us if we'd be interested in having our cats come in and donate to the blood bank in exchange for certain veterinary care. I asked her that since we had 9 cats, did she think we could get $3200 worth of credit for Floyd. I think vets should offer punch cards for certain cats, sort of like espresso stands - 10 visits and the 11th is free. Floyd would certainly qualify for that program. We were debating on whether to change his name to Crystal Cruise.

Upon the prospect of shoving a tub of goo up Floyd's back side, and the fact that the vet told us that increasing the amount of laxative wouldn't hurt him, we proceeded to add larger amounts into his wet food. He is also eating more now, so his laxative amount has increased with that development.

Floyd went in this morning for an official follow-up visit with the surgeon, who managed to remove several hard poops out of him. Well, that must have popped the cork because when I came home and checked on him this afternoon, he was covered from head to toe. The only thing he didn't do was paint with it on the wall. (He could then get published in Why Cats Paint II.) Thank got for the lid on the crate! He had that pathetic look cats get on their faces after they've been humiliated and it's your fault. After putting the rubber gloves to good use and using up around 20 moist towelettes, I gave up and carried him into the bathtub for a hose down. He wasn't too happy about that and I could tell he was getting stronger as he tried to launch himself from my grasp several times. A careful good suds and rinse did the job. Now, at least he has something to do in his crate (no, not poop endlessly) as he is diligently cleaning his wet fur. However, if this is a sign of things to come (out), he may end up being the cleanest cat in the neighborhood before too long.

I think we can back off on the Metamucil now.

Update on Floyd's Condition

2010-07-30T19:01:00.001-07:00

Floyd's been home for several days now. The surgeon decided not to operate for several reasons. First, he has enough space between his pelvic bones for his business to get through, and second, the place where they surgically attach the two bones is damaged and Dr. Walker thought it would cause more problems than solve. So, apparently, he will be able to walk just fine with time - about 6 weeks or so without the operation.

She's also not a tail amputater, and would rather wait to see how in the way it is. His tail's separated from his spine by about an inch, so he has no use of it. It's also as long as a train on a wedding dress and may drag behind him. His regular vet could remove it down the road, when everything in his poor body settles down. They usually leave enough behind so he would look like a Manx.

The only other issue is his continence. Four times a day, I physically extract his urine and try to get him to poop. He had a little poop on his own, yesterday, but he might be somewhat constipated from the pain killers. Been sneaking in the Metamucil with his wet food to help things along. With the nerve damage in his tail section, it's questionable that he'll be able to go potty on his own, but we'll wait and see. He gets pain meds twice a day and an anti-inflammatory once a day.

I also give him a good body rub down each time I check on him. He seems to like that. I think he's getting tired of confinement as he would like to get up and walk, but finds out quickly that that ain't working so well right now. I wonder if there's kitty PT.

Thanks to all of you for your concern. I know that Floyd is getting good vibes from all the well wishing energy, which most certainly helps in the healing process.

Floyd Happens

2010-07-27T17:33:00.000-07:00

Well, this has been a week of being smucked by cars. Not only did I get hit a week ago, I'm sad to say that our funny little fur-face, Pretty Boy Floyd got struck by a car last Saturday afternoon.

I was sitting on my sofa when I heard this loud cat howling noise. At first I thought it was a cat fight. When I looked outside, I saw a car driving up the road and then saw Floyd dragging his back end behind our parked van and then out in front of it and across the street towards our house. Of course, the 'oh shits' came out of me and I immediately rushed out to stop him and then I carefully scooped him up and immediately headed for the house to grab the cat carrier. It took some juggling to open the thing, as I was on the front porch single-handedly removing the top half of the crate while cradling Floyd on my thigh. I placed him in the crate on a towel and closed it up.

The next challenge was to get him to the emergency vet. Having been in a car accident 5 days before, my car was not drivable, so I was quickly thinking about who I could call to get a ride. Roland was way off in Issaquah at a job site and not answering his cell phone. I was considering a taxi, when several women came up the front steps. One was a neighbor several doors up and the other was her mother, the one who accidentally ran over Floyd. They were looking for Floyd's owner. I explained my situation and the woman who hit Floyd offered to give us a ride to the vet! I have to say she felt awful about it, and didn't realize she hit a cat until she looked in the rear view mirror. She gave up an outing with her daughter to help Floyd and I out and stayed at the vet, until Floyd was triaged and I found out the damage from the vet. Then she gave me a ride home. She also gave me her name and phone number, wanting to be kept up to date on his condition.

