Burpee Figured It Out

Here's the final response from Shelia:

"The diameter from one side of the circle to the other side is 28". We are working on getting this information on our website.

I apologize for the inconvenience."

I wonder if the other two women learned anything from this.

Burpee Pole Bean and Pea Tower

I'm having a bit of frustrating fun with the Burpee gardening supply company. Here is a product that I am interested in: Pole Bean and Pea Tower. As you can see on the website, the height is 6' and it takes up 5 square feet. But they are missing a useful piece of information: the diameter. I know that the base is a circle and I know that this can be calculated, but I sent a note to the company asking for the diameter because, heck, they should know their own products! Here's a transcript of the responses that I've received from 2 folks (Sharon and Pam) in Customer Service:

My initial query: "Greetings! Could you please tell me the diameter of this product: Pole Bean And Pea Tower (Product number 91439). Thank you, Laurie"

Response from Sharon: "The Pea and pole bean tower pole is 6 foot high. The nylon string comes down to use only 5 square feet."

My response: "Thanks for the reply, but I didn't ask for the height. I asked for the diameter. Do you have this information? I want to determine if it will fit into my raised beds."

Response from Pam: "The pea tower is 5 square feet in diameter."

My latest reply: "I'm disappointed that you are not understanding my question, or basic geometry. "Square feet" is an area. "Diameter" is the length of a straight line that would be from one side of the circle to the other side. You guys should know your products better than this. Can't you have someone measure it if you don't have the product information handy? Which, I might add, should be on the product description page of your website."

In the meantime, I've already used an online calculator to determine the diameter using the known area of the circle, and I've determined that the diameter is about 2 1/2 feet. This will fit into my raised beds, barely. However, I'm going to see if I can get them to eventually understand what a diameter is and correctly answer my question. After all, they are Customer Service and they should be able to answer such a simple question.

I'll post their next response, which will probably be in a day or two. Or maybe their heads will blow up and I won't hear from them.

Planting Onions

The 2011 garden season has officially started here at the Coleman household. Before I get into the garden itself, I'd like to say a little bit about one of my favorite resources. It's this book:

Following the guidelines in this book, I've learned to steer clear of the traditional method of gardening, the one that my grandparents used: row, path, row, path, row, path. The traditional method dedicated 50% of the space to walking, and that walking in between the rows of vegetables compacts the soil around the roots. A better way is to plant the vegetables in wide rows (beds) that you can reach into from at least one side so that you never have to step into it, compacting the soil. Even better: last year David worked very hard helping me to build raised beds throughout the garden. This provides better drainage and also saves stress and strain on my back.

Now on to what I did this week:
These are onion starts that I purchased from Dixondale Farms. I purchased a sample set of "intermediate day" onions. (According to their website I could grow either intermediate day or short day onions, but it looks like we are more in the intermediate day area.) The sample set consists of a white onion ("Super Star"), a yellow onion ("Candy") , and a red onion ("Red Candy Apple"). I planted 20 of each variety and passed on the extras to my neighbor for her garden. I followed the planting instructions provided by Dixondale. One thing that I didn't notice while I was preparing the soil 2 days ago but certainly did notice while I was planting the seedlings is that the ones near the edge of the bed went into damp, cool soil. That first 3-4 inches of soil doesn't get any sun yet and was noticeably cooler than the rest of the soil in the bed. The seedlings that were planted on the other side of the trench went into soil that was much warmer and drier. The tops of all of the onions are in the sun but it'll be interesting to see if there are any growing differences since the roots of half of them are in much cooler soil.

I set the onions off to one side because I plan to plant some carrots along beside them. They will develop a very nice relationship side-by-side.

This is what my garlic bed looks like today.

These are cabbage plants getting along nicely with cilantro. Sorry about the lighting. The fence casts a mean shadow.



These peas I planted last fall, in September. I've been harvesting peas from them all winter. Come spring, these will still be popping out peas left and right. What a nice head start!



This is a little artichoke starting to form on one of our artichoke plants. Peek-a-boo!

In the Garden, 12/21/2010

Since I have a (temporarily) gimp foot and since it's been pouring rain here for a few days, it's been a while since I was in the garden. Today there's been a break in the weather and I thought it was time for me to go out and pick peas. 3 1/2 hours later I finally came back inside.

