Back to the land & other ramblings...

After what seemed like an eternity of not planting things, I finally got back to planting yesterday. I had some peat pellets so I soaked them and started seeds of cherry tomatoes, green beans and zucchini in hopes of planting the transplants out in February. I also planted my strawberry roots and will hopefully have some delicious berries to munch on later in the season. I put 6 roots in the hanging strawberry planter and 3 in the garden. I can't wait to see which one produces better.

Today I planted out several of the red onion bulbs I bought. I hope these grow much more rapidly than the onion seeds I started, which after a promising start don't seem to be making much progress in the way of growth these last weeks. I wonder in our crazy weather has anything to do with that. Day to day, this winter has gone from 50 degrees to 80 degrees. My plants must be confused.

In the past I've grown vegetables, but I am always discouraged when the garden doesn't produce as much as I would like it to. At the end of every year I give up and tell myself it's not worth the hassle, I decide to take a year off, and within a couple months I regret my decision. However this year I'm going to stick to it. I'm going to amend this soil until it's beautiful and black. I'm going to practice succession planting (instead of over planting and having months between harvests). I'm reading up on companion planting and will put my knowledge to good use.

I've been on the lookout for the 20 cent seeds from WalMart again. I figure until I know more about what I'm doing I shouldn't invest too much in the garden. And if I want to try a new variety of something, 20 cents is an investment I can make without feeling guilty afterward.

I have located a source of free manure and composted manure, but now I have to figure out how to get it to my house. I don't want to stink up the van with horse poo, being that my kids will be with me and all. And there just isn't room in my husbands sedan to fit what I need.

Items I need:
A way to transport compost and manure
Potatoes to plant
More Pots, Buckets, Bins, etc. (Anything I can plant in.)
A Pitchfork.
A metal rake for leveling the soil.

Next steps in the garden:
Harvest all of the spinach, then pull the plants. For the time and space Spinach requires, the plants are small and not overly productive (and they are getting eaten by something - there are little holes all over the leaves, but no bugs/worms/caterpillars that I can find) so I'll use the space for other crops.
Plant the yellow onion bulbs.
Fertilize existing crops (compost tea foliage spray?)

On a final note, I have been able to harvest about 2 lbs of salad greens so far, which fed my family salads for 5 meals! I've got a couple radishes that look like they may be ready to harvest, but I don't want to jump the gun and yank them out if they aren't ready. Tomorrow I think I'll do it and share my bounty with my Mother.

Have a wonderful day!

What I'm Planting - December 2011

Here's a rough layout of what I will be planting tomorrow.  I know space looks tight in my chart, but it is not to scale.  The green markings are existing plantings (planted in November).  The red markings are additions I am going to be making, based on the Vegetable Companion Chart.

New Plantings Today

Today we decided to re-pot the ghost pepper plant because it was root bound.  We bought a huge plastic bucket from Big Lots, drilled holes 3" from the bottom all around the pot, added soil and planted the ghost.  Hopefully this will provide adequate room for the roots to spread!

With a second bucket we bought we drilled the holes, added soil, and I planted 6 Swiss Chard seeds, which I will later thin to 3 plants.

I had 4 8" pots laying around, so I filled them with potting soil and planted Kohl Rabi in each one.  I've never had Kohl Rabi before, but have heard good things about it, and have wanted to try it.  I figured this was the easiest way to do so.

I felt like a murderer as I thinned my seedlings in the main bed.  It saddened my heart to pluck out the tiny babies I've nurtured these last weeks.  However, everything I've read online says you really do need to thin seedlings so they don't have to compete for water and nutrients, so I did it.  The only plants I didn't thin were the Mesclun.  I'm waiting until the greens get a bit bigger before I thin them so I can make a baby greens salad.  It made me feel a bit better for composting the tiny seedlings.  At least I know their nutrients will help provide a good future in the compost.

I've also decided to use the extra blue barrel as a potato grow bin.  We have an ABUNDANCE of pine needles here, so I'll try using them instead of purchasing straw.  They are more acidic, which the potatoes like anyway.  :)

UPDATE 12/2/11:  The transplanted ghost pepper plant seems to be loving it's new environment.  After a couple months of being seemingly dormant, we finally have more buds.  Since we purchased The Ghost last summer we've only gotten 2 peppers from the whole plant.  Hopefully we will get a big yield now.  

