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!

January 30, 2011

Not much has gone on garden wise over the past few days, so no posts from me.  Looks like no traffic either, which is ok.  All the buzz a few years ago around my potato bins really kept the site hopping. Now it's down to a select few, which is fine since it's less teaching and more diary-like.  If you do come here looking to learn, by all means check out the pages, or my first year. You'll learn TONS!

Anyway, since my last post, just about everything in my initial tray has sprouted, so that tray is under lights in my unheated beadroom upstairs, sitting at 60 degrees.  What didn't germinate is on it's own.  Next time I water up there, any soil block not germinated will be recycled and used for another seed.  That'll show them.  I was quite surprised how BADLY my salad bowl seed germinated.  I put 2 seeds per block and maybe something's sprouted.  That's 8 seeds that didn't work as well as any other lettuce variety.  Sure it's 2008 vintage, but so is some of my others. /shrug



Also since my last post, the vacant spot on the TV was filled by my un-germinated tomatoes.  I've tried a number of things to make them germinate faster.  First off, they're in direct shot of my heat vent, so that helps.  I've got a thermometer to tell temps, and with no help it's in the upper 70s just trying to heat the kitchen.  Of course I first tried out my lamp with a 120 watt bulb to see what kind of heat it'd generate for chickens.  I've heard one way to drop the temp in their brooder is not to raise the light but to lower the wattage bulb.  Anyway, it clearly heated things up a bit.  The temp was 90+ degrees before I knew it, a tad hot for seed germination.  So that light you see is put away until some germinate and I need it with the CFL, a-la make-shift-light-system. 

Everything else that's happened has been chicken related, so bear with my new obsession.  First off, I finally made it through all 142 pages of the brooder thread on Backyard Chickens.com.  It reinforced my plan to use an 18-gallon (think SWC) Rubbermaid tote for a brooder for the first month or so.  Then I plan to ask Costco for a watermelon display box for the next month before they move out to the coop.  It's a large octagonal box with 3+ foot high sides, strong enough to hold in hundreds of pounds of watermellon.  Otherwise I'll be forced to use chicken wire and my kiddie pool.  No comparison which is better.

I also spoke to my father-in-law, the carpenter, who used to have chickens before my wife was born (she doesn't remember them).  He is excited to help lighten the coop design to the point that it's portable.  I want to move it either to keep the land from becoming toxic, or to put it under my eve's during the fierce fall/winter storms that could blow it over. 

Lastly, my brother, niece and I took a trip out to the Bothell Feed Center to check out the place, as well as ask some questions about getting chicks there.  Seems they're putting on a raising chicks class on March 6th, so we signed up for that.  I also found out that my plan to get chicks 2 weeks apart is bad for a number of reasons.  One I knew, that the heat schedule of starting at 95 degrees and walking it down 5 degrees each week would be thrown off by introducing chicks that need it at 95 when you're at 90 or 85.  The other I didn't know, that by the second week the pecking order would be in place and the new day-old chicks may very well be murdered by their sisters.  Finally I found out that if you get chicks and then come back for more, bring the original chicks back so they can get accustomed to each other and get the warmth of each other on the ride home.  Go figure.

So, my wife and I (mostly her, YAY!) researched the breeds that would be availalbe one week on either side of when others we wanted came in.  In the end, we decided on the following four breeds; Gold Laced Wyandotte, Welsummer, Barred Rock and Buff Orpington.  Each is a good dual purpose bird so my brother can have the meat when they stop laying, and they're all prolific layers, which meets my primary purpose.  My secondary goal was to have 4 birds that look pretty and distinct.  I am not sure I'd be able to tell them apart from their personality.

Well, that's it for my garden adventure this past week. I hope you enjoyed your garden!

