July 24, 2011

Ah, what a beautiful summer day! Weather's in the upper 70s and the boys and I had a blast.  We rode our bikes til the tires fell off and got to spend time with a really nice neighborhood couple and their two girls that are the same ages as my boys.  After we all got tired riding, we were treated to Otter Pops and watermelon in their back yard.  Can you say yard envy!?  They had at least 100 feet by 50 feet of southern exposure flat back yard.  I just couldn't resist drooling over it and telling them that I could do wonders with their yard. 

I then proceeded to suggest what they could do with their side garden areas.  They were growing a bit of stuff, though mostly weeds (aren't we all).  Of course, they were growing great flowers.  We ended up taking about three beds that could be used to grow food. I explained how they could grow tons in those beds.  I wasn't about to go all Mel on them, but I did talk of intensive gardening and succession planting.  They seemed impressed. I even offered to help how I could. Man, if only I could make money doing this, hehe.

We sure had fun, but talking lettuce to them was a bit of an issue.  The husband is Asian, so I had to change my tune to bok choy and the like.  Came home and looked it up in the "book", only to find Mel's not big on Asian greens.  Best I could find on the internet was 9/SF, which makes sense as they harvest baby bok choy.  They seemed happy that after the initial work outlay, there wouldn't be much work, and also that they could grow tons of fresh veggies.  Best of all the ability to save tons of money on produce costs was a big hit. 

Our last topic of course was compost.  They've got a great spot for it.  Anyone have any good ideas to cheaply keep dogs out of your compost? I don't have that problem.  I thought of a pallet to block it, and of course chicken wire, but what else?

Alas, sorry for yet another post without pictures.  I just don't have the camera with me these days.  What would you grow if you had 150 SF?

Enjoy your garden!

July 17, 2011

I'm afraid there hasn't been much to post about of late.  The weather here has been blah at best.  As one blogger I know has put it, it's great for transplanting plants, but that's a bit too much glass half full for me.  The only thing to germinate in my Fall garden so far has been radishes, which will germinate in any sort of weather.

On the bright side though, my ignored indoor germinated brassicas weren't all a total loss.  My cauliflower were toast, but my broccoli seemed to be hardy enough to survive.  Here's a pic I found on my phone when I was backing it up.  Sorry if the resolution sucks.

Though the cauliflower on the left never bounced back, the broccoli seemed to be ok, even if the leaves do look a bit waxy.

As I had four (five if you include a double sprouter that I missed clipping), and only 4 SF to plant them, I decided to stagger them within the square to give these huge plants as much space to grow as possible. Of course, they haven't grown an inch in the week or two since I planted them.  /sigh  Gotta love this crappy summer weather.

In other news, the rain and warmish temperatures (highs in the upper 60s, lower 70s means grass grows fast around here.  And despite the chickens doing an admirable job of keeping the grass short, I still needed to mow.  I still haven't had to change out the shavings in the coop as they don't spend much time in there and I went 4 inches deep (not quite the Deep Litter Method, but close), but I'm still using the stored shavings from the brooder to layer in with my grass clippings when I compost.

Pretty cool that I made it to the top of my 3 foot tall bin.  I won't be adding quite as much to it in the future as I will be giving some of my grass clippings to the girls in their mini-coop.  I guess they like it a lot and I've got nothing growing in my mini-coop after I leveled it with dirt.  They do love giving themselves dust baths in there though. 

I actually learned about feeding chickens grass clippings from a couple I met at a kids birthday party my eldest was invited to the other day.  While chatting with the parents, I came to find that they lived in a rural-ish area of the Pacific NW and have 10 chickens.  They've had chickens for years.  It was a very good conversation.  Gardening and chickens turn strangers into long-lost friends it seems.  Don't you agree?

Lastly, to end this hodge-podge post, I thought I'd share a pic of how I get the girls in and out of their coop daily, along with a funny story. 

As you can see above, the arc door is opened and moved to within 2 feet of the mini-run, where I've opened one door.  I use both doors to create a tunnel between the arc and coop.  The girls are pretty good about heading from one to another, except my Barred Rock Twinkidink.  However, the other morning she kept going back and forth between the arc and run, so when I finally pulled the arc away to close the door, she and the others made their escape!  Catching one chicken in the yard alone is doable, but catching all four proved very challenging indeed.  As nobody else was out of their PJs yet, I had no help.  Thankfully a friendly guy on BackyardChickens.com told me long ago that he uses his coop cleaning tools (a short-handled rake and scoop) to herd chickens. I only had a rake, but it worked pretty well.  Silly chickens, they just want to free range.  No luck in my yard though.  They get plenty of space and a new area to forage daily.  They'll just have to make due.

So, go ahead and brag about your gardens and how great weather you're having. I can take it.

Enjoy your garden!

May 28, 2011

First off, a bit thank you to everyone who's followed this new blog site! We just hit 50 folks.  Thanks and I hope you enjoy it.

