Garden Time

Garden time again.  Tilled up the garden on Saturday, let it rest a few days and planted it on Tuesday evening.  I found lots of good plants.  Went to Fort Vannoy farms and got some peppers and melons including a Crenshaw melon.  They get large and very sweet.  

Went to the grower's market and got tomatoes, peppers and more melons.

Went to Chet's Nursery and Redwood Nursery and got more tomatoes, melons, peppers, sugar snap peas, lettuce, squash and cucumbers.

I put down black plastic for the melons, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, since our nights here in Grants Pass Real Estate are cool during the summer and the black plastic collects and holds the heat so they grow better, faster and ripen better.  I found a Sun Gold cherry tomato--very sweet and prolific.

Inside of the Compost Tumbler after 10 days.  Still steaming and warm, about half the volume it was when I filled it up.  A few more days and it will be finished.  I used the compost tea mixed about 10 parts water to 1part tea as a pick me up drink for all the new plants in the garden.  Great fun here in Grants Pass Real Estate.
       So long for now.   
           chuck

More Spring Flowers!

We have more spring blooms. This is flowering quince. Lots of lovely flowers early before the leaves are fully on. And no fruit. This one is planted close to the house so I have to trim it every year to keep it away from the house. Better to plant it in the open and then you can choose to prune or not.

This is a blossom on an azalea.  Lovely early blossoms.  Slow growing plant, but reliable bloomer.  Notice the pine needles as a mulch.  Azaleas and rhododendrons like acid soil and the pine needles accommodate them.  When I lived in Virginia and North Carolina 


I could get a bale of pine needles for mulching.  They have lots of pines and lots of azaleas and rhododendrons so it works great.  Blueberries also like acid soil.  Most of the soil in Grants Pass Real Estate is not acid so amendments are needed.  Pine needles are the cheapest fix.

Another picture of more of our daffodils.  Lovely time of year in Grants Pass Real Estate.


So long for now from Grants Pass Real Estate.


chuck

Composting.

Here is a picture of my Compost Tumbler. I mow my lawn with a riding mower with a grass catcher on it. I fill up the composter with 4 parts green and one part brown. For the green I use fresh grass from the lawn and kitchen scraps (fruit, vegetables, coffee grounds, egg shells). For the brown I use dried grass and dried leaves though you can use newspaper, sawdust, small wood chips. Fill up the composter. Turn five turns once a day. It will reach 160 degrees the next day--hot enough to kill most weed seeds. Two weeks to compost. Great. Compost is good for any soil. Soil too sandy and loose--use compost--it will bind it up and make it more like good topsoil. Soil has too much clay--use compost--it will loosen it up and make it more porous and topsoil like. Composting is great in Grants Pass Real Estate.
This is my traditional compost pile. During the winter the weather is too cold to make compost in the compost tumbler. So I pile stuff up the old way. Leave it for a year and you still get good compost. You also have a place to put the kitchen scraps in the winter. Pull back some of the grass, dump your scraps, pull the grass back over top. It will not smell bad and if you don't put in meat products, you won't have animals digging in your compost pile.

So long for now from Grants Pass Real Estate.

chuck

Brrr! It's Cold!

Last night, I was sitting beside the wood stove toasting my back and thinking about the temperature. It was unseasonably, unreasonably cold. 18 degrees when I went to bed and 10 degrees when I got up. Frosty as you can see.

Crinkly, icy frost. However, the cold weather is good for our fruit trees here in Grants Pass Real Estate as they need a certain number of cooling hours in order to produce fruit. (Cooling? Doggone this is cold!) Also tulips need the cold in order to bloom. I remember reading an article years ago where a lady from Florida was asking why her tulips would not bloom. The answer was to dig up her bulbs and put them in the fridge for 2 or 3 months in order to chill them enough to bloom. Not here. Even in a normal cooling year, the tulips bloom when you leave them in the ground.

When the sun came up a little more, things looked a little better, but still only 15 degrees. This is unusual temperatures for us. Yesterday Grants Pass broke a record for cold temps going back to 1896.

Global warming.

So long from Grants Pass Real Estate.

chuck

Happy Thanksgiving!

There are many blessings for all of us even though it has been a hard year for many of us. I am thankful for my family and friends. For my home and the garden produce of this year. For the mountain views. For the rain that nourishes the earth. For the fall leaves that were so pretty this year. For work to do and for health when I’m well and healing when I’m sick.