January 25, 2011

Well, today was kind of odd.  One reason it was like that is due to a nap I took mid-morning.  It was raining and I had nothing better to do, so I gave in to my tiredness.  I did spend an inordinate amount of time on Backyard Chickens.com researching brooders to make sure I could use an 18 gallon Rubbermaid container for the first month or so.  Thankfully it's been successfully used by many others, so I'm safe.  For the next month I hope to get by with the box our new ottoman came in, if my boys don't destroy it "inventing" something first.  Lastly, if necessary I think I'll bring in the surplus kiddie pool and ring it with chicken wire.  I don't have the Super Gate that my kids used as toddlers. That would have been ideal as it was a large octagon and would have made for a nice mobile paddock later.  Maybe I'll find one on Craigslist.

This evening after the kids went down, I headed over to my brother's to get our seeds ordered.  We had a great conversation about seeds, seed starting, newspaper pots vs. soil blocks, chicken breeds, and chicken coops. It was way past his bedtime when we FINALLY got around to thinking to order our seeds.  Unfortunately he was too tired or didn't have his order ready, so the one thing I went over to do didn't get done.  Grrrr.  My fault for being distracted.  I just don't see my brother enough. I did come away with a tentative plan to postpone the purchase of any chicks until late March, early April.  It will mean my chicks are only 2 weeks apart in age, not a month.  I also got him to consider revisions to our coop plans to make it more portable.  The issue was the eventually toxicity of any static chicken run.

Anyway, the one thing I did for my garden today was my wife's idea. Almost all of my Italianshier and Buttercrunch lettuces have sprouted, while none of my Red Sails or Salad bowl have.  Since my light system is set up in an unheated bedroom, it is too cold up there for germination to occur.  That means I must keep the tray in the kitchen until complete germination is done.  I've got a CFL bulb over the plants, but it was about 1 foot above the tips of the plants, not 1 inch like it's supposed to be.  So I was considering raising the tray when I mentioned my problem to my wife.  She said, "why don't you move it to the top of the TV instead."  It is much higher on that side of the stove.  So, I quickly jury rigged a way to "level" the top of the little TV with the cable box on top.  As you can see below, it's not perfectly level in the slightest, but the light is MUCH closer to the plants. I'll just have to take it down to water it.  No biggie.



Sure hope the deliver of my seeds happens fast.  I don't want my tomatoes that far off each other.  Again, it was my fault for being distracted tonight.  There was too much to talk about gardening wise.  You could say I've got the winter gardening itch... do you?

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 20, 2011

It's been freezing rain here almost all day, so nothing much gardening is going on.  My soil blocks are soaking up as much water as I can give them.  That's probably because I used old compost to make them.  Ah well, water's cheap.  Of course nothing's germinated yet, but as soon as they do, I'll break out my trusty clip lamp with a CFL bulb in it.  Sure it's no where near the light spectrum of my 4' lights upstairs, which have a cool and warm bulb to give me the full spectrum, but it works nicely until all the seeds germinate.  Yep, I'm cheap and don't want to spring for a heat mat for my unheated storage room upstairs.  If you're new here, that's where my light system is set up.  Heaven knows where I'll put it when my kids move into the rooms over the garage.  Everywhere out of the way is too cold in the winter.  Ah well, we're a year or two off of that happening.

I'm chomping at the bit to put in my Territorial Seed order.  I've emailed my brother to give him an ultimatum of tomorrow to get his and his boss' order together.  Hehe, I can just see him pressuring his big boss for her order... not.  Oh well, maybe I'll put in a small order by myself.  All I'm ordering is Snow Crown cauliflower (I'm out), Green Wave mustard greens (a trial), then 4 tomatoes; Legend, Siletz, Stupice and Oregon Cherry,  All but the cauliflower is Open Pollinated.  I just really like that variety and since my wife likes it I'm not messing with it, unless I find out Monsanto owns it.

I was going to say that I always let my brasicas (broccoli and cauliflower) go to seed from laziness, or wanting side shoots from the broccoli, so I should get an OP cauliflower.  However, with the prospects of chickens this spring, I'll likely be yanking everything spent and feeding it to the girls.

