Living in Northern New Jersey

After last year’s failure in my shady yard, I had a landscaper clear some trees and bushes away, fencing a new area for my garden where there would be more sunlight. So far I planted “Silver Queen” and “Peaches and Cream” (bi-color) sweet corns alternating the rows of each. I also planted Cucumber, Watermelon and Pumpkin seeds. After a little over a week, the corn, cucumber, sunflower and pumpkin seeds germinated and could be seen breaking the soil surface. There has been quite a bit of rain lately, but when it doesn’t rain, I have been watering the garden with an osciillating sprinkler
for 30 minutes in the morning.

I also bought eggplant and pepper plants from a garden center and heirloom tomato plants from a farm plant sale. The heirlooms included Ramapo, Husky Red, Sweet Chelsea, Czech Bush and Early Girl. I bought one Roma Tomato plant from Walmart. I planted them approximately 24 inches apart and immediately put them in tomato cages.

July 22, 2012 – So far I picked a few small tomatoes and everything is growing pretty well.  The peppers are kinda small and the eggplants have many flowers but no fruit as of yet.  I noticed some missing tomatoes so I think there may be an animal getting into the garden. I checked the fence and found some places where the fence had some openings and closed them.  I am going to install a wildlife camera to monitor the situation.

December 2012
After installing the camera, I didn’t find any large animals in the garden, but mostly the damage was from squirrels and groundhogs or rabbits.

i bought an Amaryllis plant from Home Depot a few year back and it is still flowering biannually. It was getting crowded in the original pot adn I decided to break it up into a few new containers. I bought some regular potting soil, large clay pots. I began by turning the original pot containing the Amaryllis bulbs upside down over some newspaper and gently removing and separating the bulbs. I then partially filled the new pots with soil, made an indentation in the midle of the pot and set one or two bulbs in each pot adding soil but not completely covering the bulb’s crown where new growth occurs. I watered the pots which were in aluminum pans and left outside in rainy weather before bringing them inside the house. Once green shoots appear, start watering again!

 

2012 season: All repotted bulbs are growing and have been placed outdoors for the warm summer months.
November 11, 2012
It’s been a year since I repotted my Amaryllis, and during the summer months all the bulbs sprouted leaves but no blooms. Some of the bulbs which did not sprout leaves during the preceding Winter, sprouted outdoors in the Summer. I had believed that these bulbs were dead, but they surprised me! I brought the Amaryllis plants back in the house near an eastely facing window for the winter in late September. The summer growth seems to be wilting. They are now on limited water for the winter till the summer growth browns and new green sprouts.

 

March 8, 2013:
My Amaryllis continues to bloom after wintering inside the house near an east facing window.

 

 

 

8/2/2011 – Second Season Garden means planting a late summer/fall garden. Today 8/4 i sowed seeds for Bonanza Hybrid and Green Goliath Broccoli plus Igloo Lettuce. I have some heirloom leek seeds, leeks can be planted in August but i thought the growing season at 3 months was long.

8/10/2011 – The broccoli germinated in about 5 days which was surprising because the package said up to 3 weeks for germinqtion. The igloo lettuce has not yet broken the soil surface, again mislead in the opposite direction this time, there germination time was 10 days. I planted cucumbers in late June and harvested one today. Lots of flowers on the cucumbers seem to indicate a good yield. The cucmbers sre located where they get late afternoon shade. I will break ground for the leeks today next to some squash plants sown in late June.

9/1/2011 – The lettuce never sprouted, a little disappointing and i din’t get around to planting the leeks. The broccoli after germinating suspiciously quickly seems be stuck in the cotyledon sprout stage without much growth. I think that some of teh problem is with the lack of sunlight in my yard. Looks like quite a few cucumbers are growing and finally i have a few tomatoes now, hoping they will ripen soon, the weather is turning a bit cooler.

Morning Glorys are great flowers that are easy to grow, easy to collect seed and propagate. Morning glorys are vines so I try to use it to grow on trellises, mailbox and sign posts if I can. nother idead is a rock wall near my font stairs. This year i planted seeds for purple and white Morning Glorys in some rock walls. First I used some ptting soil to make platforms for the seeds to grow and root on, then I watered using a watering can with diffuser. I thenb ade the seeds to the wet potting soil and covered with additional protting soil and watered again. Seeds from morning glorys are easily recovered from dried flowers and are rather large and easy to collect. I planted a patch of morning glories a few years ago and they are a perenial garden, every year purple flowers appear in the summer months.

I planted fox glove in the front yard which gets morning sun. I started them in seed trays and planted in late June. The first year thee were no flowers but the next year, many foxgloves reappeared with tall stalks full of flowers. This is aa beautiful perennial for deer country as it is deer resistant. So far I have not had any problem in an unfenced area of the garden where the Foxgloves grow.

I have some hybrid tea rose I bought at the local supermarket a few years ago and put them in my backyard which doesn’t get much sunlight. I haven’t maintained them at all and they haven’t grown very well as a result. Last year, I built a trellis/bird shrine to protect the roses. This helped in the winter as they were less trampled by the dogs, and generally as a support for the rose branches. This spring I decided to prune what i could from the roses. First I bought a good quality pruner shear, put on some leather work gloves to protect my hands from thorns and set to it. Emboldened by the knowledge that roses are hardy plants, I cut off all the dead wood first using diagonal cuts, cutting until the cane was white inside. Pruning should be done at a forty-five degree diagonal to the cane. On the branches with buds, I cut just after the bud diagonally. I was being fairly conservative, but did manage to trim all the canes, so hopefully this will promote new growth. When trimming, white glue can be used to seal the cuts buy dipping the end in glue, I didn’t do this but it helps make the plant less susceptible to insects and disease.

Maybe the most important piece of gardening equipment is a good pair of garden gloves, I like the PIP WA4215A-AMZ Brahma Men’s Large Glove Leather, Palm Grey, 3-Pack. Leather work gloves are great for protecting your hands from prickly branches and things you don’t want to touch with bare skin (…if you know what i mean…biologicals: dead animals, live animals, poop, bugs). You can double up with a cotton garden glove and wear the leather work glove as an outter layer, this works particularly well. The leather gloves last a while, I usually leave them out in the rain to get clean and dry them on fence post in the sun, usually I will get a couple of seasons out of a pair.