Hello again, friend!
Come on in to The Raven's Garden. Have a look
around and just relax and enjoy your stay.
No need to close the gate. All are welcome here as
long as you are not causing trouble.

     Well, when I retired from the military as well as the general rat race, I barely suspected that I would do the almost cliched thing and take up gardening as one of my little hobbies. But after we lucked into home ownership in the Eastern Oregon town where we grew up, we have started at least experimenting with different things to grow and cultivate. So, I would not call this a garden yet, but after tossing stuff out there over the past half decade since we moved back here, I think that we can legitimately claim to have a garden next year, and are formulating a plan as we go along how the front and back yards will be set up next year.

     So far, we have had promising success with sunflowers, tomatoes (of course), bell peppers (also of course), cannabis, chives, scallions, and leeks. We also have successfully germinated an avacado seed and now have a young tree growing in the kitchen, plus the ever prevalent spider plants. Some of the things we are growing are not involving enough to really do anything like a major feature here, though they will have their own just in case. The leeks, chives, and scallions will be in one section, called Onionkin, and the peppers and tomatoes will be filed under Nightshade. Thus far, in our experiments, there are three that will be featured majorly here: sunflowers, cannabis, and the wild rose bush out in the front yard. The other stuff will get their pages updated when and if anything interesting concerning them comes up.

     Here is an overview of what we have been doing this past Summer. Next year, I will be documenting and showing much more of this stuff early on and sharing our works as they develop, and may even have a few time lapse videos to show off for major projects and grows.



     The garden here is going to be the starting point for my Noobs Helping Noobs concept, in which, I as a general noob concerning a lot of interests and hobbies will be sharing my own learning and insights in hopes other noobs can benefit and share themselves as you all learn and grow along with me. Because remember, no matter how experienced and knowledgeable you may be, you can always pick up and learn new things if you maintain that beginner's mindset. And mark my words, for at least two of the three major features here, there is still plenty to learn and discover.

     So, why am I suddenly into gardening and growing? Well, I have realized that there is something extremely satisfying about the entire process of creating, nurturing, and cultivating living things, and learning new stuff in the process. Looking at the sunflowers that are entering their final stages for the season, or the cannabis plants with their buds ripening and seeds developing for future projects, or the peppers going from green to yellow to orange or red; I just can't help but smile at the thought that our labors made this, something to add to the planet's beauty as well as be useful to us, friends and family, and the local critters even. And this year was mostly half assed efforts by and large (next year, instead of half assed, we will make a better effort to use both cheeks instead). I am already imagining how the next season will go, and thinking about how we are going to get stuff ready in advance over the winter for next year's projects. It should be even better and prettier next season.

So, which garden path do you wish to explore?

Trees As Houseplants

It started with several nice successes with avacado trees grown from seeds taken from avacados purchased at Grocery Outlet. In fact, we now have several growing and thriving indoors just awaiting some further attention, with the most amazing looking one being the one that was started back in late 2018. That will be one of the things covered inside here. This has encouraged us to try other various trees as houseplants now. So far, the only other seeds I have handy are lemon seeds, but that is enough to start, especially since we have our hands full with other little projects that are begging our attention. Once I have some success with lemon seeds, I will give oranges and limes a try as well...if I can ever get any oranges and limes (and other citrus fruits) that aren't seedless.

The Salad Bowl

This is for little projects that just don't quite warrant their own section yet.

Just Daisies

Also trying Shasta Daisies. From some reading up I've done, they are apparently good companion plants for sunflowers.

420 Ravenplume Lane

Here is the "secret" garden, where the cannabis grows, and matters related to the wacky weed are shared.

Cleopatra

This is all for the wild rose bush that has been here since before I had this house and even before my little brother and his family owned the place.

So far, I am not sure what I might do with her, but Cleo has drawn my interests, and I do want to learn howto tend to her, pretty her up, and perhaps even strive to turn her into one of these cliched prize winning rose bushes that you hear about everywhere else.

Welcome Weeds

Not all weeds are bad weeds. So far, we have found three (not counting the happy stuff) that are always welcome in our yard, as long as they don't take over. Thus far, we are working with clover, Malva Neglecta (aka common mallow), and spearmint

A Web of Green

This could become a further interest at any time, so may as well give the spider plants their own section.

