Vacation's over!

Primroses

It feels like I've hardly had time to think about gardening this past winter-- this is the first year that I've approached a gardening season feeling completely unprepared. It's not that the usual winter tasks didn't get accomplished. Seeds have been ordered, pots have been bleached and cleaned, potting mix has been purchased in abundance. But somehow, I'm adrift. Maybe it's a sort of gardening mid-life crisis? I guess spring will tell.

Last year's garden: a post-mortem:

• The radicchio finally formed loose heads! There is still quite a bit of it in the garden, as the husband does not share my enthusiasm for its bitterness.
  
  
• The pumpkins never ripened fully, and started to rot. If you can imagine 75 pounds' worth of partly-mushy pumpkins leaking their slimy orange pumpkin guts all over the lawn-- well, as much as I wanted those pumpkins, it was pretty funny.
  
  
• Remember those bulbs that I forgot to plant on time last year? So far, the daffodils, at least, are coming up just fine. The fritillarias haven't popped up yet, but I'm definitely seeing some alliums. Happily, 'Splendid Cornelia,' the hyacinth that I forced last winter, has also come up in its new home in a patio container. It may edge out the daffodils as first bulb to bloom this year.

Early-spring gardening:

• We've had a couple of weeks of beautiful weather, and as a result, the second giant clump of rhubarb has finally been divided. Three of the seven resulting clumps were adopted by a co-worker; two more are still looking for homes. I also have several French sorrel plants in search of a new home.
  
  
• Sweet peas and snow peas have been planted on time! I ordered particular sweet peas from a particular vendor this year and was really looking forward to them, and they somehow lost my order! So the replacement sweet pea seeds that I ended up grabbing at the store are some standard variety, but I'm really looking forward to the snow peas, which are a new-to-me variety called 'Carouby de Maussane.'
  
  
• Meet my very first orchid! It's an oncidium, probably 'Sweet Sugar.' So far, it's been in flower for about a month. If I can keep it alive, there's another oncidium that I have my eye on.
  
  
• I will spare you the introduction to my first David Austen rose, as it is currently nekkid (in a bare-root sort of way). I'm planning on acquiring one more, but I've got to find a place for it, first. One of my 2008 garden resolutions is to take better care of the roses this year. I've armed myself with horticultural oil, fungicide, and a fresh bottle of pyrethrin, but already have a nagging suspicion that it will take more work and more chemicals than I can stomach.
  
  
• The Northwest Flower & Garden Show has come and gone. It was my first year attending this huge PNW garden event. A few photos are posted here. The show featured dozens and dozens of plant vendors. I, of course, walked out with nothing but more frakking dahlia tubers :-/
  
  
• Finally, to explain the photo of the day: I did not grow these primroses. They came from the local nursery. However, I am attempting to stratify three flats' worth of primrose seed this year. Last year, my wintersown container of primroses was one of only two failures, so I've divided my containers into three separate batches and will try different methods to get the seeds to germinate. These aren't just any primroses, by the way-- they are mostly species auriculas, along with a batch of candelabra primroses. This task may prove to be beyond my skill level, but if even one of my three trial groups yields plants, I'll be thrilled.

Bullet-point posts are always random and exhausting, aren't they? Well, I'm sorry to unload all of that in one post, but it was time to get the blog all caught up. The 2008 growing season has arrived, and experience is beginning to teach me that there will not be time to wax nostalgic over past moments once things start taking off!

How sweet it is

Carrots - 'Purple Haze' and 'Nantes'

Last year, after being very impressed with myself for having grown my first carrot, I mentioned that I was going to try a variety called "Purple Haze." In the spirit of continuing to show off my carrots, here is "Purple Haze" mixed in with more of the Nantes type pictured in last year's photo. Pretty cool-looking, eh? Root crops are supposed to turn sweeter after frost; these post-frost carrots certainly do seem sweeter than their mid-season counterparts. I wish I'd planted fall beets!