Many of you I've returned the favor and have found several new blogs to read on a regular basis.  I try my best to comment when the post strikes my fancy.  However, I'm very frustrated at the moment.  For some reason I can no longer comment on folks posts.  It now says I have to choose a profile.  When I choose google, it asks me to log in (I should be already logged in).  So I log in again, and it takes me back to my post.  However, now it says "anonymous says" and then I type the word and it takes me back to logging into google.  That process continues in a loop.

Needless to say, I have tons of comments I would like to make but have been unable to do so.  Sorry folks.  Anyone have any thoughts on how to fix this?

I guess for a blog post tonight, I'll talk compost!  I haven't done that in a while. 

Spring is the revival of my compost pile.  This year, like so many others I'm doing a single pile while I use last year's compost from the other bin.  It's not the way I would like to do it, but I just don't have the space for a three bin system.

Anyway, with spring comes the time to start mowing the lawn again.  I've got a 1/4 acre of mostly grass, so when I mow, I have over a cubic yard of clippings.  I was excited to be able to mix in my used bedding and droppings.  A very new experience for me and one I've been looking forward to since I read how good chickens are for the garden!

Yep, one change of the potato bin brooder box creates about 10 gallons of bedding.  At least it fills two 5 gallon buckets, hehe.  I decided to use one bucket per yard. 

After dumping the greens on top of the partially composted material, I added the kitchen compost, spread out the used bedding and wet it down.

Then, as my yard is so much work to mow, the next day I mowed the back and put it down on top, followed by the second bucket of bedding.  I ended it up with the final bit of clippings. 

So, in the end, one mowing created a compost pile that's 5x5x3'.  My brother on the other hand, ripped out his front yard grass years ago and has to ask his neighbors for their clippings.  Anyway, I need more browns in this bin.  It was a bit stinky for the next several days as the nitrogen burned off into the air.  Next time I guess I'll have to lay down more newspaper and mow it into the clippings.  It's a good way to mix in browns.  Odd looking but effective.  Funny how I have access to countless sources of greens but very few browns in early spring.  Sure there's the bedding, as well as leaves and twigs I mow up, but other than paper, what is there in abundance?  And to think with this weather (rain one day, followed by a few days of partial sun) I'll have to mow again this week!  It'll mean great compost next year.

Lastly, I was reading a back copy of my brother's Mother Earth News magazine, and there was an article about wood chips and sawdust as mulch in the garden.  Apparently wood shavings with a bit of nitrogen material makes a great mulch and even though it breaks down slowly, over a few years it increases the amount of organic material in the soil more than any other mulch.  It also makes an incredible mulch for blueberries and strawberries.  Bingo! I just happen to have a blueberry/strawberry bed! I can't wait to try out using bedding as mulch to control weeds. I may just sacrifice using bedding in my compost if it means not having to weed that bed as often. It also increases the acidity in the soil, which blueberries love.  Very cool.  Hehe, I need more bedding, or another source of browns!

Enjoy your garden!

April 8, 2011

Man am I exhausted!  Yesterday was an entire day of trying to replace a broken kitchen faucet (and to add to Murphy's Law, today the bathroom faucet broke).  My arms and back were sore from that one, hours under the sink.  After these projects are done, I should have enough hours under my belt to be a journeyman plumber... just kidding, I'm useless.

Today was beautiful weather, the first day without rain in 47 days, so I'm told, so I took the fleeting opportunity to mow the lawn.  Just to be nice I mowed the front first, and as a result, I'm hoping it won't rain tomorrow so I can mow the back for the kids.  Ah, to have chickens to do this for me.  You see, on top of being sore and tired, I'm highly allergic to grass, especially the fresh cut kind, ROFL.  But the compost likes me.

First I grabbed the very full kitchen compost bucket, and the much lighter chicken brooder compost bucket, and mixed them with some grass the kids "cut" with their scissors the other day.  I added them to last fall's leaves in the empty compost bin, which will be this year's hot compost area.

I must have been very tired because I didn't even snap any shots of the HUGE pile of grass clippings and various brown materials dumped on top of this.  I must have a 2 feet tall 5x5 pile now. Unfortunately I was too tired to de-winterize the backyard hose bib and hook up the hose, so I didn't add any water to it like normal.  Here's hoping it will still heat up from the moisture in the kitchen compost and the grass.  If it does, I expect it will be cut down to 6 inches in less than a week.

Update: I snapped a shot today and didn't want to clutter a post with it, so here's the loaded compost bin with 2 feet of grass clippings about 5x5.

Well, it's only fair that I've been talking so much about my garden activities lately, I should really show you just how big the girls have grown in less than 3 weeks.



And just to show off how beautiful they are, here are some of my favorite shots from the last week.

Here is Summer trying to fly away from me when her sisters caused a commotion.

Aren't those wings beautiful!? And so big too.  Some day I'm going to have to cut one of them. Not looking forward to that.