Here's how things like a little "pea-picking" task can go here:

1. I head out to the garden to see how the peas are doing. Upon entering, I see that the giant pecan tree has been prolifically dropping leaves all over the place. I walk along the raised beds pulling leaves out. I make a mental note that I also need to clear the blanket of leaves that are on the ground in the garden.

2. I move on to the peas (at this point I'm still on target). I start clearing out pecan tree leaves from around and in the pea tee-pee and discover that the pea vines have been growing very vigorously. The "outer layers" didn't find anything to grip onto before they got too long and were lying flat. One by one I lifted them up and wound them into the trellis. For one side I had to add a supportive piece of wire fencing since there was nothing left of the tee-pee to support the vines. I then commenced picking the mature (and some overly mature) peas.

3. Setting the baskets aside, I decide to move the two cabbage plants that were in the shade to sunny spots in the other beds.

4. I feed everything in the garden a healthy dose of fish emulsion for nitrogen.

5. Then I decide that there's no time like the present to do something about the leaves so I haul out the leaf vacuum and suck up all the leaves, collecting two 30-gallon cans full of shredded leaves. These will become the bulk of my compost for next year along with the grass clippings (when the lawn starts growing again in the spring) and some alfalfa hay that I've got hanging around here.

6. Finally, 3 1/2 hours later I pick up my baskets of peas and head inside for lunch.


Here's how the garden looks now that the leaves have been cleaned up. There will be more. That pecan tree isn't finished de-leafing.



This is my 3rd year attempting Brussels sprouts. Go, Brussels sprouts, go!



That middle bed contains the overly crowded pea tee-pee, a couple of cabbage plants (that are doing very well), some cilantro, and another set of peas. All together there are three varieties of peas growing.



This Navel orange tree is loaded with soon-to-be ripe oranges. The oranges from this tree will keep us in freshly squeezed orange juice for a while and when they run out...



The oranges on this Valencia orange tree will become ripe. These two trees ensure that we very rarely have to buy orange juice. We did have to invest in a sturdy citrus juicer though.

December 6, 2010 Garden Pics

I was out in the garden for a short time today, looking things over. Here are a few photos that I took:

This is the "overview" shot. The hoops are for frost protection. I have a bunch of old sheets that I drape over the wire supports when I think it's going to drop too cold at night.



This bed is fairly busy. I'm getting peas off the pea trellises. The cabbages look great, as well as the cilantro. I also have some carrots growing in this bed near and amongst the pea tee-pee.



This is my garlic bed. There are 6 varieties in this bed. The lettuce is a welcome companion. That's a cilantro plant tucked in the corner.



This is why I can't spend much time in the garden these days. I had foot surgery last Tuesday. Nothing major... it's the same surgery I had on my right foot last year. It'll heal and be good as new (better!) in no time.

The Fall Garden Continues

The Fall/Winter garden is coming along nicely. Here in the SF Bay Area we can grow something year-round. We might get a frost day or two but no real freezes. I took these photos just a couple of days ago.

This shot is my usual overview of the garden from the front.

This bed contains a couple of large parsley plants. I just put in some kale, collard greens, mustard greens, celery, and cilantro. That tomato plant is an "Autumn" tomato plant. We'll see...



Hopefully this U-shaped bed will contain a nice variety of garlic later today. Lettuce and garlic get along well so I have some young lettuce plants already in the bed.



This bed holds some very nice lettuce, some peas, cilantro, cabbage, more peas, and some carrots. Very busy bed! The one behind it contains more cabbage and a tomato plant that's still producing, though probably not for much longer.



This shot is from the back of the garden. As you can see, the tomato plants are still going. That bed to the right there will be planted with asparagus this Spring.



These are my baby Brussels sprouts. Some gardening guy here said that you have to start then in September, so I did. It's my 3rd year trying Brussels sprouts and I have yet to have any success with them.



My herb bed is one of my most cherished beds. It is so nice to have such a collection of fresh herbs to pick from. This bed has basil, rosemary, parsley, thyme, oregano, sage, and tarragon. Pretty soon I should harvest some of this and dry it for the winter. I'll also cut back the thyme and rosemary. They will persist through the winter and I'll cut them back to reduce the woody stems inside and allow for some fresh growth next year. Everything in this bed is perennial (except for the basil) and will return next year. The only thing I'm missing here that I'd like to have is chives. I put some in this year but they were an aphid magnet. Next year I'll put some in a separate pot.

