Week 9: 10 June -- Slow but steady progress

It's amazing how much happens during the week between my weekends upstate. Both lettuce beds are doing well. The herbs found their way into two dishes this weekend (a parsley and tarragon frittata and roasted peppers with buffala mozzarella and basil). Peas have climbed about 16 inches up the trellis but I have yet to see a pod form which means I'm still weeks away from any harvest. On the way back today we drove by the garden at the restaurant Aubergine near my house, their peas are much taller and fuller than mine. I'm slightly concerned.

The first big story are my zucchinis which have now flowered. I'm pretty sure that's a good thing and not a sign that the plants have bolted (it's not nearly been warm enough for that). I know that zucchini flowers are a delicacy but I had no idea how to prepare them and if harvesting them would mean no actual zucchini (I fear that it would). So I let them be. I'm hoping that we'll see some real zukes forming soon.





The pumpkins are continuing their impressive progress. At this rate their going to start crowding each other out soon (see how the leaves are already starting to overlap each other). I think we'll cut them back to two or three plants per hill in the next week or so.








And now a setback. We had a lot of heavy rain over the past week and I've noticed some erosion across the Italian bed and the mesclun. In the picture here you can see the diagonal band of lighter soil where the erosion occurred. Some of the basil and parsley plants have their roots exposed now and I've lost a bit of the lettuce. I'm hoping for some dryer and warmer weather now but temperatures are due to remain low over the next week and there's still rain in the forecast. Yikes!

The wine cellar

It was delivered last weekend. I've not even plugged it in yet as it needs a few days for the fluids to settle after delivery. I'll get it plugged in and stocked this coming weekend. Pictures to come next week.

The tomato saga continues

I'm probably worrying about these guys more than I should but I just don't think the tomatoes are flourishing like they should. I'm noticing serious growth and some of the leaves are looking downright anemic.


The good news is that they are all holding themselves up (no real droopers) and that new leaves seem to be forming on some of them. But they've been in for two weeks now and I was hoping to see some more progress.




I mentioned my fears to the guy down at the Agway. I was particularly concerned after seeing reen tomatoes forming on some of their greenhouse plants. He said that we've simply not had the weather so far this year. The tomaters need a few good hot days to hit their stride and we've simply not had that yet this year.



So I'm trying to baby them a bit by removing dead leaves and stems that didn't make it. I'm not going to panic yet but if I end up without tomatoes this year, I'll be the first to say I told you so.

Feeding time

Before I left last weekend I decided to give the whole garden a good feeding. Now that everything is planted and established, a boost of nutrients would help keep things on track. I've not been really diligent about checking my soil pH and things like that so I decided on a general fertilizer that supplied moderate amounts of the key nutrients of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium (the three numbers that describe all plant fertilizers).

Espoma seems to be the brand that I see written about and spoken of most frequently and they have an entirely organic feed called Plant-Tone which is like a Flintstone vitamin for gardens. You will recall that I used another Espoma product Garden-Tone when I was setting up the beds. Now that I have things planted -- things that I will soon be eating -- I decided that I preferred to use something that was 100% organic.

I'll give them a good feeding each month of the growing season and then mulch in another round of the Garden-Tone in the autumn before I put the beds to bed for the winter (so to speak).

Yabba-dabba-doo!

Week 8: 3 June -- New Arrivals

So a few new arrivals this week. Helped no doubt by a few sultry days and, more importantly, some real rainfall at the end of last week.

The beans which seemed to be taking their time have now made a good showing. Two sides of the trellis have come up (seen here) but no word yet from the third side. Could it be that we're not getting enough sun or water on that side? Or could they just be a week behind, we'll see what happens next week.

I don't know if you can see from the picture, but some of the seedlings still have the shell of the bean seed attached to them, pretty cool.



In another coup for the happy confluence of ideal conditions and a tendency for quick germination, the pumpkin seedlings have emerged (shown here). Regular readers will recall that these seeds went in just last week. That's pretty impressive growth for just seven days. By far the fastest seeds in the garden so far. I have at least 17 seedlings so far which means lots and lots of jack-o-lanterns if I let them all do their thing.

Let's give them another few weeks before deciding whether or not to thin the herd.

The rest of the garden was in good shape. Lots of weeding to be done, no doubt influenced by the same sun and rain which helped my crops along. I am now starting to worry that I'll have a huge bounty all at once; those who are fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to live on the path between the Country and the City shouldn't be surprised to find a bushel of veggies on their doorstep on Sunday afternoons.

The first salad

I may have jumped the gun a little bit. But who could blame me when the lettuce looked this young and vibrant. Baby lettuces are super tasty and by snipping just a single leaf from the outside of each plant, I've not done anything to adversely affect the rest of the plant's development. By next week I should be able to take even more out, which is a good thing as I have six for dinner on Saturday night.

