(Way) Better Than Nothing Post

I have photos of housing scraping and painting and stories in my head, but just haven't gotten them down yet.

In the meantime, last week Sunday was the University Heights Garden Club tour, and we were one of the stops. The University of Iowa's student paper, The Daily Iowan, sent photographers. Here is one of their shots:



David Scrivner/The Daily Iowan
Guests view the backyard of Mike and Lisa Haverkamp’s home during the 2010 Garden Tour hosted by the University Heights Garden Club on Sunday. Around 150 people toured the nine locations in University Heights.

Photo can be found here, scroll to the very bottom:

Today's Photos, June 28, 2010


Here is the full story. The slideshow has lots of photos of our yard. (Photos 1, 3, 6, 9, 11 & 12) The other photos are all from the two other gardens on our street. The video clip also has me babbling about Foxcroft, while wearing my goofy Mountie hat:

Back to the garden in University Heights

We had a great time hosting the tour. Then last Wednesday everyone whose garden's were on the tour walked and had our own tour. That was was even better.

The 5 W's at Foxcroft

For the last several weeks I've been dealing with the 5 W's at Foxcroft they are:

1. WORK
Of course this is the first "W" it's all we know around here. I stained the boards in the pergola. I'm using the same old lumpy stain (Oxford Brown) that I've been putting on the house. I've also now painted the capitals above the columns in the same color as the bargeboards and rafter tails. Next will be painting the columns "Lambswool" same as the house window trim.


2. WISTERIA
For Mother's Day we bought Lisa two wisteria plants. 17 years ago we planted Hardy Chinese Wisteria at our previous house, but right when it got big enough to bloom, it became shaded by the corkscrew willow that we also planted. We put our "Kentucky Blue Wisteria" along the back two columns of the pergola. I hope it grows quickly.


3. WHIMSEY
We had a planting on the driveway blow down in big winds. As I started to cut it up I got thinking about using the branches to make a trellis along the back corner around the fish pool. First I did the part on the west side of the pool. I told Lisa what I was making was "whimsey."


Then I started on the south side. The neighbors behind us had a huge limb blow down out of a maple tree, so I sawed parts off it and used them too. Then I trimmed a little from our lilacs. Pretty soon I was going down into the ravine and getting scrub from down there:


Since this is a trellis we have fall clematis on it that we planted a year ago. I've also planted some fancy morning glories, and am training up the weed morning glories too. We also have some wild grape started on it as well.

When in the ravine I found some really nice virginia creeper. I cut a piece to wrap around and make a window:


This all lead to the next "W":

4. WEIRDNESS
I was confronted by another neighbor (not one who's property is adjacent to the trellis) that said I was building a fence in violation of the City's fence ordinance. And to top it off, what I was building was ugly and a fire hazard. I was quite taken aback by this but said I'd check with the owner next door and look at the fence ordinance. The house next door is currently for sale and has been empty now for over a year. The owners said they had no problem with what I was doing, and the city building inspector visited and said what I had was a trellis and not subject to the fence ordinance. The icing on the cake came several days ago when the leader of the City Garden Club visited to see if we'd be on their tour. She loved the trellis and said the current issue of "Horticulture" magazine had one just like it.

5. WILD TURKEY
Not the drinking kind, the actual large bird type. I saw what I thought were bags of garbage on the railroad tracks when going over the Melrose Bridge on my bike. When I went back to look I realized they were turkeys. There were two male toms in full display with about 6 hens feeding along the tracks. My guess is that they are getting all the spilled corn that falls off the railroad cars. Here is a pic I took of them.


Then Sunday I was walking my mower down the driveway to mow the bottom of the front yard. I saw something move in the hostas between our house and yet another neighbor's yard. (we share boundaries with 5 houses) When I looked back I realized it was a turkey that must have been sleeping/roosting under the hostas. It ambled back into Matt's yard for a snack under his bird feeder. I went and got a picture of this one too:

Spring Arrives

It was warm enough last night that we had band practice outdoors. The pergola is just big enough for the five of us:



We got a thumbs up from Jill across the street who was out walking her kids in the stroller, and another thumbs up from a car who came to pick up a flyer for the house behind us which is for sale, again.

Here is the near back yard with the cilla in full bloom:


And the side yard where the cilla has completely taken over:


Cilla or Siberian Squill is a wild flower that is a small bulb. It is a very early bloomer, right after the snowdrops and the crocuses. Cilla spreads naturally, and was here already when we came. After the blooms are gone (in about a week) the leaves look like very thick grass. When you walk in it after the blooms are spent it is very squishy. By May the leaves are gone too.

Beans Are Up!

After a really big rain most of last night I visited the garden this evening to find that the beans are just poking through the ground. Many are still wearing their seed coats:


These are Kentucky Wonder Beans and will grow up my 8 foot tall fence vigorously. I saved these beans from last year's crop.

My heirloom peas, planted the first week of April are nearly 3 feet tall right now:


In my 20 years of growing them and saving seeds, I think I have influenced their height by saving those which grew especially tall.

