Gitt'n buggy with it!

OK, I admit it, that was a really cheesy title. Gotta keep things interesting though right? Besides, what else was I supposed to title a post with a picture like this is it? Did I mention that I have a TON of Lady beetles in my yard? Yeah, I'm probably supplying the whole neighborhood with all the lady beetles that I have! That picture above is the remains of a Giant sunflower stalk that I removed the head from some time back. The pupa of the lady beetles are all over it. In that picture a rough guess of the number would put me close to 60-70 beetles and pupa. And that's just the top of one plant! They are all over.And they're really big and healthy too! This one is about the size of my pinky nail.
And when you get to watch this many beetles in your backyard eco-system, you get to see a lot of interesting things that you might not normally. Ever seen a lady beetle hatching?It's interesting, they come out and you can noticably tell that their wing covers (Elytra) were still soft and completely devoid of any spots.

Here's another closer look.

In this one you can see the wings out and drying. She's "hanging" around with a few sisters. I'm hoping to get out in the yard soon with a large mason jar stuffed with some straw and begin collecting the beetles into it. An interesting thing about the life cycle of the lady beetle - by the way, I'm pretty sure that these are Harmonia axyridis (Multicolored Asian lady beetle) just in case you were curious - anyway the interesting thing I learned about their life-cycle is that they hibernate over the winter by living off stored fats, just like a bear. Cool huh? My master plan is to have the ladies help me to naturally control next year, what became a very nasty aphid problem this year.

I worked this plan out sometime around mid-summer kind of by accident; let me lay it on you. When I came to grips with the fact that this years aphid outbreak was going to be a big one, I also noticed that because of the very healthy food source, my lady beetle population was also exploding. I figured that if I could encourage a really healthy lady beetle population this year, accepting of course the fact that I would have some crop damage from the aphids that they were feeding on, then next year I could use some organic methods like horticultural oil and kaolin clay early on to limit the number of aphids that hatch on my property. Between a hopefully burgeoning population of beetles and a reduced population of aphids I hope to be able to really be successful at keeping them under control for the foreseeable future, or at least for a year. Anyone have any experience they want to share in that area?

Now, totally unrelated but still pretty cool, I thought I'd show you these pictures of the mushrooms popping up through my mulch on the north side of my shed.

I took these pictures Monday and they weren't a great deal bigger today, but they are growing slowly.I don't know what they are, but it's good to know that the fungi are healthy in the yard too. They play a very important part in the natural decomposition of organic matter in the garden. I'm letting these finish their life-cyle at least to see what they become.

I love watching as the season winds down. Things change, cycles move to their next phases.
Hope the season finds you well.
P~

update

Been a while again, but I managed to get a computer online so that I can at least update you with everything that we've been up to.
The back yard is changing again. You may remember the pergola that I built a few years back, well, it's a goner! I purchased a polycarbonate walled 10'x12' 10" tall greenhouse and it will (read: should) fit exactly on top of the old pergolas footprint. I have to say I was a little, very little mind you, sorry to see it go, but oh the plans that have been dancing in my little mind. Dreams of early vegetable starts, abundant yields and starting my own annual flowers. Honestly you'd think I'd bought a 100 x 120 footer if you heard me talking about it all.

This weekend past A~ and I spent a couple of shifts, one on Friday and one on Saturday, at the local county fair. I haven't been in years and it was a good time. The last time we went the kids were still at the can you get me this, can you get me that phase and it was a pain. This time A~ and I snuck away for a few hours to tend to the USU Extension Master Gardener booth and talk veggies with anyone who'd stand still. I loved it of course. Saturday, we took the boys, gave them their allowances and turned em loose. So what do they do... they hang out with us and talk us and our partners ears off. Gotta love kids who are old enough to go out on their own a little, but not too old to still want mom and dad.

On the garden front all is going well. The last couple of weekend have really given us a great blessing of harvests. Last weekend, not this last one but the one before that, we brought in 100.5 lbs of veggies. 65+ pounds of that were mid season potatoes like red norkota and Yukon golds. They were so fun to pull. We actually had one Yukon Gold that was 1 lb 5 oz!! We did learn a lesson though. This year we planted two rows of early potatoes, four rows of mid season ones and two rows of late russets. Next year it will be one row of early, one/two rows of mid season ones and 5/6 rows of late season storage potatoes. It's hard to eat a lot of 'taters in the summer when you don't feel like heating up the house with "comfort food". My kids have, however, learned that they like to have fresh potatoes, with peppers, onions and backyard eggs in a skillet for breakfast. It's been great.

