Tag: garden

How My Garden Grows: Spring 2011

Bumping? Can gardens be bumping? 'Cause mine is

Now that all the weird weather seems to have come to an end (really, hail in June? That’s uncalled for!) The garden has really started to spring into action. The tomatoes and zucchinis are blooming, the beans and cucumbers are sending out creepers. I imagine in two or so weeks we can start harvesting veggies from it.  I can’t wait to make bread salad using only vegetables I’ve grown and bread I’ve baked. D and I are hoping that we’ll get enough tomatoes this year to do some canning as well.

Zucchini blossoms

 

Green beans. By the time their done those creeping vines will be all over the place...
Tomato blossoms

So far, there hasn’t been much of a problem with pests. I don’t know if it’s because of the beer traps or the heavy doses of Sluggo I used early on.  Not pictured are the cucumbers, eggplants, basil, and spinach (that last one was inadvertent, it was in the winter garden and must have seeded at some point.) The cucumbers are at the very back of the box next to the fence and we’ve hung some netting between the garden box and the fence so they have something to climb. If the beans get out of control we’ll also direct them towards the netting…

Here’s a tip for those of you gardening from home as well, don’t get your blossoms wet. This has a tendency to insure they never fertilize or bear fruit. We lost out on have a season of tomatoes because of this last year. Also, don’t let your tomatoes bloom too much. All that flowering will take energy away from making nice big fruits. So once you’ve got some tomatoes on the vine cut back some of your blossoms…

If you’re lucky enough to be growing some of your own produce I’d love to see some of your pictures or hear any tips you’ve come across! Share them with me in the comments.

Spring Garden 2011: Quick Update

No silverbells or cockleshells
One Month In...

A month ago D and tore out the winter garden and put in the one for spring/summer. The weather has been really odd this last month with some days it getting into the 9os (summer weather) and then the next day being overcast and rainy (winter weather).  Tomatoes and Zucchini are really enjoying the heat but the colder nights seem to be holding them back. Despite, the odd weather everything seems to be coming in quite nicely, and with generous doses of Sluggo, the plants seem to be mostly safe from the predations of slugs and snails.

Before we get to the spring garden there was one last holdover from winter:

It all went into the composter
About 3 feet of celery

Sadly, none of the celery was usable. We grew too much this year and just weren’t able to use it, or give it away fast enough. This last plant was blocking sunlight for one of our tomato plants… I was hoping to salvage it but I think when it gets this big it is just too bitter.

Zucchinis
Tomatoes
Eggplants
Green Beans
Cucumbers
Basil

I’m hoping in another month I’ll have enough cucumbers and tomatoes to start my next project for the year: canning and pickling. I’m really excited about canning our own produce and then using it in the fall and winter. We had so many tomatoes last year that we gave bags away, or ate tomatoes with every meal. This year I want to save some of those for later.

I have two more tomato plants in the front of the house as well as a pepper plant, they seem to be doing fine as well.

Time to Get Planting! Spring Garden 2011

Down among the seedlings

It’s been a little iffy these past few weeks but I think it is safe to say Spring is finally here! Spring is the herald of many things (one of the best being Easter candy; I’m looking at you Cadbury egg) what it means in our household is spring cleaning and spring planting. The cleaning is all mostly done (I’ve just got to steam clean the carpets) so, that means it’s time to get our hands dirty in the garden.

Before we could plant we had to take everything else out. The winter garden still had celery, spinach, chard, arugula, and carrots in it; they all had to go:

After harvesting, all the greens had to be cleaned
Tiny carrots are yummy. I think we grew them too close to each other
Once cooked all this spinach will fit in a one measuring cup
Arugula is delicious. This was previously unknown to me

We kept the celery in the garden because it seemed so happy and I have no idea what to do with 4 heads of celery… Once the winter plants were out  all the ready compost out of our composter and went in, along with a bag of manure fertilizer, and soil to revitalize the plot. Then we laid out where we were going to put everything. Learning from last year we picked up fewer tomatoes and zucchini plants and got more cucumbers. We’re also attempting beans again this year to see if we can do better than the single green bean pod we got last year.

 

tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplants, basil, parsley, peppers

 

Everything in its place.
I swear I helped put this garden in. It wasn't all D.

 

 

Beer traps in Sluggo spread. It begins!

I’m hoping that we do get a lot of produce this year. D and I are both looking forward to learning how to can and pickle vegetables! I’m still trying to figure out what to do with all the celery. As it is we’re putting it in absolutely everything.

Compost Woes: Fine-tuning My Compost Pile: The Search for Black Gold

 

Not a pretty picture

 

We’ve had our composter now for a year-and-half or two years I think. It is definitely its second winter. Unlike last winter though things aren’t going as well. Instead of things breaking down and turning into a nice mulch I can spread into the garden. They’re turning into a stinky sewage. I’d like to blame this on the cold and rain but I don’t think they are completely at fault.

Our household has recently (the past six months) started composting everything possible. This means a lot of “green” is going into the composter. According to what I’ve been able to find out about composting all this “green” needs to be balanced out with “brown,” if you want the ideal environment for composting to occur. I’ve been neglecting the brown and throwing in a lot of “green” recently and things have gone sour.

That is okay though because I’m getting a little help from the United States Government:

 

The 1040EZ also known as "brown"

 

The Post Office had stacks and stacks of these packets sitting there waiting for John Q. Citizen to pick them up if they needed some tax assistance. I grabbed 20 or so figuring that’d help. I cut off the glue binding to the packets and shredded them:

 

A stack of about half of the paper I shredded

 

After the paper was shredded into the bin it went:

 

In two weeks this better look like compost...

 

Composting hasn’t turned out to be the simple formula I thought it was: scraps in, soil out. It takes a lot more tweaking and guesswork. I’m still getting the hang of it. If adding paper doesn’t do the trick I might have to get some straw or move the composter so that it gets more sun.

I never thought I’d be experimenting with the “art” of composting.

P.S. Love that title up there don’t ya?

 

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