Mad Cat Garden | June 2020

Our garden changed so much from the beginning of June to the end but it still seems, judging from other years, that many plants are a little behind in their development. We were able to eat lots of lettuces, peas, radishes, and kale at the beginning of the month, but by then end only some lettuces and kale and blueberries are ready to eat. There are many tomatoes and peppers growing but barely any were ripe by the end of June. We have been catching rain water to water plants with but for the long days of summer coming up the next few months, we might have to switch over to the hose.

The two new beds we put in a few months ago never really took off. The above picture is from the beginning of June, but little has changed. The tomatoes are bigger in the front bed and the zucchini in the back bed has blossoms now. The arugula in that bed went from shirmpy to bolting in a matter of a few hot days.

From the beginning of June to the end, our tomatoes and peppers have filled out and are producing fruit, but it’s not ripe, yet. Our spinach (below) had gone completely to seed and we are hoping to let those seeds develop and replant then in the fall. Same goes for our pea plants.

We harvested a few little cauliflowers from the bed shown above but the heat got to them as well. We will try these again for our fall crop. The radishes went to seed quickly in June and we are letting the seeds dry for replanting in the fall. This year will be a lot about seed saving and storage and experimentation.

Radish seed pod.

In the front yard, we planted soy beans which have grown and started flowering by the end of June. We planted potatoes next to them, which never grew (but I think they were too far gone by the time we planted them). Tomatoes and herbs are doing well in these beds.

Overall, all our tomato plants are smaller then they were last year, but it looks like sometime in July we will harvest a lot of those. Almost all our pepper plants, most of which were from seeds from last year, are small but doing well. In June we bought a few more herbs to fill out our herb bed. And as always, our pride of garden is our orange thyme plant, which has over wintered and grown steadily for three years now. I secretly hope it just takes over the whole front bed one day.

What did your garden look like in June? What changes from last year’s garden have you noticed?

Victory Gardens

Last month I posted about how many new gardens had cropped up around town. I’m not sure how many of these victory gardens were created from the desire to be more self sufficient, the fear of food shortage, from having more time to experiment, or from boredom of being at home most of the time. No matter the reason, it’s been a great pleasure to walk around our neighborhood and spot new gardens or check on the progress or others.

In the beginning of June, this garden, which has parts spread out all over a large yard was fairly small as seen here. I’ll have to try and capture a after pic for next month as this garden is now huge!

This property has a lot of raised beds inside a deer proof perimeter.

All lettuce.

This community style configuration of raised beds was spotted in a large apartment complex.

I’ve been watching this garden for a few years, as it’s just down the street from me. They got a late start this year, but now it’s really rolling.

Did you create a victory garden this year? It’s not too late if you are still considering it. Hopefully all the viriety of beds shown here can inspire you! Have you spotted any gardens on your walks?

Mad Cat Garden | May 2020

Up until May, it felt like the landscape of our garden changed daily. In May , it feels like we have settled down a bit. While we are still adding features, plants, and debating even more, May was more a month for planting and growing. And best of all, for our first harvests!

Right at the beginning of the month we got a dirt delivery and in our style put it on the front lawn. I highly recommend anyone with the space, who is building a garden of any kind, to have dirt delivered. The delivery fee often seems high, but the lack of plastic, not having to go to any big box stores, and that you can know where the dirt comes from is totally worth it. We really struggled with getting bags of dirt for many reason, so this is a great alternative. And you are supporting local businesses not corporations!!

I’ve never put the garden in a before and after picture here, side by side. I thought that would be great for this post, since so much has changed from the beginning of May to the end.

In the first picture above, our first backyard bed was just planted with tomatoes and peas at the start of May. Towards the end we have moved some things around, added flowers for pollinators, our peas are blossoming, and everything has grown. You can see in the second pic above that we have a new bed that we made at the end of April and filled with our dirt delivery. We made this bed form a cabinet that was in our basement when we bought the house.

In the two pictures above, we have our “lettuce bed” when we first planted it with baby plants from a local market, our over wintered spinach and red onion. Next we have it really filling out, with more lettuce to replace those the squirrels ate.

We continually seed our “radish bed” so that we have radishes growing in all stages. We put some potatoes in that bed and purple cauliflower as well. Our raspberries live right next door and they have grown tons over the month. I’m unconvinced if we will get berries. I’m pretty sure the birds and squirrels will eat them before we do, if berries arrive.

