golden currant

During a front yard weeding frenzy Saturday, came across this little guy, right at the foot of the big locust tree.



It's a golden currant. After noticing it in our yard, began to see it everywhere in the neighborhood. Lots of people have it trimmed into hedges.

weekend update

I did end up going to the Garden Fair on Saturday, no photos. Met up with Stacy there for a brief visit. Also chatted with her mom Bernice, who was keeping Kate company at the Ecoversity table. Also ran into Kathleen and Suzanne — small town!

Stacy mentioned that she had bought Brussels sprout seedlings, but they only came in 9-packs, and she didn't have room for all of them (she's doing raised box beds) and did I want 3 of them? Today she dropped them off, as she threatened to. So I had to finish fencing in the garden (needed a second roll of fencing to make it all the way around), and plant them. Here's the (hopefully) dog-proof result:



I guess it would be more accurately called dog-resistant. Cheyenne could definitely get in there if she really wanted to. Mostly I'm depending on her lack of ambition. ha ha.

I have no idea what kind of Brussels sprouts these are. Apparently, neither does the company that grows them:



Here they are, all in a row. Grow, little dudes!





Also put in radish, carrot, and beet seeds in the raised bed along the back of the house. Rows marked with PINK! string, recovered with straw mulch, and strewn with the dried stalks from last year's agastache flowers. It's my half-assed attempt to keep the neighbor's fricka-fracka cats out of there. I have a sinking feeling I'll need to use my whole ass and put up some chicken wire later, when it doesn't work.

garden fair this weekend

Santa Fe Master Gardeners 5th Annual Garden Fair on Saturday. Perhaps going with Stacy.

notes: 2010 tomatoes

Some high-altitude, short-season, heirloom variety suggestions to look into for next year, via Kate at High Altitude Gardening:
- Paul Robeson
- Black from Tula
- Peacevine Cherry
- Elfin Grape Tomato

tomatoes!

There's sprouting action on all the tomatoes except the Black Prince. C'mon! you can do it!

notes: cool water catchment idea

I wonder how hard it would be to rig up something like this?



Photo by Helen Fickling, from The Minimalist Garden:

"Fabric water traps suspended from a framework act as funnels to collect moisture and direct it into containers at their base."

hmmmm . . . always looking for ways to water things here.

White House veggie garden

All the garden blogs have been atwitter with the news that there would be a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. And even those who scoffed that Michelle Obama was just doing a photo op (wearing dressy clothes and breaking sod with a rake?!?) at the official groundbreaking were all happy to see the FLOTUS in more appropriate (and grubby) clothes today:




[pix from the HuffPo style section, via GardenRant]

I know, I know, it's another photo op, but that's still pretty damn cool. The whole White House veggie garden thing is really great exposure for gardening in general, and those kids from Bancroft will probably remember the First Lady getting down in the dirt there with them all their lives. What a great way for those kids to learn about real food.

Just don't assume you need a White House staff or a lot of money or expensive equipment to grow some of your own food. I remember our huge veggie garden in Michigan. I'm pretty sure Mom + Dad planted it because we didn't have a whole lot of money, and growing your own was (and is) cheaper and better than most stuff in stores. I'm guessing most kids today don't know that. (Local exceptions of note: Monte del Sol charter school here in Santa Fe not only has a student-tended garden, but they also eat what they grow there for school lunches; Camino de Paz, a Montessori school up in Española, not only farms as part of the curriculum — the kids also sell the produce at the Santa Fe Farmers' Market.)

Sorry, this is kind of rambling and disconnected. The upshot: our new First Lady is pretty kickass.

the cosmos win!

...with the marigolds coming in second. Nothing on the tomatoes yet. But I have faith.

The rest of the cosmos and marigolds got scratched into the dirt in the bed by the front door last weekend. I'll have to figure out a way to keep the stupid neighbor cats from using it as a litterbox until they come up. Cayenne pepper, maybe?

so ghetto!

Started the tomatoes and some flowers (cosmos and mystery marigolds from one of Bram's coworkers) today. Set up the peatpots and lights on a sawhorse in the bathtub.



Yeah, yeah, I know. It's pretty pitiful.