The Ugly Days
Guys, my garden has seen better days. Once it was vibrant with flowers and food. Once it was thriving. Like this:
But thanks to the Santa Ana Winds (that's extremely hot, dry, furiously fast winds for those of you who don't live here in SoCal) it destroyed my corn crop and stripped most of my apple tree fairly bare, and in general, sucked. And not only that, but my flower bed that I'd just planted seeds in that started to sprout, got dug up by a opossum that decided it was a litter box.
Did you know they do that?
Well now you all know they bury their excrement.
And now we all get that lovely mental image burned into our brains, forever. Because if I have to suffer, you allll have to suffer!
Couple that with the fact that I was gallivanting off in the Netherlands for a little bit, my garden looks decidedly barren and ugly and uncared for. Like this:
So this weekend, now that I have actual time, I'm going to do a serious overhaul of the garden since I'm no longer traveling for the rest of the year and begging friends to take care of a straggly garden. The only thing that's going strong right now is my garlic! I'm actually really surprised and excited about this, because the last time I tried to grow garlic it uh....it didn't go well. But I also randomly planted them in the summer (lesson learned, don't do that). This time around I planted them in the fal, the actual correct seasons to plant them (i.e. September).! LOOK HOW HAPPY THEY ARE:
I'm going to build my tunnel arches IF IT KILLS ME, and use as many zip ties as I need to keep them in place! Then I'm going to plant things my friends. Ohhhhh man am I going to plant! If you want to know what I'm growing in my fall garden, I have this blog post here telling you all about it!
Sadly, due to my absence and my EVIL CAT, all of my artichoke seedlings died, as did 3 of my four montenesco tomato seedlings. To say I'm sad is an understatement. But I'm going to start over again, and plant the few remaining tomatoes into the raised bed I've reserved solely for tomato plants. Well, that and for the gourds that will be growing up a trellis (So I don't know count that).
Because if there's one thing gardening teaches me, it's that when things fail, you learn and try again. Mother nature gives up, so why should I!?
OH OH OH!
I do have a little bit of good news! I have 2 new additions to the family, with a 3rd one coming in! Before leaving for my international adventure my local nursery was having a really great sale on fruit and nut trees and well.....I caved. So I bought an almond tree, a thornless boysenberry plant (if you haven't had boysenberry you're missing out on life!), and a braeburn apple tree (the one on layaway) who I'll be picking up this weekend!
Have I ever grown almonds before?
No.
BUT THERE'S A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING!
The variety I got is the kind that is apparently easy to open, is exceedingly prolific, has a low chill time, and can withstand high temperatures, which gardening gods knows I'll need!
Also, enjoy this pic of my poor mangled new plants that survived the Santa Ana winds (mostly)!
But thanks to the Santa Ana Winds (that's extremely hot, dry, furiously fast winds for those of you who don't live here in SoCal) it destroyed my corn crop and stripped most of my apple tree fairly bare, and in general, sucked. And not only that, but my flower bed that I'd just planted seeds in that started to sprout, got dug up by a opossum that decided it was a litter box.
Did you know they do that?
Well now you all know they bury their excrement.
And now we all get that lovely mental image burned into our brains, forever. Because if I have to suffer, you allll have to suffer!
Couple that with the fact that I was gallivanting off in the Netherlands for a little bit, my garden looks decidedly barren and ugly and uncared for. Like this:
So this weekend, now that I have actual time, I'm going to do a serious overhaul of the garden since I'm no longer traveling for the rest of the year and begging friends to take care of a straggly garden. The only thing that's going strong right now is my garlic! I'm actually really surprised and excited about this, because the last time I tried to grow garlic it uh....it didn't go well. But I also randomly planted them in the summer (lesson learned, don't do that). This time around I planted them in the fal, the actual correct seasons to plant them (i.e. September).! LOOK HOW HAPPY THEY ARE:
I'm going to build my tunnel arches IF IT KILLS ME, and use as many zip ties as I need to keep them in place! Then I'm going to plant things my friends. Ohhhhh man am I going to plant! If you want to know what I'm growing in my fall garden, I have this blog post here telling you all about it!
Sadly, due to my absence and my EVIL CAT, all of my artichoke seedlings died, as did 3 of my four montenesco tomato seedlings. To say I'm sad is an understatement. But I'm going to start over again, and plant the few remaining tomatoes into the raised bed I've reserved solely for tomato plants. Well, that and for the gourds that will be growing up a trellis (So I don't know count that).
Because if there's one thing gardening teaches me, it's that when things fail, you learn and try again. Mother nature gives up, so why should I!?
OH OH OH!
I do have a little bit of good news! I have 2 new additions to the family, with a 3rd one coming in! Before leaving for my international adventure my local nursery was having a really great sale on fruit and nut trees and well.....I caved. So I bought an almond tree, a thornless boysenberry plant (if you haven't had boysenberry you're missing out on life!), and a braeburn apple tree (the one on layaway) who I'll be picking up this weekend!
Have I ever grown almonds before?
No.
BUT THERE'S A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING!
The variety I got is the kind that is apparently easy to open, is exceedingly prolific, has a low chill time, and can withstand high temperatures, which gardening gods knows I'll need!
Also, enjoy this pic of my poor mangled new plants that survived the Santa Ana winds (mostly)!
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| (Boysenberry plant! & almond tree! Man those winds did some damage!!)
I hope your gardens are doing well (if you're gardening right now) and if you have a blog with your own gardening experiences please share them in the comments below! I love meeting fellow gardeners!
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Oh no! I am so sorry that your garden suffered in your absence! That is one lovely thing about Colorado, we do have lots of wind, but it doesn't generally kill anything. (Unless it knocks things over.) Hopefully you get it all back to normal soon! Good luck with your new additions!
ReplyDeleteAhhhhh thanks Abigail! Yeah we get little gentle breezes sometimes (I actually wish we had a bit more breeze more consistently, honestly! ) but the Santa Ana's this year were SUPER bad. Like, broke massive tree branches off and slammed things around....it was apparently the worst we've had in a decade or something. It was pretty intense!
DeleteAlso thank you so much! I'm really hoping my trees all come back in the spring! lol!
Oh man, I'm so sorry about your garden! I can sort of relate, since I'm in the PNW and we've had unrelenting rain for the past few weeks, so a lot of my remaining plants have been terribly beaten and shredded by the rain, and there's just not much left now (except for the dahlias — they're surprisingly resilient). But I'm looking forward to the next growing season!
ReplyDeleteAwwww sorry to hear about that! I hope they come ack next year for you (if they're perennials!)! What are you growing in your next growing season, and actually, when IS the next growing season for you up there in the PNW!?
DeleteThe next growing season for us is in the spring! Although I believe I could extend my growing season in the winter if I grew cold-hardy plants under cover. In fact, my kale is still doing really well even without cover. Our winters are usually pretty mild. Next year I'm hoping to grow lots of different squashes, pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, beets, and cabbages!
DeleteOh wow! all of that sounds yummy! I'm going to be growing squash for the first time next spring too! ANY TIPS!?!? (I'm growing butternut squash)! AND OOOO YOU'RE GROWING WHAT I'M GROWING IN MY FALL GARDEN!
DeleteYou've reminded me--I need to get pickling cucumbers as well! Haha! :)