Another addition we made in late April was to add a little bed for just flowers. We repurposed an old drawer (which we had previously urban foraged as a shelf), and put any and all wild flower seeds we had in it. This year we are concentrating on using up old seeds which may or may not be viable. By the end of May, quite a few of the seeds had come up.

No before pics of the front beds this time. In the original front bed, the orange thyme is going bananas, we’ve put tomatoes bc they do so well there, flowers for pollinators, and a flower that we planted last year is coming back up. The herb bed, below, has new basil from the local market and we planted a bunch of herb seeds. We are waiting to see if they come up.

We added another bed in the front as well, but haven’t planted anything in it by the end of May. Now we have 3 beds plus a few pots in the front yard. We have 9 beds in the back (two of which are blueberries and one for wildflowers). We have many many pots in the back yards as well as a place for raspberries. In June we hope to plant and tend but I don’t think we will add more beds. We have other projects planned, tho!

In May we ate herbs, radishes, lettuce, kale, snap peas, and spinach, from the garden. The bluebs are bluing and there are many so we are hoping to eat some soon. There are blossoms on the tomatoes and almost blooms on the peppers. We are sooo excited to eat more in June.

Are you keeping a garden this year? What style do you have (raised bed, in the ground, container, windowsill)?

Mad Cat Garden | April 2020

Spring is here and the garden is booming. OK, well not booming yet, but it feels like it after so many months of dormancy. We are making plans for even more beds, and the layout of the garden changes almost weekly right now. Always giving up a bit more grassy space to more food making space. Adding some touches here and there to make the garden functional but also beautiful. We feel incredibly lucky that we have the space and now time to make more of an effort in the garden.

Tom has always like to go out in the back yard, but he likes it now that the weather is warmer. He even went after a squirrel or two in April. Quite the feat for an old man of 16 years. We watch him closely, and he never put the animal at risk.

For most of April just about all the blueberry bushes had not only leaves but many bell shaped flowers on them as well. The are still filling out, but bees and bugs have started visiting regularly.

We’ve seen a lot of early azaleas in the neighborhood, but ours have only shown the slightest movement all through the beginning of April.

Our raspberry bushes are taking off this year! We didn’t cut them back, but we have seen a lot of growth and new plants shooting up. We have cauliflower, radishes, carrots and one potato in this bed by the raspberries.

Our lettuce bed took a bit of a beating from squirrels who were having a grand salad, but by the end of April, everything was back on track. We planted peas in beds and in pots, and by the end of the month we had some tomatoes in these beds as well. A lot of what we plant is still trial and error. We gathered buckets and have been trying to start things from seeds in some.

This shelf came with the house and was downstairs unused for years, so my husband modified it this month to be a new bed. We will purchase a few yards of dirt from a local landscaper to fill it and all the others we have planned.

Our friend gifted us a rain barrel she wasn’t using at the end of last year and we finally got it up and working. It collects water from the gutters and we repurpose our Dr Bronners and vinegar jugs to carry water. When the barrel is full or when we know it will rain, we fill all the jugs to make room for more rain.

Not too much happened in the front beds. The mint and catnip are starting to really take off. Other than that, they are waiting to get tomatoes and more veg.

Seeds are still growing up in our guest room. My husband is diligently taking them outside to harden off on nice days.

So many things changed in April from the beginning and the end, perhaps the most of any garden report. Is it the same for you?

Victory Gardens

One of our new favorite things to do on our nightly walks is to spot all the victory gardens cropping up everywhere. We always liked to see when and what and where people were planting but it has taken on a new meaning and a new sense of pride. I’m always happy to see people turning to a new avenue of sustainability even if it’s one that’s actually ancient.

I have a chip on my shoulder about beds in front yards, I love them!!

The bucket method.

All strawbs lining both sides of the drive.

Such a great use of limited space!

Very elaborate set up!

Simple and using reclaimed materials.

All you need is a little space. Sometimes just a very little space.

Have you started you victory Garden yet? Have you seen them cropping up where you live?

Mad Cat Garden | March 2020

A lot went on in the garden in March. The early Spring was definitely showing. We did a lot of work in the garden, but nature was really doing the harder tasks.

The blueberries are all budding out to various degrees. We have 7 bushes now and they vary from early fruit bearers to late. Our first group, now several years old, are looking fantastic now. The middle group, looking a bit ratty. The last group, only a year or so old, look so so. It’s early to tell what they will all end up like and since we’ve long forgotten which plant is which, we just have to wait for fruit.

