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One interesting thing we found when we first looked at this house, prior to purchasing it, was a scraggly little overgrown grape bush stuck in the middle of the back lawn off to the side. WHY I thought, would anyone plant a grape bush is such a strange place! Why not up against the wall, or next to the porch where there is redwood lattice, or simply in a more suitably placed location? My children have to run around this bush to play and it's not easy to mow the grass beneath it!
Over the summer we watched as it first exploded into green leaf, and then began to produce such an enormous amount of grape clusters I honestly didn't think it could bring to fruition what it had started - but to my astonishment it had so many grape clusters on that scraggly little bush our whole family couldn't eat them all and we were giving them away for people at church.
Huge, heavy clusters - the tops mounded over oodles of grapes until the cluster ended in a point. Beautiful Thompson Seedless grapes, so sweet from ripening in the sun it was like eating candy instead of fruit! The only drawback were the spiders living inside the clusters that kept little fingers from eating them right off the branch - but that is probably God's way of keeping who knows what out of my children's mouths since the grapes hadn't been washed first :) (And soaking the clusters in cold water in the sink took care of the spiders.)
Well, this year that scraggly grape bush is going to get pruned into a semi-grapelike appearance :) I know from experience, that once a grape bush takes root somewhere, they are nearly impossible to get rid of. And this one has such extraordinary fruit on it I really don't want to get rid of it, so stay it shall.
We (my husband and I) are trying to come up with a way to build a small redwood grape arbor with a seat for the children to sit on, for this little plant to grow up and over on - and to place another grape busy on the opposite side. Logistically we're a little stumped on how to place the arbor to best advantage, but getting closer to the answer!
I am also on the lookout now for my apricot tree, a dwarf tree for sure so we don't have fruit spilling into our neighbor's yards, and of a size I can prune myself. I am also looking for an assortment of grape bushes. I have found some at Walmart, three in a box, but they are not the type I would like. Concord grape for jelly making is what I'm after, and Thompson Seedless for fresh eating. This weekend I'll expand my search to the surrounding stores and see what I come up with!
I found asparagus roots and strawberry roots for sale as well, and though I long to purchase them, I don't have an area ready yet and that is crucial for planting. So I may have to wait until next year or knuckle down and plant in planter boxes :) Have you ever seen strawberry plants hanging from plant hangers on someone's porch? Those ripe red berries at eye level for the picking? And very few bugs to contend with over your bountiful harvest :) So that may be what I do this year instead, and then next year transfer them to the strawberry beds we will work on over the summer months.
Because my fingers are itching to plant, I have bought several more houseplants and our kitchen and dining room are filled with greenery. I never could get plants to grow at our old house, too much sunlight for them! Here the whole front of the house is facing south with very few windows, and the back is facing north and nothing but huge sliding glass doors along the whole back. The indirect light is making these houseplants grow very well!
The lighting will be perfect for my inside salad garden too! I have placed an order for some heirloom seeds and I'm looking for a nice round saucer type planting container for my garden bed. It must be close to 24 inches across and about 8-12 inches deep. Having an indoor salad garden is fun, beautiful and you have a salad available at your fingertips whenever you like!
What seeds to use? I like an assortme of radishes (did you know there are dozens of varities, shapes and sizes?), green onion, an assortment of lettuce, celeric (a leaf form of celery, no stalks), baby carrots, spinach, parsley, cilantro, etc. Anything that does not "bloom" and need a polinizer to start the growth of fruit or veggie.
When planting your seeds, don't be tempted to overplant - use caution as those seeds grow into full mature sized plants! If you plant a dozen lettuce seeds, they will not have enough room to grow properly let alone the other plants you have planted. So use 2-5 seeds when you start. You can always pull out a few little seedlings if they all take root. Plant with height in mind too, the taller plants to one side or in the middle - depending on how you want to arrange it. And if you find some of your plants are getting a little too leafy, pluck off some leaves. Radishes can tend to get very leafy so trim off a few to make room.
I like to have at least 3 varities and colors of radishes and lettuce. Choose your lettuce varieties carefully though! You will have it for months and months. With lettuce, you do not need to pull the whole plant from the ground!!! Simply break off the outer leaves of any lettuce plant near the soil level, or cut them off with a pair of scissors. The lettuce plant will continue to produce new lettuce leaves - from the INSIDE OUT! This works for nearly any lettuce plant except the iceberg lettuce which comes with a head. In this way, you have a continual abundance of lettuce at your fingertips - give the plant a few days between picking and it will replenish itself quickly. You won't have to wait for new seed to grow into a plant either, so you truly do have a supply at hand.
Radishes tend to take about 25-30 days to mature enough to eat - from seed to harvest. They grow incredibly fast too. Plant about 30 seeds total in your little garden area where they are easily reached, because as you pluck them out to use, you will be dropping a new seed in it's place and have a revolving radish supply. For most salads you only need a few radishes, but there may be times when you're low on radishes if you use them quite a bit. Some varities mature in as early as 20 days - so see what appeals to you.
The same for carrots, only they can take quite a bit longer to mature. I don't normally grow mine in the inside salad garden, but you can for fun if you like. They can take up to 4 months to produce a large enough carrot to use.
Spinach does very well too, though you can only pick off the leaves for a few weeks before the plant will go to seed. So once you start to harvest from your spinach plant, plant another seed or two so it will be a fairly good size when you pluck the previous one from the soil.
Celeric can be a little tricky to grow sometimes, but worth the trouble! Ever need some celery leaves for a soup base you're making and don't have any on hand? Celeric IS celery leaves without the stalk. And growing celery is not easy, as you have to blanch the stalks by covering them from the sun, etc.
If you don't plan on having either an inside or outside herb garden, add some herbs to your salad garden. I will be planting an inner herb garden as well as planting larger growing herbs outside amidst the flowers. I've even heard of some people growing a "tea garden" in their homes this way, using the plants to make teas with :) Anything is possible!
The only drawback I have found to an inner salad garden are tiny knats that seem to thrive in the soil and like to fly around the plant. I have had the same problem with houseplants too. If you use garden grade (not swimming pool grade) Diatomaceous Earth (DE) and poof it onto the soil and beneath the first few leaves of plants, this takes care of your problem. You may have to repeat this occasionally, but it's simple and easy and the DE is actually made up of 14 trace minerals so it's actually good for you!
Our lasagne is done - better end this for now and go eat dinner :) Rebekah
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