One strawberry project ends, another begins

So I am sure you all remember when Brother asked me to let him have a strawberry plant. Well, when we got back from our Vacation, we decided the other start was ready and gave it a snip. Brother was so proud to have his own basket of strawberries.






He got to decide where they will sit on a shepherd hook until we (being adults and Brother) decide a bit higher location for them. This is due to the current location is a bit too close and low to where Momma Bunny tried establishing herself.

This whole project worked so well, it makes me wonder... does the strawberry start need to be connected to the mother plant to set or can I cut it off and start it (which would be alot easier to manage)? So like any good scientist, Pooka asked if we could try it. So we got out 2 pots (a small one for the neighbor) and a larger hanging one for us. Filled them with soil and laid out which ones would go in it. 

I know the little pot is pretty small. But the neighbor asked for a cutting, so I figured I would give it to her in something small then she could put it in whatever she wanted to. I didn't want to take a chance with her cutting, so she is getting it done the "traditional" way, or in science terms, that is our control group.

The experimental group, or "New way" is the one I cut off and stuck in some dirt in a hanging pot Pooka and I picked up (on clearance) for about $3.  I am not as concerned if this works or not. As Daddy put it "it's not like we are hurting for strawberry plants." So we will see how this goes. After just 2 days, it is looking pretty happy. It got a tad wilted yesterday, but I think it just needed watered since it perked up overnight. 

Harvesting and planting seeds.

Ready to hang up. 

When we returned from our vacation, we noticed the last cilantro plant was ready to be pulled and hung out to dry so we could collect the seeds. The seeds were trying to fall/grow into the snapdragon plants. And I don't feel like trying to pull them out of it.

Shake shake shake...BANG.

While we were hanging the new one up to dry, we noticed the older cilantro had dried out and the seeds were ready to harvest. I forgot to get a before picture, but we put it in a  paper bag and let Pooka shake it and bang it on the floor, the tool box, whatever. She had alot of fun with this step.








Once it was well separated from the stalks (Well most of them). Pooka and I sat down and sorted the seeds  out. We used coffee filters as our plates since that is what I had on hand in my gardening supplies. It would of worked a bit better on paper plates. But that's a live and learn moment.

Before

After

After they were sorted out, we planted them with a bit of the debris to act as a fertilizer. I used the same container they had been in before, and on the left side I used commercial seeds that I had bought previously (not thinking to harvest my own) and on the right are our home grown seeds. This should give us a good control group to see how well we did.

Commercial vs Home Grown

Colorful carrot mix

 Since we had the dirt out, I promised Pooka that this fall we would start some carrots. In true Pooka style, we can't grow just orange carrots. We have to grow colorful carrots because we all know how Pooka's love color.

Good luck little carrots

We got the seeds into their new pots as well. Hopefully we will have alot of carrots to take to school in lunches. I am not sure how Brother will feel about having purple carrots for lunch tho. 

So that's it. We have seeds going into the ground in August. This seems counter intuitive, but we will see what we can get.

An Overdue Harvest

This is what we harvested after our vacation. It was suppose to be a weeks worth, but I know I told the neighbor helping to tend the garden to take whatever she wanted as part payment. This has helped us keep from finding rotting things on the vine. However I still haven't had any of our peppers, but we are waiting on the new ones to finish getting ready (well the ones the hail didn't remove from the plant).

As you can see, we had 3 good sized tomatoes, about 6 ripe strawberries (and 3 that were too far gone) a ton of cherries (aside from the 3 green ones an over excited Pooka accidently grabbed), and about 9 cucumbers. We actually had about 4 more cucumbers I found the following day while I was retying up the cucumbers from the hail. 

My grandmother had also been stockpiling tomatoes for us, and Friday sent us home with 2 big trays of them. We are thinking to turn them into salsa since chicken quesadilla are a staple food around here when we have leftover chicken. Daddy even made me my first batch of cucumber salad for the year. So that will taste good as a breakfast later this week.

So we weren't too overwhelmed, but we had quite a bit. Now to find things to do with them. 

HAIL

Today was an easy day to decide what to post about. I had plenty of options, how big was the overdue harvest, how to harvest garlic (and the results of our late year attempt), or even, what is the status of the strawberry project or the coriander drying.

Something happened yesterday that Pooka and I decided was a bit more interesting/immediate. You see last night we had a thunderstorm. A nice, loud and very wet storm, that had included HAIL. Yes, Hail, in August. I was a bit shocked myself, so I took a picture of it after it had ended. 

Do you see what I see? 

Now while that picture does not show very well the fact that the deck was COVERED in hail, or the pots were holding nice little ice balls to melt into them (more free water). This picture was taken about 5 minutes after the hail stopped when I could even open the door in the rain for a quick picture.

After the storm passed, I went outside to survey the damage before Pooka could. I was worried she would get upset if it was in too bad a shape. This is the first sign of damage I saw. Doesn't look to bad right?

Not too bad. 

Bigger, but not too bad

 Then I looked at the broccoli. It had a bit bigger hole that I noticed right away.

Holes....

 Once I looked at the largest part of the cucumber plants, I saw the real damage. Leaves were shredded or cut in half. The vines had fallen from their spots, but I knew I could fix that the next day. The damage wasn't too horrid, but it gave me a chance to talk to Pooka about what hail is, and why it can be so damaging.