God is still in heaven and he still loves us and sends us blessings each day. Sometimes we are too busy to look for them, but they are there nevertheless. A smile from a friend. A smile from a stranger. Someone who lets you in a long line of traffic. A bird that flies by in a graceful air cutting swoop. The laughter of a child. A late blooming flower. A cat’s antics. A sunset that spreads a sky blue pink knock your eyes out ease your soul experience.

Count your blessings, count them one by one.

What are you thankful for?

So long from Grants Pass Real Estate.

chuck

Fall Treasures

This is a reblooming iris. It blooms in the spring like all the other iris. Then in the fall, Surprise here it comes again--more blooms that last past the first frost.

This is cabbage coming on well with the cool fall weather. This is actually from a few cabbages that we planted last year and they kept growing throughout the winter and hung on through the summer and now are forming heads again. The climate here in Grants Pass Real Estate is mild enough that cabbage and kale will go through the winter. Also you can plant spinach in the fall and when it gets a little warm in February, sometimes in January, the spinach starts growing again and you get the earliest, tenderest, tastiest spinach ever. Please eat it raw so that it tastes great, don't cook it into a mush.

This is our asparagus patch. I pulled the weeds and the grass out and put a mulch of compost all around it. The compost will keep the weeds down and feed the asparagus so that it will come up early and strong in the spring. This asparagus is a purple variety that is sweet to eat raw and turns green when steamed or stir fried. Don't cook it to death and make it mush so that kids hate it. Leave it crunchy and tasty.

God bless your day. So long from Grants Pass Real Estate.

chuck

Late Garden Greats

One of the benefits of an organic garden here at Grants Pass Real Estate is healthy animals as well. This is a tree frog on a corn stalk. He earns his keep by eating bugs. Plus he is beautiful.

This is a surprise. I bought a four way pear tree to plant in the garden and the root stock sprouted and grew into a lovely quince! Who knew! I just now looked up recipes for quince and found some neat ones.

This is sweet meat squash and a pumkin. The sweet meat squash is supposed to be a very good keeper and have good sweet flavor. The pumpkin is---well it is a pumpkin.

Last of the cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes. It has been getting unseasonably cold at night and I think soon there will be a frost to end this particular part of the harvest.

So long from Grants Pass Real Estate for now. May God's blessings follow you throughout your day.

chuck

Harvest Time!

Hello from Grants Pass Real Estate. This is a wonderful time of year in the garden. Just take a look at what God grew for us.

We have sweet corn, lots of juicy tomatoes, sweet red, yellow, and orange peppers, cucumbers, hot red cayenne peppers and still some honeydews getting ripe.

Everything is organic, bug free and full of taste that you cannot get from food in the store. Fertilizing with compost makes the plants strong and bug resistant. The one pest that we have problems with is ground squirrels. They take one or two bites out of a tomato or cucumber or melon and then move on. The only thing to do is to cut off the bite area and eat the rest. Not that big of a deal.

It is a joy to go to the garden to see what is new today. Beautiful colors, great smells, fresh air, sunshine, and God's bounty. What more could you want? A great use of real estate.

One of my daughters will not eat tomatoes from the store since they taste somewhere between a piece of cardboard and a piece of plastic. But a couple of years ago when she was six, we went to the garden and I gave her a yellow cherry tomato which she ate and then said, "Now that is a good tomato!"

So long for now from Grants Pass Real Estate.

chuck

Garden Growing

The garden is growing here at Grants Pass Real Estate. We have gotten lots of melons--watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew! Yum. Also lots of cucumbers, tomatoes, and now peppers.

It is a great time of year for a gardener. Great fresh tasty stuff free for the picking from your own real estate.

As you can see I also need to look at the sweet corn as it is looking like it will be ready soon if not now.

The picture here of a pepper also has a little bit of the orange cherry tomatoes in the bottom right hand corner. They are sweet and beautiful as well.

Gotta go check the garden. Later from Grants Pass Real Estate.

chuck

Watermelon!

Wow! Watermelon fresh from the garden. We have had some unseasonable hot weather this summer in Grants Pass Real Estate so melons have ripened early this year. I actually got our melons planted late and they still got ripe early. This is a picture of a sugar baby watermelon and two varieties of cantaloupe, namely fast break and ambrosia. Both are exceedingly sweet. Cantaloupe is easy to pick--simply watch and when it turns tan or brown check the stem and when it pulls off easily the melon is ripe.

