Garden Report

16 years ago

My irises came! My irises came! Last spring I ordered irises from Schreiners. They came yesterday, and I finally today got a chance to open the package. I'm always pleased with Schreiners' rhizomes. They're always big, fat, and healthy. And they package them very carefully, too. I also ordered an iris from ebay, which arrived yesterday. Much smaller, but then it isn't a tall bearded. It does have three stalks growing out of it.

I got:

Westar (the little guy)

Laced Cotton

Mesmerizer

Before the Storm

Black Suited

Anvil of Darkness

Batik

Magical Encounter

County Cork

and another black one that I can't remember offhand

Now I have a question for you iris fanciers. July, August, and September are the months to plant iris, but the worst of Colorado summer is probably still to come. I don't want to chance planting iris and then have them bake before they're properly rooted. But I'm not sure if it's a good idea having them sitting in a box for several weeks, either. What would you do?

My potatoes are doing fairly well. The ones in the potato bag have lost a couple leaves. Perhaps I'm overwatering a bit. The ones in the raised beds are doing well, except for the Carola, which died straight off. It's time to hill them again. This weekend I hope to be able to drag home a bag of compost. I hilled my volunteer All Blue across the yard. It's pretty badly eaten, but it's still alive, so I might possibly get some spuds from it.

I have five brassica left. The three remaining ones in the raised bed (purple cauliflower, Diablo Brussels sprouts, and purple sprouting broccoli) are doing the best. They're still small, but aside from being a little pepper shot, they look healthy. The two in the circular bed (Diablo Brussels sprouts and purple sprouting broccoli) are pretty much bug eaten. If I can keep the bugs off them, they might make it. All of my Minaret, Green Goliath, and Nutribud broccoli died, as well as almost all of my cauliflower. I'm growing more seedlings for fall planting, and I'm trying different varieties.

My Black Plum and Roma tomatoes in containers are growing and looking fairly healthy. Some of the basil I've put in with them seems to be operating as trap crops. It's more eaten up than the tomatoes. The Opalka is in my square foot success container. It's not growing as fast as the others. My San Marzano was the latest to be transplanted. It looks like it's still trying to get its feet under it, so to speak, but it's hanging in there. I think this weekend, I'll move them all to the other side of the back porch, where they'll get more sun.

My melons.... (shaking head) My poor, poor, sad melons. (Sigh.) As I said in another post, in spite of transplanting them carefully and taking every precaution, they were eaten down to nothing within a day or two. The toilet paper rolls are still there, but they've nothing to protect. I reseeded the garlic patch with five melon hills, and a row each of marigold, lettuce, and carrots. I sowed quite a bit of seed, too. I didn't think "sowing thinly" would cut it in my yard. And it doesn't make any sense to save the seed. Not much is going to change from this year to next except that the seeds will be a year older.

After five days, I see nary one tiny sprout, anywhere in the bed. Isn't five days enough time to see SOMETHING, if anything was going to grow there?

My sunflowers never came up. No sign of anything but bare dirt. And they were my fallback privacy screen, too.

For whatever reason, I seem to have the best luck with bulb type plants. Most of my iris survived (except the ones stolen by the squirrels), and quite a few of them even bloomed. Ditto the tulips, daffodils, and crocus, and my garlic harvest was quite respectable. Maybe bulbs and rhizomes just like my dry, sandy soil better.

I also seem to have decent luck with potatoes, although I can't grow carrots for the life of me. I see a lot of garlic mashed potatoes in my future.

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Comments (5)

cnetter
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I would plant the iris immediately. I just picked up my order from Iris4U, but don't have anywhere to plant them yet. Aargh, didn't get that part of the garden expanded. So I put them in pots, but I don't recommend doing that unless you have to. It's easy to rot an iris in a pot.
Other years, I plant them as soon as I get them and almost all of them bloom the next spring, which is pretty good for iris. And I always get them around now or a couple weeks later.
If you ever want a repeat blooming iris, I can highly recommend Champagne Elegance - it's blooming right now in my garden!
You've got different ones than I do.

Here is a link that might be useful: My iris
lilgreenfrog
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Hi; I would like to second Cnetter on the "plant the iris now" comment - they are generally quite hardy, but you don't want them to dry out. I planted mine last week in nasty clay soil in full sun, and they seem just fine. Don't be surprised/worried if the tips or edges turn brown - they do that after transplant.

You shouldn't have issue with rot in your sandy soil; just make sure the rhizomes are partly exposed or just beneath the soil, and don't mulch right on top of them. They don't want too much water, but some of mine I watered in quite firmly, as my cat likes to rub on them until they fall over (then he rolls on them).
Anyway, hope some of that was helpful! Happy irising.

Lara
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lilacs_of_may
Original Author
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I didn't get any of the irises planted this weekend. I just ran out of time and daylight. I did, however, get five zucchini hills set up. And that's it. If these melons and zukes don't make it, I give up. I may or may not try again next year. I'm done with planting except for my fall brassica crop. I've got some seedlings growing in my plant room. When they're big enough, I'll put them out.

Is it a bad bug year? I see not only the swarms of flea beetles, but also a lot of earwigs and grasshoppers.

So far, the only things I've been able to grow semi-successfully are garlic and potatoes.

I taste-tested my cherries, btw. I cut one open and was glad to see that there were no bugs, so I tasted it with my tongue. Yuk! Beyond sour!

The birds get these. Why would anyone plant a cherry tree that produced inedible cherries?
Skybird - z5, Denver, Colorado
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Sour cherries are "pie cherries." They're usually eaten cooked in a sweet sauce somehow, tho we used to eat them raw when we were kids. Guess you just have to like tart things. Sweet cherry trees didn't used to be hardy to z5, tho I think there are some varieties nowadays that are hardy enough.
dee_z5co
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Hi,
Skybird is right! You put them in a pie crust with some sugar, almond flavoring and a little flour with dots of butter and make wonderful pies. You could make a "crisp" or upside cake or put biscuit batter on top of them (with sugar and almond flavoring or cinnamon, too). There are many ways to use them, and while the birds deserve a few, I wouldn't give them all up!
I came from the midwest where the soil was black and the humidity high. Learning to garden here was very interesting (and at times a lesson in humility, too). I've found that we've had better luck (although not great) growing melons in Parker than in Aurora (just 10 miles south of where we were). I'm inclined to think just minor differences in climate and soil make a pretty big difference, and every time I plant (transplant) a melon (usually pretty-good sized, in June and after it has been acclimated for nearly a week), I regard it as more of a challenge and never a sure-thing.
Over the years we've had few or no problems growing squash, tomatoes, pumpkins, peppers, green beans, onions, garlic and radishes (veggies with which I suppose nearly everyone in this area has success). Then we always try a couple of other things--for the heck of it. But because we start out with the easier things which nearly always succeed, the failed crops seem like minor problems.
I took the same approach with my flowers, too. I began with wildflowers which were bound to succeed and then, as I learned about the particulars of gardening in this soil and this climate, I've added more complex situations. Learning to use compost, and, in particular, mushroom compost which is easier to haul around and available at bargain price really helped move things forward. Also, plying my beds with leaves in the fall sprinkled with powder fertilizer and water and then covered with soil improved my success. Starting with "sure-things" helped me to feel fairly successful while learning and adapting.
Over the years, I've had a lot of "crop failures," but the successes have been memorable enough to override the negatives. I don't know if any of this helps--but I have felt much empathy with your issues living near yucky neighbors and trying to make a go of your gardening. Many of us have been there and gone on to something better, as you will, too!

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cnetter

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cnetter

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