First Frost

I suffered some real late-season garden fatigue in August; I didn't really do much in the garden except come home from a week or weekend away and violently pull bindweed while cursing like a sailor. Now, we are bouncing back from our first frost and I'm all sad about the summer coming to a close. Gardening can be one hell of an emotional rollercoaster!

What it looks like when Bindweed takes over -- this can happen in a week or two if I don't fight it.

Just as I was taking the unusually wet summer and lush landscape for granted, I get reminded how short-lived our growing season really is around here. We had our last snow storm on May 11th, and our first frost on September 12th. It got down to 35 degrees on Thursday night, so I had the garden and large deck containers covered for two days. I brought all of my smaller containers inside and harvested all of my cucumbers and quite a few tomatoes. There are still a ton of green tomatoes left, so I'm holding out hope for several more to ripen on the vine, but with these short days, it's not looking good.

Tomatoes harvested early and ripening in the windowsill. Covered deck containers and garden in background.

Frosty sunflower Saturday morning

First Frost - Veronica ground cover

Covered veggie garden - I gave up on my green beans; they didn't fare well this season.

I'm getting over the disappointment of an underperforming veggie garden. My cucumbers and green beans didn't even do well! Sing it with me: "Let it go. Let it go-oooh!" At least I have tons of carrots and onions? Looking for some silver lining here. It's so strange that our wettest summer was such a disappointment in the veggie garden department. I'm guessing it's because we didn't have a lot of sun and heat to get things off to a good start in May and June. Well, my flower garden did awesome this year, and for that I can be grateful.

The sun is shining, the sky is that clear "Colorado blue" and the temperature is back up in the upper 70's. It should hold steady there for several more days, at least. I have a ton of fall planting and maintenance I want to do, so it's back to work for me!

Why We Take "Before and After" Pictures

I took a stroll down memory lane the other day and clicked through our "New House!" photo album from over three years ago. Boy did it make me feel good to see how far we've come.

I highly recommend this confidence-boosting exercise to everyone -- whether you're a gardener or not. Take a look at the very first photos you took when you moved into your current place, look at old photos of your kids, and definitely look at throwback high school and middle school pictures to feel the rush of pride at how much you've grown and changed since those pictures were taken.

After looking at pictures of our yard taken in the Spring of 2011, I feel like I can do anything.

The first picture is the earliest picture of the back yard that I could find.

Old deck, old dog run in the background and young pup in the foreground

Awww look how little Scout is! We moved the fence and gate to create a landscape side and a fenced-in garden side

Unfortunately, I haven't retired that "outfit" yet. Not really something to be proud of, but whatever.

The family before us used the back part of the backyard as a dog run, so I spent a couple of weekends digging up weeds and picking up large piles of dog poop

What I call the "wildflower patch" to the right of the garden beds

Inside of garden fence 2011. Hollyhock in left corner has now abundantly self-sowed through this area.

 Like I said in my first post back, I like to embrace growth and change. Especially when it looks like this:

View from deck in May 2014

Landscape in early June 2014 - green grass complements of a wet Spring

Full-grown Scout and always-growing landscape in July 2014

Landscape in July 2014

Inside of garden area with self-sowing Hollyhocks dominating, July 2014

Other side of garden fence, July 2014

Veggie garden in early June 2014

Garden in early July 2014

Wildflower patch and garden in 2014

Wildflower patch in 2012

Wildflower patch 2014 - Wild Four O'Clock below sunflowers

When we were visiting my in-laws in Wisconsin over Memorial Day weekend, my mother-in-law told me she gives me credit for getting anything at all to grow in our less-than-ideal gardening conditions. I replied humbly, "I give me credit, too!" It's a good feeling to allow yourself to be proud of what you've done. If I compared my little beginner garden to the those of more experienced gardeners, I'd never feel proud of what I've accomplished. So I say forget about comparing yourself to others; compare you to you and let yourself enjoy the pride of how you've grown and changed.

Summer Begins with One Last Snow Storm

May snow storms are to be expected in Colorado, but a snow storm on May 11th was a tad bit too late for my liking. Oh well, what can ya do. Cover the garden, protect new plantings, and wait for the blue skies and bright sunshine to come back. Then, assess the damage. That's all you can do.

This May snow storm started with a couple of days of refreshing rain and thunderstorms. I enjoyed that to the fullest, even though pea-sized hail made an appearance somewhere in between.

May 7th hail. Small, but mighty

There's a lot of luck involved in getting your garden to survive a hail storm, and somehow I managed to get a load of it. Patrick happened to have the afternoon off, and was able to get the garden covered before everything got totally messed up. I may have lost a tomato or two (I won't really know until this snow melts), but everything seemed to survive okay thanks to the garden cover and hoop set-up we have going on.

You can see the covered garden to the right.