Lettuce is best harvested in the morning while the plants are cool and the leaves are crisp with moisture. Once harvested, a cold bath and a few rinses to clean the grit off ensure a tasty salad. Rinsed leaves can be stored in the fridge in a ziploc wrapped in a damp paper towel for a few days.

My playpen

There's a story here. When I was born my father's family kept a country house near Pawling, New York (about an hour south of where mine is now). My dad is the oldest of four boys and the house was a part of their lives for years. In the summers they would all come up with their girlfriends and then wives. Extended family and friends would all escape from the city to the house. Summer days were spent by the pool or playing tennis on the court or skiing on the lake. Evenings were barbecues and hanging out. My grandfather ran the grounds and my grandmother ran the house (each with their own management style). The house was full every weekend.

When I was born in 1972, I was the first of the next generation, a boy and Poppy Frank's first grandson. He and I would play for hours at the country house. My parents resumed the weekend trips upstate as soon as I was portable and Poppy Frank made sure I had the biggest playpen of any boy in the world. As big as a tennis court in fact, and he made a sign so that there would be no misunderstanding about it. This sign hung on our tennis court for years, well at least until the next grandson, my brother AJ, came along.

So now this next generation is claiming their own stake. AJ owns his own business, just like Poppy Frank. And I've put my energies into a house in the country, just like Poppy Frank. My playpen now may be smaller than a tennis court but I no longer have to give it up for an hour so that Uncle Gregg can practice his serve.

Check out my deck

As we seem to have moved swiftly through spring into summer, the newly expanded deck got its first real use this weekend. In anticipation of the season, my mom and I headed upstate on Thursday night. Our primary objective was to find containers for the deck and get them filled with annuals. Here is the result of our (well, mom's) handiwork. I think they look great, she has a real eye for that sort of thing. We found these extended watering devices that fit in the containers to make sure they don't die of thirst each week. Please disregard my garden-booted feet in the photo.

I wrote previously about the new teak deck furniture. Here it is in situ with that spectacular view of Catamount in the distance. Needless to say, this deck hosted two Memorial Day barbecues this weekend.

The fate of the tomatoes

So by and large I dodged a bullet with the tomatoes. You will recall that I have tomatoes planted in three places in the garden. Last week I ambitiously put them in and left them to fend for themselves in the face of some pretty chilling events (well, a cold snap really). Toms usually shrivel after one bout of cold so I was worried all week about how they would fare.

The first picture is of the standard "chuck-'em-in-a-salad" variety (not their official name). They're sitting happily in their cages and are holding themselves up. They are perhaps a little skimpier than I would like them to be and some of their leaves have a few spots on them. I think they'll be fine. They may punish me with a reduced yield but I have nothing to compare to so I probably won't know the difference.





The results of the heirloom tomato patch are a bit more varied. One of then came through beautifully and is looking better than the standard toms (but not better than the plums which are doing best of all). Two are not looking as hale and may need to come out if they haven't perked up by next week. The heirlooms are not caged so I staked them all this week in the hopes that this week's warmer weather will give them the push that they need.

Oh yes, there will be zukes

The zucchini are definitely on target to deliver mightily this season. They've been in the ground for only a week and are already showing signs of fruit. Lots of it.

I have four plants and each one has at least a dozen buds. That's a lot of veg. In the next few weeks I may thin out a plant or two and will also pinch off the buds that don't seem to be going anywhere. This gives the remaining ones a greater share of the plant's energy.

Please post any good zucchini recipes you have.

Week 7: 27 May -- Everything but the Garlic

If I wrote for "Lost" I would make you wait a few more postings to let you know the fate of the tomatoes that I was fretting about last week, I know you have all been on the edge of your seats since then and I do appreciate the candles that a few or you have left outside my door (the tomatoes appreciate them too). I will give you full details in the next post but the tomatoes do seem to have come through last week's cold snap, not unscathed but they look like they will make it. The eggplant (and cucumbers, surprisingly) did not fare as well and were replaced this weekend.

But let's talk about the rest of the garden for a minute. Peas and lettuce continue to do well. I'm hoping for a salad in two weeks (which is ideal as I have my first bout of summer company then) and the peas are slowly finding their way up the trellis. All good stuff. The beans have yet to emerge but I'm not concerned, normal germination is two weeks and they've only been in for one.

The zucchini and yellow squash are thriving and I'm now concerned about volume. The vines have already started showing their fruit and it looks like I'll be up to my neck in zukes this year.

My second round of lettuce is already starting and the Italian garden (parsley, basil and plum tomatoes) is doing molto bene. In fact, the plum tomatoes are doing the best of all the tomatoes.