We started seeds inside this month with varying success. Some are still working in the dirt, other popped up seedlings right away! We have limited space inside suitable for seed starting, so we are planning on doing it in waves. Right now, based on what seeds sprouted, we will have a good pea crop!

We also have our small jackfruit forrest in increasingly larger pots. We are excited for it to be warm enough for them to go outside on a more regular basis. In March, we took them out for sun sun on warm days.

Outside, we took some time to clean flower beds, divide and repot some of our decorative plants, checking on what’s growing in the herb pots, and turn and refresh the veggie beds.

There were a few items that we left in certain beds. We have an orange sage plant that is going strong and we basically just leave alone. Our spinach from last year is still producing (don’t mind the arugula spike). We want to leave it and see how it goes. We also transplanted an overgrown kitchen onion that has been in a bed since last Summer.

Next, we got to planting! We love to support local farm markets by buying their baby veg. Right before we went into lock down, we made sure to buy up some items as we weren’t sure if farm markets would be open. As of writing this, the farm markets and farms are considered essential so we look forward to braving out for more plants in April. Hooray!

We planted about 1 and 1/2 beds with the veg we bought, leaving room for tomatoes, peppers, and our seeds once they were ready to plant. We also planted some veg in pots to see how they would fair. We planted one bed with all herbs as well. In the past, we have kept our herbs in pots, but are hoping to get a longer season from them this year, so are trying them out in beds.

One thing we love to do on our daily walks is keep an eye out for other gardens in the neighborhood. Look at these beautiful raised beds in Loch Arbor! Checking out our fellow gardeners is great for inspiration. We also love to see who has their gardens in the front yard, as we get some side eye for keeping beds in the front. We are very much of the food not lawns mentality, tho, so we don’t mind having to explain that.

The last few days of March were spent tending to our new plants in the garden and seedlings in the house. It’s been rainy and grey, so we are hoping they all get enough sun to grow big and strong!

What was your garden like in March?

Mad Cat Garden | February

February saw little action in the garden, but lucky for us, the groundhog predicted an early spring!! We have seen some buds springing up and the days started getting longer and warmer. Our blueberry bushes all started showing early signs of growth.

This wild kitchen onion I planted seems to be doing really well. I’m excited to plant more if I have onions past their prime, and to try it with potatoes too. I don’t know the appropriate time to dig this fella up to see how oniony it has gotten, but we will eventually need to move it, I think.

Our compost has been too cold to turn, but I’m hoping in the coming months we can turn it and utilize some of the good earth it’s produced for our beds.

Next to the compost, someone has been using this little throughway.

Feb was still too chilly for fires, but I’m hoping in the early spring we can get out to arrange the wood pile and have a few.

Most of our early propagated plants died inside. But our jackfruit is going strong!

As expected, February didn’t see too much movement in the garden. March might be a totally different story. What did your winter garden look like?

Mad Cat Garden | January 2020

Winter may not be the best time for gardening where we live, but there were some surprises this month and some progress. We are still lamenting that we didn’t get it together to create a winter garden. Especially when there were January days that were in the 60s.

The garden is mostly bare… except for some lingering radishes and spinach. It’s a waiting game now until we can clean up the beds, turn them and start again.

Meanwhile, we have this little elephant to watch over it.

We are also taking the time to build our compost. Winter means winter veg and winter scraps. We are waiting to turn the compost, too, but for now, we are happy to add to it.

Irving helped us check out the garden in the snow this month.

We worked on your seedlings and plantings this month. Many of the small plants we are propagated have sadly died died. But our jackfruit trees are trying to hold on.

Did you keep a garden this Winter? What are your thoughts?

Mad Cat Garden | December 2019

December was definitely a slow month for the garden, as expected. We spent little time outside this month, but we cleaned up all the beds, and tidied the yards. We go out to check on things every few days, but for now we are mostly waiting for Spring.

All the bluebs have lost their leaves and are looking only like sticks now. Hopefully they all come back in the spring. It’s always a little scary to see them in this state.

Our wood pile is in a better state than it was a few month ago. We didn’t have many fires in 2019, but I would love to change that in 2020. My dream is to supplement our heat with a wood stove and all foraged wood. Maybe the new year is the time for that, as well. I see this going hand in hand with the garden and becoming more self sustainable.

Our orange thyme is still going strong, even in the snow. We will need to turn this bed ion Spring, so hopefully we will find a good new home for it.