A Few Garden Pics

OK, so I found a couple of things to take pictures of. I have a fairly large pepper harvest coming up. This pepper is called "Sweet Chocolate" and was free seed that was sent to me when I placed an order with Baker Creek. This is the first ripe one that I've pulled off the plant and I haven't tasted it yet.


Here's what the other side of it looks like. I have a LOT of these peppers on my plants so if anyone local would like some let me know. Right now most of them are still green (and I'm sure they are great green) but eventually will ripen to this beautiful brown color.


This next photo is of the jalapeno plants. There are so many peppers on these plants. It's time to start making poppers and have a party!

Let me know if you need some fresh peppers.

Starting the 2010 Fall Garden

I am lucky to live in an area where something can be growing year round. Well, maybe I'm unlucky because I don't have any good excuse to take a break. But, let's assume that I wouldn't want to take a break and that I'm lucky to be able to plant year round. :-D

Dave and I filled the newest bed with soil yesterday, and now we (or I) just have to prepare the other beds to receive plants. Right now the soil has settled and luckily we still have a small pile of new soil to put into them. The planting will start very, very soon.

Here are a few vegetable starts that I bought yesterday:

Those are (6) red cabbage, (6) green cabbage, (6) sugar snap peas, and (6) lettuce. Also yesterday I started seeds indoors for (2) celery plants, (2) collard green plants, (2) mustard green plants, two additional kinds of leaf lettuce (2 each), and three kinds of spinach (2 each). I will also direct seed some carrots, beets, another 2 kinds of peas. Finally, a few days ago I also direct seeded Brussels sprouts, 3 plants. That's what the next photo is of. Hopefully in a few weeks I"ll be able to show you some nice, healthy plants.

Below is basically an overview of the garden today. There are some parsley and basil in the near foreground. Then a row of 2 different kinds of eggplants. In the background are the tired tomato plants. They certainly gave me a bounty this year.


The eggplant plants look great but there aren't any eggplants on them. The temperatures have been cool and I didn't do a great job of shaking the plants to help them pollinate. Since I had them under a tunnel all summer long (for bug protection) that's what I was supposed to do since there was no wind or insects to do the job. I went ahead and uncovered them so that they can get some wind and full sun. These guys need heat to do their thing and I think the season will run out on them before anything great happens.


Soon (this week hopefully) I will harvest all of the basil for a big batch of pesto which I will portion and freeze. This will carry us through until next summer, easily.

This is an interesting tomato. Now, why would part of it still be so green?


Near future plans: Next month I will plant a bunch of garlic and it will be harvested next July. Also, we will put in an asparagus bed this coming spring. I already ordered all of the crowns.

Is it OK to let our dog chew on a stick?

Mutant Pumpkins

Last year I grew an heirloom variety of pumpkin called Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin. It's a very nice, small pumpkin that makes wonderful pumpkin pies. I thought I was being smart when I saved some seeds from one of the pumpkins for this year. What I didn't know is that squashes (pumpkin is a squash) and melons cross-pollinate very easily and create some crazy stuff. I realized this today when I posted a couple of pictures on a gardening forum that I frequent.

Here's what a young Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin is supposed to look like (this photo is from last year):

Here are two of the weirdos that I have growing on what are supposed to be Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin vines:



I posted that I'm confused because these two "pumpkins" are on two different plants and they don't look anything like Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkins, nor do they look like each other. I got a reply back that these look like they are crossed with other things. The yellow one perhaps got crossed with a yellow crookneck squash. I was growing that last year. As for the green one, I think it got crossed with something the neighbor grew. I remember last year he brought over a very large green squash - he told us the variety but I don't remember it now - and I bet the same bees visited his plants on the same day they visited my pumpkin plant.

Now, the question is this: How will they taste? And how will I know when they are ripe? I can probably tell by the stem that they are ripe. But as for taste: Will they be like a sweet squash?

A Couple of Garden Pics

The garden has been taking care of itself nicely. It's on an automatic drip watering system, complete with a timer, so the watering's all done by the time I get up in the morning. It's just plugged into the same timer that runs the rest of the landscape watering.

Here are the tomato plants today:

Here is the pumpkin/squash bed. I may live to regret putting them in the same bed. It's like this: [squash] / [pumpkin] / [squash] / [pumpkin] / [squash]. The squashes on the ends I'll be able to get to, but the one in the middle will be hard to reach past the pumpkin plants. Oh, well, better planning next time. When these had to go into the ground my choices were limited.