Here's a pretty common sight these days.  I think I mentioned that the Barred Rock learned she could jump from the roost to the top of the mason jar water container.  I finally caught her on film.

She likes to peck at the screen.  Makes me wonder if I'll get a month out of this brooder after all.

Well, short post for tonight. I have plenty of other material to share so hopefully I'll get many more posts out over the weekend. 

Enjoy!

March 29, 2011

Well, Laura and others commented that I likely have chick-fever, so, when I looked at what she did last weekend, I immediately realized I was behind again on my planting. Seems I should have planted my peas but didn't.  So the night before my kids and I talked gardening and peas.  Their interest in peas came from one of those PBS snippets between cartoons.  The kids planted snap peas, then came back to pick and eat them.  They called them sugar packets.  All of a sudden, they wanted to plant peas.  So, we got some Cascadia Snap Peas and soaked them overnight.  They also wanted to plant corn, so we did the damp coffee filter in an open Zip Lock bag to germinate those.  I also took the time to plant several new succession broccoli and cauliflower. As you can see, I am big into repurposing containers for gardening.

The next day was sprinkling a bit, but we trooped outside anyway to plant our peas!  The kids got their own SWC scrap gardens to play with, though I told them what I would do.  First thing's first, weed and add compost (they loved counting the worms we found in the compost). Then we planted 5 peas in each bin in two rows with one in the middle.  Pretty generous spacing, but the plan is to interplant two corn stalks in each back corner. Hopefully the corn will grow fast enough to provide something for the peas to climb. If not, I picked up a bunch of bamboo from my folks place. I'm sure I could build some sort of trellis for them.  The front of the bins will probably be carrots as we're running out of veggies that they like.  Still, a good exercise in intensive planting!

After that, I decided to dig my beds out as Laura suggested, then add compost and plant my peas.  I didn't do it exactly like she did, but I used some of her techniques.   Here you can see the results of half my bed being dug up by rocking a pitchfork back and forth.

As you can see in the pic above, the kitty-litter bucket full of compost isn't sufficient to augment the entire bed, but it was more than sufficient to plant peas in the back of the bed.  I know the SFG spacing for peas is 8 per SF, but I just kinda scattered them around the back of the row between my two blue SWCs.  Now is when I really took a page from Laura's play book.  I grabbed a piece of scrap wood and pressed it onto the soil to make sure the peas came in good contact with the soil.

Finally, I sprinkled a bit of fresh compost on top of the row. Normally I'd water them in, but it was raining by then, so I let Mother Nature take over.

Lastly, I took my broccoli and salad greens out for a walk and accidentally left them out over night.  They seemed fine in the morning so I left them out all day and just brought them in Sunday night.  They're out again this morning and will be planted today!

See, I AM gardening in addition to playing with my chicks!  But don't worry, I will give both passions time in my blog.  Comments anyone? I love comments! Makes me feel loved, hehe.

Enjoy your garden!

March 5, 2011

What a wonderful day for a birthday! I didn't wish for anything, but if I had, a little bit of spring would have been at the top of my list.  Mother Nature came through for us.  Partly overcast with highs in the mid 40s isn't amazing, but compared to what we've had for the last few months, I'll take it. 

I finally got out into the yard today.  I must say I've been a bit disheartened by the foul weather we've been having, staying cooped up inside most days, even when I had time to get out.  I think I'll spread out my eventful day into multiple posts though. I've seen other bloggers I read do that, though mostly they work long hours so can't do anything during the week, but as one can never count on good weather here, I'll just talk about my compost today.

You see, I haven't touched my compost in months.  Sure I've added my kitchen scraps to it whenever the kitty-litter container was full, but the last time I tried to turn it my pitch fork hit rock!  Today was very different.

Aside from countless egg shells that didn't break down because last year I wasn't crushing them when I put them into my kitchen scrap bin, my compost was nearly finished.  Turning it was just like I imagine a worm farm to look like when you're feeding it.  Every turn generated a dozen or more worms wiggling in the dirt.  The funny thing is the first thing I thought of when I saw them was my chickens would love this place!  My second thought was how good they are for the compost and garden.  How sad is that.  I'll have to turn in my green thumb for that one.

When I was turning the compost, I was smashing the egg shells into smaller pieces, so they'll eventually compost in place.  Then my youngest and I decided it was time to weed the garden beds.  I hadn't touched them, other than to harvest carrots, since last fall, and I had many weeds growing. 

Don't those weeds almost look like lettuce? I have let them grow thinking they may have been volunteers.  Today I made the executive decision to yank them though.  Of course it took all of 5 minutes to pull them and the moss out.  It all went into the yard waste bin rather than my compost. Let Cedar Grove worry about it. They're better equipped to ensure 150 degrees to kill everything.

When I was cleaning, I did notice my beds had settled even more this year.  If you look closely, you can see one whole 2x6 is visible now.  It may be time for a few yards of Cedar Grove compost as I don't generate enough to do more than augment my beds.