Finally, have to apologize for the acute lack of photographs. They have been taken, but I can't yet get them on line to share with you.
I'll bombard you with a big photo blitz again as soon as I can though.

Best to you all.
P~

Two weeks?

I can't believe it's been that long since I've posted!!
Sorry for the lack of attention. Spring has been in full force, projects have been getting wrapped up and first crops harvested. I can't tell you the true total, but we're near the 50 pounds of food harvested already this year.

I hope to have a full update soon, but you may yet have a bit of waiting to do if I can't get it posted tomorrow. Friday and Saturday, A~ and I are going to spend the night down in SLC where we'll be participating in the 2009 Master Gardeners Conference. We've signed up for a couple of very cool tours of an arboretum and the Red Butte Gardens as well as some great classses. I'm really looking forward to the class on building Tufa Planters!

Hope you're all well and your gardens are doing great!
Till next time.
P~

Master Gardener Final Update.

I did it, I finished the Master Gardener programs 40 hrs of classroom training!!
Whhooo hooo...!!!

Today was the last class and what we talked about was public speaking. I got called up to be a part of today's class since I'm the only participant that has already been put in that situation. I felt a little odd sitting in front of what are essentially my peers having gone through the same class as them, but being presented as some level of authority.

We also used some of the class time to break up into a few gardening groups. What we're going to do for a part of our community outreach is to have each group put together a garden bed in the demonstration garden for the county fair. The group A~ and I put together decided that we would use "Companion Plants" as our theme for our box. It should be really fun to do I think.

Also, another development that came about today was that I had an opportunity to get to know one of the men that was in our class and will be in our group. He lives just a couple of miles from us and has an active bee hive going in his suburban backyard. He's invited me over the next time he is doing maintenance work so I can help and learn. I can't wait!

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Master Gardener program is a great thing. I, of course, encourage you to make it a priority to give it a shot if you're so inclined, but if nothing else, give your local extension office a call. They're a great resource.

Have a great day everyone. Till next time...
Paul~

What a pile of crap...literally

Yeah, I mean literally. We went to the local sewer district this afternoon to check if they had any of this soil, aptly nicknamed "poo dirt" or "man-soil" by the locals, for sale. I was nicely told that no, they will not sell me any of it, it's FREE, they'll give it to me. What's up with that? Free soil?

OK, so you know I'm all over that right, since I think we've well established that free is my absolute favorite price! The thing you have to understand is this, "This soil is going nowhere that I'm growing food!" Oh, I understand that it's been tested and it's "clean" and that it's OK to use in food gardens if I'd like; it's my hangup, and I'll run with it.

The reason we got this soil, was again for the back yard lawn. The clay heavy soil needs amending and getting nutrient rich, organic matter into it will only help that soil structure and hopefully get my grass growing this year. We won't use any chemicals on our lawn, because we do allow our chickens to range on it from time to time and intend to even more this year.

In other, and unrelated, news: Today was the last real class of my Master Gardener program! We have one more meeting next Wednesday where we'll learn about speaking to the public, and then we're having a pot luck. I was informed today also that during that class I should be prepared because they'll be calling me up to talk about it since I've already given a few classes. I don't know if I just don't have a problem with talking to audiences, or if I'm just so conceited that I think everyone wants to hear what I have to say, but I do enjoy giving the instructional talks.

Anyway, I'll be working on a few items on "my list" this weekend. Indoor tasks since the weather's supposed to be foul, hope you get to some of yours. Do tell, what's on your list?
I will post mine soon, as well as a detail of the components of the man-soil that I put on today. It's interesting, they gave me a paper with the breakdown of all the macro and micro-nutrients when I picked it up. Interesting stuff.

Have a great weekend all.
P~

This and that

Nothing big to report this weekend, it was time for a bit of rest. Of course that doesn't mean that nothing got done, just not nearly as much as I had hoped.