From Floyd's injuries, she must have ran over his back end with her tire, breaking his pelvic bone and separating his tail bone. His legs are unbroken and fine. He has a spinal injury in his back, but the surgeon can't tell if it's causing a pinched nerve, or something more serious, based on the x-rays. His internal organs look to be OK although there is some blood in his urine. During the initial consultation, the vet asked me, "His eyes are rather googly. Was he liked that before he came in? Because if he wasn't, that indicates he's suffered brain damage."

"Oh, yeah." I said, "His eyes have always been like that. In fact, the more excited he gets, the more they spin. He's always been mental, but not from this."

Floyd has always been 'special'. Before this tragedy, Roland called him our $5,000 free cat. He fits the definition of 'Mog' for sure. When he was just a kitten, he found a dropped cold tablet on the floor and ate it, almost doing himself in then. Through his 7 years of life to date, he's been in the vet's office at least half a dozen times for being Floyd. The last vet visit was several months ago when he ingested something else that almost killed him. That was $1200. If it crashes in the house, it's Floyd.

Some folk will think, "He should have been an indoor cat."

But he would still have raided the medicine cabinet and have injested the poisonous stuff, if he could. Prior to this tragedy, he had already used up a great percentage of his cat allotted lives. I think he's finally on his 9th. But despite it all, he's such a lovable rogue, always happy to see us (except when it comes time to get flee treated or go to the vet. It's amazing how he senses these things). He's a happy go lucky sort of fella. Most of all he's ours to steward.

Today, Roland and I had to make the decision to move forward with surgery to fix his pelvis and amputate his tail, with the large possibility that he will be incontinent, or have him put down. Until you are faced with this position, you will never know how incredibly hard it is to make. Never mind the finances. There are other important considerations. Roland consulted with Floyd's regular vet who was faxed copies of the medical reports of his current condition. He also consulted with his old girlfriend who was around when Floyd was first brought home. That shows how torn Roland was about what to do. She said that Floyd's brother Vinnie whom she got custody of when they broke up, was acting very strange on the day of Floyd's accident - overly needy and clingy. Hmmmm. Feline collective unconsciousness, perhaps?

Now I know some folk think that spending all this money in the attempt to bring him back to somewhat functioning again is a waste of money and silliness. After all, he's just a cat, right? I embrace a different philosophy. No, cats aren't human but we feel that he has a right to life, like the rest of us and we have the means to help him. I know he doesn't understand what's happening to him, nor will express gratitude (except perhaps, in being home again). But he's a member of the family in feline form and we love him. He's obviously a tough little guy and a living, breathing entity and we feel a responsibility to try and make him whole again.

Now, quality of life is another matter. If his quality of life is to degraded, then we will have to rethink things. If he's not going to walk again, then that's another matter. You can't put a cat in a wheel chair. But, for now, if there's a level of hope, we will move forward. So what if we can't take that trip abroad we were planning on right now. We can take it later. We went and visited him yesterday, and got updated on his condition. He has reflexive movement in his back legs, so there's hope. He was happy to see us, purring and pussy-footing his blanket, although pretty doped up on pain killers.

Tomorrow or Thursday is surgery and then the long road to recovery for the little fella. Yes, I'll be helping him potty and probably spoon feeding him for a while. He'll be an indoor kitty from now on. We'll probably build him an outdoor enclosure of some sort, so he can get some fresh air.

One last thing. I've heard terrible stories of people who run over animals (by accident or otherwise) and then keep going. Look at how many hit and run drivers that have been on the news lately with just people involved! The woman who hit Floyd, and then was enormously compassionate enough to find his owner, and then give us a ride to the vet in time of need (it must have been extremely awkward for her) has greatly increased my somewhat low opinion of the existence of integrity and compassion in people. Call me a cynic, but it's too bad that there has to be a tragedy in order to see the humanity in humans, especially in the media. In talking with and listening to her share her experiences with pets, compassion is obviously a part of this woman's make up. I think if Floyd had to get hit by anyone, he was lucky enough to get hit by her.