This spiny looking guy is an artichoke plant. They're very alien looking. I wasn't able to find them but Melissa tracked some down this week and picked them up for me. I was thrilled that she remembered that I was looking and that I got to see her place when I went to collect them. Her garden and grounds gives me new things to aspire to and I'm extremely envious of her stunning barn!


In addition to the chokes, the last remaining beds were filled. The first was a bed of cut flowers. The color will really help the garden and it'll be neat to cut a few for a vase on the deck or in the house.





Behind the cuts is my pumpkin patch. I'm hoping to have fruits by Halloween. I planted four hills worth (hard to tell from the picture but there are little mounds in the bed) and each hill has five seeds. I'll probably have to thin them out once they get started as I don't think I'll manage to fit 20 pumpkins in there.

All this means that everything I am going to plant this year has gone in except for the garlic which will be planted in and among the pumpkins starting in July. I'll also throw in one more round of lettuce in the pea bed once they have done their thing and fixed the nitrogen in the soil.

The driveway, the lawn and the house

Are my tomatoes doomed?

I fear they are. I took a risk putting them in this weekend. None of the nurseries had moved their toms outside yet, temperatures have been hovering in the 40s in the evenings, and even in the 30s for the next day or two. This does not bode well.

Toms hate the cold. One frost, or even an abrupt change in temperature (like from a greenhouse straight to my garden) is enough to kill them. So I took a chance by picking them up and putting them in the ground this weekend. I did try and get them acclimated a bit by keeping them outside for two days and then in the garage at night. It may be enough but by the time I left on Sunday, the heirlooms were looking a bit droopy. There was even talk of hail on Sunday which would be the coup de grace for these poor suckers.

It's out of my hands now. We'll see how things look next weekend (which is Memorial Day and the official start of tomato season). If they didn't make it, I'll have to get fresh plants and put them in again. It wasn't a huge outlay and I guess I'll need to get used to losing a few guys each year, but I hate the idea of being the cause of their demise. I still might get lucky, and if so I'll have tomatoes a week before anyone else!

Week 6: 20 May -- A Milestone

Rain. That has been the defining characteristic of the last week. Lots of it. Fortunately I was spared the severe flooding that plagued parts of New England north of me but things were still plenty wet this weekend. Nonetheless, I got loads done. Including completing the beds and paths for the entire garden, planting most of the remaining veggies, my first serious weeding effort and sorting out irrigation to cover the entire garden (somewhat superfluous considering the weather).






The peas and lettuce are growing steadily, although slower than I would have expected. At this rate, we're still weeks away from a salad. I stopped by a few nurseries this weekend and found all of my herbs (cilantro, parsley, basil, tarragon, rosemary, lemon thyme and oregano), zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, eggplant, two types of conventional tomatoes (plum and standard ones), and three types of heirloom tomatoes. I also threw in another round of lettuce (mesclun mix this time) and my first beans (both bush and pole types).







See above for shots of the lettuce, peas and a wide shot of the garden.

Something completely different

I owe you an update on what's happening at the house outside of the garden. A few major changes coming in the next few weeks including carpeting in the master bedroom, new granite countertops in the kitchen and the installation of a temperature and humidity controlled wine cellar. Preparation for all three took up a good chunk of time last weekend, that and the mowing which was amazingly overdue (amazing because I'd just mowed two weeks previous and it's a bit early still for weekly mowings).

The granite countertops turned into quite a palaver. Who knew that I had to have the old tops removed before the granite people would even come in and measure for the new ones? That leaves two plus weeks with the old tops off and the new ones yet to arrive. I've managed to convince my contractor to give me at least a sink and my center island while I wait for the granite to be cut. I'll need to take a trip up to Albany next weekend and pick out the exact slab for my tops (which is actually kind of cool).

The wine cellar is a neat exercise too. It'll have a capacity of close to 200 bottles. Right now I have 60 but my brother, AJ, has plans to invest in a few cases to put away for five or ten years. He's in the wine business so I trust his judgment. I'm thinking I may need to charge him for storage or at least take a cut of any appreciation when realized. I've found a cool application called Cellar Tracker which allows me to track my entire cellar on line and includes tasting notes, drinking windows and valuation. I'd recommend it to anyone with a collection.

Week 5: 13 May -- Major sprouts and major progress

Significant progress this week:

1) We have sprouts! Peas and lettuce, both pushing their first leaves through. The lettuce seems to be coming up across the entire area that I planted. The peas are being a little shyer and only about one-half of what I planted has come through. I hope the rest are just pokey and not duds. I was so excited that I couldn't sleep on Saturday morning (it was after dark when we got to the house on Friday night), I was literally up at first light to check on things.