I'm trying potatoes again after we ate our entire inaugural crop last year at Thanksgiving. Jean, who I work with, gave me seed potatoes from Seed Savers in Decorah (I gave her peas). Here are the German Browns:


Not nearly as tall but vigorous are the Peruvian Purples:


I have to be a polyglot to garden this year.

Other early success are my onions, I've been eating them for nearly 3 weeks:


And my red leaf lettuce, which I started to harvest on Saturday:


Right next to the lettuce above are this year's new experimental plants, collard greens.

I've also got tomatoes, peppers, basil, cucumbers, cabbage, cantelope, watermelon, Chinese cabbage, zucchini and cilantro planted. I still need to put in some acorn squash and pumpkins.

Meanwhile as I work on all this, Lisa continues to sculpt the yard on a much grander, perennial scale. The textures. color, and depth never cease to amaze me, as they did on my way back to the house tonight:

1956 Yard Map

In going through "stuff" I found a letter that Bess wrote to her nieces in 1956 that came back to her somehow. The letter includes a lengthy description of her vegetable garden and a hand drawn map, complete with numbers and a list of items in the yard:


Our yard layout, the little red dots are flagstone walks to garden, garage, and shed

1. house
2. garage
3. tool shed
4. pool
5. driveway
6. turn around place
7. garden – mostly vegetables
8. raspberries – currants – goosberries
9. Sweet cherry tree
10. peach trees
11. peach trees
12. green gage plum tree
13. northern spy apple
14. apple tree
15. cherry tree
16. pine tree
17. apple tree
18. cherry tree
19. pear tree
20. apple tree
21. sweet pear tree
22. plum tree
23. plum tree
24. elm tree
25. red bud
26. magnolia
27. red leaf peach
28. golden rain
29. strawberries (150 plants)
30. strawberry pyramid

And how much is left today?

1. house YES
2. garage YES
3. tool shed NO (our garden is here)
4. pool YES
5. driveway YES
6. turn around place YES
7. garden – mostly vegetables NO (Sold in early 1980's)
8. raspberries – currants – goosberries NO (our garden is here)
9. Sweet cherry tree NO (our garden is here)
10. peach tree NO (swingset)
11. peach tree NO
12. green gage plum tree NO (tree house)
13. northern spy apple NO
14. apple tree NO
15. cherry tree NO
16. pine tree NO
17. apple tree NO
18. cherry tree NO (limestone patio)
19. pear tree NO
20. apple tree NO
21. sweet pear tree NO (crabapple)
22. plum tree NO (maple tree)
23. plum tree Sort Of (We cut down the original in 2005 it was growing sideways out of the hill, a sprout from the roots has come back)
24. elm tree NO
25. red bud NO
26. magnolia NO
27. red leaf peach NO
28. golden rain NO
29. strawberries (150 plants)NO
30. strawberry pyramid NO

Items of note:

• Most of the path stones are around, we've moved them some. The line to the garage is now sidewalk, I know the flagstones are underneath the cement.
  
• I'm very curious about what the red letters are.
  
• None of the three enormous walnut trees that dominate our yard today are marked. They lie roughly between 13 and 2, between 6 and 23, and at 28. I would trade at least two of them for half the fruit trees listed...
  
• None of the lilac bushes along the southwestern edge of the yard are listed.
  
• Bess lists the front dimension of the lot as 125 feet. In the letter she says she has all but finalized the purchase of a 25 foot wide strip of land north of the driveway that ran along the northwest side of the lot. That must have never been purchased because last night I stepped off 125 feet from the eastern corner of the lot and ended up all the way down across the neighbor's driveway. The house north of ours was the last one built in the neighborhood in 1968.
  

A Smashing Good Time!

So far they have broken our gazing ball, put a major hole in the girls' plastic toy box, and scared us every time one has hit the garage roof. (They sound as loud as a gunshot) What I am talking about? Our walnuts of course.

We have three very walnut large trees, and we've had more nuts this year than in any previous. I've taken 7 wheelbarrow loads to the ravine, and filled a 20 gallon garbage can for my two aunts, Martha and Helen, who came to visit last week. Aunt Martha took the garbage can load, and we also filled the rest of her car trunk as well. She cracks walnuts every winter and was delighted to have them.

This got me thinking that I should try to save and crack some this winter myself. Lisa mentioned that black walnuts sell at the farmer's market for about $8/pint.

So in the three days since we loaded up Aunt Martha, we have once again filled the garbage can:


And a laundry basket:


And still have quite a few laying around:


Martha says to wait until the husks turn black before you try to remove them. Getting the husks off is not easy. After the nuts are husked, she then gets a big tub of water and throws the nuts into the water. Any nuts that float don't have any meat in them so she throws them away. She gets out the ones that sink and spreads them out to dry in her basement. She then cracks them as she watched TV at night.

I've been thinking about an easy way to husk the nuts. Many nuts drop right onto our driveway:


Those are best because then I can just use the automatic husking machine on them:


One pass and voila:





I think I should just rake them into two lines and run over them deliberately, instead of only getting those that land in the right spot by chance.



We'll see how far I get on this