Stop and Smell the Roses Especially If You Get Smucked By a Car

2010-07-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

Nothing sucks more than having an injured back in the middle of prime gardening season. On my way to Ballard yesturday, I was driving across an intersection and BAM! I found myself spinning in a circle and landing halfway across a parking strip and sidewalk facing the opposite direction - a rather surreal experience. Apparently, the gentleman who plowed into me didn't realize that the light had changed and obviously didn't see me crossing in his path. Of course, people who saw what happened ran to my aid and called 911 which helped as when I tried, my cell phone battery died (of course). They were also just as (or more) concerned about my dog, Snorky, who was at ground zero as the offending car came straight at him. Luckily, he was strapped in with a harness and just got knocked off his car booster seat.

Of course the adrenalin was running and I was getting in and out of my car while snorting and hissing about this bit of bad luck, going for the pertinent information for the officers who showed up after the fire department. I felt shaken but not to physically bad really. My poor car didn't fare so well. The back passenger side wheel was bent in, my back door and back quarter panel are pretty crunched. I can't open the door. When Roland showed up he changed the tire to a rather skinny spare to avoid having the tire rub on the undercarriage. Being only a mile or so from Mog Cottage, I managed to limp the car home.

This morning I woke up with a stiff back which progressively got more stiff and sore as the day progressed. The adrenalin is now wearing off. Borrowing Roland's Subaru, I managed drive to my veg garden class this morning and managed to hold a hose and rake some compost, but couldn't do the cool stuff like laying a brick garden bed wall. The Doc told me that I probably won't be back to normal for 6 weeks or so and will probably feel worse before I feel better.

This brings me to the suckie part: it's hard to garden when you can't move well from the middle. And most of my classes this summer involve some amount of labor in the garden beds. You're probably thinking "Well, duh." Your also probably thinking that I got off with relatively little injury, considering the force of impact. I attribute that to driving a Subaru and where I got smucked on the car. I am thankful that I didn't get totally wiped out. I've seen those effects as a friend of mine had a serious accident several years ago that landed her in the hospital for weeks with multiple operations and permanent pins. She's finally starting to feel good again although never 100%

So, I'm really making sure not to have a pity party and just see this as one of life's inconveniences. Walking helps, so I walk my dog, Snorky and stop and smell the roses even though I can't bend over much to fertilize and prune them right now.

Crop Rotation: Filers vs. Pilers

2010-07-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

In my estimation, there are two types of gardeners: pilers and filers. Filers are logical, linear thinkers whereas pilers think multi-directionally - all at once. I admit, Roland and I are pilers. Unfortunately, the practice of crop rotation is a linear activity. So, when my Culinary Art teachers assigned the class to create a 3 year crop rotation plan, I suddenly found myself with a BRAIN CRAMP. I have to actually organize and plan my garden space beyond this season. Yikes! I thought everything gets planted in Spring because all of the seed packets say to 'Plant after threat of last frost is over'. Now I have to consider Fall and Winter crops too and how they overlap with what's already there and whether they're compatible with each other and how to do the switch-a-roo when the summer season is ending, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. A conspiracy of filers came up with the concept of crop rotation.

You see, the way each type of gardener views crop rotation has a lot to due with how they see the world. For instance, filers are who pilers deem anal. A filer's raised beds have hospital corners. When the seed package says to plant seed 2" apart, filers get out the ruler. Their radishes are perfectly lined up and perfectly spaced in perfect rows. Filers keep copious charts, graphs and records all in order and know to the hour when they can harvest their carrots. Filers live for organization, so they utilize their organizational skills to the utmost degree when planning a multi-year crop rotation. Their crop rotation charts looks something like this:Pilers on the other hand often drive filers crazy (with great pleasure, I think). To filers, pilers are a subspecies. Pilers have everything in their heads and can tell you in which pile something is and where in the pile to look. If pilers don't build structural raised beds, their corners morph into weedy wash outs or all the beds start to mush together. Pilers put 50 pounds of potatoes in a 5 pound sack. A piler's garden motto is, "We shall leave no ground uncovered!" And that's not necessarily with plants. To a piler, crop rotation looks something like this:

Roland took great pains to build our garden structures to give the illusion that we are striving to be filers so we can move up in the world. However, we're not fooling anyone, really. A closer look will reveal that between the beds are piles of wood for staking, bags of soil and compost, starts that we just couldn't cram in, but didn't have the heart to toss (uh huh), tools, pots full of various herbs and fruit trees and various ensembles of cats who think we built the tomato cloche for them.