Elsewhere in the vegetable garden, the sorrel is starting to succumb to the cold weather, after all; I'm debating whether to pull out my extra plants now, or wait until spring to give them away. I'm also worried about the leeks; they look fine so far, but I don't know how winter-hardy the variety I planted is. They're too small to use yet, though, so the decision to leave them in is a no-brainer. Finally, the radicchio is still not heading. I may pull out some of the plants and move them to an area that gets more sunlight. If that doesn't work, I'll be starting from scratch with a more sure-heading variety in the spring.

In the flower beds: last week, I cut back the dead dahlias to let the tubers cure. They're due to be dug up and stored next weekend. While I was messing around in the flowerbeds, I put in my fall-planted bulbs and rearranged the perennials to try and "fix" my plant height issues-- next year, I don't want to have to deal with two-foot larkspurs buried behind four-foot high dahlias again. Here are the before and after shots. The difference doesn't look very impressive right now, especially since the dahlias have been cut down and the annuals taken out, but by spring the improvement should be marked.

As a final note, we pruned the grapes this past weekend. Do not try this at home! Grapes are normally pruned in spring, but since the recent frosts killed off most of the foliage, and since my husband doesn't like the way that the vines trap humidity against the garage, we now have two naked, scrawny trunks on either side of a wooden arbor, defenseless against the impending cold. Husband wants to move the grapes next year; I think they're going to be too much trouble to move, and would prefer replacing them with a more flavorful variety, or maybe even wine grapes.

Even though I'm not very fond of red seedless, I have to admit that owning our own grapevines has increased my interest in and respect for viticulture. The grapes in particular have taught me to be a vigilant and merciless pruner; every year, we cut them way back except for a very few of the strongest vines from the previous year, and the plants always seem to bounce back with increased vigor. Even though we neglected the vines after pruning this past year and let the birds get most of the year's bounty, in a way, the business of pruning is its own reward. There is a calm to it, a sense of purposeful effort that I enjoy.

There are still bulbs to plant, tubers to store, and gardening supplies to be cleaned. I keep thinking that the gardening season (and thus, my blogging season) is done, but it still seems like there's always something to do. I once joked to a greenhouse grower that I couldn't have a greenhouse and do the four-season gardening thing because I needed the winter break! But there really isn't a break-- just a slowdown. And I think I like it that way.

October thoughs

Fall container

I know I said that the garden was dead a few posts ago, but the rumors have been... well, slightly exaggerated, anyway. It's true that the majority of the summer vegetables are done now. I spent a day last week pulling out all the tomato plants, the tomatillos, the beans, and the squash. But in the process, I harvested a number of green tomatoes that will hopefully ripen all right indoors.

And after the tomatoes came out, I put some raspberry canes in the back bed as a temporary holding spot until I'm able to build them a better one in the spring. The raspberries were being given away by someone at work, and I couldn't resist.

Elsewhere in the garden, the dahlias are still going strong-- the frost that got the tomatoes didn't touch them. Admittedly, my dahlia collection was based around autumnal colors (predominantly oranges and reds with muted yellows and pinks), but they're really producing some gorgeous seasonal bouquets.

Also going strong? The leeks and radicchio... finally! I'm beginning to understand that I planted them at the wrong time of year. In theory, they're supposed to be planted in early spring, or fall. I suspect that I planted mine too late in spring, because the leeks stayed spindly, and the radicchio green and floppy, all spring and summer long. But now the radicchio is turning red and looks as if it might actually form heads, and the leeks are starting to look almost leek-like. I'm very pleased. The sorrel is still going strong, as well. I'm going to have to thin out the plants before frost, so there is a large pot of cream of sorrel soup in my imminent future.

Today's photo is of a fall planter that I crammed together. I've never thought much of asters, but this year I'm into them-- they're autumnal without being chrysanthemums. If that heather makes it through the winter, it's going into the front yard.

If you are a gardener, you might want to check out Folia, an exciting website that's in beta testing at the moment. I don't know how long the waiting list is for an account, but it's very fun-- a plant journal, social website, photo album, and garden brag sheet all in one ;-) It doesn't look as if pages are open to the public yet, but if you snag an account, you can find me listed under the username Satrina0.

Halloween (and the average first frost date in this area) is coming up fast! Hopefully I'll be able to sneak in another post before we really get into the winter doldrums.