What I'm Planting - November 2011 - Week 1 Update

This morning I went out to check on things in the garden and water and found some tiny holes (already) in the seed leaves of my broccoli plants.  Last years homemade "garlic, onion, pepper stock" spray was a big flop and I didn't get much of anything out of the ground. For this year I've decided that yield is more important to me than pesticide free is right now, so I gave everything a good misting of Ortho Max Gtarden & Landscape Insect Killer.  The bottle says it kills 100+ Insects and is safe for use on vegetables, fruits, flowers and shrubs.  I was gentle/light on the mist since my plants are so tiny, not even having their true leaves yet.  We shall see how well this works for keeping pests away. 

As far as the garden grows, I am very happy with how things are progressing.  

All of my lettuces are doing wonderfully!  They are beautiful shades of light greens.  I'm afraid I may have crowded them too much, but am not sure when to thin.  I'd like to wait until they get a bit bigger so I can see which will be the stronger plants and then thin the weaklings.  

Spinach finally sprouted a couple days ago.  It's looking healthy and strong and I'm very excited!

My cauliflower seeds have all come up now too.  I almost gave up hope on them, but they made it!

Broccoli looks brilliant (other than those little bite marks).

My carrots are all sprouting!!!    Yes, that required bold because in all my gardening adventures I've never had any luck getting carrots to grow!  I'm hoping for a BIG yield!

The garlic I planted hasn't done anything so far.  Folks say it has to stay in the ground through winter and can't be harvested until Spring next year.  I'm hoping it's just a SLOW grower and I don't get too discouraged and dig it up.  

The Turnips are all popping up finally too!  This was another I thought I may give up on (notice a trend here?) but I'm glad I didn't.  Very nice spacing and sprouting.

My radishes are all sprouting now too!  I don't eat radishes, but LOVE the idea of harvesting in a month or less.  That's my kind of garden turn around.  Who knows, maybe I will learn to love them.  

There is no activity from my beets or onions yet.  Again I am hoping I just need to practice some PATIENCE!  I won't give up just yet.  :)

As a reminder, here's what I planted:

Planted Saturday, 11/19:

• Lettuce (Bibb, Grand Rapids, 3 test varities, mesclun mix)
• Spinach (Bloomsdale Long Standing)
• Cauliflower (Early Snowball A)
• Broccoli (De Cicco)
• Carrots (Danver's #126)

Sunday, 11/20/11 I planted:

• 6 cloves of white garlic (from Publix).  I've heard mixed results using store bought garlic so I want to try this myself to see how it goes.
• Turnips (Purple Top White Globe)

Monday, 11/21/11 I planted:

• Beets (Detroit Dark Red, Morse's Strain)
• Onions (Hybrid Granex Yellow PRR)
• Radishes (Icicle, Short Top)

What I'm Planting - November 2011

As soon as it settled down around here, I raced out to plant my new garden bed!

Saturday, 11/19/11 I planted:

• Lettuce (Bibb, Grand Rapids, 3 test varities, mesclun mix)
• Spinach (Bloomsdale Long Standing)
• Cauliflower (Early Snowball A)
• Broccoli (De Cicco)
• Carrots (Danver's #126)

Sunday, 11/20/11 I planted:

• 6 cloves of white garlic (from Publix).  I've heard mixed results using store bought garlic so I want to try this myself to see how it goes.
• Turnips (Purple Top White Globe)

Monday, 11/21/11 I planted:

• Beets (Detroit Dark Red, Morse's Strain)
• Onions (Hybrid Granex Yellow PRR)
• Radishes (Icicle, Short Top)

I was excited to see the lettuces sprouting after only 2 days!  At 3 days I had broccoli come up, and at 4 days I'm seeing lots of little spinach plants showing themselves.  

Last year I double dug a 4' x 7' bed and amended it with lots of compost and nutrients.  After weeks of watering I saw a few pathetic little sprouts come up, but never got a full harvest from any of the plants (except a few dozen cherry tomatoes).  

For this new bed, Justin Cave (the host of HGTV's "Ground Breakers") brought in a half dump truck of organically amended, healthy soil.  I'm amazed at what a difference this good quality soil has made so far!   

To mark my rows I am using "craft sticks" since I have a ton leftover from a past craft project.  I've used them in the past and do know they will start to rot eventually, but that's okay because as long as I know what I planted where I'll remember what's what when the true leaves come in.  Now if I can just keep little hands from pulling the markers out I'll be all set!  :)