Tennessee Garden Diary April 2008 Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov | Dec Links are good as of their posting date. Comments may be directed to bradley@wogsland.org.

Frost again last night. Double damn. Yesterday I transplanted some of the birdhouse gourd plants to plot B.

Frost last night. Damn.

There was quite a bit of rain this past weekend whilst we visited Alpharetta. Now the 3 Cabernet vines and the Chardonnay vine are growing mold.

Noticed large cracks today in the base of the Chardonnay vine and the Cabernet Sauvignon furtherest from it. The Cabernet Sauvignon vine in between those two has a bug living in its tip. I tried to kill it with ant spray.

All the vines except for the Cabernet Sauvignon/100-R now have nice little buds on them. The Chardonnay and Thompson have the most growth so far. Gardening is truly a struggle in patience. Plot A Developments: I've labelled the plot closest to the house plot A. Birdhouse gourd plants continue to pop up all over the place. Many snow peas have attached themselves to the lowest rung of the trellises. The parsley plant is getting huge - I don't know how we'll ever use that much parsley. The cilantro has a bunch of new short leaves. Plot B Developments: The 3 surviving cucumber plants are hanging in there, but look pretty sad. The sunflower plants are getting rather larger - I think I'll have to thin them soon. Some of the basil leaves look a little brown. Not sure why. Several days ago I transplanted some more grass over by the chicken coop and it seems to be doing well, as is the grass seed in some lesser trod areas.

Now for some pics:

2 of the cucmbers still clinging to life.

The snow peas and their trellises.

Gourds popping up amongst the onions.

New shoots abound around the bamboo.

The Tifblue and Climax blueberry bushes have lots of flowers, but no berries yet.

Little pears starting to form on the tree.

Looking closely reveals little buds on the Chardonnay vine.

Plums are ripening on their heavily pruned tree.

Today it rained. Some of the peas have finally reached their trellises. The 3 cucumber plants to survive the frost are scarred, but recovering. Most everything is growing well, including the grass seed by the chicken shed, which is finally poking up from under the pine straw.

There was a frost last night. I think we may have rushed to plant the garden a bit early. Upside is I guess we'll learn which plants are frost resistant. I don't think it was too hard of a frost though, because the basil is firm and unwilted and I remember the first really hard frost of last fall killed our last basil plant to the point were by morning it was wilted. About half the cucumber plants have expired though. This afternoon it warmed up and I noticed the sunflowers have pushed their way up through the soil. It's also looking more and more like the cucumbers will be a complete bust - there are only 3 left!

A cold snap has taken temperatures down to the 40s but it doesn't look like there will be a frost. Plus here's a video about my planting the vineyard last week:

This evening we also planted some bulbs which produce purple flowers the neighbors up the hill had dug out of their woods along the eastern side of the house.

Thomas Jefferson kept a garden diary of his attempts at growing various plants, including Vinis Vinifera, at which he was famously unsuccessful. Ironically we tried this in Sunnyvale with a few pots before taking up blogging about gardening here. Moving clockwise from the front door: - The 8 Faulkner's Japanese Boxwoods I planted near the sidewalk on March 2nd to extend our hedge are doing well. - Spearmint still grows near the juncture of the driveway and the sidewalk. - The pear tree has flowered and the fertilized flowers are becoming fruit. - Yellow flowers are blooming by the mailbox. - The two blueberry bushes (planted last October - Tifblue and Climax) have started flowering this past week. - The bamboo I planted last October in front of the trash cans is finally sending up new shoots. One is almost 3ft tall and this species of clumping bamboo is eventually supposed to reach 6-8 feet. - I moved the mint and thyme Cara put in the garden to the side of the house last week and built a compost box a few weeks ago. - Alora and Brittan plants snow peas and onions last month in the garden. - The oregano, parsley, sage and spearmint survived the winter in the garden and remain, whereas freezing whether killed the basil. - Last week I planted bell peppers, cucumbers, jalapeños, sunflowers (seeds), cilantro, basil in the garden and built a trellis for the snow peas. - Several birdhouse gourd seeds from the one we used as fertilizer last year have germinated and are growing among the peas and onions. - I've planted grass seed on the barren area by the chicken shed where we cut down the pine Sept 29th of last year. - The plum trees had a nasty infection, so I removed one and I'm trying to save the other via extreme pruning. - The vineyard went in on 4/4, but the "sticks" as Cara calls them haven't produced any growth yet. - The dark pink honeysuckle by the streetsign on the corner has started to flower. - Overall, the lawn is infested with ~1000 dandelions.