In addition to being organizationally challenged, us pilers are often collectors. Roland likes to pile collections of cars, lumber, cats, tools and every scrap of paper that comes his way. I pile books, magazines, plants, boxes of wool and knitting projects, just to name a few. We eventually weed through it and pile the unwanted carbon materials in the burn box as we don't have a pile of compost yet because the pile of cars is in the way. Pilers have piles of stuff that we may find useful in the next century. Pilers keep thrift stores in business because we eventually drop off some of our stash, but seem to come home with more cool stuff we found when we couldn't resist and went inside for the hunt. Filers just dump and run (with their itemized receipt, of course). Pilers like garage sales that filers hold because filers get rid of very useful stuff such as perfectly good soaker hoses that have buggered areas. Pilers like to fix things.

Filers require everything in its place and if the place is full, then so be it, it goes. Pilers, on the other hand, always have room for one more thing and will find space. Pilers don't like to leave 2 feet between broccoli starts because that's open space that makes us anxious. Surely, something else can use that space, never mind the broccoli will take over and shade it all out. If it doesn't work out, we just consider this excess, planting our cover crops early, like killing two birds with one stone. Efficient, you know.

I know some of you are thinking, "But I have both qualities!" I'm happy that your life is well balanced. There is the possibility that you have a lot of inner conflict going on.

Filers would never strive to be pilers. However, as a piler, I often find myself trying to tap into my inner filer because zillions of dollars are spent each year on this endeavor as pilers are considered unable to efficiently function. We all want to be more efficient, don't we? Of course that doesn't last long, as once it's filed it doesn't exist anymore and I find myself wondering, "Now where the heck did I put that?" Eventually, I revert back to my natural state of piling, which makes life so much easier in a sense. Of course, computers have forced pilers to convert to a somewhat filing condition even though you will notice that the way the files are vertically presented on the file management interface, makes them look like piles. With that in mind, I'm typing this blog entry on my lap top which sits on top of a pile of unsorted bills on the wood stove, as the desk is covered with too many piles of seed packets and gardening books on how to do crop rotation.

Broccoli, Broccoli Everywhere and Not a Flower Head to Eat!

2010-07-08T14:01:00.000-07:00

Note to self: Read the packet of seeds carefully and double check another source before planting.

This last Spring, I was going through the packets of seeds at Lowes (I know, I know) and gravitated towards this variety called 'Purple Sprouting' broccoli. I was drawn to the pretty color displayed on the front of the packet and the fact that it was a sprouting variety, not the blobby type heads you see in the grocery store. More like purple rapeseed. So, I grabbed a packet or 2 thinking of wonderful, yummy purple food this summer. I enthusiastically planted a butt load of the seeds in one of the raised beds. It was rather slow to get going, but I chalked that up to the cold Spring we were having.

Well, when I did a plant list for my Spring Culinary Gardening class, I actually read the packet more thoroughly. Good ol' Ed Hume said that this variety takes 120 days to maturity. "Hmmm", I thought, "That takes it into the Fall before I can harvest any of it. Well, I dutifully put the Reemay over the top of the young plants to keep them safe from the white flutter-byes (after picking off a bowl full of little, yellow eggs - so I'm slow to react) and watched them slowly take hold, holes in the leaves and all.

When it finally warmed up, caboom! Now it's July and the stuff is 30" tall, lush with vegetation and no flower heads yet! Not even a hint. Just more leaves coming up the middle. Roland asked, "When are we supposed to harvest this stuff? It's taking up a whole bed!"

I said, "Ed Hume says 120 days. Let me look it up in one of my gardening guides."

240 DAYS?! 8 months! How could ol' Ed have it so wrong? Who the hell plants broccoli (besides, apparently I) that putzes along for 8 months? I guess that's why you plant it for the bleak of winter 'cause nothing much else takes much space other than other cabbages, carrots, garlic, fava beans, lettuce, spinach, beets, etc., etc. I mean, how many crops do you need, really?