Swiss cheese leaf

It tore it in twain....

Floppy limb

 The tomatoes initially looked much worse from inside. They had blown over a bit, and upon further inspection, there are some bent or broken limbs, and alot of cherry tomatoes on the ground (anyone up for hunt the green tomato), but other then that, they seemed to hold up okay.

A casuality of the hail. 

As far as property damage, we got by without any real damage. Pooka lost one butterfly (Daddy isn't sure he can fix it) and one Dragonfly lost it's wing which was then broken in half. The house and the car had no real damage, but yeah, here is a quick reminder of how Mother Nature can turn on you.




Although, on a positive note: I will always remember listening to Brother and Pooka talk out the back window to Thor and tell him to calm down and that throwing tantrums and ice isn't going to solve anything.

Confession time

As you all have noticed by now, things have been a bit slow the last week or so here on Pooka's Science Experiment Garden. There is a reason for that, we went on vacation for a week. I had hoped to have saved up enough information to do enough posts while we were 400 miles away that no one would notice, but I forgot how on vacation, you never seem to be at a computer as long as you want to.

Anyway, we returned home last night and the FIRST thing Pooka wanted to do was go straight to her garden. She ran out there even though it was raining (FINALLY) and we were all amazed at what had happened in a week.

The few things you won't see in the pictures are : How Audrey the morning glory was standing a good 2 feet taller then her trellis. I had to wind her back down and into it. Neither of us enjoyed that. The dill had all begun to flower, until I quickly pulled them all, and 1 very nice red tomato I saw in the bushes.


This is the container garden. The basil was flowering, the dill was flowering, the strawberries are red and their tendrils are escaping. The last little cilantro plant is at seed and needs pulled to dry, especially since it has fallen over and is laying in the snap dragons.





The pablanos are have fruit and flowers everywhere. Daddy was happy he would finally have peppers. I think part of the peppers taking off is that I read ta thing about using a TINY Bit of extremely diluted epsom salt to increase the magnesium levels in the soil, and it seems to be working. The Broccoli every plant started making florrets. So it looks like we will get Broccoli after all.

The pepper plants are flowering and fruiting. Although the 3 peppers I had hoped to try when we got home are gone. So we will keep an eye on that plant and see how they do. I am pretty sure the neighbor who was watering our garden for us took them with my blessing as part payment. I will have to wait a bit longer to see what they taste like or ask her I guess.

The cucumbers went wild. They are everywhere and I am sure to spend a bit of time training and straightening them out. While I am glad to say they didn't attach themselves to the chairs or the table on the deck, they are quite happy. Doing a quick walkthrough I saw at least 8 that are ready to be picked without moving any leaves. Who knows what else is under there. 

The tomato plants are looking good. We had alot of red cherries and regular tomatoes. Add to that my grandma told me this morning she has tomatoes for me to can, so I guess I have some work to do between the cucumbers and the tomatoes. Oh and the big tomato plants are over 7 ft tall since they are taller then Daddy. And they are escaping all their containment cage again. Here I had hoped 6 ft tall stakes would be enough

I will post a total harvest probably tommorrow. I know Pooka and I have a good days work to do out there today. The upside is there isn't too many weeds to deal with. I think the garden is established enough this year to hold them all off. 

Audrey the Morning glory

Some of you may be wondering why we call the morning glory Audrey. The easiest answer to that question is that it's growing scarily fast. To the point Daddy is pretty sure it is about to say feed me. (If  you don't know about Audrey the plant, watch Little Shop of Horrors. Good movie, but it will make you see plants in a whole new light).

Innocent Morning glory just standing there

The Morning Glory doesn't look too scary here. It is just growing up it's trellis very quietly. It looks like just another plant. Until you get up close...
 

 It could probably eat a Pooka if she stood still long enough

That is how many vines are around the OUTSIDE of the trellis. The inside and the top are denser. I have actually spent alot of time training Audrey to climb up one side of the trellis and down the other and back up. I don't want to think of the number of hours I have spent on this. I would get you a picture of the top, but I can't get a good one in focus. But take it from me. It is super dense. I have promised to have another one next year, but I will be building a bigger trellis and it will still live in a pot. I do not need it going wild in the yard.

The great Strawberry start project

I know I had promised a post, but as occasionally happens, life got in the way, sorry all. 

The other day, Brother and I went outside to check on his Strawberry plant. It seemed to have rooted pretty well, had alot of new growth and the tendril of the new plant seemed to be getting ready to root again as well. So we decided it was time to make the big cut.

Still attached. See the Tendril in the upper  left corner.

 Brother did the honors. I had him cut the tendril in half, and then I cut the tendril back from the new plant as well as the old one. Now to wait and see how the new ones hold up.  We are waiting a few more days to cut the tendril off that went from the opposite plant. It's still rather small so we will give it a bit more then brother will decide where his new basket will live.

Do you see where the tendril is missing?

Let's hope this works. The neighbour was asking for a cutting from our Strawberry plants. That's great news for me, they are outgrowing the pots they currently live in. I guess I may need to look into new pots for them since I REFUSE to put them in the ground. Although I told Daddy it means he would never have to mow they yard again.