Out to Whimsy She Goes

The whole point of building Whimsy was to grow pomegranates, and the whole point of putting Diana in the greenhouse at work was to keep her alive through her first winter. Eventually, I was going to have to put them together, right?

There were just a couple of things I needed to do with Whimsy before moving Diana in, and Mom was kind enough to help with them. First, I needed to place screens over the windows, so that as she grew, she couldn't stick her arms out the window. Also, I wanted to improve the walls. I'd put insulation in when we built Whimsy, but I'd just covered it with heavy duty black trash bags, thinking the black would help absorb the heat and act as a heat sink. It didn't help as much as I thought it would, so I put up "real" walls with OSB. The OSB should help block some of the wind and cold down low. 

Both the screens and OSB had to be put up before I planted Diana, because I knew working around her would be difficult. She's pokey and sticky, and, honestly, miserable to be working around/under/through.

(Please ignore the haze on the pictures - we'd been sawing and sawdust coated everything, including the camera lens. Also, I should have given the windows a good scrubbing.)

Just the simple act of adding the OSB makes Whimsy feel ...
more substantial, like a "real" greenhouse.

These windows open from the outside. When it gets really hot
this summer, I'll open them for more air movement/heat loss.

Finally, the day came that I'd chosen to move Diana out of L.E.'s house. She had been throwing a temper tantrum at being moved from the perfect conditions in the work greenhouse, to really good conditions in L.E.'s south-facing window. Almost immediately, she started dropping leaves and generally being a temperamental, rude houseguest. God bless L.E. for putting up with her and not kicking her out.

Jay was kind enough to help me use the auger to dig a hole big enough for Diana's considerable root ball, and I went to collect her from L.E.'s house. You can see the change in her between the two pictures, and it was about a week.

Move out day couldn't come soon enough,
for L.E. or Diana.

For a plant that was throwing a temper tantrum about being in L.E.'s beautiful, climate controlled house, she sure the hell didn't want to leave. She left a trail of destruction in her wake. Her branches grabbed onto the doorways as she tried to prevent me from carrying her out. 

Leaves and fruits went flying.

Eventually, we were able to disentangle her, and plop her down into the Gremlin's little red wagon for the short trip to Whimsy.

I mixed up a few gallons of root hormone/stabilizer to hopefully help with the transition from being a potted plant to being an in-ground plant. She'll have from now until the end of September/beginning of October to stretch her roots and settle herself into Whimsy.

Before pruning.

When I picked her up out of her pot, I naturally went around to the more bare side. The side with the least amount of branches, pokey things, and stickiness. Then I backed into Whimsy to drag her branches in behind, instead of trying to stuff her branches in first. It made perfect sense when I did it. What I failed to do was rotate 90 degrees once I was in Whimsy, which would have put her biggest branches in the southeast corner instead of blocking the doorway. When did I realize this? After I'd planted, stepped on her, and soaked her with 3 gallons of root stabilizer. I was not about to dig her back up to turn her 90 degrees.  I had made a tactical error when I planted her, and didn't realize it until I started pruning. Sometimes, I'm such an idiot.

She stabbed me a couple of times as I was moving her from her pot to her new hole in the ground, and speckled me with sap, but I finally got her shoe-horned into the hole we'd dug. It was about 1/2" too small all the way around, so I kept shaving away at it with the shovel until I could get the majority of her root ball in. Then, I stepped on her. Repeatedly, until she sank down into the hole sufficiently. It's probably not the right way to do it, but it's the GunDiva way. I soaked her really well with the root stabilizer, and Jay helped me temporarily prop her up.

I had purposely not done any pruning, because I didn't want her to put too much energy into her roots. I'd saved all the pruning until she was planted.

The first things that went were any branches or air shoots on the bottom 18". I chose the strongest, sturdiest looking three "trunks" I could find, and cut away anything else. Then, I took some handy baling twine and wrapped it around the three "trunks" to draw them together to form as close to one "trunk" as possible. This helped her stand up a bit better. I did plant a support pole next to her that I tied her to. I kept the little 1x3" board we'd propped her up with initially, and will keep it there until she's a little steadier and less lean-y.

Finally, I scooted out from under her, and went to town on the branches. Any branches that looked sickly or dry, or that had lost most of their leaves got the axe. Well, not so much the axe, as the pruning shears.

I left her one little fruit, because I couldn't bare to cut all of them off. But I did tell her that it's okay if she drops it. It's way more important for her to establish her root system and grow strong, healthy branches instead of fruit this year.

After pruning.

A couple of days later, I went back and trimmed the branches that were blocking the doorway. If I hadn't screwed up in the first place with her placement, I wouldn't have needed to cut them back. Despite being much thinner, and looking much shorter now that she's in the ground instead of in a pot, she looks good. And, dare I say, happy with her new living situation.

I'll make a small box around her base and make sure that it's mulched well with straw to help her maintain her moisture, but once pomegranates are established, they're drought-tolerant. I think, for the winter, I might build her a cage of PVC pipe and drape it with heavy plastic to help protect her from winds and the cold. For our week or two of below zero temps, I'll hang a heat lamp for her.