This is a pic of a very young pumpkin. I'll be keeping my eye on this one!

Something to Brighten Your Day

Here's a little something I found in the backyard today. I wanted to share it with you to brighten your day. And to let you know that I'm still here. :-)

This rose is called "Legends". It's a Ruby red Hybrid Tea rose with "massive, full, & ruffled blooms". Also, the tag reads, "Monstrous buds & humongous blossoms of rich ruby red hold their durable brilliance from beginning to end. Immense petals (just one can cover a child's palm) lend a classical Hybrid Tea bud shape, slowly spiraling open to a ruffled whopper of a show-stopper. Large lettuce-like leaves of an unusual red-green color gracefully enrobe the long cutting stems - in perfect proportion to the flower. Who needs a bouquet? It only takes one prodigious posy to fill a vase."

Also the tag says that Oprah Winfrey was involved in the multi-year evaluation & final selection of the Legends rose. Woohoo!!

The Garden Today

Well we have had a rainy season. And I have to take time for my knitting boot camp. I'm not kidding about that. Anyway, I haven't finished sifting all the soil but I'm still working on it. I should be finished shortly so that I can get the other 2 boxes filled and planted.

So, here's the latest on my little garden space. Today I finished putting in the drip lines for the boxes that are up and running. I think the rain has stopped completely until November or so... so I had to get the water in because the hot weather is just around the corner.

Here's an overview of the garden today. I tried to take the best picture I could:
In this photo you can see my 2 baby blueberry plants.
This next photo is of my 2 "stone" boxes. The first one has two kinds of carrots. The 2nd one has lacinato kale (just about ready to use), celery (looking good!) and a nasturtum. The lettuce is done. If I can find a shady spot then I can start some more.
This photo is of my first raised wooden box. It has tomatoes, basil, a parsley plant (I also have a separate herb bed outside the garden), some French marigolds, some borage volunteers. Also there's a small beet patch on the far end. I also added a row of carrots in between each tomato plant. They are just now coming up.I won't be leaving all of those solar lights in the box. I put them in there to keep some plastic sheeting off of the lower plants. It got cold here for a couple of nights last week. Each box will have 4 of the lights for a nice effect.

I just got some 8-manifold bubbler heads today. I really like them because each outlet has an individual control valve. You can shut any one of them off or adjust any of them individually from 0-30 GPH. Very nice.

So, now I either have to go sift some soil or do some knitting homework.

Garden Prep Detours

I haven't been sifting soil this past week at all. The weather was absolutely perfect for it but I had other obligations. I am in the middle of an 8-month long knitting boot camp which meets once a month. Since the last class I had been working pretty non-stop in the garden, pausing only to clean the house, do laundry, or go to doctors appointments. So I didn't work on my homework until last week (we meet again tomorrow, Tuesday the 13th.) I spent many hours doing the knitting homework and will go upstairs to dedicate the final 30 minutes needed to prepare for tomorrow's class. After tomorrow's class you can again find me in the garden (the rain will be gone - yay!) and I should finally get the remaining soil finished this week. Then I will know how much to purchase and then I can finally get the garden going in earnest.

I will also try to do the knitting homework throughout the next month.

So, that's my boring update (excuse) on why I haven't been posting much lately. Soon I will tell you about Justin, our San Jose Giants baseball player who is living with us for the season.

Still Sifting Soil...

Not done yet! And it's been raining. This week should be beautiful but I have to work on my knitting homework for my class next week. I'm WAY behind.

Also I will have to tell you about the San Jose Giants baseball player we will have in our home for a few months. Don't let me forget!

Sifting Dirt

Wow. I wish I had time to sit here and compose something witty. But I'm outside in the garden sifting the rocks out of the dirt in the raised beds. All day. I'll see you in a week or so with pictures.