Although I couldn't add much in the way of depth with my scant compost reserves, I could do some major augmenting with the compost, so I added a wheelbarrow full of compost to the front part of this bed, then finally planted out the seedlings that were in dire need of more soil.  They weren't looking so healthy when I put them in the ground, but I'm hopeful some water and tons of great compost will perk them right back up.

Lastly, you can see that I throw my hoops up. I actually got the plastic over the hoops at around 10 pm after getting back from my birthday dinner at the folks place.  Here's hoping they survive the night in the low forties...

Hope you got to enjoy your garden today!

January 24, 2011

Well, today's the day.  My brother had better be done procrastinating with his seed order, because I'm done waiting.  I've got tomatoes to plant!

Speaking of which.  Yesterday was all about the garden and family, as a weekend should be.  I got to spend some quality time with both my boys individually at two different swimming pools in the area, so that was cool.  But I also found some time to plant some tomato seeds.  I went through all my seed packets and determined which of the remaining varieties I wanted to plant. 



As you can see, almost all of the varieties I chose were graciously given to me by gardening buddies over the years.  Some of the seed is from 2008, but I'm hopeful that it will still germinate.  I decided on 5 of may available varieties, not so much for their flavor, because some of them I've never tried because last summer was so crappy for tomatoes.  The number of varieties was based on my existing SWC containers and the upcoming seed order.  I have room for at least 8 plants in my 4 SWCs, unless I use the scrap bins.  After choosing the varieties, I got my trusty seed planting setup ready.  Have you ever noticed that my indoor work space doubles as the lid of my chest freezer, hehe.  Don't tell my wife, I'm not sure she realizes how it gets dirty.



Above you see I've filled five 9-oz. cups with my old compost mix.  Still not sure if it's in the best shape, but I am not sure my compost pile is finished.  Of course my compost is never "finished" like you see in composting videos.  I always have twigs and leaves in it, so what.  I digress.  You also see the popsicle sticks that I use to label each cup.  I also labeled the cups with sticker labels, but as I reuse the non-recyclable cups year after year, it gets pretty confusing.  Also, I can just move the stick from container to container when I pot them up in a few weeks. 



Above are the finished tomato starts.  I went with Black Cherry, ILDI yellow cherry, Bloody Butcher, Gardener's Delight and Sunset Red Horizon.  Notice I am using a Costco salad green container as a holding bin.  That way I can put an inch of water in the tub and let them bottom water.  Also, they won't fall over as easy with the high sides.  I kept these containers, knowing they'd come in handy some day.  Unfortunately the container wouldn't fit on the tray in the kitchen with the rest of my soil blocks, so it went on top of the fridge.



That project done, I had just enough winter sunlight to get outside and do some preliminary prep work for the chickens.  The picture of the area where I want the semi-permanent run was covered in leaves.  I wanted to save the grass for the chicks. I also wanted to use the leaves as a start for this year's compost pile.  So I simply raked them into the open bin. I never touched them with my hands.



As you can see, the area's not that well covered with grass to begin with.  Long ago it was a low spot in my yard.  So when we were taking out sod from someplace else in my yard, I placed it grass down in this area to try to raise it up.  I never went back and reseeded grass here, so it's mostly just crab grass and weeds.  The chickens will love it.

Speaking of chickens, I've been doing more research on them online.  I'm trying to figure out the best way to keep them in my yard.  I really don't want to fence off my tomatoes or my blueberry/strawberry bed, so I am likely going to have to tractor the chickens.  Not quite the free range I was hoping for, but it may only be during the peak growing season.  Not sure yet.  So most of my research last night was on tractors.  I don't think I'll combine the coop with the tractor, but that means more stuff in my yard and buying two sets of water and feed containers.  Not very frugal of me, I know.  See, I'm still working through all this information.

As for the chickens themselves, Fred of Fredsfinefowl.com over at the Garden Girl's forum made me consider the frugality of heavy breeds.  Apparently they eat a ton compared to the lighter breeds.  He recommended Leghorns for their production yet smaller feed consumption ratio.  That's something more to research.  Maybe it's in Dummies, but I haven't finished it yet.  More reading is in order.

Overall it was a rewarding weekend.  I hope you had a chance to enjoy your garden!

January 21, 2011

Today my youngest was off school (3 day preschool week), and cabin fever had set in.  So despite the rain, he wanted to go outside and run.  I joined him after a bit to make sure he didn't get into trouble, and took care of some "fall" cleanup that didn't get done.  Mostly I cut back dead branches off perennial plants.  I'm still not sure if I want to keep the pineapple sage plant I planted last year.  It grew MUCH bigger than I anticipated and is out of place in my strawberry/blueberry bed.  I may move it or just remove it altogether.  Either way, I started by cutting it back to the ground.  There was no sign of the anisette plant that did so poorly from seed last year. I have more seeds so I can try again, but boy was I disappointed.