Once the snow melts and summer sets back in, I'll be following the hail/snow-survival protocol I covered three years ago in this post. Check it out if you need some tips for getting your garden back after the hail and snow we just experienced.

Saturday, the day before the snow storm, was a gorgeous spring day. It reached 70 degrees before the clouds moved in in the early evening. Everyone was out enjoying the weather before we were relegated to the indoors for the next couple of days.

May 10th. Roselle enjoying the Lilacs before the snow takes em out

Flower Child

Scout and Satchmo playing on Saturday morning

 Then, everything changed. Clouds rolled in, temperatures dropped and the wind started howling. Sunday morning we woke up to about two inches of snow, and it didn't stop until late Monday morning. By then, we had about 8 inches on the ground, even with the afternoon rain we got in between the hours of snow on Sunday.

Spring Snow May 11-12th. Picture taken Monday morning.

A rain interlude on Sunday afternoon cleared most of the snow off of the branches

Happy dogs in the park Sunday evening

The sun came out late Monday morning

 When you live snuggled up to the foothills, a lot can change in a small amount of time. This is what the garden looked like over the span of one week:

May 3rd. 80 degrees, sunny and filled with stubborn weeds

May 4th. 85, sunny and freshly planted with Thyme groundcover (I ran out of pea gravel mulch before I took this)

May 11th. 35 degrees and snow, then rain, then more snow. Covered in garden cloth.

We're not even in the clear yet! Lows are forecasted to reach the mid 20s tonight. Those freezing temperatures are even worse for the plants than the 8 inches of snow. I'll just have to wait and see how everything survives, then do some damage control before the summer gets into full swing.

Planting

Yes! I've succeeded in getting pictures posted. And now they are outdated. Oh well, newer ones to come. 


In the process of re-vamping the previous owners' dog pen. To the left is  future Xeriscaping. To the right are veggie beds and wildflowers.

  It took many weekends of digging up weeds and T-bars to simply get this part of the yard to look like a dirt patch.  I was most likely weeding when the above picture was taken. That's our 7mo. old dog, Scout standing by the wheelbarrow. She hates being separated from me when I'm working behind the garden fence.



Flowers discussed in June 2nd post in front and rear, two garden beds, flagstone path and wildflowers seedlings

 There were old Lilac bushes lining the entirety of the back fence. We pulled up all of the old, dead and dieing Lilacs and trimmed up the rest. You can see a couple of the remaining buses near the back fence. One of them shades a Zucchini in one bed -- the veggie I thought could stand the most shade. The bloomed so profusely during the beginning of May that a wave of sweet-smelling Lilac goodness washed over you anytime you walked out of the house. 


Four types of hot peppers, sweet onions, germinating carrots, three types of tomatoes, two types of squash and chocolate sweet pepper

  I've learned that you have to be very patient with peppers. They are slower growing than most and they seem pretty fragile, too.


Wildflower patch contains two Hollyhocks, three Coneflowers, Coreopsis, Lupine, Bee Balm and constantly reappearing weeds.

  It's been a real challenge trying to tell the difference between sprouting weeds and wildflowers from the seed that we spread over a month ago. I'm not sure how the wildflower patch will turn out, but I always plant wildflower seeds with the vision of a lush, vigorously growing area of gorgeous, varying wildflowers. Someday I'll get there!


Strawberry plants

  Squirrels LOVE strawberries...almost as much as they love picking the seeds out of growing sunflowers (we've learned from experience in both areas). We've lost two or three new berries to the squirrel and as soon as I see a new one growing, I'm putting chicken wire around these. Fresh, home-grown strawberries are more important to me than aesthetics.


Window boxes contain Trailing Petunias, Zinnias and Snapdragons

  I bought home-grown, organic Zinnias, Marigolds and Calendulas from a lady who posted an add on Craig's List a while back. I planted them all right away and watched as each succumbed to the forces of wind and/or the resident squirrel. Now, I only have one Marigold left from the beginning bunch. I had to buy all of those healthy plants you see above (other than the lonely Marigold seen bottom left). Luckily, I recently had a birthday and asked for a Bath Garden Center gift card.


I planted Belleflowers and Minifamous annuals under the mailbox

 The previous owners had a nice and fresh bunch of fake flowers planted below the mailbox. I can't believe it took me a month to replace them with real plants. I chose trailing types of flowers for the container with the vision of vivid flowers cascading over the edges. We're not there yet, but they are remaining healthy and are a step above the fake stuff.

It's taken me so long to post all of these pictures that I've got to hurry and post new pictures...of our HAIL-DAMAGED(!!) garden. This weekend will be full of damage-control as well as our already planned landscaping work. We are planning on edging and landscaping the area to the left of the fenced-in garden with river rock, cobbles and eventually xeric (low-water) plants that I recently bought with my b-day gift cards to High Country Gardens, my new gardening obsession.

Tip: While it's certainly encouraged to have high hopes for your garden, remember that it takes lots of time and hard work.