I have planted a lot of seeds! My peas are already peeking out, and I'm crossing my fingers that I start seeing kale, spinach and lettuce in the next day or two. And I'll be honest, I planted several things that may be totally out of season, and I just decided what the heck. Let's find for ourselves why you don't plant carrots and sunflowers in the fall.
I'm checking out gardening and landscape books from the library again by the score. I see these beautiful containers overflowing with colorful veggies and herbs, and it's hard to imagine I could ever produce something like that.
One step at a time. Today my only steps:
1) trying to eradicate fire ants from our flower beds and the big container I want to put more snow peas in.
2) finding a way to raise my other large container off the ground so that it might actually drain.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Return to the dirt
After harvesting the remains of my first container garden (garlic, peppers, tomatoes, lettuce), I pretty much abandoned all thoughts of gardening for the rest of the summer. It was just so hot. Like 105 degrees and up hot. For days and weeks on end.
I can still hardly believe the cooler temperatures and the rain we're getting. After three days in the low 90's in mid-September, I looked at my husband and announced that fall had finally come and I was ready to plant arugula. For my part, I was so relieved to find that my love for this whole gardening thing had only been hibernating. My husband on the other hand... well, his eyes kind of glazed over. Just like when I bring up scrapbooking. When I start pulling out all my papers, pictures, tools and stickers, he takes a deep breath and just tries to stay out of my way. The albums themselves are great, but he has no interest in the creative chaos that creates them. He tolerates my gardening hobby much the same way. I guess I'm the little red hen, only I don't mind sharing the fruits of my labor with the dog, the cat and the duck.
So, I ended up planting two containers each of arugula and mesclun lettuce, and one large container of black-seeded simpson leaf lettuce. I wanted to plant two of these leaf lettuce containers, but I discovered that an ant invasion had overtaken my other one. I'm still figuring out what to do there. Stupid ants.
I'm much more willing to experiment, and potentially fail, this time around. Last season I read books, blogs and iPhone apps at every step of establishing my garden. Before planting each seed, I consulted at least three sources on spacing, companion plants, watering and potential problems. I wanted to be successful, and and that meant doing it perfectly. No mistakes, no dead plants, bountiful harvest.
Fortunately, I failed a lot. I made plenty of mistakes, and I had a very modest harvest. Now maybe I can just garden and enjoy the lessons, failures and successes along the way.
Figuring out what to do with the pre-existing dirt in my containers has been interesting. Here's arugula I planted in a mix of about 1/3 old dirt and 2/3 new dirt. I don't even remember the exact blend of compost, blood & bone, mushroom compost, vermiculite and perlite I used. See, I'm loosening up a little. And chalking up my first failure of the season. Each seedling is gradually shriveling up and dying. I probably should have dumped out the whole pot, rinsed it with some kind of vinegar solution and started fresh. But when you're working around a baby's nap of unpredictable length and you just wanted to get something planted, well, you just do the best you can with what you have.
I planted this arugula at the same time in a new, never-been-used pot with a fresh soil mix, and it's doing beautifully. Every once in awhile when I'm watering, I catch the spicy scent of arugula, and I almost swoon. Success! I'm watering 2 or 3 times throughout the day, trying to keep the soil moist and bitterness out of the harvest. At some point, I'll have budgeted and planned enough to invest in self-watering containers, since the DIY self-watering water bottles of last year didn't work so well. I've closed off 5 out of 6 drainage holes in these containers with duct tape this time around, and I collect the water from the remaining drainage hole in an old sour cream container.
In spite of the lack of recommended sunlight, I'm attempting a raised bed/lasagna garden in the backyard with cinder blocks I had on hand. I used the same spot my kids' first garden had been occupying; the weed cloth had kept out most of the bermuda, so it seemed a good place to start. My three year-old and I layered earthworms, thick layers of cardboard, veggie-scraps, mushroom compost, and two bags of soil mix. When October's budget roles around (hallelujah, that's tomorrow), I'm going to get 20 more blocks and some bags of organic soil mix.
We're planting snow peas. And hopefully lots of other things, but peas are the priority.
I can still hardly believe the cooler temperatures and the rain we're getting. After three days in the low 90's in mid-September, I looked at my husband and announced that fall had finally come and I was ready to plant arugula. For my part, I was so relieved to find that my love for this whole gardening thing had only been hibernating. My husband on the other hand... well, his eyes kind of glazed over. Just like when I bring up scrapbooking. When I start pulling out all my papers, pictures, tools and stickers, he takes a deep breath and just tries to stay out of my way. The albums themselves are great, but he has no interest in the creative chaos that creates them. He tolerates my gardening hobby much the same way. I guess I'm the little red hen, only I don't mind sharing the fruits of my labor with the dog, the cat and the duck.