December was mostly about propagating seeds and starting plants indoors. We’ve been saving or foraging seeds and some, especially those that are tropical, we’ve started growing early.

Although December was mostly dormant, there are new things popping up. Hopefully January will see more new growth and plans for the future.

What method do you use to plan your Spring garden? What tools do you use?

Mad Cat Garden | November

November saw the winding down and cleaning up of the garden. We did very little in it this month. But we are also making plans for plans for the new year!

It’s getting to be winter here, the blueberry bushes have all gone red, but there is still time to hang out in the yard with Tom.

We pulled up all the large bushes in both the front and back beds. Tomatoes, poblano peppers, greens and radishes, all got pulled out and went in the compost. It’s sad to see all the beds looking so bare, but it’s also exciting to think of all the things we will plant in spring.

Our herbs in pots are mostly dead and dry. Last year I had intended to collect the seeds, but never did. Hopefully I will actually get to it this year.

The cat nip and mint are still hanging on. We took some herbs and other plants inside for the winter.

The milk weed is just about done for the season but held out for the very last momemnt of warm weather.

At the end of November we had a visitor that also solved an ongoing yard mystery. Early one morning we saw a very large perrigrine falcon hanging out by the bluebs. We had actually seen this same bird (I think) before a few years ago. Today, he sat for a while but swooped quickly after a sparrow!! We have often founds small clusters of feathers from some eaten bird in the yard, but we never knew who was doing the eating. Mystery solved. I’m not sure if the falcon got a meal this morning.

I was hoping our last garden meal would have been more spectacular, but in truth the last thing we ate out of the garden in Nov was some radishes in a ramen bowl!

How is your garden this month?

Mad Cat Garden | October

I was surprised at how far our garden lasted into October. We didn’t get our first frost until the first week of November, and the garden thrived in the mild weather. The garden was working away, but we didn’t take too much advantage of it, mostly letting it do it’s thing unhindered.

Poblano peppers grew and grew and we harvested them for salads and tacos.

Radishes that we planted late grew up and we enjoyed eating them as well. But end of October, they were big and happy but early November’s frost means we have to pick them all soon.

Wind storms and rain battered our beds and the flowers were loosing their perkiness by mid Oct. The tomatoes were looking scraggly but hanging in and still ripening on the plants. We ate tomatoes but they weren’t as sweet or flavorful as in peak season.

We tended top the blueberries and tried to make a start winterizing those and other plants that will remain outside. It’s our goal to create a snow shelter for our bluebs this year, as we think it will be a snowy winter. Much discussion was had on this subject, but no plans were confirmed.

The tomatoes in the front bed all died and we were able to take the stakes down. But the orange sage is still going strong for the end of it’s second season. We transplanted all the peppers we had in pots to the new front bed that we had intended for herbs but never planted. The peppers did well in the front until the cold snap.

We are still rueing that we didn’t get a chance to plant a Winter garden, but we will have larger plans for that and for next Spring, Summer and Fall!

How is your garden looking in October?

Mad Cat Garden | September

September saw the garden wind down considerably. We had hoped to get a Fall/Winter garden going, but we waited to long and ran out of time. It was hard to find plants, too late to sew seeds before we knew it. Lesson learned for next year!

But in early September, our compost patty pan was still going strong.

We had already cut back most of the cat nip, but some new buds started growing thru the cracks in the patio. Tom took full advantage.

Broccoli never took off for us but someone was enjoying it all Summer. Poblano peppers were a favorite throughout the growing months and were still going strong in early and mid month. We thought September saw the last of our favorite summer pepper meal, but at the very end there are still more poblanos to be had. The flowers we planted in Spring are still blooming and attracting pollinators!

Tomatoes are still reddening and ready to eat in mid Sept. We planted some last Summer radishes to enjoy in Sept/Oct salads.

In mid September, a new fancy blueberry bed was made and planted.

Most of the peppers we planted in pots got too dry in the heat this year. Unlike last year, in which they thrived in pots. My take away there is all good things in the ground! Almost everything in bed survived and did well.

We planted one milkweed this year and by end of Sept it is still going strong with flowers, pods, and visitors! We have been capturing seeds and planning our milkweed empire for next year!

September was a slow month in the garden, a natural winding down. Our second year garden has been so different than the first year’s. We are excited to remember the lessons we have learned and make plans for the third year! And yet we do not know what to expect!

Did your garden go as planned this year? What is the biggest surprise you encountered? The biggest challenge you faced? The biggest victory?

