Gardening Season is Wrapping Up

Now that fall's officially here, I thought I'd take some pictures of the garden and reflect on how this season went for me.

I took these pictures at dusk, so they're not as clear as they could be.

In the greenhouse, I have Diana the pomegranate who is doing well. She looks sad, but she's actually doing really, really well. I'm going to make a "cage" for her out of PVC pipe and heavy duty greenhouse plastic to help keep her happy during the winter. I'll also trim back her branches quite a bit to fit in the cage. She should have a strong, deep taproot by now, below the frost line, so other than the two weeks we're below zero, she should be just fine. For those two weeks, I'll hook up the heat lamp in an effort to keep her cage above 10 degrees.

I've allowed her to keep *one* fruit.

Outside of the greenhouse, I have Brandywine tomatoes in the left tomato box, and San Marzanos in the right. Moving away from the greenhouse, I have concord grapes, honeysuckle, and kiwi berry. The grapes fruited for the first time, and I can't tell you how excited I was about that! The kiwi berry grew like crazy this year, but no fruit, so I'm hoping we'll get some for next year. We planted the honeysuckle as a filler between the the grapes and kiwi berry.

In front of the arch, I have rosemary on the left,
and lavender on the right. Both are hanging in there, but not
thriving. Maybe next year they'll do better.

I was so thrilled with the grapes I got from Grandma and Grandpa Grape - it's been my goal for years to grow my own grapes. I thought the grapes were done for the year, but it looks like I'll get at least one more bunch! I don't know how common it is to get late grapes, but I'm not going to complain in the least.

The wind and summer storms have played havoc with my tomato plants. They're doing well, but it's been a challenge. I'll have to re-think how I support the tomatoes next year. The cages I had this year just weren't enough to keep the winds from blowing them all around. The other night, when I was looking for ripe San Marzanos to pick, I found this beautiful cat-faced orb weaver gracing my plant.

I learned a lot, but mostly, I learned the importance of deep watering. I was trying to water "just enough" in order to not be wasteful. However, I stunted my garden's growth doing that. My corn really took off once I borrowed a soaker hose from L.E. and started watering with that. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. The corn stalks grew to 9 feet tall, but the ears never developed any corn. There are skinny little ears all over, but no corn on the ears. Now I know.

The peas did really well in the pea/cucumber/corn patch, and the cucumbers also did really well. I think the peas would have done better if I'd started deep watering earlier. I borrowed the trellis that the peas and cucumbers climbed from L.E. Next year, I'll use our 'old' slow feed hay net as the trellis. I'll also plant the peas on the north side of the trellis so that when our stupid winds blow, it'll blow the peas into the trellis, not away from it.

The corn looks so impressive. Sadly, it's not. I'll be using it
as fall decoration instead of harvesting any corn.

I should have taken into consideration my hose length when I set up the pepper and no watermelon patch. My pocket hose doesn't reach, and so I had to spray from about five feet away, which disrupted the soil and the roots. My pepper plants didn't grow for anything, and I had to replace them once. Next year, I'll buy a longer hose and set up a soaker hose for this area. When I realized my peppers weren't going to do anything, my goal became "keep them alive the rest of the season", which worked out, and now they're coming on with some peppers. Better late than never, I guess.

That's my sunset bench under the no-watermelon arch.
I love sitting there in the evening.

The strawberries didn't do much this summer - I got one berry all season long - but I'm happy with the plants. I allowed them to send out runners all summer in hopes of filling the bed with plants. The mint has rebounded from the grasshoppers last year, and is now trying to escape the license plate border. I'll cut it back when I bed everything down with straw in a couple of weeks.

Tally, my grandturtle, has been
getting outdoor recess in the
strawberry/mint patch. She's
a master at hide and seek!

My "garden in a box" garden, made up of native flowers is doing really well. L.E. and I split a "box" since there were far too many plants for the little area I wanted to use. I planted them last fall, and did have to replace two of the plants, but the replacement plants are also doing well. Next year, they'll get minimal water, then the following year, I shouldn't have to water at all. I sort of followed the layout that Resource Central gave, but should have paid more attention so the taller plants went in the back. I didn't realize the penstemon would get so tall.

Starting at twelve o'clock and moving clockwise: yellow yarrow,
yellow columbine, purple coneflower, firecracker penstemon,
Rocky Mountain penstemon, purple columbine.

As a bonus, I had to include a picture from the sunset bench, under the no-watermelon arch. I often sit out there and do my Duolingo lessons in the evening. Once it gets cooler, I'll go back to sitting in Whimsy to do them.

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 ...

Diana Moves Home

Before I talk about my wonderful, wonderful Wonder Woman pomegranate, Diana, I thought I'd give a quick update on my Black Widow pomegranate, Yelena. I did, indeed, love Yelena to death and she did not make it through the winter. I know I said I'd give her until June, but it was pretty obvious a few weeks ago that she had shriveled up and said "screw this". I can't blame her. She was a tough one, and probably would have made it if I hadn't messed with her so much.

Diana was a cute little thing when I got her. Here's a flashback of her baby pictures.

So she wasn't little-little, but compared to
her recent pictures, she was tiny.

She looked rough for a bit during her
transition from Georgia to Colorado, but she rebounded.

Move-in day to the greenhouse at work.
Diana, Pina the pineapple, and Lemony the lemon plant.
Pina looks great, but Lemony kicked the bucket a couple
of months in.