Speaking of chickens, I'm into Raising Chickens for Dummies (Kimberly Willis and Rob Ludlow) and have actually learned some things from the much more technical book.  One is that hens make noise, possibly enough to make my neighbors complain, especially in the morning when one or all exclaim their egg has been laid.  Not sure my iffy neighbor would do well with that, even if the coop is as far from his place as possible.  He may just poison the chickens like he "may" have done with my 40 year old cedar trees that were blocking his sun.  We've had a strained neighborly friendship ever since that time.

The other thing I've learned is that Polish crested birds lay smallish eggs.  Not sure what I'd do with small eggs, hehe.  We'll see if my wife can be swayed.  Of course we may have to cut that breed if we can't get McMurray Hatchery to bend their 25 bird minimum order rules.  My brother called and got them to agree when he was checking into mail-order hatcheries, but who knows when we go to order.  We may just go to the Bothell Feed store for our birds, looks like they're the closest for supplies too, 15 minutes away.  I looked at their bird availability schedule and they have all but the rare bird I wanted, no surprise there.  However, the birds I want are hatching almost a month apart.  I am not sure I'd want to get them that far apart. 

Well, that's about it for me tonight.  Time to check out my pic storage site and see if I can still remember how to get in, if it's still there, hehe.

Enjoy your garden and thanks for stopping by.

January 19, 2011

Wow, after midnight and I totally forgot I hadn't posted here. Bad me. Well, here's a post to keep you knowing I'm still jazzed about my garden, my prospects for chickens and of course, my poor neglected blog.

Last night after the kids were asleep, instead of working on the garage or house, I read through some of my favorite blogs (see my side bar).  Low and behold, Laura commented on all the seed starting she'd done. Drat, behind yet again.  I can't START the year behind her and expect her amazing results, can I?  So I break out my kitty-litter-container-seed-starting-kit, aptly named as I have so many of those useful kitty litter containers that I use one to hold year-old dry compost and vermiculite, a bucket to mix in, and my wonderful home made soil block maker (thanks John Best!). 



Seems I needed to get the lead out and plant salad greens and onions.  Well, I only grow green onions, but those would have to do.  I eye-balled some soil and added water to the bucket, then proceeeded to make 24 soil blocks.  In 16 of them, I planted four each of Red Sails, Salad Bowl, Italianshier and Butter Crunch, enough for one square foot each.  I find that's enough for late spring, but I may stagger plant another square foot to make sure we have enough salads in the early spring.  Oh, and of course the last 8 blocks got Guardsman onions, they're about the only green onions I'll eat.  A flat of blocks is now perched on top of my iced tea maker in the kitchen to germinate and my wife is already complaining about the "moldy" smell, hehe.



After that was done, I made sure my Territorial Seed order was ready.  I'm not buying much due to my forced frugality, but what I am buying are the tomatoes Laura convinced me to get.  I've got seed for about half of what I'm planting this year.  So I called my brother to convince him to place our order, we combine shipping.  Well, apparently he was looking at the catalog at work and his big boss asked to see it.  Long story short, he's giving her until Friday to put in her order.  Looks like I'm going to be at least a week late on my tomatoes also.  Just can't catch a break.  Ah well, I'm still much earlier than last year, and it's not like I have a green house like Laura does to transition to the outside before the last frost is over.

Hope you 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!

September 10, 2009

Alright, you asked for it, you get pics of my disasterous garden.  In my defense, I'm almost out of broccoli and caulflower seeds and they've turned into a big hit with the big people in my family (namely my wife, who is the first person to tell you she hates those veggies).  So I decided after the plants flowered that I'd see what it took to make them go to seed.  The bumblebees loved them so I let them stay.  The bees were a welcome addition to that area of my garden.

Well, now they look like this...



I think each of those pods needs to dry out and inside are about 10 seeds.  When I opened one earlier they had about that many green seeds. 

Of course I have since seen the package and thee Fiesta broccoli from Territorial is a hybrid.  Oh well, no harm no foul.  These will make a welcome addition to the compost pile. 