Mad Cat Garden | August

August was the best garden month so far!

We still had some items in pots and containers. This year they didn’t do as well as the previous year. Perhaps it was too hot and sunny.

Most things in our back beds were growing like mad. Tomatoes and poblano peppers were ripening up and the bushes were laden with them. Shishitos were starting to grow. We transplanted our corn and it survived! Our arugula, lettuce, and spinach had long overgrown.

Our morning glories that come back every year really started growing and getting in amongst the beds. They really enjoyed the bamboo trellises we made.

Some of our blueberries didn’t fruit as much as the previous years. We are thinking we will recondition the beds and repot those in containers. Some of the bushes fruited well, but we ate few berries. Most went to the squirrels and birds.

Our compost squash is growing huge! It’s a white pattypan! Mid month was when everything we grew produced fruit and veg. We ate well and varied.

Although our front bed looked quite scraggily the entire month, it produced many tomatoes! We really aren’t sure why this bed was so thin this year. Compared to last year, when it was super lush, it looks terrible! We wonder what next growing season will bring.

For our second year of gardening we are very pleased with how everything turned out in August but also very surprised. This summer’s garden has not been what we expected. But there is still nothing better than eating meals grown right out your own door. We already have many plans for next Summer.

How was August in your garden?

Mad Cat Garden | July

July saw the garden really take off. Here is the record of last month progress.

The flowers and cat nip were still going strong.

We moved the corn out of a bed and into the ground.

Strawberries and raspberries growing but slowly.

Spinach and arugula went nuts. We plan to take them all out when and replant for fall.

The last picture is of our compost squash. We had to wait until August to find out what it was!

What’s your best growing garden items this year?

Mad Cat Garden | June

May was the first month we started working on and tracking out garden, but June was when we really got down to business. June saw us buying and plating more, making more beds, and seeing plants grow and change. The changes between the beginning and end of June were huge, but these photos and records are mainly from the beginning on the month.

June was extremely rainy. Many of the plats loved it! Our lilies returned and grew taller then me this year. They are not strictly part of the garden but a focus of June was to bring in pollinators with many flowers. The strawberries over wintered and started blossoming. We planted herbs and they thrived in the rain.

In out front bed, also our first bed, tomato volunteers started popping up like mad and we had to thin them out. Rather than just toss the extras, we planted them in small pots to give away, or replanted them in other areas. We made new beds in the back and planted lettuce, arugula, broccoli (one is pictured in the first photo), corn, beans, and cucumbers.

Many flowers helped attract bugs and bees. Our blueberries got off to a good start, enjoying the rain and producing lots of little soon to be bluebs.

Tom often helped by inspecting the catnip patches. In June we created three new beds and had a delivery of filtered soil dropped off to fill them. Although pricy, we found this to be a convenient and zero waste alternative to buying many bags of dirt. We are still contributing to our compost on a regular basis, but it’s not big enough to fill beds. We do use some compost to help enrich the soil.

By the end of June, the yard looked very different, but we’ll have to wait until July’s update to take a look!

How is your garden growing?

Mad Cat Garden | May

Each month I like to share my plant observations. This can be our yard, our garden, the neighborhood, parks, beach, and more. This year we are really trying to pick up our garden game and I think it’s progress is going to require it’s own feature each month.

Although we had high hopes to start our garden super early, May came and went with little activity. We did prep the garden, started verbally planning, moved a few items around and let Tom visit as garden foreman.

Our first garden bed, which is our front yard and last year housed tomatoes, started popping up with plants. We had to discern what each plant was and either leave them or transplant them. We had a lot of tomatoes come up from seeds that dropped off the plants last year.

This strange plant popped up and grew like crazy. We did some research and discovered that it was an invasive plant called Japanese hops. It’s so pretty and we interested in seeing if it was going to grow hop like cones. Unfortunately it was growing like nuts and we had to re-home it so it did not choke out our new tomatoes. We were sad to find that the hops couldn’t handle the move and died pretty quickly. We think the hop seeds were dropped by visiting birds!

The kale that we planted last year also over wintered. We had to clear it out of our back yard bed, but put it in a pot to see what it would do. In May, it flowered and started making seed pods. Kale flowers are lovely! We have collected the seed pods and plan to replant from last years growth!

On the last day of May was when we really started planting and reseting the garden. In only a few weeks we’ve transformed the garden quite a bit. We look forward to seeing where June takes us.