So, I brought this up in my summer Culinary Gardening class and teacher Gayle told me, "That's a variety that usually gets planted for overwintering (neener, neener, neener)." And there it was, 'Purple Sprouting' on their PowerPoint list of veg to overwinter in today's class (neener, neener, neener).

I don't mind being the class example, but usually it's for having done something well, so if having broccoli that looks like it's radioactive (sterile), I've certainly done that. I've given up on perfectionism long ago, and now call it 'excelling'. Besides, I figure it's good to be remembered for something extraordinary like successfully over-summering overwintering broccoli.

When we were planting seeds for new starts for the colleges' garden today, teacher Anne relished the idea to give me the packet of Purple Sprouting broccoli (neener, neener, neener). So, for Christmas, I'm sending them each a head of Purple Sprouting broccoli fresh out of my veg garden.

Honey, Does This Pea Trellis Make My Butt Look Fat?

2010-07-08T13:59:00.000-07:00

When your significant other is a wood man, garden structures can get pretty interesting. I asked Roland to construct a trellis for our snap peas, so he took it upon himself to create a 'Cathedral to the Peas', made out of African Mahogany. It stands around 12 feet tall at the center pinnacle. This trellis should give us an outstanding crop, right?

Of course, structures such as this require one to climb precarious ladders inevitably on hot, sticky days. And one never really knows what one presents to the world during the process. How many of us just simply bend over while standing to pull weeds, not really paying attention to whom or where our back side is pointing. While squatting down, we may be doing the plumber's pose and not really know it. The breeze on a hot day actually feels good, ya know.

Of course there are other hazards to gardening that involve wardrobe malfunctions, especially when it comes to wildlife. For instance, I'm sitting on one bed while working on another. When I stand up, I feel an intense stinging pain on my right upper thigh under my pants. Well, without thinking, I immediately dropped my drawers in front of the neighborhood (yes, I was wearing underwear) and wouldn't ya know it, a wasp flew out. For some reason, the bugger had taken a liking to my upper thigh and crawled up under my pant leg without me feeling it until the magic moment! In a panic, with my pants around my ankles, I hobbled as fast as I could back into the house (which involved stairs) to apply a baking soda/Solarcaine compress. Luckily, the ace bandage got wrapped around the compress on my leg and not around my ankle, as I didn't kill myself in hobble mode.

What it comes down to is that as serious gardeners, we can't be too self-conscious about appearance at times. All of the fancy hats, gloves, tools and chinos won't cover up the reality that sometimes butt cracks and bee stings just happen.

50 Pounds of Potatoes in a 5 Pound Sack!

2010-07-06T18:20:00.000-07:00

In order to maximize the somewhat small square footage, the veg's were planted a packed together as possible without compromising the crops natural growth, well, too much. Due to the cat-proofing we had to install, square foot gardening wasn't an option, so we planted in rows along the short width, using the protective grid on top of the beds as row guides. They're spaced at 4 inches apart.

Roland likes carrots, leafy greens, snap peas, beans and radishes so plenty of that has gone in. The Mesclun (Roland said, "Isn't that a drug?") is being cut back for harvest, so we hope to maintain it's growth as space is an issue for a staggered plant schedule. Roland and I like potatoes so we planted 3 varieties in one of the bathtubs which is quite deep. I put herbs in the other tub. The pH levels have been around 7, but may add more lime to the pumpkin mound as Territorial Seeds implies that pumpkins seem to like more alkalinity.

A cloche made out of white oak has been constructed over Bed B into Bed C to cover the path too. The plastic roles up on Bed's C side for access. The end flaps are attached with binder clips and can be opened for access and venting. The soil temperature of Bed B seems to be around 5-7 degrees warmer (76 degrees at 1pm one day). I planted the tomatoes and peppers deep as instructed in my Culinary Gardening class, creating a hole, applying organic fertilizer, watering in and planting the tomato up to its top leaves. The peppers got planted up to the bottom leaves.

There is zilcho room to plant starts indoors. Roland's house is infested with tools and his other belongings and the lean-to solarium contains a dead hot tub and more tools and junk. So, everything got directly planted outside from seed or from purchased starts. The fennel are transplants from my house.