So, I ended up planting two containers each of arugula and mesclun lettuce, and one large container of black-seeded simpson leaf lettuce. I wanted to plant two of these leaf lettuce containers, but I discovered that an ant invasion had overtaken my other one. I'm still figuring out what to do there. Stupid ants.
I'm much more willing to experiment, and potentially fail, this time around. Last season I read books, blogs and iPhone apps at every step of establishing my garden. Before planting each seed, I consulted at least three sources on spacing, companion plants, watering and potential problems. I wanted to be successful, and and that meant doing it perfectly. No mistakes, no dead plants, bountiful harvest.
Fortunately, I failed a lot. I made plenty of mistakes, and I had a very modest harvest. Now maybe I can just garden and enjoy the lessons, failures and successes along the way.
Figuring out what to do with the pre-existing dirt in my containers has been interesting. Here's arugula I planted in a mix of about 1/3 old dirt and 2/3 new dirt. I don't even remember the exact blend of compost, blood & bone, mushroom compost, vermiculite and perlite I used. See, I'm loosening up a little. And chalking up my first failure of the season. Each seedling is gradually shriveling up and dying. I probably should have dumped out the whole pot, rinsed it with some kind of vinegar solution and started fresh. But when you're working around a baby's nap of unpredictable length and you just wanted to get something planted, well, you just do the best you can with what you have.
I planted this arugula at the same time in a new, never-been-used pot with a fresh soil mix, and it's doing beautifully. Every once in awhile when I'm watering, I catch the spicy scent of arugula, and I almost swoon. Success! I'm watering 2 or 3 times throughout the day, trying to keep the soil moist and bitterness out of the harvest. At some point, I'll have budgeted and planned enough to invest in self-watering containers, since the DIY self-watering water bottles of last year didn't work so well. I've closed off 5 out of 6 drainage holes in these containers with duct tape this time around, and I collect the water from the remaining drainage hole in an old sour cream container.
In spite of the lack of recommended sunlight, I'm attempting a raised bed/lasagna garden in the backyard with cinder blocks I had on hand. I used the same spot my kids' first garden had been occupying; the weed cloth had kept out most of the bermuda, so it seemed a good place to start. My three year-old and I layered earthworms, thick layers of cardboard, veggie-scraps, mushroom compost, and two bags of soil mix. When October's budget roles around (hallelujah, that's tomorrow), I'm going to get 20 more blocks and some bags of organic soil mix.
We're planting snow peas. And hopefully lots of other things, but peas are the priority.
Apparently, earthworms like living under cinder blocks. My three year-old and I dug up a bucketful to transplant from the old resting places of these blocks. Frankly, this was a fun afternoon project even if the earthworms don't survive the transition. Digging in the dirt with this little guy was a blast.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Shady Seconds
At the suggestion of a friend, I decided to migrate my cherry tomato vines to the shade of the backyard. They'd stopped setting fruit because of the heat, and I was complaining about how much we miss our front porch cherry tomato pickings. My friend said that if I could keep the vines alive through the summer, they'd bear fruit again in the fall. As hard as I worked to grow the things from seed in the first place, I would love to milk them for all their worth! After evaluating my vines, two of the four seemed too diseased to bother with, and the remaining hanging bag tomato was happy and shady enough. I decided to re-pot the only other candidate.
Lo and behold, she might set fruit in a few weeks! Right now the pot is getting only a few hours of morning sun, but the vine is a beautiful, happy green with new growth!
I've also been thrilled too see one of my sweet pepper plants battling back. I'm sure I'm showing my rookie stripes, but I was under the impression that my harvest there was done. I pulled up all the garlic I was growing around the perimeter of my pepper boxes weeks ago, and pretty well quit watering the poor little plants! When my husband told me there were a handful of new pepper blossoms on the porch, I didn't believe him. Shows how much I know.
Lo and behold, she might set fruit in a few weeks! Right now the pot is getting only a few hours of morning sun, but the vine is a beautiful, happy green with new growth!
I've also been thrilled too see one of my sweet pepper plants battling back. I'm sure I'm showing my rookie stripes, but I was under the impression that my harvest there was done. I pulled up all the garlic I was growing around the perimeter of my pepper boxes weeks ago, and pretty well quit watering the poor little plants! When my husband told me there were a handful of new pepper blossoms on the porch, I didn't believe him. Shows how much I know.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Our community garden is seriously awesome. It even has chickens now! Which means I can't stop at the garden anymore with the kiddos unless I'm ready to spend at least 5 minutes in the chicken coop.
Check out this sunflower. It's 12 feet tall or I'm smurf. I've heard that sunflowers draw up toxins from the soil, besides just providing yummy seeds. But nothing is more impressive to me than the insane heights they reach.