Watermelons are a different matter. There are several things to check for with watermelons. One is a yellow patch on the bottom where it touches the ground. Next is a low pitched thump when you pat the melon. And the third is the curly tip that goes off to the side of the stem end. When it is still green so is the melon. When that curly cue is brown, the melon has a yellow patch on the bottom and the melon thumps when patted, then the melon is ripe and sweet. Nothing like a fresh melon right out of the garden. Cost effective too. So far we have gotten three watermelons off of one plant with at least one more to go. The plant cost me $1.50. Try to buy four watermelons in the grocery store for $1.50. No luck. Plant your own.

Put down black plastic, cut a hole for the plant, put in the plant, water regularly and wait for God to grow your melon. Very easy.

This is a picture of the watermelon pictured whole above, here cut with what was left of it. Within a half hour it was all gone as our family loves melon and this one was really good.

What a great way to use your Grants Pass Real Estate.

Bye for now from Grants Pass Real Estate.

chuck

Ahh Summer!

As you can see the garden in Grants Pass Real Estate is growing greatly. My dad used to say about the corn, "Knee high by the Fourth of July." Our corn was a bit above knee high on the Fourth, but now two weeks later it is shoulder high. A couple of weeks ago I put some compost around the bottom of the corn stalks. That may have something to do with the great growth. The melons are setting. Squash and pumpkins are setting on the vine and blooming. We have started picking cucumbers. Tomatoes are on the vine and growing. Peppers are on the plants and growing.

It is a great time to sit back and watch God grow the garden. Although I did have to take a run through the garden with the tiller again. And my wife pulled some weeds as well. But all in all we watch. The grapes are growing and getting bigger. The blackberries (these are o

nes that I planted and want) have set fruit and are ripening. The plums are growing.

Here in Grants Pass Real Estate, plums, apples and pears are usually consistent producers. Other fruit trees bloom early when the weather gets warm in the spring and then have their blooms frosted off with a late frost. If you can protect the blooms on other fruit you can get beautiful crops as well. I have tried turning on a sprinkler when frost comes with some success. The sprinkler will coat the blooms with a layer of ice. The ice will melt slowly when the sun comes up and this slow warming will protect the bloom. Whereas if the bloom is coated with frost, the frost will melt quickly and the cells in the bloom will burst and kill the bloom. I have a friend who says that he has put a light bulb in the center of the tree and turned it on when frost comes and the heat from the bulb has warmed up the tree and prevented frost damage.

This is a picture of the sunset over the mountains here in Grants Pass Real Estate. As is very evident here only God can make a mountain like that and a sunset like that. We are blessed to live here.

Bye from Grants Pass Real Estate for now.

chuck

Summer is coming

Summer is on the way here in Grants Pass Real Estate. The longest day of the year is June 21st and that is officially summer. The garden is starting to take off. As are the weeds. But then, if weeds won't grow nothing else will either. By the way, do you know how to tell the difference between a flower or vegetable you want and a weed? Pull it out by the roots and if it grows back then you know it is a weed.

Over the years, our garden soil has gotten better. We started with decomposed granite and a few inches of topsoil. I added a few yards of topsoil. Then I added leaves in the fall and grass clippings, and compost during the summer. Now when I till the soil in the spring it breaks up easily and is lovely loose topsoil that gets deeper every year. I rarely use any other fertilizer and the soil stays loose, the plants grow well, and the bugs stay at a minimum. Occasionally I get a tomato hornworm, but those big ugly things are easy to see and pick off the tomatoes and squash. Splat!

Great days at Grants Pass Real Estate.

Bye for now.

chuck

Lettuce begin again.

Hello again. Sorry for the pun. I couldn't resist. Grants Pass real estate has been favored this year with relatively cool weather in a spring that has allowed cool weather crops like lettuce to last longer. I actually put these plants in late and they have done well without bolting. Spring has been delightful here. Makes me glad all over again that I live in Grants Pass and in Southern Oregon. The sign in Grants Pass says "It's the Climate" and this it true most of the time. Lovely spring and fall. Sunny summer. And an easy winter. I grew up in Iowa which had awful, cold winters that went on too long. Spring and fall were nice, but spring was on a Tuesday and then sultry summer came on with a vengence. Fall was on a Thursday and then the long winter began.

As a kid I didn't know any different. I thought all places had the same weather. When I grew up and went to a different climate I was amazed. Grants Pass real estate has the best climate I have lived in (I have lived in the Midwest, East Coast, South and now the West Coast).