I did get my final new piece of garden bed all turned and tilled. It will be an onion patch that I should get 30 or more onions in. I picked up a couple of six packs of Chinese cabbage and some broccoli to drop in one on the garden beds too. I've been wanting to try chinese cabbage and so far my brocolli seeds are not sprouting very well so I wanted to hedge my bets.

I also ended up hanging some new blinds in 5 of our downstairs windows. I hate hanging blinds, but this time instead of buying some junky cheapo ones, we spent a couple of bucks more and got some quality ones that we hopefully won't have to change out for many years!

The biggest thing for me that went on this weekend was my first class that I taught as a Master Gardener. The class was taught at a local church and was set up to run in two different groups. Each group was about 30 minutes and just flew by! They were a very interested group of people and asked great questions. Each class ended up spending a huge amount of time talking about compost. Lucky for them, and me, that's one of my favorite things to talk about. I really enjoyed giving the class, and am already looking forward to my next on in April. This is something I can really get into doing.

Today the kids went down to Salt Lake to visit with family so A~ and I had an opportunity to spend some good quality time together. We had a good lunch and rented "Australia" for some home entertainment. It was a great time!

I hope you all had a great weekend and maybe got some work in on your gardens.

Catch you all tomorrow.

P~

Master Gardener update

It was another good set of classed this week. What am I saying? Have I declared yet that I haven't liked any of the classes? NO! Truth be told, I'm having a really good time.

Wednesday we had a class on weeds. No, not *WEED*...weeds, like invasive, nuisance noxious, bane of my existence type of weeds. It was interesting to hear the guest instructors way of pointing out the problems with weeds that we may not think of regularly. He made that argument that non-native, invasive weeds are the greatest threat to natural ecosystems in the West. Not pollution, not climate change, not even drought; weeds! Something to think about...ain't it?

The class this afternoon was all about the UBC. The Utah Botanical Center. We got to speak with and ask questions of the Director of the program. There wasn't a whole lot of content in a traditional sense to this class, it was more of a familiarizing for us with the mission of the center and what part we can expect to play in that future. It's really an amazing place. If your in Utah and you're so inclined, I heartily encourage you to drop in a check the place out. Maybe this summer for the Thursday farmers market, or to check out the grand openings of the wetlands preserve classroom and the new arboretum.

There's always the Utah House too.
That's a model display home built using sustainable materials and techniques. It's a great experience and really gives you a good idea of what's possible out there with different methods.

As a matter of fact, speaking of the Utah house, A~ and I will be there tomorrow morning at 9:30 for a lab on pruning fruit trees. It's fulfills one of our lab requirements for the class, and it may/should give me some skill at pruning so I can accomplish my Espalier that I'd like to try. I'm looking forward to it, then I'm looking forward to getting home and putting some effort into my garden. Springs close enough that I'm looking at doing some planting this weekend. Both inside and out!

Hope you all have a great weekend.
Grow on!
P~

Master Gardener Update

Knocked off another week of the Master Gardener course last week. As I mentioned earlier the Wednesday class was on Turfgrass so...nothing too exciting there. But Fridays class was on Vegatable so I was pretty excited. Unfortunately the class was a little dry for what I was hoping for. It was good mind you, but Veggies are my thing so I was hoping for a little more.

I did get a pretty cool bit of news though. It seems that although we've just passed the halfway point in the class, I may have already booked my first official Master Gardener "gig". A very nice woman who, I'm sorry to say I cannot remember the name of, dropped by the class Friday looking for me. coincidentally she ended up asking my wife who was saving me a seat. As I understand it, she had talked to the Instructor about getting a Master Gardener lined up to teach a class in April; just a week after the end of our class. The group requesting the class wants to focus on vegetable gardening and doing it organically. He suggested she talk to me and I, being the gabby gus that I am, of course said I'd be happy to.

In fact, that was one of my greater goals with taking this class to begin with. To be able to better enable myself to help others learn about growing food and plants and maybe to inspire some to do it organically. I foresee a large number of requests this year for instruction in the art of home food production. The fields, so to speak, are fertile for sowing this way of thinking.

