Life and Death

My seeds are sprouting. I am so happy!!!

Carrots

Beets

Peas

My dandelions are dying! I'm excited about this too, especially because I just used vinegar. Yep, I spent an afternoon painting my weeds with a paintbrush dipped in vinegar. As you can see, it seems to be working... a successful alternative to chemicals.

Green Your Gardening

Happy Earth Day!

I couldn't let this day go by without thinking about something I can to personally to make a difference. Here are some ideas:

-Reduce (or remove) chemicals in the landscape. I have to admit that with my gardening background in a large show garden, we relied heavily on herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers to keep everything super green and lush. I have a lot to learn about organic gardening! In fact, right now we have a dandelion problem developing in our back yard, and my first instinct is to run out and buy some broadleaf killer and zap them! Instead I have been trying to pull them myself and may try dousing them with vinegar. Any other ideas???

-Plant native species. They have adapted to the local climate and soil and require less water and maintenance. Las Vegas was getting pretty good at this; in fact, new homes were only allowed to have grass in the back yards. Front yards were usually rock and native plants. Well-done native landscapes can still be very aesthetically pleasing! Here is a website with information on Utah natives.

-Make your own compost. This is something I have always wanted to be better at. My current problem is figuring out some space... I can't really rip out the landlord's lawn for a compost pile, and my garden space is precious! You can buy compost barrels that spin to mix.

-Catch rain water! We turned our sprinklers on last week to wake up our landscape, but we turned them off this morning because of all the rain in the forecast! Go a step further and set out buckets or barrels to collect rain water! Use it to water plants or even wash your car!

Before you go, you better check out this page I found by the Nature Conservancy. They have some great articles and resources on this topic. What are you going to do?

1st Garden Report

Gardening season has begun! The first item of business in my make-shift raised beds was to remove the weed barrier. (Who in their right mind builds a vegetable garden over weed barrier?!) I'll give you two guesses on this rats nest of roots... or I'll just tell you: Field bindweed (morning glory)! My Weeds of the West books states: "Field bindweed is a perennial from an extensive root system, often climbing or forming dense tangled mats. It is a difficult weed to eradicate because of a root system that can penetrate the soil to a depth of 20 feet." Well I'll say. No wonder that clump had been haunting me.

Most of the soil in these raised beds was topsoil so it's already pretty dark and loose. I turned in some composted steer manure for added fertility. And I just have to say I am the IFA's newest fan. They have everything you need at steal-of-a-deal prices! Plus my kids loved petting the baby chicks.

Maddie helped me add three new strawberry plants to the one we inherited from Mike's Grandma Johnson. We are so excited that one already has 3 or 4 baby berries on it!

Last week I planted my carrot and beet seeds, and peas are going in tomorrow. (In my zone, this is also a good time to plant onions, radishes, and lettuces.) Now it's time to turn on the irrigation and watch in great suspense for germination! I have such high hopes... please grow little plants!

I also wanted to show you this cool garden journal. My Dad's mom was an avid gardener and her daughter gave her this book one year for Christmas. When she passed away my mom selected it from her belongings and saved it. 16 years after the original gift was given, I opened it last Christmas morning from my parents. I think it is so special!


It's a really good idea to write down what you do and when you do it for reference next year!

Forsythia

A beauty at my sister-in-law Rachel's house

Teasing and changing it's mind as it may, spring is never official until you see the cheery yellow blooms of Forsythia. Most of the year they are inconspicuous leafy green shrubs, but in early April the glory is all theirs!

Forsythia was discovered in China by a famous 18th century plant hunter, Robert Fortune. It was brought to Britain and named after William Forsyth, one of the founders of the Royal Horticultural Society of Great Britain.

It is the bravest shrub of them all, flowering before any other trees and shrubs. This strength is also exhibited in its vigorous growth and ability to propagate itself by dropping branches to the ground and rooting them. Lovely and brave as it may be, gardeners need be sure it is granted plenty of space as it has a tendency to dominate! (In fact in some places it is known as an invasive species.)

For me forsythia is a sign of hope that warm weather is really on its way!

California Flora

I have neglected to post here for a few weeks... truthfully, there is not much going on in my yard right now. Good thing we recently visited a land of plenty!

The landscape around the church building we attended in Long Beach was gorgeous. It's amazing how things there seem to grow effortlessly, like it's the Garden of Eden or something!

I wish I knew the name of this beauty! It grows in an umbel (think umbrella, with the blooms clustered at the top) similar to agapanthus, but I've never seen it in this vibrant color. I'll have to do some research...

I love calla lilies! They were a staple in my wedding (ages ago).

My own little flowers rivaled the rest in their Easter dresses.