Even roses grow easier here in Grants Pass real estate. The dry climate for the summer makes it hard for mildew and black spot to start or take hold on my roses. They just grow and bloom and look beautiful. Though I do have to put them behind a fence or the deer will eat them (thorns and all, ouch!).

So long for now from Grants Pass Real Estate.

chuck

Garden Time

Plant a garden. work in the dirt. Good for the soul. Put hot weather plants (melons, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers) on black plastic because Grants Pass Real Estate is in an area where the climate is warm during the day and cools off during the night. Those cool nights are not good for the hot weather plants. They will grow better and ripen sooner with the black plastic to hold the heat overnight. When I first came to Grants Pass, I planted a garden and planted melons. My first mistake was to think, 'Well, it's not raining today, maybe it will tomorrow.' I got up the next day and the sun was shining, a nice day. That happened the whole summer. Eventually I gave the plants some water. Now I have a sprinkler system on a timer. Much easier.

There are benefits of using the black plastic: you till the soil and put the plastic down, cut a hole in the plastic and plant your plant, turn on the sprinkler system and wait. The plastic not only keeps the plants warm it smoothers the weeds. No weeding. Lazy gardeners unite! Enjoy your Grants Pass Real Estate while you watch it grow and wait for God to finish His work for you to have garden produce.

Another treat this time of year for Grants Pass Real Estate is Foxglove (which is the source of digitalis used for heart medicine). The original old fashioned flower color is purple, but now there are white and red and yellow and pink colors as well. The leaves are very poisonous to humans, cattle and horses. The leaves contain a heart stimulant. Plant away from livestock.

Enjoy your Grants Pass Real Estate.

So long for now.

chuck

The Sun Shines Again

Hello,

The sun shines again. Yeah! The rain was cool and fresh, and the sun shining is warm and comfortable. Spring here in Grants Pass Real Estate is wonderful to behold. Now I need to develop my own piece of real estate by planting a garden. However, first I need to mow the weeds from last year and till them under before I plant.

A few years back I wrote this about our garden real estate:

I planted asparagus over the weekend. It sounded simple. Dig an 18 inch deep trench, fill in with 8 inches of topsoil and 4 inches of compost, plant the asparagus roots, cover with 2 inches of topsoil and as they grow fill in the other four inches with more topsoil.

I have a tiller so I thought 'oh a couple of hours tops.' It's Friday night about six o'clock. So I started tilling--10 feet long and 14 inches wide. The soil I was working in was decomposed granite--hard but not so bad since we've had a lot of rain. I would till down about 4 inches and shovel it out into a wheel barrow, then dump it around the garden fence to fill in spots where the soil did not come up to the wire (I am trying to keep digger squirrels out of the garden). Three hours later I am 10 inches down, have 8 inches to go, and it is now dark.

The next day I am pooped from digging and hauling dirt. So I rest.

Sunday afternoon, I start again. Now it is raining, but not hard, and I am living in Oregon. The trench is too deep to till in any more so I take a couple of shovels and dig down. This time I pile the dirt beside the trench (I'll haul it away later).

Once the trench is done I have to get the topsoil which is about 300 feet away. Back to the wheelbarrow. The topsoil is moist because of the rain, which is good for the asparagus; however, water is heavy. So I put in some topsoil and then 25 gallons of compost (the compost maker is right outside the garden fence {it makes compost in two weeks, such a deal}), some more topsoil, plant the asparagus and cover with two inches of topsoil. Done (except moving the dirt later) six hours. And now next year I will get a crop of fresh asparagus (purple asparagus that turns green when you stir fry it or steam it). This year I might get a couple of spears, mostly it has to grow to get established.

Years ago I rented a place that had an asparagus bed and I picked some fresh and stir fried it within the hour--it was really great. Nearly everything that is that good takes time to produce. And the time that it looks like it will take is nearly always shorter than the time it actually does take. In this case six hours instead of two (plus a year to wait). Along the way in those six hours I saw a sunset, heard several birds singing, saw a snake, saw a pair of Goldfinches sitting on the fence, saw the Purple Martin mama poke her head out of the birdhouse that we hung up this spring, saw three deer about 50 feet from me (one doe, one yearling buck and one older buck, both with their antlers in velvet). Nice surprises that I wouldn't have seen had I not been there then.

So long for now from Grants Pass Real Estate.

chuck