The Beginning of the 2010 Garden Season

Well, it has begun. For the rest of the year I will have dirt under my fingernails. Here's what I've done so far: I pulled up all of the irrigation from last year and re-laid out the garden beds. Some of them were OK but some were just too wide. I can comfortably reach 1 1/2' into a bed, so I laid out all of the beds to be 3' wide, leaving 1 1/2' - 2' paths in between. We did set aside some space for a nice 6' x 8' greenhouse but I'm not sure I'll be able to get it. Last year Costco offered a coupon for $300.00 off and I was expecting the same this year, but so far I haven't seen the discount. But I have a plan B, and it may work out even better. What I have done is started my seedlings in my AeroGarden. I was hoping that by the time they were ready to transplant into little pots that I'd have a greenhouse. However, since that didn't work out, I have decided to get a 4' long grow light to put them under, and they will sit in my kitchen behind the sink where there is just enough room for that. What makes this potentially better is that I'll be able to keep an eye on the seedlings every day. In the greenhouse they might dry out but in my kitchen that won't happen. So, the space where the greenhouse was going to go can now become the home of one of those cheap plastic storage shed things that you get from a home improvement store. I just need someplace to keep my bags of soil, gloves, gardening tools, etc. I think this will work out very well.

Here's what my AeroGarden looks like:

So, here's where I am now: A month ago I started some kale, lettuce, mustard greens, spinach, and celery in the AeroGarden. Yesterday I transferred all of the seedlings except for the celery and the smallest 2 kale into little 6-pack seedling pots. Here are the seedlings:For now they are sitting in front of the sunniest window that we have but the truth is they won't get enough sunlight. And they will all grow sideways to reach the light. The grow light has been ordered and hopefully it will arrive soon.

Today I started some more seeds in the AeroGarden: 3 kinds of tomatoes and some beets. For the 3rd year I'm going to try beets. Hopefully this will be my successful year. The last 2 years they have been direct seeded and just never did well. So this year I will grow seedlings and transplant them when they are stronger. I'll see if that makes a difference.

Very soon, hopefully later this week or next week, I need to go and direct seed the carrots into the garden. I have decided to plant some normal orange ones as well as some "Atomic Red" carrots. Plus I'll see if I have any yellow carrot seeds left over from last year but I think I planted them all.

Fall Garden is Planted

Well, I finally got some veggies in for the Fall! I planted seedlings this time around to give them a bit of a head start. Here's what's in the ground now:

• 6 Brussels Sprouts
• 2 kinds of lettuce
• 1 cabbage plant
• Spinach
• Sugar snap peas

Still in the ground from before:

• Tomatoes (these will probably be done soon)
• 2 Jalapeno pepper plants
• 1 Fresno pepper plant
• 1 Leek
• 5 Asparagus crowns
• The herb box (containing parsley, tarragon, rosemary, thyme, oregano, and sage)

I still have to plant the garlic. I have 3 varieties to go in the ground and will try to get this done later this week.

My Busy Last Few Weeks

Wow, I'm sorry that I've been away for so long! It's been very, very busy around here. Cassie has been a source of joy but she does take time to raise properly. We are taking her to 2 (yes, 2) Puppy I classes each week. And because she and Theo play together so much, they both have to be bathed quite frequently. Well, not Theo so much but puppies really know how to get dirty fast.

Also, at the end of last month, Dave and I went to Boston for 4 nights. It was a trip taken to combine visiting with some old friends of mine along with visiting Boston. Dave had never been there and while I have, it was really nice to take some time and explore the city. We were accompanied by Joanne, Tim, and Brian for much of the trip.

Another thing that's been taking my time is the garden, of course. We have some spots prepped for planting Brussels sprouts, cabbage, spinach, kale, peas, and garlic. I need to get these in the ground by this weekend, preferably.

The one thing that might interfere with that is this NASTY cold that I caught a couple of days ago. It's kicking my butt, but I'll hang in there. It'll be over when it's over.

That said, I'm going to go rest up some. I should be harvesting basil for pesto. Perhaps I'll feel like doing that later. For now I'm going to chill out for a while. Get it? Chill out? I have a cold!

Garden Progression

I have uploaded some new pics of the garden progress, taken 7/23/09, along with notes in the captions. This link will take you directly to the album.

Enjoy the pics!

A Few Garden Pics

Hi All!

I wanted to share a few pics of my garden.
These are my cherry tomatoes:
This is looking to be a very large tomato when it's done. The variety is "Copia":

Baby pumpkins are getting bigger!

Jalapeno peppers:

These heart-shaped tomatoes are "Cour di Bue":

What a beautiful rose! I don't know what kind this one is but I love it:

My giant sunflower. This one is probably 7-8 feet tall.

Its head seems too heavy for it. It has plenty of water.

As for me, I'm doing well this week. I finally got smart and decided to take ginger capsules before and during my chemo week this last time. And it really made a difference. No nausea at all, and I seemed to recover a couple of days sooner than usual.