Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I almost called this "Aubade's Unlucky Garden" or "Aubade's Little Shop of Horrors" but I stuck with something nice. Power of positive thinking, right?!

Anyway, I finally got some pics uploaded so without further ado, here's my little yard.

The left, main side, on July 30th. It is pretty rough looking, but hey, it survived 106 degrees.

From front to back you can kinda see 2 tomatoes, 2 ground cherries, 2 bush zucchini (1 black beauty & 1 cavili) and a row of basil. Behind that, you can't see the out of season strawberry plants. In the very back corner is my herb garden- mostly all you can see is a bunch of browned cilantro. Those seeds are going to self-sow like crazy - I bet I'm going to have cilantro everywhere next year! On the very left up against the fence I did have pole beans and cucumbers, but they were all eaten by a gopher. There are some turnips and a couple carrots behind the tomatoes too.

On the right side of my yard is the pepper bed, also on July 30th. It is pretty much the only thing that's going well for me so far this year.

The only problem is the farm I bought them from mislabeled them. I'm supposed to have 2 marconi goldens, but they turned out to be some unspecified yellow bells. I've also got 2 bananaramas, (which actually had blossom drop during the heatwaves, but are coming back) 2 little dickens, a hungarian albino, and what is supposed to be Grandpa's favorite jalapenos. I think those were mislabeled too because they are very tiny, and the description said they should have been bigger. At least a lot of them are growing! I'll post some pepper harvest pics later. There are a few tromboncino squash growing up the trellis. I just picked my first one of the season today, a good one, at least 2 feet long! The sunflower self-seeded, so that was a nice surprise.

This is what my little shop of horrors blackberry bush looked like on June 6. I trimmed this thing by about 2/3rd last summer, and it already grew back this big! It got a lot bigger during July, so I had to severely trim it back again.


This is what it looks like now, after the 106 heatwave that shriveled all the berries just as they were getting ripe (*sob*):


Here is a glenora grape that I planted last year. It lives behind the blackberry bush. There was one bunch of grapes on it this year, but I think something ate it. I have no idea how to properly prune this thing.


This bee balm lives behind the blackberry bush too. It is no longer in flower, and I had to trim it too. But this is what it looked like in bloom on Jul 17th:


Here's my totally wild mint garden. You know how they say to only plant mint in a pot buried in the ground? Yeah, you should listen to that advice. I didn't, and this is what two tiny white & pineapple mint plants put into the ground a few years ago has turned into. I think I'm going to have to just mow them down or something before my neighbor kills me.


I've got a few other things to post tucked in here and there, but now I have to eat dinner. Hope you enjoyed my garden tour!

Awesome! Yeah, mint can be very invasive. Dry those leaves out and have lots of tea--or mojitos!

Cute! Your space reminds me of a secret garden.

I planted my fall garden this Saturday. I got exactly 7 carrots in this same bed out of about 100 seeds, because they got choked out by weeds. So this time I took all the old lettuce seeds I had, about 5 half packs, and just broadcast the seeds all over the bed. (which of course, I'd weeded really well) I figure something better grow! (With my luck, they'll all grow and I'll be thinning for an entire day.)

Similarly, in the bed next to that one, I planted a bunch of belgian endive and none of them grew at all. I think the problem here was drainage/compacted soil. So I weeded and raked the soil to make it nice and fine, then broadcasted all the seeds I had left from 3 packs of radishes. When I watered them it didn't pool up like it had been, so I'm hoping this will work.

I figured it would be a good week for planting, because it was supposed to rain a lot this week. That way they'll stay moist without much watering. Of course, little did I know it would be a monsoon! I can't believe how much and how fast it has rained the past two days. I hope they didn't get washed away.

Yesss! Good for you, Auby. I'm getting my second wave garden geek on. I like planting my carrots in containers. I plan on getting the arugula and other greens out today.

The carrot thing was weird - the past 3 harvests I've had were excellent. I don't know why all of a sudden I got SO many weeds in that bed. It just totally caught me by surprise, right as the carrots were seedlings. By the time I got around to weeding, it was too late and most of the seedlings had been choked out. Sad, but hopefully next year will be better again. At least it wasn't a bug/disease!

The radishes I planted on Saturday are already growing! I saw a ton of little sprouts this morning. Guess I will be thinning afterall, but I'm not really complaining!

