miscellany

Thank you to everyone who responded to an earlier post with encouragement and suggestions and questions about my potatoes. I meant to dig down and look at what was going on. In fact, I meant to plant a brand-new batch. But I was busy, and never got around to it. Then I went back to the bed - and it's full of potatoes.

Even the second bed has one potato coming up now.
So. There you go.

And in the category of gardener silliness...

People don't stake asparagus, right? Well, I did.
It was flopping over, as asparagus does, and it was in the way of my little walking path. I was afraid I would hurt the asparagus.
So, yes - I staked it. And though I feel a bit silly about it, I think it looks nice.

And last - we finally have artichokes! Can you see them?
Here's a close up.
Mmm...

not my garden (a.k.a. perhaps more pictures than you want to look at)

Maybe the title should be, "not MY garden." In case later I write a post about "not my GARDEN."

I love walking around midtown, and having a dog gives me a reason to do that often. One of my favorite things is to look at other people's front-yard gardens - particularly veggies and other edibles. It seems that more and more people are adding such things to their landscapes. (The photos follow the descriptions of them.)

This is a little raised bed on U Street, kept (I think) primarily by the kids in the house. This is the only photo where my dog makes a guest appearance.

On S Street.

Another on S Street, and another favorite of mine. Are these some kind of berry? Looks like it, but they're not familiar to me.

Same garden. The berries are in the shade, to the left. Then mint, and artichokes. This strip is between their driveway and their next-door-neighbor's yard.
Same garden, again, but this time between the sidewalk and street.
And it looks like they're adding a new bed this year.
And a couple of beds to the house-side of the sidewalk.
Same garden - overview.
This is an empty lot across from the old Newton Booth school. From this view, you can hardly tell there's anything there.
But this spring someone put a bed in. Yay!
This is another favorite of mine, on 27th Street, more toward the North section of midtown. Again, between the sidewalk and street.
More of the same. I met the nice gardener, who was happy to chat (and glad I wasn't from the city & trying to outlaw her garden or something).
Same garden.
Same garden.

And again, the 27th Street garden - an overview.
View from across the street.
I'm forgetting where I took this, but it looks to me like this person is trying to do edibles...
Now this is my favorite garden of all. It's on 19th Street. There's an empty lot next to a big old house/apartment building, and the next-door residents have started gardening the lot. It's awesome, and keeps getting bigger.
More of the 19th Street garden.
Looks like they're expanding this year.
Close up. Eggplant (I think), and ?
19th Street garden from yet another angle.

Strawberry patch on 19th Street.
Another angle.

I'm forgetting where I saw this new bed. Maybe O Street?

But here's the clue that they are doing edibles...

Thanks for coming along on a front-yard garden tour of my 'hood!

Potatoes

So, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I planted two raised beds with potatoes. If I remember right, I planted them two weeks ago - April 5th.

So far, this is what has come up.

That's one plant. ONE little plant, out of maybe 14 potato chunks planted, in two beds.

So what do I do? Give up hope? Go buy some more potatoes to plant? Continue to wait and hope? Seriously, if you've grown potatoes and have advice for me, I'm all ears...

A Tour, Part II: outside the fence

Most of the edibles (i.e. the more interesting plants) in my yard are grown along the sidewalk. I wanted to look up the Sacramento garden blogger who calls hers "full frontal gardening," so I could link to her and give her credit, but can't find it at the moment. I love stealing good ideas.

This is my boysenberry trellis, 2011. Blooming nicely.

This is the part of the garden I am most excited about this year: breaking ground on a brand new bed. The bed is 4'x10', which, in my little Midtown lot, is HUGE! It used to be roses and bulbs. It may well get more sun than anywhere else in our yard. I'll add home-made compost, and expect to be able to put tomatoes and peppers in by the end of the month.

Here are the bulbs I removed. (The roses I gave away. Hooray for Freecycle!) Even though it's completely the wrong time of year, I will divide and replant as many of these as I can find places for.

Here is my artichoke plant. Nary a 'choke to be seen. I think maybe Bill Bird jinxed me. (Or else he was just plain right.)

My two original raised beds look lovely, thanks to the self-seeding of last year's California poppies and alyssum.

Oh: and nasturtiums.

The problem is finding it in me, now, to dig up some of that gorgeousness to make room for my veggies...

One of my favorite spots is my little patch of Alpine strawberries in the front yard. I adore Alpine strawberries, because they will grow in light shade/filtered sun. I've eaten a half-dozen this spring, and they are tiny but delicious.
With lots more to come!

A Tour, Part I: behind the fence

Since I'm back at it, dear reader, how 'bout a little tour?

We begin our tour in the back yard, around our patio. These are three pomegranate plants I started from suckers last year. Eventually I will choose just one to keep. I hope to have it in a huge beautiful pot on the patio one day. (You can see a bit of the grape trellis on the right side of the photo.)

The grape vines I planted last year are leafing out and growing nicely. Time to do some work training them on the trellis.

Here is the fig tree that was new last year, and the blueberry bushes, newly planted in pots last year. All coming along nicely. (This is the East wall of our house.)

And the blueberries are covered with fruit!

Next, we move to the side yard. I planted potatoes in two of my side beds. I have to admit I'm not very optimistic about them (it's the first time I've cut potatoes rather than planting them whole, and they looked so shriveled!). We'll see.

It's hard to see with the shadows, but this is my asparagus bed. I planted 6 crowns last year - 5 sprouted. Of those, 3 returned this year. I don't get to pick any to eat until next year. I'll have to wait until next year now, to replace the crowns that did not come up this year.

I read somewhere a suggestion to plant strawberries with asparagus, since both are perennials. So, I put in two plants this year.