Diana thrived in the greenhouse! I put here in there to just survive the winter, all I wanted her to do was not die. She thought she went on a tropical vacation and exploded. At one point, she was growing between 6-8 inches a week.

Diana's last week in the greenhouse.

I had to move her out of the greenhouse in the beginning of April, because I was afraid that she'd get too big to move. Luckily, L.E. has a beautiful south-facing window that she has loaned us.

She's thriving in L.E.'s window as well

Being a Colorado native, I was completely ignorant of how pomegranates grew until I saw my first pomegranate tree in Italy, so I've been completely fascinated by how the fruit grows.

The buds grow very quickly
into this elongated thing before blooming.

As the bloom forms, but before it opens,
it looks like a demagorgan from Stanger Things.

You blink, and next thing you know,
there are fruits growing!

Diana will live with L.E. for a few weeks, probably until mid-May, before I move her to Whimsy. This time with L.E. is a great time to harden her off. Not that L.E.'s house is cold, but it is cooler than the greenhouse at work, and we're able to wean her off the drip system she was on. She'll get watered on a regular basis, but no more IV fluids for her. Once she moves out to Whimsy, she'll get a good trimming to start to train her to be a tree rather than a bush. And, sadly, I'll remove most of the fruit to encourage her to grow strong roots so she'll be ready for the winter.

I have a few things left to finish in Whimsy before Diana goes in the ground that hopefully won't take me too long to complete. I want to change out the insulation and put screens over the windows so she doesn't try to grow out of them over the summer.

Whimsy's Complete-ish

The lower windows were a breeze to put in, even if the windows on the north required some tetris-like puzzle solving. After that, we had to put in the upper windows. We'd designed a rather dramatic pitch to the roof so that the snow could slide off, but that left us with triangle shaped gaps on the east and west side of Whimsy that needed windows installed.

The mounting block served double duty as my stepstool.

Jay and I had found these amazing hinged windows that I wanted to install for air movement. Even without all of the windows in, Whimsy was holding a lot of heat during the day. Mom and I hung the first window, and built the frame around it. As you can see from the ratchet strap securing the window, that didn't work out so well.

Back to the drawing board. We took out the window and built a frame that would fit the space and hold all of the windows. Who knew doing it the correct way would be easiest?

The frame secured the hinged windows much better - no ratchet straps required!

I hung curtains in an attempt to keep the heat down.

We were left with odd shapes that would need to be filled in with something. Mom did some research and learned how to cut glass. It's stupidly simple, but also stupidly easy to break the glass when you get too cocky. I thought stained glass windows would look gorgeous on Whimsy, but the cost, plus the odd sizes meant that stained glass wasn't going to be an option. Bionic Cowgirl to the rescue again! While picking up the pieces of glass from the craft store, she happened upon some stencils and picked them up.

We measured the openings carefully, drew out what we needed on graph paper, and went to town on making our own windows. It was fun.

When it came time to put the windows up, I realized that even though we measured carefully, we didn't take into account the fact that we'd need some "wiggle room" to seat the windows without breaking them. Cutting glass is easy. Trimming already cut glass by 1/4" is not and I broke more than one window trying.

You can see where I scored the glass, and then it broke as I was trying to snap it off.

Dang it! Back to the craft store for more glass.

Eventually, I managed to get all of the east and west side windows in. It was definitely the most difficult part of the whole build.

I accidentally painted on the wrong side of the window,
so I slapped some Mod-Podge on it to protect it from the weather.

I broke the big window, so I just cut off the broken part,
cut a new end piece and framed it in.

Whimsy had complete windows in three sides, but I needed to do something with the upper windows on her south side. It was evident that in the summer, she gathered a lot of heat, and I didn't think that adding more glass was going to be a great idea. Instead, above each large window, I stretched some screen material across and installed solar-powered fans. The fans were smaller than I expected, but they've worked beautifully for moving air. They worked well enough that I bought a third one to use in our bedroom window during the summer.

Whimsy had everything except a door.

I had been stalling when it came to a door for Whimsy. I figured at worst, I could make one out of plywood (gross). I had a few windows left that we hadn't been able to find a home for, but I was in love with two of them and had to figure out how to use them.

I played around with the idea of turning them into a Dutch door. The more I thought about it, the more I fell in love with the idea. 

Did I have any clue whatsoever of how to build a Dutch door? Nope.

Had I any clue how to build a greenhouse when we started? Nope.

Why would I let a little thing like not knowing how to do something stop me? So I set about hanging the windows, one above the other to make my door.

I still needed to build up the frame on the right.

If you look closely, you can see the pomegranates.

Since not a thing on Whimsy is square, her door frame is more of a Franken-frame, but it works. I'll probably spend some time this summer fixing the frame so that it looks better. It was October before we got her door installed, and cold weather was right around the corner. I couldn't get my idea for the Dutch door to work the way I wanted it to, and we were running out of good weather. Jay and I just put a piece of wood across the inside of the door to join the two windows together and called it good.

The window above the door was the very last one of what we'd picked up at the beginning of the project and was the perfect size for above the door. With the big screens on each side of the door, I didn't feel bad about putting in more glass. But ... Whimsy needed something to finish her off (besides finishing the paint job). I had an idea for just the thing!

Mrs. Deejo has every craft tool known to (wo)man and I drew on her expertise to make Whimsy and the pomegranate girls signs.

I hung heavy duty plastic over the screens and all of the big windows, added a thick layer of mulch to the girls' tires, and covered it with black trash bags. Whismy and the girls were as ready for Winter 2023 as they could be.