The upper beds are where the main crops grow with leafy greens, onions, shallots, swiss chard and leeks in one bed. Celery, brocolli, radishes, garlic, carrots and fennel occupy another bed and a third bed contains the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.

The bottom two beds on the parking strip are for beens and zucchs and pumpkin, which can vine out over the daisy terrior. I planted radishes among the squash. The clawfoot bathtubs contain several varieties of potatoes. I planted them around 6" down, but next year I would take some of the dirt out of the deep tub, plant the potatoes then cover them with dirt as they grow.

A lonely artichoke sits on a mound among the daisies. I planted some sugar pumpkins around it to keep it company. I had to stab scewers into the soil to keep the little buggers out of there.They've managed to poop among the new lavender bed on the south slope.

Being a relative veg gardening newbie and before I understood companion planting, I put the carrots right next to the fennel - ooops. The fennel did great, but the carrots..... Oh well, I tossed some carrot seeds in among the tomatoes. Also, I planted garlic this Spring which should wait until Fall to over-winter in our PNW marine climate. Also, my broccoli is uber tall, but no flowers. I just read that the Purple Sprouting variety I planted takes up to 240 days (that's 8 months, folks) to harvest! My Culinary Gardening instructor, Anne, informed me that that variety is another one to over winter. At the moment, I have to see if it can stand the summer temperatures, otherwise it's broccoli leaf soup. I guess I'll be harvesting broccoli for Christmas if it works out. As Maya Angelou says, "When you know better, you do better."

Pots contain a columnar apple and a cherry tree. Didn't get any fruit off the cherry this year, but the plant is pretty young. The apple has four fruits!

Other pots contain slug and snail food such as, basil.

The tomatoes are growing well, but no fruits yet, just flowers. We planted multiple varieties acquired at the Seattle Tilth Spring Plant Sale this Spring. Several are heirlooms including Speckled Roman and Brandywine Salad. While working in the bed, I smucked the Sungold, so I think that's a gonner. Somewhere in the bed, an eggplant and several peppers are coming along. Time to go and prune out the suckers and shade leaves, which I think I'll go do now. As you can see, it's a bit out of control.

Raised Beds & Bath Tubs: The Plan

2010-07-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

Now that I've analysed the site, it's time for a plan. Being an artist, planning is not my strong suite, as I follow a rather more serendipitous style. In other words, I'm rather disorganized and compulsive. However, this approach flies in the face of organizized science and as gardening is as much a science as a craft, I decided that a more logical approach was in order. Time to get the graph paper and tape measure out. I also involved Roland at this point since he is the constructor of all things physical.

After much consideration (i.e., arguing) the plan is as follows: Due to a lack of good soil structure, large sheets of cardboard were laid out over the existing grass and raised beds were installed, constructed out of Doug Fir heart wood and Cedar for durability. Frugal minded Roland wanted to use 2 x 12’s, 10’ long and construct 3 4-1/2’ to 5’ x 10’ beds on (to utilize the whole board) behind the claw foot tubs and 2 on the north end of the planting strip along the street. The beds were filled with commercial garden dirt - I mean soil, and amended with organic humus and fertilizer. The south end is for larger edibles such as, rhubarb and artichokes and edible flowers which would do better in large mounds than raised beds. Since Roland is slow to remove refuse from his yard, I proposed we turn the dead Subaru into a chicken coop. He didn’t go along with that idea and promises to remove it at some point. Where the vehicle sits would be a good small contained compost and potting area, perhaps with some cold frames. Currently, there is no exterior access from the lean-to greenhouse, which is currently filled with tools and a dead hot tub. The only access is from the laundry room.

The south facing greenhouse gets upwards of 120 degrees in the summer, even with the open gable ends and decking for the floor, so some sort of ventilation system would need to be installed (Roland wants to rebuild it anyway and the cats like to climb in and bake in it for now).

Roland has a propensity to use old plumbing fixtures as planters with the notion of using them in the house some day (ha!) The two exisitng claw foot tubs would make excellent tubs for potatoes and herbs as they are both deep, have good drainage and the cast iron retains heat. A sink pedistal makes a good plant stand and an antique wall mount sink on a pedestal holds pansies.