Anyway, the real reason I went out there was to look over the likely spot for my chicken coop and primary run.



The coop would go about where that toddler play set is located.  I should get rid of that thing as my 4 year old is too big for it.  I digress... The coop would go against the fence there, and the run would come back towards the camera.  On the left there is a huge rhodie and magnolia tree, with other native ground cover plants surrounding them.  The upside is that there is a dirt covered area surrounding the trees that would partially be within any run.  That would give the birds a dirt area to take dirt baths and a grass area to forage.  I don't care about that grass anyway because I can't get anything good to grow there... too much shade.



On the right side of that area is my spent pear tree and my compost bins.  As you can see, fall/winter storms wrecked my cover.  I should really tidy up, but I'm not sure if I won't use the lumber or corrugated plastic for the coop construction.  Sorry for the mess.  Oh, and I should really rake the leaves into next year's compost pile.  Did I mention I don't care about that grass area? hehe. 

Anyway, having the compost pile right next to the chicken coop has many advantages. One, when I clean the coop I can simply put the soiled bedding into the compost pile.  Droppings need to age about 6 months to not burn plants. Yes, they're that high in nitrogen.  Two, the compost pile could be a great foraging spot for the hens, the piles are teaming with bugs and worms.  Yummers!

Tonight I spent a good deal of time on chicken research.  I read more of my book, found Backyard Chickens dot com and researched free coop materials on craigslist.  Much more work needs to be done, but it's a start.  I also went through all of KitsapFG's chicken posts to see how her experience has been this year with new chickens.  From that I found some great tips, like I shouldn't have got rid of our toddler super gate.  It would have made an excellent portable tractor and teenage pen.  Yet another thing to look into on Craigslist.  I'd say ain't Craigslist wonderful, but so far I've struck out on everything I've looked for.  There's still time though.

In other news, I didn't order my seeds. I'm waiting until Monday when my brother will have his order ready.  I figured I wouldn't gain much shipping time over the weekend and I can't start my tomatoes this weekend anyway, so what's the difference. 

Actually I could start some of my tomatoes early, but I'm not sure I have space for all of them to be babied for months inside.  Just not sure.

Well, that's about it for me.  Enjoy your garden!

January 9, 2011

First off, Happy New Years all.  My resolution is to stop being so wrapped up in my bubble and share more here.  Of course, getting garden fever doesn't hurt either.  So, let's see how this goes.

What have I been up to over the last year? Well, I've been looking for work.  Anyone need a commercial real estate expert?  hehe.  Of course I haven't been just looking for work.  I've been enjoying my time with my family.  I will never have this kind of time with my boys again, and I'm taking advantage of it.  Essentialy I'm the most active dad on the planet, and enjoying every minute of it. 

I've also been taking care of nagging house projects.  Mostly it's been repairng patched holes in drywall and texturing walls to match.  Our paint all died, so I had to get new.  Thank goodness there is a place in nearby Everett that takes paint and other hazardous chemicals.  My brother and I are taking a trip there next week.  I found tons of old paint cans when we cleaned out the garage.  That project was way overdue. 

About the only thing I've been doing in the garden is harvesting candy carrots (post-freeze carrots that transform starch to sugar) and adding to the compost pile.  The last time I emptied my kitchen compost on the pile, my pitchfork bounced right off the pile.  Boy was it cold. 

Of course what made me finally decide to post here was the arrival of the Territorial Seed Company catalog (sure wish they'd just dump their dealings with Monsanto, who NEEDS Early Girl tomatoes anyway?)  I've been sitting here and flipping pages.  There aren't nearly as many dog ears this spring though.  Not only do I not have as big of need to replace my stores, but the economy is such that I'm not going to grow something that isn't a sure thing.  I need to feed my family.  Have you noticed prices have risen of late, espectially of produce?  Well, we haven't been purchasing as much produce of late, so this garden is our way of getting good nutrition into our kids. 

Some of the things I'm definitely buying from Territorial are some different tomato varities.  I'm afraid my experiement with heirlooms and out-of-state OPs is going away.  I really thing most of the problem was our crappy summers over the past two years, but I just can't invest more time in plants that don't necessarily do well here.  To that end, I'm purchasing Legend (OP-68 days), Stupice (OP-60-65 days), and Siletz (OP-70-75 days).  All of those varieties come highly recommended by Kitsap Freedom Gardener and all are well suited to our short, cool, wet summers.  This year is not expected to be any different. 