Now my garden has poisoned me. I have terrible poison ivy or sumac all around my waist/leg/arm. I had it last year too, when I was pregnant - but at the time I thought it was PUPPS or something pregnancy related. I went to the doctor and they said it was contact dermatitis, but no idea what, and I thought maybe the garden but no clue how since I was barely in the yard.

So now I have it again at exactly the same time of year. It must be garden related because that is the only thing in common to last year. I think maybe I identified a tiny bit of poison ivy, but I can't understand how it could give me what I've got. Also, if poison ivy is dangerous all year round, why am I only getting this rash in August?

I also noticed many plants with white berries that look similar to poison sumac, but the leaves don't look like it at all.

I am scared to go in the yard now. Which sucks because all the recent rain has turned it into a raging weed party and there is sooo much work to be done. I don't want to touch any of it, but just looking at all the weeds makes me so upset. This sucks.
:-(

Do you have anyone that can help you? PI is a tricky mistress. You have to kill it at the root, you can't burn it, can't compost it, and urushiol stays active on surfaces (even when dead!) for a couple of years. Crazy, huh? The best way to organically rid yourself of it is to trim, bag, and dispose. The only thing I know on the market that touts it will kill to the root is round up. And we all know that RU is the devil.

You can also get it from petting a dog or cat that has gotten it on it's fur. If you have an outdoor animal, they might be bringing it to you from somewhere other than the garden. Do you know what poison ivy leaves look like? It is pretty easy to identify once you know how many points on the leaves. Some people do not react to it, so maybe you can get such a person to remove it for you. And yes, round up works. I don't recommend it, but my dad has used it successfully.

I feel for you, though. I've had it and it is a miserable thing to experience.

Could your dermatitis be caused by stinging nettle, rather than poison ivy or sumac? I just got one hell of a burn from an immature stinging nettle plant because I stupidly assumed it was catnip (which our yard is completely overgrown with).
Here's what it looks like:

I'd never seen it in my yard before, but I knew what it was the second that I brushed against it -- all I needed to do was barely bump it with the back of my hand and it EXPLODED in pain. NB I'd never been stung by a 'bad' plant before, so I have no idea if the stinging nettle sensation is similar to that of poison ivy/oak/sumac. My sympathies!

For a quick and easy way to get those weeds out of sight, could you cover the lot of 'em with cardboard? Or are there good/edible plants interspersed with the weeds? I am a big fan of paper mulch as a weed suppressant because you can just turn it back into the soil after it's done its job.

but nettle stings go away pretty quickly.

about that grape- don't touch it til the end of winter!! we usually trimmed ours (in New England) the week of college spring break.

Thanks all. I don't think it is stinging nettle. It started a few days after I planted the lettuce mentioned above. Some red bumps appeared that I thought were mosquito bites, and I made the mistake of scratching them. Now those intitial bumps on my leg are pretty blistery and infected looking. Then it continued to spread to other areas. It was still spreading as of a day or two ago on my arm. I don't think I've gotten anything new today. It doesn't hurt, it is just INSANELY itchy. I've been slathering Gold Bond on a couple times a day.

I have a tendency to wear my gardening shorts more than once if they don't get too dirty, so I think it may have gotten on them and I wore them twice, so that's why I got it in stages. Either that or maybe it is getting on my dog, but the tiny bit of poison ivy I found is way behind a fence so there is no way for him to get near it. So if that's it, there must be some elsewhere in the yard that I can't find. I suspect there may be because I really can't see how the tiny bit I found behind the cucumber trellis could possibly have gotten on me like this.

Oh yeah, and my lettuce didn't grow either. The radishes and arugula are doing great, but no lettuce sprouts. Harumph.

I also really need to thin the radishes afterall, but they're right by the poison ivy so I'm scared to do it. Good grief.

Sounds like poison ivy to me. Whenever my mom gets it, it always starts as a small patch somewhere on her body and migrates everywhere else before it goes away. It is so hard not to touch it or scratch it, and then your fingers spread it to new parts of your body. So sorry you are going through this!

That sucks. I'm not allergic to poison ivy. I made the mistake of broadcasting that fact loudly a few years ago and now I get called on whenever someone needs it removed. Perhaps you have a similar friend?

Wow, your mint is HUGE! My MIL told me the same thing but the mint I was given died and when I grow more, I'll be sure to leave it in the pot.