Do you share what you know? I know from the emails and comments that I get that there's a wealth of knowledge out there amongst my readers so I wonder if any of you have had opportunities to help in your communities to pass it on? If you haven't, keep your ears open, they're bound to start showing up.

All the best to you all.
Paul~

Master Gardener week 3

Hey everyone, I made it, I'm here in San Diego all by myself to visit Mom and Dad, my sister and friends. It promises to be a great weekend so far!

As for the Master Gardener class, I ended up having to miss it Friday because of the flight times but I was at the one on Wednesday and it was pretty good. I do have to admit that as far as classes though that wednesdays class on interior plants (i.e. houseplants) was really not one of my favorites.
It's not so much because the information that we covered wasn't of interest to me, it's just that I guess I'm just not that sort of gardener. I like to raise indoor plants, don't get me wrong, I have a couple in my office, but they're just not what I'm really passionate about. I prefer food production, small scale agriculture and soil building.

I'm just glad that no matter what the class is on, I can always come away with a great feeling since I get to spend a couple of hours with my sweetheart in the middle of the week and I get to talk plants to boot. Now that's what I call a Win-Win situation.

Happy valentines day to you all, I hope you enjoy a little time with someone special tomorrow. As for me, I'm taking a drive up the coast and dropping by some old, and new friends houses. It will be a good day, even if I will be missing my wife.

Happy Valentines day A~ I love you...
P~

Master Gardener week III

This was another great week I thought. A~ thought it got a bit "down in the weeds" so to speak, but then again she's more of a big picture girl while I'm the type to get far too into the minutia.

Thursday
Thursdays class was held off site. That is to say that it was not in the normal classroom environment. This was our class on plant propagation so of course it was held in the Utah Botanical Center. Here's a peak inside one of the greenhouses that were there.
We got a lesson from the director of the botanical center on some of the different ways of propagating plants. I was actually hoping for a little more in depth information than we got, but I did find out that there's a separate class in April that is all on propagation.

After the presentation, we broke apart into groups to do a little hands on work. To be fair, this was really more like "get the students to do a bunch of the work that we need to get done" done for free time, but that's alright with me. For one, it got me out of the office for a couple of hours and got my hands in the dirt and that's always a net gain in my book! Even more than that though, it gave me a different perspective on the workings of a greenhouse and some of the ways things can get done on a larger scale. I do have to say that the whole time I was thinking to myself about all the possibilities I'll have next year at this time with a greenhouse in my back yard!
Here's a few pics of the stuff that we worked on...
I learned what a "dibble" was. What a cool little tool, and so simple. We used this to prep the pots for receiving the transplants that we had to do.
And these would be them. These are native pinion pine seedlings that my group transplanted and that will be sold this spring at a fundraiser for the center.
A little sampling of the different plants that we re-potted. Another group did something like 300 smooth elm seedlings. I helped with that group too.
Yet another group spent much of the time separating seed from native species that were collected this fall. This is part of the work of the center, keeping native species propagated and available.

Friday
Fridays class was back in the classroom and had another specialist guest speaker and WOW what a wealth of knowledge this guy had! This was the class I really geeked out on. We talked soil.

We were able to really get into some of the details of the way that soil interacts with it's surroundings, the chemistry of attraction and repulsion that cause clay to be either a plus or minus in the garden, the concerns and causes of soil salinity and my personal favorite...COMPOST! I am constantly amazed when I learn more about the way that the earth works. We're such a small part of the equation but can have such a profound effect on it.

Looking forward to more this week.
Take care all.
P~

Master Gardener week II

Week two is in the books and it was a really good one! Wednesday we talked about nutrients and I have to say I was curious at the beginning of the class if it was going to be all 100% NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) and chemical fertilizers. Although the majority of the class dealt with the nutrients NPK (as well as the other Macro and some Micro-nutrients.) it didn't particularly focus solely on artificial fertilizers. In fact the teacher made it a point many times to point out the organic options and how the same nutrients could be provided through compost and other amendments.

It was really heartening to hear all the questions about composting; how to do it, what it looks/smells like, what goes into it? There really seems to be an awareness that there are other alternatives out there to the petro-chemical based fertilizers.