Now to just get her to winter ...

Spring: Full of (Garden) Hopes

Now that spring is well underway, I've managed to complete the majority of my planting. I did sort-of follow the "no planting until after Mother's Day" rule for Colorado. Now it's a waiting (and watering) game.

Sadly, the seeds we attempted to start in Maggie the Magical Potting Shed didn't take. L.E. and I are still trying to figure out what we're doing wrong, since we haven't gotten a seed to germinate in two years.

Since they didn't take, I bought some tomato starts from our local greenhouse/nursery. For the past couple of years, I've attempted to grow my tomatoes in 5-gallon buckets, but they've really struggled. At the end of last year, I decided to build two tomato boxes - one for each side of Whimsy's doorway. I had a couple of extra pallets lying around, so I chopped them up, gathered whatever random wood I could find, and built them. They're rustic as all get-out, a mis-matched mess. Or as L.E. would call them, 'whimsical'. I planted in them a few days ago, and the tomatoes are looking pretty good. Certainly better than they ever did in the 5-gallon buckets.

The boxes will eventually be painted barn red to match Whimsy.

Jay's favorite tomato to use the the San Marzano, so for the third year in a row, I'm trying. Nebalee and L.E.'s San Marzanos grew incredibly well last year. Mine did not. I ended up with about two quart bags of tomatoes for the freezer, and that was a stretch to get.

~~~

Last year, Mom decided it was time to replace the cross-buck fence that surrounded her horse pen. Her new fence looks amazing, and initially, I was more than happy to see the cross-buck go. Honestly, it was so old that it needed repaired every summer, and was in danger of falling over at any moment. It was a right pain in the arse. I was happy to see it go until I got all sentimental and realized I couldn't let the whole fence go. I needed a piece of our horse history, so I asked her for a section. The fence had contained two generations of mustangs: Ranger and Shadow; Ranger and Jesse, then Washoe. Estes. Skeeter. Alloy. Pearl. I couldn't let it go, I needed to keep a section.

At the time, I had some vague idea of using it to plant something in. I didn't know what at the time, but I knew I needed to have a piece of that fence. By the end of last summer, I'd decided that it would make a great pea patch and erected it between Whimsy and Maggie. I layered some manure from the horse pen, then added topsoil and let it sit all winter.

The peas needed something to climb, so L.E. loaned me
one of her foldable trellis things.

I love the peas' little "grabby hands" finding
and latching onto the support.

~~~

I am a lover of pallet projects, which shouldn't come as a surprise considering Whimsy and Maggie are both made from pallets. I built my tomato boxes from broken old pallets. Jay and I have a little "pallet porch" on the east side of our house with two Adirondack chairs that my uncle made from pallets. Between them sits a side table made from pallets, which now holds my fuchsias.

So it shouldn't come to a surprise to anyone that when L.E. had her windows replaced, and her new windows arrived on a structure made of pallets that I was eye-balling it. When she offered it to me, I couldn't jump on it fast enough. It just screamed to be used for some vining plant, but what?

I initially thought about pumpkin, because Nebalee's pumpkins last year climbed her arch and looked great. But ... I'm not a huge pumpkin fan. I already had peas and cucumbers accounted for in the cross-buck pea patch, so I decided to try my hand at sugar baby watermelons. L.E. and I can train them to climb, and with any luck, we will get a melon or two.

I spent last night enclosing the bottom pallet and filling it with manure and soil. The top of the back end of the pallet is just a hair over five feet. If the plants climb up the angled front part, and down the back (with some help and training from L.E. and me), that's about ten feet of climbing they've got. If necessary, I can add a hog panel to it in an arch, like I have in front of Whimsy. (Actually, I might do that anyway, just to be on the safe side.)

I didn't want the front half of the pallet to go unused, so I looked up companion plants for watermelon. The first two listed were peas and cucumbers, but those are already planted in the pea patch. I scrolled further and found that peppers are also a good companion. Jay and I use a lot of peppers, so I bought some pepper starts from some kids at a garage sale last week.

Jalapeno, serrano, serrano, habanero.
Hopefully, they'll survive.

~~~

On FB the other day, a friend of mine was saying that she's always wanted a big, beautiful garden, but the soil in her area is mostly clay and rocks. She lives less than 20 miles away, so I understand what she's talking about with regard to soil quality. The thing is, yes, our soil isn't the easiest to grow in, but there are work-arounds. For me, it's repurposing pretty much anything that will hold soil.

Potatoes in a tire stack

Garden freckles in old enamelware.
Concord grapes in the tires behind the pot.

Rusted out charcoal BBQ grill? Flowers.

Onions in the pallet collars.

I will never have the big, beautiful garden that my great-grandparents had, but the little bit that I do have is plenty. I must be getting old and sentimental, because I feel closer to my Great Grandma Wheeler when I garden (and when I can, but that's an end of the season thing).