A site about the beautiful gardens in Southwest Idaho, as well as general articles and resources.
// June 21st, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Spring, Water Features
I’ve had kind of a crappy day, and my garden is in sad shape, again. Still. Whatever. So I decided that I’d go through pictures of my mom’s garden I took recently to cheer myself up. And it really worked. My mom’s garden is definitely a huge source of inspiration for me.
Enjoy the pictures! More in the Gardening in Boise Flickr group, accessible from those pictures on the right.
Happy Summer Solstice!
// May 31st, 2010 // No Comments » // Pests, Spring
I really meant to write more posts this spring. Between work picking up, moving to a new office (now with a long commute) and the weather being so bad, I haven’t had much time or inspiration to write about gardening!
The upside of my new office and the extended drive is that my chosen route takes me through the countryside. As much as it exists in the near-desert here, at least. I see farms of all types and sizes, and I think about how much I’d love to have so much room some day. So much potential and opportunities. It’s beautiful out here and I’m glad I have the small space I do at the moment.
Of course this area isn’t without it’s challenges. At our house, we fight against a very persistent and fearless gopher (he came out of the ground in front of Jon yesterday!). We’ve laid down metal mesh in our veggie bed and hope that will keep our edibles safe this year. But the rest of the yard is fair game as far as the critter is concerned. I worry for my flowers!!
A fun surprise this year is the presence of what seems to be a rabbit. All the leaves on my snap peas were delicately chewed off. And the lettuce was nibbled. We’ve put some barriers up that should keep him out!
And finally there’s the weather. After a lovely few weeks before and after the frost date, the temperatures dropped, it rained for days on end, and we had no sun whatsoever. The seedlings I had planted started looking very sad indeed. Despite me being sick, yesterday we replaced a lot of those sad plants with the last of what we had inside. If these fail, I will have almost entirely failed my first year of growing things from seed!! Live and learn, I guess! I do have high hopes; the plants look great so far. I don’t have many seedlings of any kind left… mostly tomatoes.
My mom and I also planted most of my herbs in my containers. That was great, getting that done.
I made a few notes on how I could improve my process next year. I have certainly learned a lot and accomplished a lot.
Pictures of everything are on the way, I just need to get over this darn cold and find some time!
// May 1st, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Seeds, Spring
*UPDATE* Due to some unfortunate circumstances (mainly the weather!) a lot of my available seedlings had to be used to replace things in my garden. I have cherry tomatoes available, and both kinds of basil.
Hey, gardeners in Boise! I have a HUGE amount of seedlings, and in less than 2 weeks, it will be time to plant them outside! Here is my list of what I’m giving away. Send me a note on Facebook or leave a comment here telling me which seedlings you’d like to have. An asterik next to a plant means I have a limited supply of that particular seedling, and I’ll make a note when I run out.
I’ll be hardening off the seedlings this week, so they’ll be ready to go.
Veggies
Artichokes *
Cabbage
Cucumbers *
Lettuce (romaine and butterhead)
Peppers (green)
Tomatoes (cherry, “chocolate” cherry and normal size)
Zucchini *
Fruit
Cantaloupe *
Herbs
Basil (Genovese and sweet)
Chamomile
Lavender
Parsley
Thyme
Flowers
Sunflowers
Other
Dusty Miller
// April 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Flowers, Seeds, Spring, Vegetables
My seedlings have come a long way already! I’ve already re-potted quite a few and made room for more in the tray for more. Here are some of the most recent pictures. I may update in the next day or so with more, since we rearranged our plant shelves.
And the pansies on the front porch.
// March 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // Seeds, Spring
Hurray! The weather is starting to change, and it feels like Spring! I am absolutely loving the beautiful weather we’ve been having here. We had a couple days of rain this week, and that’s wonderful as well.
In my last post, I forgot to mention another resource for seeds. Local businesses such as hardware and garden stores have many seeds available this time of the year. I bought all of my vegetable seeds a few weeks ago, and will be buying my flowers this weekend. I bought a seed starting kit, and will be setting that up this weekend.
For everyone in Boise, Fred Meyer is offering a coupon for 50% off all their seeds. Go check that out!!
Stay tuned for pictures of seedlings!
// June 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // General, Spring
I should have posted about this sooner, but today is the Boise Garden Tour until 5pm. Here is the information: http://www.lunarialeague.org.
