How to plant pachysandra

We know that pachysandra is the perfect shade plant. I absolutely love it. We planted it a few years back under our huge backyard trees.

 A few weeks ago, my friend Franz wanted to plant some pachysandra under his shady trees. He had this big idea for planting... drilling holes into the earth and putting one plant in each hole.

It worked like a charm. And it went so fast, so so fast!

Here's what he did.

1. He bought his pachysandra over the internet. It was delivered. He went to the county dump and got a bunch of nice soil.

2. We began to drill holes into the soil a few inches apart. We used a regular drill with a widish bit.




3. We began to feed individual plants into each hole.




4. We filled the holes and coverd the surrounding area with soil.





Franz and his son Tristan working.


After planting

5. Water vigorously and repeatedly.

This is my garden this year

These are my first pictures of the garden this year, taken a few weeks back. Things have already changed since then! But I need to show the first pictures. I'm excited!


Swiss chard


Another view

I'm at it again

I left gardening last summer after a nasty case of blight ravaged my tomatos. We had a light harvest of potatoes, which were very good.

I just planted a new garden today... I realize that it's late to get started on June 5. But still.

I have planted mostly tomatoes and peppers. It's a small plot in my own yard. I'll take a photo tomorrow.

I'm tired after a long day's work.

Hoping for a fruitful adventure.

The happiest little tater in the whole wide world

Can you believe this little guy I dug up today? It was the smallest potato in the patch but he was definitely worth harvesting. He makes me so happy! Mr. Pee Wee Potato Head!

Bruce told me that because of the blight we should check our potatoes, as late blight might spread to them. They looked fine, so far. I harvested a few of them and cooked them up for lunch. A joy!

Today's potato harvest and lunch!

Blight fright!

Yes, it is really happening. I've been worried for a while, ever since I heard Mike McGrath talk about late blight on his radio show You Bet Your Garden

And now my worst fears have come true. I was sick about it for a while but have now accepted it. Everyone's tomatos in the garden are affected. The experts say it's best to pull the plants out and bag them -- throw them out with the trash. But as I still have unaffected fruit on my plants I have not done so yet.

Here's what it looks like. Our plants also took a beating from the torrential downpours this past weekend. Our stakes failed and the tomato plants were smothering my lettuce. I cleaned it up s'best I could.




This is what happens to the fruit, it turns black.

Randy's mix

Randy, a very nice gardener in our community garden, is always spraying his plants with a homemade concoction. Everything in his garden looks so great, so it must work. It's sure to keep critters away, especially those little white flies that gather on tomato plants (I forget the name).

I asked Randy for the recipe so here it is. (And the plants have great breath, too!)

Randy's anti-critter concoction

In a bucket mix:
1 tbsp canola oil

2 tbsp mouthwash

1 tbsp baby shampoo

Fill the rest of the container with one quart of water. Pour into spray bottle.

Amuck with muck.

Here is the compost pile Bruce told us about. It's a ways away from our plots so I had to take the wheel barrow down and load it up a few times. I met a man walking his puppy. At first he didn't know I was there (I was behind the trees in the muck and all) and he was talking up a storm to his puppy. It was cute to see. (I didn't take any photos of him.)

Bruce told us to keep piling compost on our potatoes, and we did. He said it would make them taste good and grow well. We put the compost on everything believing it would be true for all our plants.

The last photo is our garden on June 14. Things started to take off and we have the stakes in for our tomatoes.

I guess it was at this point we realized we sort of crammed too much into one small plot.

Live and learn....

Early days...

These shots are from our first days of planting. They were taken in late on June 1. Ok, so we got a late start.

Reminds me of a favorite poem

The Red Wheelbarrow
by William Carlos Williams

-----------

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.


(OK, so this is green and not red, and there are no chickens. Still, it was a rainy day and it is a wheel barrow! And it did make me think of the poem, which is lovely, don't you agree?)

The lay of the land

Our plot is so small (about 10 ft x 10 ft) but this is the way we've planned it. It's very cute.

We're off and planting

Ulf and I started an organic vegetable garden about two weeks ago. It is at a community garden plot at a local historical site called Harriton House. More information on what we planted is forthcoming, along with a cute drawing of what is where. The plot itself is only about 10 ft x 10 ft, but still...

We are loving going over there every few days or so in the early morning or in the evening and spying on what others are doing. That is the main way we get our info on what to do, since we are such beginners. Whenever we run into someone we ask a lot of questions.

Last night was gorgeous and we were so surprised to see everything coming up, even the garlic! Last night we planted lettuce, although it might be too late already.