Speaking of which, I haven't been doing much adding to it this year.  Three years out from the last time I weed and fed my lawn, it didn't grow at all all summer.  It really didn't turn majorly brown either, just didn't grow.  I'll take that from an effort perspective, but it makes me quite shy of greens in mass quantities for my compost pile.  I figure with the kitchen compost and leaves that are bound to start falling, I'll have one more major flip before I put it to bed for the winter.  For greens I'll use these plants and some handy coffee grounds from Starbucks. 

Lastly, I thought I'd take an overview pic of my garden to scare you all into going out this weekend and cleaning up yours, hehe.  Needless to say the major winner this year were the carrots.  I swear my kids is turning into a rabbit.



Oh, and that monster in the picture is a volunteer tomato plant.  No clue what type it is, but it looks healthy enough.  I figured if I had tomato volunteers I'd just leave them and see what happened.  So far it looks like I'll have a late crop of salad makings, even if I have to ripen them inside.  Not Judy and EG kind of second crop, but pretty decent for the Pacific Northwest.

Enjoy your garden, and let folks know I'm back.  It's kinda lonely without the 400+ folks reading my blog each day, hehe.

July 22, 2009

My oh my, it has been a while.  Seems my vacation has been far more type A than type B.  Kind of a shame because sitting around and gardening is just about my speed.  Instead I've been pretty much go-go non-stop ever since we got back from camping.  Blogging about the few scant hours I spent in the garden just wasn't on the agenda. 

Yesterday for instance, was a perfect example.  For over a year, my garage was jam packed with junk left over from our last garage sale.  It was also a catch-all for anything we didn't want in the house.  I've been wanting to tackle it for the last 8 months, and so we did.  It felt so good to create four piles of stuff in the driveway.  Of course there was the keep and the charity piles, but there the garbage pile was broken into  dump and recycling piles.  Very Seattle of us. 

While we were moving everything out, I came across my seed potatoes that didn't make it into the ground this year.  I knew there were plenty of Buttes left, but I couldn't give them away.  I had known they were trying their best to grow sans dirt, because I kept seeing the box.  It looks like this.



I've been surprised that it was starting to form leaves in a mostly dark garage with, I repeat, no dirt.  However, if that wasn't surprising enough, I was downright shocked to find this inside.



Look at the spaghetti noodles all bound up inside.  Absolutely insane!  Life will find a way I guess.  These will be composted next chance I get.  And I thought the sprouts were long when I planted them at about a foot.  Now they're well over three feet in some cases.  Crazy.  I just had to share.

About all had time to do in the garden that day was to water.  While I was doing it I spotted a ripening tomato.  It was one of my big ones (I didn't recall having any big ones).



It was ever-so-apparent that I haven't had time to LOOK at my garden of late, because as great as this tomato looks from the top, look at the bottom.



I haven't noticed any other BER (Blossom End Rot) on any other tomatoes in my garden, which is pretty good since I am growing all heirlooms with no particular resistance. Thank goodness my inattentiveness didn't come back to bite me. I am not sure if BER is contageous or not, but it doesn't appear to have spread.  Whew!

Lastly, I had to snap this pic while I was watering.  I still haven't pulled my spent cauliflower.  I'm not sure how much longer it needs to harvest seed from it, but I don't need the space right away, so I may just wait it out. 



Ugly I know, but that's what taking a month off will do to your garden.

I had really hoped to get out more into my garden this week.

July 9, 2009

Well, I got out into the garden for the first time in ages. That is, not just to water it after dark.  I was getting tired of humming Gardening At Night by REM, hehe.

Much to my surprise, my garden marched along without me.  The kids have been harvesting carrots left and right.  In fact, they harvested a slew of them at once (against all I've taught them).  Thankfully, I learned from Good Eat's that storing carrots with an inch of stem left on them in bubble wrap is the best way to keep them fresh for a long period. 

I also found this in the garden.



These are (I believe) my bloody butchers that I should have pinched the blooms off of instead of letting them form fruit.  Sure I have early fruit (probably the earliest in the neighborhood), but the plant is less than half the size of the rest of my plants.  As I have read, all the energy went into the fruit and not growing the green vines, despite repeated watering with fish emulsion.  Oh well, I will get to save seed from these to create an earlier maturing variety next season (hopefully).  Anyway, aren't they cute?