2) The topsoil is now entirely spread! This is a major achievement and has been the hardest part of this whole exercise to date. Jim was up this weekend and really was a great help in getting the last bits done. We also measured and staked the left side of the garden. All that is left to do is throw down some Gardentone, build the beds and straw the paths. Woohoo!

3) Melissa called on Saturday to check up on me. She's been reading my progress here so most of what I had to tell her she already knew (although I was pleased to tell her about the sprouts). From next weekend I have a green light to get most of the rest of the garden planted including beans, tomatoes, zukes and cukes, artichokes (this year's wildcard veggie), herbs and cut flowers. I may push them out to the following weekend although I'm keen to get things from the garden stores before the other Weekend Warriors have their way with what's available. I'll see how I'm feeling next week. Melissa also suggested planting rows of Morning Glories around the perimeter of the garden to make their way up the fence and add some visual excitement. Speaking of excitement, she made my weekend when she told me that I won't have to do the topsoil thing again next year.

For those keeping track, this was also the first weekend that I didn't have to spend a dime on the garden. Also, I set the sprinkler timer to 30 minutes at 8am every 48 hours. We've had a good bit of rain over the past week which I'm sure has helped my little sproutlings to no end. Of course, I forgot my camera so no pictures this week (again) so you'll have to take my word for it (would I lie to you???).

Lots of other doings this week at the house ex-garden but you'll have to wait for another post to hear about it.

Am I merely trendy?

This garden journey of mine is a release. An opportunity to try something I've never done before. I work in a bank so I don't get to use my hands for much; there's no output for what I do. My garden satisfies my primal urge to move earth and create.

And I'm apparently not alone. Two items from the New York Times over the past week point to something very current about men and their gardens:

1) A story on Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez and his garden at his home in Greenwich, CT that is his sanctuary.

2) From this past Sunday's Book Review, a look at two laddish books about gardening from a very male perspective. The Alexander book looks like a good (and relevant) read.

Week 4: 6 May -- The other half

I couldn't wait to get upstate on Saturday morning and see what had come up from what I had planted last week. Sadly, nothing had. At least not of what I had planted. What I did find was that a number of raspberry plants seem to have jumped the wall from their patch outside the garden and poked through. These suckers sure do get themselves in good before they dare show their faces. I dug them out by hand and they had real six-inch taproots in place with only about two or three inches of stem. Maybe I'll get to see some peashoots next week.

What I did get accomplished was sorting out the irrigation. I had the huge advantage of my dad up this weekend who had managed to fix all of my water issues before I even arrived (in addition to carting 10 tractor-loads of pine boughs from a tree we trimmed last month, thanks dad!). That meant that I was able to get a sprinkler set up on a timer to water the peas and lettuce. I set the timer for 20 minutes of water every 72 hours. That's probably too little and I'll adjust it this coming weekend.

I also carted topsoil over to the left side of the garden which, to now, has been untouched. I'm nearly done and should get all the topsoil laid next weekend. Will be very pleased when that task is complete.

Signs of Spring

After a few fits and starts there is no doubt that spring is now well underway. The lawn got its first mowing this past weekend and I could see the grass immediately perking up once it lost six months of deadweight. I mowed on Saturday and by Sunday afternoon it looked like it needed another going over. I love the way it looks right after being cut with the long striations up and down the length of the lawn giving it a real manicured look.

Elsewhere on the property the daffs are just past their peak and my first tulips have made their entrance. The primrose are up and looking great and the big rock is covered with columbine and all sorts of neat little flowers.

It's a glorious time of year, the days are long and tolerable and the nights are still cool. Barbecue season is just round the corner so I got the grills out and in position. I also set up my new teak furniture for the deck. I'd say we're just about ready for the season. I can't wait.

Week 3: 29 April -- The first seeds

So I'm feeling like there has been significant progress this weekend. The weather was really perfect and I was able to break up the work over a few days. I finished spreading the topsoil over half of the plot on Saturday (that means that there's still another half to do -- guess what I'm doing next weekend). Then I finished staking the plots. Then on Sunday I raked the soil off the paths and built up the beds and laid straw on the paths to keep them separate. Then the pea trellises went up and then finally I planted my first vegetables: sugar snap peas and a blend of salad lettuces.

I gave the seeds a good soaking and they'll get more on Wednesday this week as we're do for showers. The showers are fortunate as I had major problems with the water hookup down by the garden. There's a leak further up the line that I'll need to deal with next weekend as well.

I'm pretty pleased with the work so far. I spent a good bit of time standing back and surveying what I had done. Of course, it all means nothing if I can't get anything to grow. Maybe I'll see something pushing through the soil next weekend.