Lastly, the secondary reason for my completing so many house projects.  My wife's been kinda annoyed at me that I spend more time thinking/working on our outside than our inside, considering how much time we spend at both.  Well, after my brother told us at Christmas that he was getting chickens this spring, I begged again and my wife caved... sort of.  If I completed her list of projects, I could get chickens.  Well, after seeing her list, I have several issues with it.  For one, with everything on there, there is no way to complete it all before I'd need to make the decision to order chicks (my brother's getting day-olds via mail).  Second, I can't complete many of the tasks myself.  And lastly, once we do all those projects, we won't have enough money to build a coop and take care of the chickens.  She's softening, but defintely isn't sold yet.  I must say I too am having concerns about taking care of three or four new pets, especially when I'd have to get up at the crack of dawn every day to open the coop up to let them out, at least into their caged in area.

Well, that's about it in a nutshell.  Hope you too are getting the itch and scratching it with seed catalogs and web pages.  I really hope to get back into this to post almost daily like I did ages ago.  Let's see who comes back to read my drivel.

Enjoy your garden!

May 30, 2010

Wow, nearly a month has gone by.  You wouldn't have known it from the shape of the garden though.  The weather's been more like late fall than late spring.  Cool, wet and windy.  I haven't planted cukes yet but I'm fairly certain they wouldn't germinate in this weather anyway. 

Other things I haven't done include planting my tomatoes in my Self Watering Containers.  The containers still sit there ready to go, but there appears to be no hurry to get them in the ground.  They're not growing much anyway.  I have picked off a few flower buds to encourage more green growth.  Last year I didn't do that with my first flowers and the plant size suffered tremendously.  This year I've been more cautious. 

I also haven't weeded my Bed 1.  The overwintered carrots there had gone straight to seed rather than form good roots.  Shame as my kids don't have carrots for a while.  My new plantings are about 2 inches tall.  Let's see, my trellis is still in the shed.  The only thing that would need it now are my peas, which are about a foot tall now.  I think that will go up soon to give them something to grab hold of. 

Lastly, I haven't hooked up my rain barrels.  I need to build the platforms for them, nor found the right way to hook it up.  I am still considering the Gutter Adaptor here though I am not sure how well they work or how long they'll hold up.  However, considering the deluge of rain we've been getting of late, I'm in no hurry to store water.

Speaking of all the rain, look what I found on the way back from running my eldest to the bus stop... Note the paper is just for comparison, though it is really good that folks are trying to figure out how to improve the park behind our house.



Oh, and I haven't had a chance to mow with all the wet grass, but here is the composting action from my last mowing.



First I mix and dig a trench while I'm fluffing the aging compost. Then, while I'm mowing I occasionally throw down a sheet of news paper in front of the mower to mix in some shredded browns.  Tis the season of all greens and no browns.



Then I simply dump the new stuff into the trench, wetting the layers and adding heaps of the old compost for variety. It still needs to age and cook more.  Doing this creates a heaping pile of hot compost in action...



Speaking of the lack of browns, I have been adding small amounts of cat hair, lint from the dryer and the like.  I don't like to have too much of those, but they do help out and create a great diverse compost.  And while we're on the compost subject, if you've seen the Sun Chips commercial, I'm trying out to see if their chip bags are really compostable.  We got them for an outing as they're a healthier alternative to potato chips or Doritos.  When finished, I cut the bag into little pieces and put it in my home compost bin.  Give it a chance to cook a bit inside before being added to the bottom of my next compost build.



Oh yeah, I was also planning on bagging up the remaining finished compost and doing a two-bin system.  That hasn't happened.  Too busy playing with the kids and doing the job search.

Lastly, the kids have been getting in the action.  One warmish day my eldest took some discarded peat pot egg cartons and trying to grow cut flowers... Cuter than all get-out, but not going to work.



I hope you all have had better weather than I and have been more active in your gardens!

May 2, 2010

Well, the weather is definitely working along the idea that April and May showers bring flowers...  I got out in the morning to start working on the Self Watering Containers.  They had been crudely stored for the winter and needed to be cleaned up and filled for planting.

The first order of business was counting.  I've got 10 viable tomato plants that are all hardened off and ready to go in the ground.  Unfortunately, even if I use my 32 gallon SWC for tomatoes and not mellons, I stil only have 4 bins.  My solution?  The 32 gallon scrap container that held my failed corn last year.  It's behind my blueberries and in great sun.  So what if it's not an SWC, it's good enough.

It was sprinkling off and on, so I worked fast.  I know that dirt used to grow tomatoes can carry diseases from year to year, so it's good to rotate, especially since I'm growing heirlooms with horrible disease resistance.  So I did some musical dirt.  Using a small bucket as a big scoop, I transferred the tomato dirt (Mel's Mix) to my sons' scrap SWC bin gardens and took their formerly carrot dirt and augmented my scrap tomato bin and a little into my SWCs.  My goal with the tomato bins was to keep the mix as diverse as possible to allow for the best possible nutrients for the heavy feeders.  I'm still going to fertilize, but it all starts with good soil. 



Next up for my crazy concoction was copious amounts of home made compost.  It's very dry because of the cover over the compost bin for the last year, but that's ok.  It will hydrate soon enough.  It's also not what I'd call finished compost, at least not in the way Cedar Grover uses a chipper on theirs.  Again, I don't mind.  I love seeing bits of egg shell and news print that isn't quite done.  It's all good for the soil.