And here's the sad reality that is my watermelon vine... it had some blossoms last week, but I'm not holding out much hope at this point for fruit. I just haven't been able to keep up with watering it. I weeded last week with a vengeance, but they're all creeping back. I'm wondering if it's too late to put down some newspaper and mulch... my efforts at the community garden this year are rocky combination of honest, rookie effort and over-extended-mommy-doing-the-bare-minimum-to-grow-something. Which means I probably won't make it over there with newspaper. Or harvest a melon this year. Did I mention that it was 110 degrees today?
Speaking of which, I'm going to try growing melons in the areas of my backyard where I had deemed the hours of sun inadequate. In north Texas heat, a little shade (and backyard access for consistent watering's sake) might be just what the doctor ordered.
Poor little plant...
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Ripening
Watching my tomatoes and peppers turn colors has been enthralling.... it's miraculous in a way. The next time I need a miracle, maybe I'll just walk around a farm. This is the first day I saw my brandywine tomato start to turn. I can hardly wait to eat it.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Follow the Instructions
This is good advice actually. How often do you hear people talking about how great it was when they DIDN'T follow instructions. Let's be honest, usually it's the opposite, which is why spouses tell stories for years on each other for how catastrophically wrong things once went as a result of NOT following (or even) reading instructions.
Which is what I did (or didn't do...?) with our live beneficial nematode treatment and ladybugs. Sigh. To be fair, the ladybugs that I ordered on Amazon didn't even come with instructions. So I should have looked some up! As should anyone who wants live insect organic treatments for their gardens to actually set up shop and work.
Release them AFTER watering in the early morning or late at night. And DON'T release them in the heat of the day. I think those are the highlights. Oh, and 10 or 11 am is NOT early morning. Having a 2 month old baby who is actually letting you sleep in, is the best excuse I've ever had for not following these instructions... but I wasted about $60 total. That's some expensive sleep time.
Which is what I did (or didn't do...?) with our live beneficial nematode treatment and ladybugs. Sigh. To be fair, the ladybugs that I ordered on Amazon didn't even come with instructions. So I should have looked some up! As should anyone who wants live insect organic treatments for their gardens to actually set up shop and work.
Release them AFTER watering in the early morning or late at night. And DON'T release them in the heat of the day. I think those are the highlights. Oh, and 10 or 11 am is NOT early morning. Having a 2 month old baby who is actually letting you sleep in, is the best excuse I've ever had for not following these instructions... but I wasted about $60 total. That's some expensive sleep time.
I bought my nematodes at a fantastic local shop in Fort Worth called Elisabeth Anna's Old World Garden, who gave me great instructions, which I followed very poorly. Wherever you get your nematodes, the instructions are the same. Live beneficial insects are supposed to be an amazing help to organic gardening... hopefully, I'll be able to speak from experience on this next time I give them a whirl. In the meantime, I'm an growing expert on what NOT to do.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Eating from the porch
I'm having a hard time finding time to blog. Too busy living life and all. :) BUT we are finally enjoying the fruits of our labor in a literal way. Tonight's supper was black beans, feta, lime and basmati rice wrapped in fulka roti, plus homegrown tomatoes and onions and garlic from the community garden.
I'm officially a fan of the upside-down tomato growers. I have two hosting cherry-sized tomato plants, and the one on the shadier side of the porch is producing like gangbusters. The one in the sun has been battling blight (I think), but is still providing a small handful of ripe tomatoes every day.
If we had to live off our harvest, obviously we'd starve. We have the luxury of gardening simply for the joy of it. And I've been enthralled with every ounce of our homegrown produce. We've had good luck with mesclun and romaine lettuce, a total of four sweet peppers, handfuls of cherry and sun sugar tomatoes, and herbs (basil is my herbal obsession this year). I'm still waiting to harvest the garlic, though I suppose I could pull it up in a pinch.
My pride and joy of the garden is my only surviving heirloom tomato... To anyone else I know the plant is spindly and pathetic, but I see honest effort, both on my part and that of the plant. It's survived me, cutworms, slugs, flea beetles, inadvertant overwatering, and crazy Texas weather ... I will definitely save the seeds.
I'm officially a fan of the upside-down tomato growers. I have two hosting cherry-sized tomato plants, and the one on the shadier side of the porch is producing like gangbusters. The one in the sun has been battling blight (I think), but is still providing a small handful of ripe tomatoes every day.
If we had to live off our harvest, obviously we'd starve. We have the luxury of gardening simply for the joy of it. And I've been enthralled with every ounce of our homegrown produce. We've had good luck with mesclun and romaine lettuce, a total of four sweet peppers, handfuls of cherry and sun sugar tomatoes, and herbs (basil is my herbal obsession this year). I'm still waiting to harvest the garlic, though I suppose I could pull it up in a pinch.
My pride and joy of the garden is my only surviving heirloom tomato... To anyone else I know the plant is spindly and pathetic, but I see honest effort, both on my part and that of the plant. It's survived me, cutworms, slugs, flea beetles, inadvertant overwatering, and crazy Texas weather ... I will definitely save the seeds.
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