Uprooted

Has it really been something like twenty days since I last posted? Wow. Well a few things have transpired since then:

-Cut down the quinoa stalks and started to dry them in the basement. Noticed some chickadees were making gluttons of themselves on all that free grain so I put a stop to it. Couldn't wait for the frost any longer or there would have been nothing left to harvest.

-Picked the first of some bok choi I planted in August (though I neglected to post about it then). It has performed quite well under cool conditions.

-Decided I'll be moving out of this house at the end of the year so I can begin to get my life in order and stop wasting it as I have been these past 20 months (and longer).

I will continue to post about other horticultural projects I may be working on, though the possibility that I will be living somewhere that allows much opportunity for such things is rather slim.

This has certainly been a valuable endeavor--if for no other reason than documenting a small part of my life as it continues to pass me by-- and it has been worth doing.

Under The Quinoa Rainbow

Throughout the season quinoa has proven to be a top performer, a plant I intend on growing wherever/whenever I have the chance to garden. The plants I grew this summer exceeded my expectations, growing twice as tall (about 8' instead of 4') as the seed package stated. The bushy seed clusters at the top of each plant exhibit a wide array of variability, at least as far as colors are concerned. A quick glance down the row reveals an unexpected explosion of color, from red, orange, yellow and beige (typically sold in stores). With the advent of fall the seed clusters are nearing harvest time, after the first frost.

Feel the heat

I've lacked the motivation lately to post on account of record breaking temperatures. Two days ago SeaTac topped out at 103, and it's been hovering in the 90s ever since. Considering the fact that my room is an attic room and I don't have a laptop, there was no way I could conceive of attempting an endeavor that sweaty. It finally started to cool off yesterday and today is hot, but certainly bearable. The garden has needed extra watering during the past week's heat wave. I typically water around twilight, and if I'm able for a short time in the late morning. The past two months have been near the driest on record for the Seattle area, with practically no measurable rainfall to speak of. Perhaps a sign of what's to come. I can't really complain though; a gardener can't ask for better weather to grow vegetables, but a little rain would be nice.

Yellow squash ready to be picked today or tomorrow

Quinoa clusters continue to fill out nicely

Golden bell peppers love the heat

The first sunflower opened up yesterday

Still the garden grows...

I returned from my week-long east coast jaunt late Wednesday night to find everything in the garden very much alive and well. A special thanks to everyone who helped while I was away. The volunteer sunflowers are over 8 feet tall and showing no signs of stopping their skyward ascent anytime soon. Entering the cloche in any fashion other than an army crawl verges on the impossible. Rattlesnake beans are fruiting readily, though the scarlet runners seem to have been spottily pollinated; each flower cluster only managed to produce two or three beans out of around fifteen blooms. Although one bean is nearly ten inches long.

As I understand it, frequent harvesting of beans and peas, tomatoes, zucchini, pretty much any fruiting vegetable, will encourage the plant to produce more fruit. In the case of peas and some beans, picking the pod when it's a bit on the young side will ensure it is tender (and delicious).

Quinoa continues to thrive. According to the seed package the plant was to reach a height of four feet; this one is over six.

The first zucchini fruits appear.

An updated photo of the garden's growth since last week.

One for the road

Leaving for New York tonight to attend my cousins' wedding on Saturday. The ceremony's upstate in Binghamton, but I'll be spending a couple of days in the city with my sister and brother in law prior. Then a few days in D.C. to catch up with an old college friend, Brian.

For the interim, the garden will be in the hands of my able-bodied roommates (I'm praying for rain). I've shot a few pictures of some garden produce as it's coming along.

Dew sprinkled quinoa starting to form the main seed cluster.

Peas overflowing on the vine.

Rattlesnake pole beans filling out nicely.

Pumpkin blossom nestled between the beans.

Scarlet Runner beans and blossoms.

A pic of the garden today (most of it anyway). Even with all my careful attention to spacing, everything seems to have grown rather close together. I guess part of me didn't expect it all to grow so prolifically. The tomatoes in the cloche are beginning to press against the plastic. When I get back next Wednesday I will have to figure out the best way to deal with their rampant growth.