After that, I mixed in an equal amount of Cedar Grove compost.  I know, cheating.  At least I didn't buy it.  My Aunt got 6 yards delivered to spread out all over the yard at their new home.  She got too much (minimum orders) so she's been giving it away.  I just bagged four left over compost bags and brought them home.  I used three of them to fill all my bins.  Actually, rain stopped me before I could finish.  I basically left everything right where it was when the sky opened up.



Over the next few days, not much gardening got done.  If it wasn't rain, it was horrible wind storms.  So bad in fact that I actually brought in my tomatoes overnight.  I could do that since mine are still in pots.  Unfortunately, my brother's plants are in the ground already.  I got a call at 8 the night of the storm asking if I had anything he could use to protect them.  Thankfully I've been slowly collecting junk over time for use in the garden.  I had 5 empty 2-liter pop bottles in the garage for just such an occasion.  He cut the bottoms off, drilled a few vent holes in the top and put them over the plants like mini-cloches.  He's leaving them on to heat the plants a bit.  Can't wait to see how they fair.

Hold onto your hat and enjoy your garden!

April 25, 2010

Again, it seems like I've been blogging every day.  Well, I haven't.  Mostly I've been spending every sunny day in the yard working on something or other, thinking I should blog about it.  Then I get the kids down and do some job search and stupid FB crap, then it's time for bed.  Oh, and I'm reading a gardening book for Patti's newsletter and going to review it for her.  Other than that, the job market appears to be picking up a bit by the number of calls I've gotten and interviews I've got lined up.  The potential for me finding a job has sent me into daddy overdrive, trying to eek out every moment with the boys that I can.  Still, the nice weather screams garden, so I obey.

I can't believe I haven't mentioned my strawberries.  I've wanted to plant strawberries along the edge of my rock wall blueberry bed for ages.  Each year at our preschool auction, one of the parents contributes 6 or so pots of 10+ strawberries that they weed out.  Every year I bid and lose.  This year, I worked it out so that if I did lose, I could snag some directly from her.  Alas, for $7 I got a pot.  The next day my Aunt and I got them in the ground since they were about to flower...

First we weeded the bed, at least where we were planting.  Despite the aging layer of beauty bark, weeds are prolific in that bed.  Then I dug little holes about a foot apart along the edge of the bed, leaving a 2 foot opening between the two blueberry plants for easy entrance to the bed.



Then I collected a bucket of my trusty 2-year-old compost and worked a handful into the soil at the bottom of the holes.  After that, it was time to separate out the pot-o-strawberries.  My aunt had the great idea to do it in my wheelbarrow to avoid bending so much.



I ended up with 11 plants that could easily be separated.  Some were more like 2 plants and some were barely plants at all.  Still, we got to work planting them.



You can see in the background that the blueberries are benefiting from the heavy mulch of pine needless from my neighbor.  That and the rock wall may be in desperate need of repair, but it still makes a nice bench to sit on to plant.

After filling in around the seedlings with native soil, I mounded with more compost.



You'll note that the compost still has a bunch of little dried grass clippings and twigs in it.  I don't use a shredded to chop up my compostables into fine bits (though I could).  It's also drier than I'd like, but having a cover over it for a year tends to dry things out.  I have since propped up the lid to let rain get to it.

Since I planted them, most of the plants have flowered and grown the little hard buds where strawberries form.  I was told by the donor that this should be a heavy producing year for the plants, so I didn't pinch back the flowers.  I had intended to train the runners to fill in the gaps.  However, a good friend of ours just offered up their own strawberry weedings.  I am excited to fill in the gaps with different varieities to have strawberries all season long.  I may go 2 rows deep with runners some day. Not sure.  My whole family loves strawberries.  Time will tell.

Well, this post is long enough.  I will do a few more and forward publish them since I have time.  Hope your spring weather is as gorgeous as mine and you have had time to enjoy your garden!

July 28, 2009

Wow, where has July gone?  Sorry I haven't posted, but it's been just plain too hot to garden much.  The later part of my vacation was spent on the garage, helping a friend move and playing at the pool with the kids.  Alas, nowhere in there did I mention gardening.  Well, that's not quite true, I did find a use for the mostly cleared bed #1.



Yeah, I know, I'm late for fall planting, but I think I'll be ok.  I planted tons of carrots as they're the best after a frost when the starches turn to sugars.  I also planted some broccoli and cauliflower butting up where I had the lettuce.  Finally I planted a square of radishes and one of green onions.  Not sure if the onions will work, but they didn't work this spring.  Go figure.  Last time I transplanted them from indoor started seedlings and this time I direct-sowed, but it shouldn't have mattered.  I'm trying again.

Not only did I sprinkle finished compost over the bed, but I worked some in. Two kitty-litter buckets full. That should replace any nutrients that the former residents took away (they tasted yummy too).