I also found these during my personal garden tour.



These are likely yello pear as I found another that is likely roma.  I can't wait until these go from green to yellow!

Well, as I said, the garden marched on for two weeks without me.  I knew my cauliflower and broccoli were ready to harvest, but when you eat out every night and get home exhausted, it's tough to harvest in the dark.  What that meant is that my nice, tight broccoli and cauliflower bunches got leggy.  They're still edible I think, just not the peak of freshness.  Grrr.  Thankfully, I found this when I was out there.



I realize I don't have a hand in there, but you can tell by the 2x6 there that this is about 3 inches wide.  I pinched the inner leaves together and clipped them with one of my handy dollar store clips.

Lastly, I was giving the potato bins some much needed water and saw the pest damage was getting worse.  Contrary to popular belief, I don't know everything about potatoes.  Mostly I know about growing them, not pest problems as I haven't had too much of that.  Any idea what's causing this?


The plants look healthy desptie all the holes.  I hope that means the potatoes are growing bigger in the tower.  I also hope I kept them watered sufficiently so they aren't deformed.

Well, I'm back, and feeling better (though still sore and tired) back in the garden.  Thanks for all the kind words about the house.  It was listed today and there's an open house both days on the weekend. Fingers are crossed that it's a quick sale.

Oh, on a separate note, I just realized that this is my 400th post. Wow, that's a ton, hehe.

Enjoy your garden!

June 19, 2009

Happy Friday! I hope you've got some great gardening and Father's Day celebrations planned this weekend. I need to mow the lawn, put up the trellis and maybe clean up and add some dirt to the potato bins to make sure I get as many potatoes as possible from my semi-failed bins.  Of course I think my dad expects some work on the house this weekend (Saturday of course), so when this all will get done I have no idea.

For this post, I've got one last thing that I accomplished this week to share.

My lettuce is starting to wilt in the heat and is growing out of control. I know KitsapFG says it's better when young, but I don't mind a meatier leaf myself, so I am still harvesting salads.  However, from last year's experience, the spring crop will eventually bolt or wilt, so a second planting is needed even for us who eat salads only once or twice a week.

This year, I decided to take a page from my brother and friends who utilized window boxes to grow lettuce.  My buddy Jen has hers on her deck railing and my brother has his on a shelf built a the top of his fence.  Either way, I love the idea for lettuce in summer.  You can control the amount of sun it gets by moving the container to the shade if it's a really hot day.

For my lettuce, I bought two self-watering window boxes from Wally World.  Then I filled them 2/3rds the way up with used Mel's mix (I'm running low so it's a good thing I am not filling my potato bins to the top).



Then I sprinkled a liberal amount of bloodmeal and 5-10-10 vegetable fertilizer.  Then I took them to my compost bin and filled them up the rest of the way with my finished compost.  Unfortunately it's not as finished as I thought it was.



The biggest problem is the dried grass that is seen in on the top of the lower bin.  It's also covering the replant of carrots, which would be good if they were fresh, but I doubt there's much nitrogen left in the dried grass that's a year old.  Regardless, it should be good for the lettuce.

To plant I removed the top 1/4 inch of compost and wet the soil.  Then I took EG's mixed loos leaf greens and sprinkled it down the middle and covered it back up with 1/4 inch of compost.  The other bin got strategic placement of my own seed for salad bowl, Italiensheir and Red Sails.  For now I placed them between two scrap 2x2s from last year's potato bins, spanning the 3rd and 4th beds.



I love that I can bottom water from any one of the four corners, and these only cost $8 each.  Next year I plan on using these for 4 to 6 mint plants like Jen has that we loved crushed in our water and tea.  I can't wait!

Enjoy your garden!