Dry days

Today the Seattle area tied the previous record for consecutive days without rain for this time of the year (May-June), with 29 straight days without so much as an isolated sprinkle. For the garden, it's a blessing and a curse. The long hot days have rocketed my plants into top form, with most blossoming or at least showing buds or getting ready to flower. It's only a curse in the sense that the water table is being continually lowered without the usual rain to recharge it. And really, it's not a curse, it just means I have to be adamant about watering. For once I'm actually hoping it will rain! Some pictures of the plants' progress in recent days:

These peas will be ready to pick tomorrow or the next day.

The quinoa is doing great! This is one experiment I'm glad I undertook. The plants are nearly two feet tall already. They should reach a height of about four feet and then will begin to produce seed clusters. According to the research I've done they won't be ready to harvest until after the first frost, at which time I'll cut them down and hang somewhere cool to dry.

The tomatoes inside the cloche are nearly to the top of it already, and readily blooming. Their cages are nearly hidden by the abundant foliage. The slightly hotter temperature the enclosure creates seems to be doing the trick.

Another cloche success story: black eggplant. This is definitely the largest I've ever got an eggplant to grow before, and it trumps the ones I grew last year (which hardly grew more than 8" tall and didn't fruit whatsoever). This one is over a foot tall.

A casualty of the consistently hot weather has been the spinach. I should have planted this crop much earlier than I did, as the high temps have prompted it to bolt (grow spindly and go to seed). I have been able to harvest a sizable amount of the leaves, however, and have been chopping off the tops of the plants in hopes that it will force the plant to shoot out more vegetation and cease flowering.

Me and the bean(stalk)

In the week since my last post, me and the plants have been soaking up some serious sun. I completed the final trellis, which will be providing support for the two different varieties of beans, the rattlesnake pole beans and the scarlet runners. Construction is the same as the trellis for the peas, the exception being that it is much less crowded with twine. Beans appreciate more space to fill out. Here's a pic of a scarlet runner crawling up the crosspiece of the trellis only a few hours after I completed it. They climb fast!


The quinoa and some of the carrots have sprouted, though I may have to resow some carrots as they are sporadic and the germination rate left something to be desired. A quinoa seedling:


Everything in the cloche is faring rather well, though I have yet to establish a satisfactory method for securing the plastic along the base of the pvc that is in contact with the ground. Perhaps it's time to bring out the zip ties.

A couple of my broccoli plants are suffering from some ailment I am unable to diagnose at this point. Here's what they look like:

The leaves are wilting and beginning to turn yellow. I first thought they might not be too keen on the warm weather we've had as of late (75 + degrees for the past week). They've been adequately watered, though not over-watered. They seem to perk up at night once it cools off, but set to wilting once the sun's up the next day. The remaining plants seem fine, and it may be that I just have to cut my losses and remove the plants if they don't recover soon. I can always plant something else in its place. Here's a more uplifting shot of one of the plants that is doing much better and even starting to bud!


I did a little work out in the front garden today, planting several herbs (parsley and basil), nasturtiums, marigolds, snapdragons and various tomatoes. To update on the front garden, the initial tomatoes I planted weeks ago are growing vigorously and seem to be enjoying their location near the concrete. I plan on planting some additional herbs and flowers at a later date. A quick shot of what the garden looks like now:

Tomorrow I'm waking up early to set up shop in the front of the house to see if I can't find a good home for the remaining seedlings I have no more room to plant.

If you don't like the weather in Seattle...

Wait ten minutes. What this morning looked like another day of torrential downpour and high speed winds transformed graciously into a partly sunny (but still windy) afternoon. After briefly tinkering with some pvc pipes and fittings (for the cloche), I ventured a look outside to find that it had stopped raining and that the sun was beginning to dry things up. Though it only ever got partly clear (clouds move quickly around here) I was able to get out to the garden to plant a row of carrots and quinoa. Quinoa is an ancient grain (though not a true cereal grain since is not a grass) originally domesticated by the Incans in the Andes Mountains of South America. They called it 'mother grain,' and for good reason. It contains a balance of essential amino acids and up to 18% protein, which for vegetarians like myself, is a godsend. Add to that the fact that it tastes great! The plant itself is an annual that grows about 4 feet high, the top of which sprouts a cluster of seed at the end of the growing season. Supposedly it grows well in much of the U.S., so I figured I might give it a try.

Tomatoes soaking up the late afternoon light