Rain Relief and Burlap Gardens

Hot.Crispy. Crunchy. Dry. Dusty. Scorched. Burnt.

That pretty much described the Oklahoma gardening situation for the last few weeks. So it was hard to put together too much enthusiasm about hanging out outside for anything other than swimming, and scooting quickly from one air conditioned place to another. But it finally rained yesterday and again today, so everything growing breathed a fragrant sigh of relief.

But I did watch some great gardening TV while hanging out in my air conditioned house. My favorite is Jamie Durie's Victory Garden on PBS. He did a fun show on the new victory gardens in San Fransisco. Check out the video here.




Here's my definition of a Victory Garden after watching the victory garden episode on PBS:a home or community garden planted with the intention to reduce the pressure on community, national or global resources by providing healthy food right in your home or community.

I knew about WWII Victory Gardens, but it took me a while to figure what that means in 2009 terms. So, I'm a bit slow! But you knew that already.

We aren't feeding troops with my backyard garden, of course. But the purpose of a Victory Garden in 2009 could be to reduce the pressure on global resources just a little.

Besides, it's fun to know exactly which vine the potatoes and tomatoes in my kitchen came from. Recently that has been from Grandpa Billy's garden, my garden, the one little tomato plant we planted at school, and from the gardener down the road who sells his produce on Saturdays at a table under the trees, surrounded by his five HUGE gardens.

The most intriguing part of the San Francisco victory garden episode was that they used huge rolls of burlap filled with straw to create many large circular gardens.






Another web site with photos and examples is Revive the Victory Garden. They say:

Why plant a victory garden?

Today our food travels an average of 1500 miles from farm to table. The process of planting, fertilizing, processing, packaging, and transporting our food uses a great deal of energy and contributes to the cause of global warming.

Planting a Victory Garden to fight global warming would reduce the amount of pollution your food contributes to global warming. Instead of traveling many miles from farm to table, your food would travel from your own garden to your table.

Our current economic situation is other good reason to start a Victory Garden. Every time that food is shipped from the farm to the store and your table, gasoline is used. As gasoline prices rise, food costs rise.

I'll keep working on my gardening skills. It's satisfying for a million reasons. In the interest of sustainability, though, maybe I should build a chicken coop... raise goats in the field by the barn... learn to weave grasses into useful appliances...

(Just kidding honey.) I'm still working on just raising a few good tomatoes and green beans! I'll do chickens next year.

The Small Stuff in Makin Me Sweat

Whine Warning:

I have great video from the Myriad Gardens and cute niecy getting her picture taken on a beautiful summer evening which I wanted to make into a "Movie Mix" with my cool FLIP video camera software. Would you like to see it? Well I'd love to show it to you but I'm having trouble with the program, or it's having trouble with me. It was the next blog entry I wanted to make but I kept getting stuck on the fact that I couldn't get the product I wanted. So if you know how to call up a "movie mix" on my cool camera, could you drop a comment?
Sigh.

I planted lots of wildflowers which are looking pretty good this summer, and then went kind of minimalist on the garden veggies. So when my one little bell pepper plant that is fully loaded with cute little peppers shrivels up for no apparent reason today, it makes me sad. It was appropriately watered, or so I thought. No leaf damage. No visible pests. So I'm afraid it's the dreaded phytophthora root rot, which means it's a gonner.
Ergh.

Level. Adjust. Pull. Add some more sand on one side. Spend the day filling the pool with water. Stand and admire the pretty new Intex pool all full and sparkly. Come into the back yard with a flower pot in hand three hours later and stop, still, to consider why the pool looks kind of odd. Ergh. The inflated ring on top that lifts the whole thing up has deflated and precious water is pouring over the side.
Bummer.(expensive bummer)

Other than that, things are peachy. The fresh basil that is doing so well in the garden will be great tomorrow when Grandpa Billy's tomatoes ripen and I can make a Caprese salad. (Mozarella, tomato, fresh whole basil leaves, olive oil, salt and pepper) I was at Nonna's this week in Bricktown and they make their Caprese salad like a Big Mac. Round slabs of mozarella stacked with full round tomato slices with basil layered between and some kind of dark vinagrette poured on top. You cut wedges out to eat.





It's great having daughter Melissa and baby Rylan here along with grandson Dakota. Can't wait til Cori and Alli check in next week!

Better go get some baby snuggling time and go check to see how much pool water is running away.

My Leaves are Rollin'

It's been REALLY hot here. Up to 102 degrees or so occasionally in the last few weeks. So I'm trying to be consistent about watering all my thirsty plants so I don't lose anybody in the heat. My favorite time to water is just after sunset when the moon sparkles the water spray from the hose, and the lightning bugs are playing crazy games in the trees below the garden. There is an area of humongous weeds down there, below the garden, that I'm going to get to some day and clean up, really I am, but for now, it's one huge lighting bug party there every night. And the locusts make an incredible pulsing, throbbing noise, so don't let anyone tell you the country is quiet on a summer night. When it gets too annoying I just turn my hearing aids off! Ha ha.

Even with all this attention, though, the leaves on the tomato plants are curling gently inward. The little yellow blossoms look fine, and little tomato fruit follows the blossom. But the leaves look all curled up and sad. Therefore, I decided they must need EXTRA water every day to survive the heat. Not so much, I guess.



Mr. Fred and Debbie and I were discussing gardens at work last week when we probably should have been doing something at least remotely school related (but I'm the boss, and it's summer!) so I asked about my shrively tomatoes. Mr. Fred told me they're too soggy. Since I'm slow to believe anything anybody tells me, I looked it up. Here's what the Oklahoma State Extention info says:

Physiological leaf roll
Physiological leaf roll begins with an upward curling of older leaflets. Leaf roll may progress until the margins of the rolled leaflets touch or even overlap. Rolled leaves are firm and leathery and most of the foliage may be affected (Figure 5). Aside from the leaf rolling, plants are otherwise normal in size and appearance, unlike virus diseases such as curly top which also cause leaf rolling. Affected plants will continue to grow normally with little or no reduction in yield or quality.
Physiological leaf roll has been associated with tomato varieties having a specific gene that favors this condition, the occurrence of high temperatures, and prolonged periods of wet soil. Leaf roll is often more severe on plants that are staked and pruned.
Control: Aside from planting tomatoes on well-drained soils, there is little that can be done to correct leaf roll.

Hmmm. Guess I'll let them dry out a bit before I drown them again. Tomatoes are SO picky! Everybody else out there cheers when I come around with the water hose.

If you're a non-gardener, and you're still reading this for some rather odd reason, just consider the advantage of laying your head on the pillow at the end of a stress filled day and turning your thoughts to "physiological leaf roll". Now, isn't that better than the fears, worries and accusations that try so hard to take over your brain and mine instead? It's just a suggestion!