Hyacinth
A few years ago (we still lived in the apartment) I bought Laurie a beautiful hyacinth for some flower giving occasion, valentines day or her birthday or something. Everywhere I looked online said that hyacinth purchased at grocery stores will not bloom again. Especially in the Arizona desert where it doesn’t get cold enough to encourage re-bloom. Well apparently something is working. I don’t get grandiose 12 inch stems covered by flowers as they do in cooler climates but I also don’t put them in my fridge for a month, they stay in the ground under the stately mulberry tree eternally. They do produce a few very fragrant flowers. Hyacinth is one of those scents that is wonderful as slight wiff in passing, but in the house it becomes very overbearing and almost repugnant. Perhaps this year I’ll fertilize them and encourage some larger blooms next year. Or maybe I’ll be lazy and just let mother nature take her course.
Composting
As an avid organic gardener I love homemade compost. I put everything I can into my compost bin. I haven’t made the leap to worm composting yet, but that is my next step. I came across a website with some great information on organic gardening and composting. Seattle Tilth is a non-profit organization which teaches people about organic gardening. They have information on composting and keeping chickens (wink wink Laurie). They even have some plans for constructing your own composting bins using off the shelf items. This proves much cheaper than the $200 for a manufactured worm bin or compost bin. I got our compost bin from the cities solid waste department for a $5 deposit. It is a large garbage bin with the bottom chopped off. This is great for all the yard waste we produce, but it is way too big for kitchen waste. Perhaps my next garden project will involve building a worm bin. It would be a great addition to our quasi-organic lifestyle, and the kids would love it. They won’t touch the dirty worms, but they love seeing them.
Water-Wise Gardening
I receive an email full of advertisements from Wayside Gardens just about every day. Usually it only has plants for sale, but today it had some tips on water conservation in the garden that I thought were very insightful. It is mostly common sense, but I learned something new from it, so maybe it will be useful to others as well.
- Water in the morning so roots have time to take up moisture before it evaporates during the heat of the day.
- Install drip irrigation or soaker hoses to put water right at plants’ roots and prevent runoff.
- Frequently check irrigation systems, sprinkler heads, etc for leaks.
- Water deeply but infrequently, causing roots to reach down into the soil for moisture and strengthen growth.
- Use an organic mulch to keep roots moist and cool.
- Reuse household water as much as possible (e.g. water from rinsing and cooking pasta and vegetables, cleaning aquariums, and emptying coolers, vases, etc).
- Put up a rain gauge to help manage your water needs.
- Clean decks, patios, sidewalks, etc with a broom instead of a hose.
More Background Photos
Seed Catalogs
This is the time of year that the seed catalogs arrive in the mail. It is so fun to browse through them and try to decide what I want to grow the following year. In Arizona I have the problem of having two growing seasons, late winter to early summer and late summer to winter. I have to decide what I want to start now for spring and what I want to plant in the fall. I guess I could wait and buy seed in the summer, but the cool weather plants are all so delicious that I always want to plant something in the spring just to see how it will do.
I am in the process of trying to do a little landscaping as well. When we moved in we had a lot full of lawn with four trees. Three citrus trees, and an ornamental mulberry. I’ve cleaned up the area under the mulberry, and am trying to plant flowers there. I also cut out a flowerbed in the front yard where I could plant annuals. I still haven’t done much with that. I put a few seeds out and it is full of painted daisies. I need to do some formal landscaping with that. The flowers are so beautiful in the catalogs as well. I wish I could just rip all the bermuda grass out and plant flowerbeds. Maybe I’ll do that someday. I wonder how Kentucky Bluegrass would do here. Has anyone tried it? It is supposed to withstand heat and drought fairly well, and it shouldn’t take over the yard the way bermuda does. We also added an ash tree in the front yard. It looks silly right now, it is still a sapling, about 4 feet tall and about 1/3 inch in diameter. With all the leaves off right now it looks like a small stick coming out of the ground, but in a few years it will be a large tree.
Beautifying the yard is an exciting process. Maybe I’ll get some seeds started this Christmas break. Starting seeds is one of the most rewarding experience. From the tiny seed comes a small seedling that grows quickly. It quickly will be hundreds of times larger than the small seed it started from. It is a very exciting prospect. I think it is a wonderful experience, that really helps to understand Alma 32. Hopefully my children will enjoy it as much as I always have.