Another reason I didn't garden much is the heat.  I don't know what's up, but this weather is for the birds... snow birds that is.  I'd expect temps pushing 100 in Arizona or the South, but not here.  We haven't had rain to speak of in weeks.  It's downright insane. 

Now I know what you're thinking if you're a reader from one of those insanely hot places, but we aren't built for that kind of heat here. NOBODY has AC, and fans just push the 85-90 degree interior air around.  I'm ok at work but when I get home, it's an oven. And my poor family, they aren't lucky enough to spend 8+ hours in AC bliss. 

Lastly, the heat's not doing well for the garden.  The cauliflower that was heading nicely is prematurely going to seed, the peas died with tons left to harvest, the potatoes are laying over, and worst of all, there must be hundreds of flowers on my tomato plants that are dying.  I understand fruit won't set above 90 degrees.  Well it's 95 out there now.  Grrr.

Well, that's all for now, stay cool all. I think I'll throw some ice cubes in a bowl and stick it in front of my fan, hehe.

Enjoy your garden!

July 23, 2009

Today I got a chance to get out into the garden for the first time in a while.  Mostly I needed to gut it of all the spent and bolted plants.  The secondary benefit was to get rid of the piles (and I mean piles) of compostables that have just been sitting around (mostly in the garage) waiting for me to turn the compost.  So I got on my garden gloves and started ripping and composting.



I forgot to take a before shot, but here is most of what needs to be removed.  The lettuce has bolted badly and I should really have yanked that huge broccoli when I harvested it.  You think these overcrowded their squares a tad?

The funny thing is that this hot, hot weather around here has basically killed my grass. I have never watered because my lot is so wet, but this year it actually died.  Oh well. I water food, not grass.  What that means is that I have not mowed in a month.  That's another thing that is odd about this year's weather (ahem, global warming, hehe). What that means for my compost is that I am at a sudden loss for greens.  I was tempted to go to Starbucks for grounds, but this time I had more than enough from the garden.  The browns of course were shredded newspaper and soiled paper products.



I couldn't believe it.  I almost ran out of partially composted material to layer in between the new greens and browns.  I couldn't believe just how much garden waste I had, on top of the stuff I've been saving.

I also have been trying like mad to get a good shot of my yukon potato bed.  Every time I try I keep getting the bright/shadow lines that make for lousy pictures.  Finally it was a good shot at dusk.  Look at what's happeneing to my once proud potato stems standing tall.



Not only are they laying down, but they're touching the gravel pathways and smothering my carrots.  Honestly I have never experienced this with my bins, at least until they are dying back.  I wonder if that's what they're doing.  They are an early variety after all.  I'm still watering them in case I'm wrong. Once I see them starting to die despite the watering.  I do want to get them out of there soon though, because I've got 8 SF of carrots that may or may not be doing anything under all that mess on the right.

July 13, 2009

Wow, how the weather can change here in Seattle. My father used to say if you don't like the weather here, wait 15 minutes, it will change.  It hasn't been that bad, but following a 90 degree Saturday, we've had two days of 60 degree overcast weather.  It even rained, though that was welcome news to my garden.  Everything but the SWCs, which I still need to water.  The funny thing is tomorrow the weather is suppose to change back to hot.

Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
74° F | 52° F	81° F | 54° F	79° F | 54° F	76° F | 56° F	74° F | 54° F
Partly Cloudy	Partly Cloudy	Partly Cloudy	Partly Cloudy	Partly Cloudy

It was raining when I got home today, so yet another day where I felt no motivation to get out and work in the garden.  However, I am chomping at the bit for nice weather. 

I want to get out and rip out the garbage in the garden and work my compost. It's been forever and stuff is just rotting in place, not to mention my full kitchen compost that's warm to the touch, hehe.

Once I rip out the garden of all the spent plants, I need to plant cole crops, carrots and onions for fall.  That and I think I will re-seed for cukes.  I ony have a few surviving plants that aren't doing anything after being shaded by the broccoli and cauliflower.  Remind me never to do that again.  As I've found out, it takes too long for the cole crops to mature and majorly overlaps the growth period for the summer crops.  I'm thinking now that my yukon gold bed will be devoted to brassicas next year.

So far I'm not inclined to put up my big trellis if I don't have cukes needing it.  The peas just flopped over and grabbed onto the succession cauliflower and are almost spent.  The only other things to use them are the tomatoes, which I haven't pruned at all so my harvest will be lacking.  So what, I'll get something which is better than nothing considering all the absentee time this season.

Lastly, I am a bit disappointed that I wrote an article for GardenGirl about being away from your garden during the busy summer season.  Unfortunately it wasn't chosen for the summer newsletter, which is a shame since it was helpful information for the comming months. Maybe I'll publish it here tomorrow if you all want to read it.  400 readers is not 80,000, but it's better than 1.

Enjoy your garden!