My mom and I went this morning and WOW there are some amazing gardens here! I took so many (over 200) pictures but I don’t know if I should post some of them here… Anyone know the etiquitte/protocol on that?
We got a lot of good inspiration; I’m going to be drawing plans/ideas for the rest of the afternoon probably.
// May 27th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Fruit, Projects, Spring, Vegetables
We have always had a small garden area in the backyard, and I had planned on planting a few things in it this year. Then we heard about a friend who was going to build a raised bed with chicken wire underneath, so the gophers wouldn’t ruin the garden. We have a problem with gophers so we thought we’d try this same idea! Thus began our biggest project yet.
Here’s what it looked like to begin with (after we dug up all the dirt and mixed it up a bit, and took out the surrounding bricks):
Then Jon built the retaining wall, laid down the chicken wire, mixed in “garden soil”, filled the bed and placed the path down the middle:
Next we extended it even more, and I planted everything (that took a lot of planning):
We will eventually extend the garden all the way to the fence (and plant some raspberries near the back corner), and next year maybe make it into an “L” shape against the wooden fence. Jon did AMAZING work on this, I really am impressed with how it turned out.
Here’s the final arrangement of the plants as of today (the existing area is 12ft x 8ft):
I just now noticed how different the hill behind our chainlink fence looks between the first pic and the last. If you go up that hill, there’s a canal there, and that’s where we get our irrigation water. The city maintains that area, and in the 2-3 weeks it’s taken us to complete our garden, they’ve mowed the grass behind the fence and it looks like its dried up a lot already. We need to get back there with a weed wacker to get what’s right up against the fence. I plan on planting enough stuff against the fence that eventually we won’t be able to see much back there!
// May 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Spring, Succulents
I have been wanting to get some of these beautiful plants for a LONG time and today I finally did. A large home improvement chain store here has a display with many different types, and describes how to arrange a succulent garden.
There are three types: focal (the tallest, biggest plant), structural (supporting plants that are a medium size) and textural (the little plants that fill in the rest of the space).
Here’s a picture of all my choices:
And here’s how it looks arranged into the little pot, along with some rocks (including some special ones I’ve collected over the years).
I have extra plants that didn’t fit, so I will be making another pot to complement this one. Maybe next year I’ll do an in-ground succulent garden if these do really well!
// May 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Flowers, Fruit, Spring, Vegetables
Today my Mom and I went plant shopping and had so much fun. We went to a nursery down the road and a larger chain store. I sigh wistfully every time I drive past the nursery, so it was about time that I went. I was not disappointed. What a great local resource!
We focused on plants for the food garden, a couple shade planters and the long back flower bed. I need to figure out what I want to plant in my bigger back flower bed, but that will be soon enough.
Altogether, we bought the following -
Veggies
Cucumbers
Zucchinis
Peppers (Red, Green and Yellow)
Fruit
Tomatoes (Sweet 100, Cherry, and Beefmaster)
Grapes
(will be re-planting strawberries)
Flowers
Moss Roses
Wave Petunias (will need to get more, the area I want to cover is bigger than I thought)
Regatta Sapphire (Lobelia)
Summer Wave (Torenia)
Catalina (Torenia)
Snowstorm (Sateria)
Walkabout Sunset
Asparagus Fern
Variegata
New Guinea Impatiens
Fiesta Ole Rose
Morning Glories (seeds)
I also bought a few different kinds of succulent plants; I will be posting a separate post showcasing those!
Finally, we also purchased a good number of pots/containers. I have some exciting ideas for those containers! Including a fountain and/or water garden.
Stay tuned for posts about our raised vegetable garden we’ve built this year!
// April 8th, 2009 // No Comments » // Spring, Weather
In this area, a FULL day of rain is a rare occurence. Usually the clouds roll in in the early afternoon, then it rains for about 30 minutes, and the clouds blow away. Today, however, started out gloomy and its been raining on and off all day. We’ve had at least 3 downpours throughout the day. I am so excited about all the rain! It’s lovely to have the sound of the rain outside of the window.
Hopefully it will inspire our tulips to finally bloom! They’ve just been hanging out, teasing me. I want to see the bright colors! I have one set of daffodils that’s sitting there all by its lonesome.
I love spring. More than I ever used to.
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