Friday we covered woody plants. Basically trees and shrubs for the most part. This was the instructors admitted favorite class and it showed. He was very very knowledgeable and gave us a lot of great information. We covered pruning techniques and why to do it that way. We learned about a lot of the habits of trees and why so many of the problems that they get come about. Anyone know the difference between a "sucker" and a "water sprout"? I do, and they aren't the same thing like I thought they were!

Next week is the class that I'm really looking forward to, plant propagation. We're meeting at the Botanical center and learning to propagate different types of plants. The exciting thing for me is that with any luck, I may be able to start propagating some of the specific species of plants that I grow in the garden this year like tomatoes! I'm hoping to be able to carry some of them over through into winter with the greenhouse and who knows, maybe I can propagate a second generation from them for next year. Now I'm probably getting a little ahead of myself but heck, a guy can dream right?

Hope you all have a great weekend. The weather's supposed to be nice here for the most part so maybe I can get some chores done.
Till Monday~
P~

Master Gardener week I

This week was the first one for my master gardener class so I thought I might start a regular habit of posting up a couple of the things that we covered each week and what it was all about.

Day one:
The first class was on Wednesday and, since it was the first class of the series, we just kind of went over the basics of what is required of us. One of the original purposes of the Master Gardener program was to offer affordable training to the public in horticulture and agriculture in return for their participation and volunteer time helping to diagnose problems and offer instruction to the public as an authorized representative of the Land Grant University in the area. Ours happens to be Utah State college.

Everyone in the program that wishes to complete the course and be officially "Certified" as USU Master Gardeners will need to complete 40 hours this year in volunteer time at least 10 of which will be served performing diagnostic services for the public. One benefit of the program is that we will be provided with a very thick folder (about 4.5 in.)that, from what I understand, will be filled with information when the class is completed. That's a good thing if you take into consideration that the instructor warned us that the amount of information that will be imparted to us is about on the ratio of 1 class period = one semester in the University Ag program.

Day Two
Today was day two and we covered the way in which plants are classified (family, genus, species, etc.), what the basic parts of a plant are and much other such info. It's a lot like going back to high school biology.So much information to absorb, so little time! At least we don't have to take any tests to complete the class.

That's about all I have for this week, but stay tuned next Saturday. I'll make sure I post up something for each class.
All the best to you all, have a great weekend!
P~

This and That

Ever been so busy that you don't know if you'll have time to finish anything, and yet when you try to talk (read blog) about it, you really don't have much to say. Well that's me lately.

I spent most of this weekend in the garage working on finishing up the gifts for my boys and also managed to get one built for A~. We decided this year that we wouldn't buy anything for each other but instead would go all home made as far as the two of us. I have to say, I did really good and I think she'll be really happy Christmas morning when she opens it and finds the....well, she does read this blog everyday, I'll have to wait until the 26th to tell you about it.

While I was out checking the chickens yesterday I saw this beautifully delicate little frost-lace on a piece of glass and ran in to take a picture of it.
Life is about stopping to enjoy the miracles after all... what better way that a fleeting piece of natural beauty right?

This little guy (sorry for the blurry photo) was perched on our porch on Friday evening when I got home from work. No too sure he was getting the beauty of it all, but he's more than welcome to keep hiding out on our covered porch as long as he'd like.
A~'s been busy too, check this stuff out! The boys have been asking for that kind of hat for a while so she popped into the store, studied the way the hats were put together and came back and replicated them. I'm telling you they are sooo well made! The kids will love em. (I'm hoping for one too...Hint hint:-)I do have one really awesome piece of news though, and it has to do with the letter below.
That's a letter from out local University extension office announcing the starting date for this years Master Gardener Course. We, A~ and I that is, put our name on the list to be notified when the class was being put together and now we've sent our registration. Starting on the 21st of January we'll be taking the course together twice a week.

This is one of those things that we've both talked about wanting to do for the last five or six years but never had things line up just right. We decided that like most things that are important, if you don't MAKE it a priority, it just never happens. This is a step that we're taking in order to help us get to the next level, both in out own garden, but also in our community. It will help me to offer better information when I teach classes locally, and may lend a little more credibility to other projects that I have in mind as well. More on those to come in the future.

That's about all I've got today. With any luck I can catch up with some of my other writing obligations soon as well.
Till later then...
P~