I just have to add that the grounds at Disneyland were immaculate and impressive. I'm sure they have a huge commercial crew and operation behind the scenes. The flower beds were full and vibrant and we just happened to be there when these gorgeous trees were in bloom. Any guesses? My neighbor thought maybe orchid trees. Again, I'll do more research and let you know my findings!

We are planning a work day in the yard this weekend... and I have some projects upcoming. Stay tuned!

Signs of Spring

I saw crocus in someone's lovely flower beds as I jogged by yesterday morning. I can't help but long for my gardens at this time of year. Spring was truly magical. Here's a glimpse of what March looked like...

Crocus, usually the first burst of color in a flower garden.

Dwarf rock garden iris. These always made me squeal out loud... precious!

Violas mixed with early tulips and snowdrops (galanthus)

Early daffodils (narcissus)

Hyacinth... mmmm, I can almost smell them.

If you think that was impressive, just wait till I show you pictures of the gardens in their full spring glory! It will take your breath away.

Nitrogen Power

This has nothing to do with the post, but I love tulips. I bought some to cheer up my kitchen because I can't wait for them to grow in my front yard. They are on the arctic north side of the house and may never thaw.

I have been thinking a lot about nitrogen. Deep thoughts.

We need to fertilize our lawn soon. Last year we moved in in July and nobody had cared a whit for it... which showed. We vowed to have greener and lusher grass this year, all the better for bare feet and picnics and badminton and cloud watching. We need some fertilizer. Doris tells me she uses Scotts line of turf fertilizer: one with pre-emergent for crabgrass, one with more iron, one with insecticide, and one all-purpose. She promised to check her notes from last year and tell me when she applied them. I figure if I do just what she did we will be in business, 'cause hers is beyoootiful.

I am reading a very thought-provoking book right now called The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. It's about how humans as omnivores (who can eat just about anything) have to decide what out of everything nature has to offer is good to eat. What defines healthy and unhealthy? Do we eat fast food or organic? How has the industrial food chain changed our diets? It's all very interesting and eye-opening, but the part that really caught my attention is about nitrogen.

I went through years of classes on horticulture and yet I never learned about the history of this life defining nitrogen. All I was taught was that it was the first letter in fertilizer ratios (N-P-K) and vital for plants to grow. Oh how much I was missing.

An excerpt:

"The discovery of synthetic nitrogen changed everything--not just for the corn plant and the farm, not just for the food system, but also for the way life on earth is conducted. All life depends on nitrogen; it is the building block from which nature assembles amino acids, proteins, and nucleic acids; the genetic information that orders and perpetuates life is written in nitrogen ink. But the supply of usable nitrogen on earth is limited. Although earth's atmosphere is about 80 percent nitrogen, all those atoms are tightly paired, non-reactive, and therefore useless... To be of any value to plants and animals, these self-involved nitrogen atoms must be split and then joined to atoms of hydrogen. Chemists call this process of taking atoms from the atmosphere and combining them into molecules useful to living things "fixing" that element. Until a German Jewish scientist named Fritz Haber figured out how to turn this trick in 1909, all the usable nitrogen on earth had at one time been fixed by soil bacteria living on the roots of leguminous plants (such as peas or alfalfa or locust trees) or, less commonly, by the shock of electrical lightning, which can break nitrogen bonds in the air, releasing a light rain of fertility.

"'There is no way to grow crops and human bodies without nitrogen.' Before Fritz Haber's invention the sheer amount of life earth could support--the size of crops and therefore the number of human bodies--was limited by the amount of nitrogen that bacteria and lightning could fix. By 1900, European scientists recognized that unless a way was found to augment this naturally occurring nitrogen, the growth of the human population would soon grind to a very painful halt.

"This is why is may not be [too outrageous] to claim that the Haber-Bosch process for fixing nitrogen is the most important invention of the twentieth century. [Vaclav Smil, author of Enriching the Earth] estimates that two of every five humans on earth today would not be alive if not for Fritz Haber's invention. We can easily imagine a world without computers or electricity, but without synthetic fertilizer billions of people would never have been born.

"When humankind acquired the power to fix nitrogen, the basis of soil fertility shifted from a total reliance on the energy of the sun to a new reliance on fossil fuel. For the Haber-Bosch process works by combining nitrogen and hydrogen gasses under immense heat and pressure in the presence of a catalyst. The heat and pressure are supplied by prodigious amounts of electricity, and the hydrogen is supplied by oil, coal, or natural gas. ... Fixing nitrogen allowed the food chain to turn from the logic of biology and embrace the logic of industry. Instead of eating exclusively from the sun, humanity now began to sip petroleum."

Wow. Talk about powerful stuff. It's an understatement that I took for granted I could run to the store and buy a bag of synthetic nitrogen. Food for thought. If you want more you'll just have read it. :)