     We are now closing in on the end of October; and with the three consecutive overnight freezes we had last week, everything has been harvested, other than a few tomatoes that were still all green and would not be ripening any further. Instead of doing a bunch of videos on each project, I am just going to do the big wrap up on everything here, though there is more material coming for the sunflowers, cannabis, avacados, and even a small final on the peppers, though the last will mostly be photo. Not positive yet.

     So although I did not have much to show here this year, here is the first wrap up video, the 2020 End of Season presentation.

     I don't have a whole lot recorded to summarize our 2021 efforts, but it was a pretty busy season, with us dabbling in quite a few different plants. The sunflowers surrounded the porch and also made up a nice display along both the tall fence sections. Also had a most excellent cannabis harvest, discovered a wild spearmint plant out in the back yard (there is a major field of the stuff right outside of town, one of Wrigley's biggest suppliers), and am trying to get some clover to propagate as well.

     We also discovered the common mallow, Malva Neglecta and its many uses, and are working on cultivating small controlled patches of the stuff ourselves. Yeah, it sorta took over the finished part of the front yard, to where it was probably about a 50/50 Mallow to grass ratio. The other big achievement was getting a cutting going from Cleopatra, our wild Irish Rose out front by the porch. I think this one will be planted in the southeast corner of the front yard, and will hopefully help attract hummingbirds this year. The leeks and scallions did fabulously as well. In fact, the scallions got big enough that other than knowing what was planted where, you could not tell what was leek and what was scallion.

     That wraps it up for 2021 in Review. I will hopefully add another update soon to give an overview of what I hope to achieve for 2022. And of course, I will add some content to the various individual sections below as well, once I get it all sorted out and decide what is worthy of showing off.

     So, we are here at the end of February, 2022; and I'm going to start the "season" with an introduction to a wide variety of things to be grown from seed (with more to come up later in the season). From left to right here, I will be playing around with...

• Cucumbers : Marketmore 70
• Cauliflower : Snowball X
• Sugar peas : Dwarf Gray
• Bell peppers
• A couple different sunflowers from my 2021 grow, ones I call Butterblume-2021 and Honeyplume-2021
• My 2019 cannabis wildlings, that I call Ravenplume Wildling-2019 or RPW2019
• Shasta Daisies
• Broccoli : De Cicco

     I know already that the sunflower, cannabis, and snow pea seeds will germinate fine in a cup of water, a technique I call 2 seeds 1 cup, and so that is the only way I will be doing them; with about half being germinated under darkness (what I call Darkwater Germination) and the other half under normal wake up to bedtime lighting (now known as Topside Germination).

     All the others, except the Shastas, will also have a mix of Darkwater and Topside, but then also a batch to be germinated folded up in a damp paper towel, sealed in a baggie, and kept in the dark. I don't have a name for that technique yet. The Shastas will only be done with the damp paper towel in a baggie. Cauliflowers and peppers will share a cap of water, as well as a baggie (along with one of the cucumber seeds). The Shastas and broccoli will also share a baggie.

     And now we get them put in place. There we go. Now we have two groups that will germinate under topside lighting conditions and two that will germinate darkwater. And now the towel and baggie seeds are secured in the back of the drawer.

     And here is my bumbling video narrative of all of this...

     I did not get around to the "Sunflower Sunday" I thought I was going to have today; mostly due to the fact that much of the dirt I needed outside is still frozen, plus I have other things to attend to as well. That said, It only took 2 days for the sunflower seeds to sprout. Two of the Darkwater Honeyplumes and one Topside Honeyplume. Those are now set aside and being kept topside in their own cap of water to continue their development. Anything else that germinates in either of these cups (other than the broccoli seeds) will get transfered to the cap as well. I know the broccoli seeds will be just fine kept in their cups. That is it for today, other than the journal video for the above entry...

     And later in the day, one Darkwater Butterblume-2021 and a Topside Honeyblume sprouted, as did a cannabis seed, and quite a few broccoli seeds, as did all the broccoli seeds that were in the damp paper towel inside a plastic baggie. Nothing yet with the peppers, cauliflowers, peas, or cucumbers.

And of course, you can always feel free to send an email my way with questions, suggestions, or whatever.

And remember; be excellent to each other, and party on!

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