A scatter of pots hold annuals, several fruit trees and basil. The sloping banks hold lavender and strawberries as the grass and Black Eye Susan's get ripped out. We've staked the bare spots with wood spikes to keep the poopers out. A cloche was installed on the bed closes to the house for tomatoes and other tenders. So, with all of that, we have a good start on about 150 sq. feet of veg garden space. Next is what to do about the dirt, er soil.

In the Beginning: The Site Analysis

2010-06-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

In order to install a proper veg garden, it's important to analyze the site and that's what I did.

As I've mentioned, the single story house on the property is of a 1905 era Craftsman/Victorian shotgun style that was built on a post and pier foundation (basically, posts supported by large rocks). Therefore, the grounds around the house (and under the house) contain a disproportionate amount of sand mixed in with clay and cat poop.

The front concrete walk from the street to the front porch dissects the front yard. There are planting areas along the slope on either side of a set of concrete stairs down to the sidewalk, and grass on either side at the top walkway. The north sloped area is currently planted with strawberries and lavender (and cat poop). The south sloped area has several lavender and rosemary, but is invaded with grass and old perennials that is currently being cleared off (so the cats can poop in it). The planting strip along the street is also invaded with grass and old perennials as Roland has spread some soil and the wild flower seeds successively over the years for the cats to nest in (and poop in). The water meter is centrally located along the sidewalk side of the strip. Some flagstone was set in the middle of it as a walk to the cars from the sidewalk side and walkway. The front yard contains several types of overgrown botany on the corners of the front porch: 10’ tall x 6’ wide boxwood on the south side and a large camellia on the north side.

The back yard is unusable as it is basically a lumber yard and storage. It is also shaded from good sun exposure by the house to the east, the neighbor’s house to the south and the garage and carriage house to the west. Therefore, the front planting strip along the street and the southeast side of the front yard, along with the sloped areas are the best areas for a veg. and herb garden. Roland has a preference for antique plumbing fixtures as planting boxes as there are two 5’ claw foot bathtubs doing the Cialis thing in the front yard and an old wall mount sink on a pedestal filled with flowers in front of the porch. The plan is to use one of the tubs and the sink in a bath remodel sometime in the distant future. Various extraneous amounts of junk are scattered around, such as stacks of firewood and lumber, nursery plants that haven’t been planted yet, potted fruit trees, and tools. Several dead vehicles reside in the front, including a Subaru along the south side of the greenhouse. The driveway has been a repository of 4 yards of recently delivered garden soil and plant refuse as well as stacked lumber, a dead van and garbage cans. Sun exposure is good, as the property faces East.

So, with that, it was time to come up with a plan to figure out where to place the beds. The objective is to grow enough food to keep us both in various veg's over the summer with some left for neighbors (so they won't be so inclined to get pissy when we eventually get goats and chickens), and of course, friends. I'm not really a canner as much as a freezer person, so most of our bounty will probably be eaten fresh. Now, how to utilize every square inch of available space. Roland went to work clearing away much of the junk in the areas needed for the raised beds.

Dead Cars Make Great Chicken Coops

2010-06-29T14:25:00.000-07:00

When I went to the Seattle Flower and Garden Show last February, I was blown away by all of the beautiful landscape displays. A lot of them were larger than some real yards, like mine. However, when I turned a corner and saw it, I thought, "Now that is absolutely the best use of a common object I've ever seen!"

I'm talking about a small pick-up truck that was converted to a vegetable garden and chicken coop by the edible garden company, Urban Farm! Yes, there were displays with gardening sheds, compost sock retaining walls, large boulders and gazebos, but none of them were as clever as this display. Corn was growing out of the back bed with a plum tree and other assorted vegetables and a cherry tree and other vegetables were growing out of the engine compartment. Fruiting vines covered the sides. The front cab was the coop with a re-purposed file cabinet on the passenger seat for the nesting boxes. A chicken run was next to the driver's side of the vehicle with entrance to the coop via the driver's side door. Ingenious!

That brings me to Mog Cottage. Since I've known Roland (almost 5 years) there's been 3 dead vehicles parked in his yard. One old Subaru in the back (won't go there), a dead van full of scrap lumber in the driveway and another dead Subaru where the compost and cold frames are supposed to be. He's promised to get rid of the van and the Subaru for months now, and has managed to get the van started, and has moved the Subaru over onto the pavement. But, the Subaru remains an obstacle to good use of space. It's cramping my gardening style, taking up space that could where something like a greenhouse could go. So, since the back yard is impossibly full of stacks of lumber, and to date, he has yet to get a compost and cold frame area going, I'm threatening Roland with turning the Subaru into a chicken coop a la Urban Farm style. When you live with a pack rat, you have to be ingenious with how to cope with the clutter.

Since the back cargo area is a station wagon, that would make an excellent space for nesting boxes. They can line each side of the bed and can be accessed by opening the back hatch. The chickens can enter and leave the coop into an attached run along the side via the back driver's side door window. The front of the cab can be where the chicken food is stored.
Since we have plenty of beds for veges, the engine compartment would make a great cold frame area. Simply install a skylight in the hood. Roland can sell the engine and other mechanical parts in the way. We'd have to keep the interior lights hooked up for dark winter days since chickens require 14 hours of light in order to keep laying.

So, there you have it. A dead Subaru would a great chicken coop - it's roomy and coon proof. I can even name my own breed of chickens such as, Suba-Sussex.

So, if the van doesn't go soon, I'm getting goats.

Culinary, Cabbage, Cats & Coons: The Creation of Mog Cottage Urban Farm

2010-06-29T13:19:00.000-07:00

I've always been a gardener at heart. Perhaps it goes with the feeling that I was born in the wrong era, as I have always had a connection with history, especially the 1900's Arts & Crafts movement. I admit I hold it rather sentimentally, even though I wasn't born anywhere close to that era. I'm also a compulsive fiber artist, embracing old technology such as, spinning and knitting. I love to cook, especially ethnic foods. I haven't figured out where all these interests came from though. They're just innate, like genetic or something.

Part of my personal journey lately is to take my love for gardening a step further by getting formally educated and attend a community college that offers a degree in horticulture. I started last spring quarter. One of the classes I took was on vegetable gardening. The class was taught by two gals who took a ferry in from the Kitsap peninsula at the butt crack of dawn to teach the class every Friday morning.The idea of the class curriculum was to take weekly steps in constructing a real or imaginary garden (along with the one started on campus) and write a weekly report on the subject for the week. I thought, yee-hah because I work best with deadlines and have wanted to install a veg garden for a long time. The issue became where to do it.

For the past 4 plus years I have been seeing a fella who lives 37 miles from my house in Seattle. I found him on Craig's List. One of the requirements in my singles ad was a love of the Arts & Crafts movement, antiques, architecture, gardening and cats. He turned out to appreciate the same things I do, is a craftsman and owns an old house infested with cats. He likes to collect (I'll get into that on a different posting) and grew up with a father who had an entire city lot devoted to a veg garden located on Queen Anne Hill. Now for the logistics.

This is my house:
It is located in Smokey Point on a former cow field. It's on a postage stamp sized lot and there's no room for much veg other than some container veg's on the back deck and a herb garden.

This is Roland's house:

It was built in 1905 on a double lot in the heart of the Norwegian Ghetto - Ballard. It need's paint. The lot is 50' by 125' and is currently filled with weeds, lumber, 9 cats, coons, and 3 dead cars. However, it has other endearing qualities; there's room for a veg garden. Time for adding cabbage and carrots to the mix.

As I'm living in a fantasy of having a pastoral urban estate some day, I've decided to name the place as folk did in England (part of that Arts & Crafts era sentimental thing). Roland is not British, he's Swiss, but I have British pedigree so made the executive decision on the name. I picked Mog Cottage as 'mog' is a British slang term for pet cat of dubious pedigree. That's what our motley crew is mostly made of and they act like they own the place anyway, even demanding room service (in, out, in, out, in, out the front door despite the cat door in the back).

So, as the class progressed and I submitted my weekly reports, the garden took shape and now we have a good start. As urban farming is a huge trend, especially in Seattle, I feel that we are part of a movement towards better urban land use. Neither of us are herd animals that tend to got with trends, but this is a cause we can easily embrace.

I'm taking part II of the veg class this summer. After my final presentation, one of the teachers told me that she enjoyed reading about my culinary garden adventures and that I should start a blog. So here it is. Welcome to the adventures of Mog Cottage Urban Farm.