June 16, 2009

Well, the weather was much cooler today, though muggy. I think we're finally in for some rain tonight.  Of course that didn't stop us from having a great 3-mile walk sans youngin's tonight when we got home from work.  It was great.  The heart rate wasn't racing quite as much as pushing an old jogging stroller with 45 pounds of 5 year old, but it did allow us to spend a relaxing dinner at Subway mid-walk.  Splitting a foot-long ham and cheese loaded with veggies. Ah, the life. hehe

What does that have to do with a gardening blog you ask?  Well, it isn't really a stretch to say that part of the reason I started my garden was to eat better and live healthier so I can play with my grand kids some day.  Besides, the other reason I started the garden was for a stress reliever, and I can tell you I feel nice and relaxed after that evening.  Lastly, it's my blog and I'll ramble if I want to, hehe.

Now on to the garden.  After my walk today, I took the opportunity when we got home to wander around the garden and water.  I can tell you more broccoli is coming on strong all of a sudden, so I should really figure out how to encorporate it into more meals.  That or resign myself to the fact that I'll need to preserve it or give it away.  I'm sure I could give it away, but having freshish broccoli in the heat of the summer or dead of winter sounds pretty good (yeah, there's a good chance I'll have broccoli to harvest mid-winter, but you get my meaning). 

While I was watering, I decided to take a few snapshots of the other side of the garden for a change.  First is Judy's Minnesota Midget cantaloupe.



Why do you ask are all the plants bunched into the corner of a big 31 gallon Self Watering Container (SWC)?  Well, the third seed didn't germinate but the fourth that I just threw in did.  Anyone want to tell me if the little guy will transplant a foot away?  I don't want to kill it but it does look kinda runtish next to those big guys.  Anyway, I need to figure out a trellis for this area.  Now that I think the big tomato cages are doing fine to contain the tomatoes I really don't need to waste my big trellis on it, but it does need to be sturdy.  Maybe I'll build one of the sturdy conduit ones that Mel pushes and KitsapFG uses so well.  Who knows, I've got another month or so before these need a trellis.



Speaking of tomatoes, I think I mentioned that I took an idea from EG who pinches his suckers (the stems that grow from the middle of a V on a tomato plant) when they're decent size and plants them for succession or back-up plants.  Well, I decided to experiment myself with a decent sized one that I must have missed.  I planted it in the back of my blueberry bed where I had a ton of room in the corner of two fences.  Well, it seemed to take, but silly me, I forgot to water it well during that 90 degree heat we had last week.  I guess I'm spoiled by my SWCs, hehe.  It died of course, but I decided to water it regularly to see if I could revive it.  Sure enough, it looks like it may just pull through.  Wouldn't that be a resilient tomato plant?



Sorry for the poor quality picture, I didn't want to climb into the bed so I zoomed in.  However, you can clearly see new growth on top of the old dead leaves.  I'll keep checking back with this guy to see if it produces anything.

Hehe, continuing the unintentional segways, speaking of blueberries, the plant right next to this tomato is going to be my best producer by far.  Look at all those berries froming...



They almost look ready don't they?  Maybe this is one of my early producers?  It's a Blueray, which matures in July and August, so maybe... Yum!

The next pic is for my good buddy EG who already has corn growing.  I think I told you that I hit these with a shot of fish emulsion yesterday to help them along, hehe.



Notice that some of those stalks are growing side stems at a 45 degree angle?  I'm not sure what to make of that.  I mean last year the stalks did that but not until they were nearly 6 feet tall and the Vs were 3 feet up the stalk.  I wonder if this means I'll grow short corn stalks with multiple ears... wouldn't that be interesting?  I haven't grown this variety before.

Lastly, I wanted to share a pic of my lone watermelon from EG that germinated in a scrap SWC.  It seems to be doing pretty well, but I'm kind of curious about it.  It doesn't look at all like a cantaloupe or other melon plant.  In fact, it looks a LOT like a tomato plant...



I swear the seeds looked like black watermelon seeds, which matches the name, Blacktail Mountain Watermelon or something like that.  EG, you growing them?  At least I think it was EG that gave them to me, maybe Judy... hmm?  That reminds me that I should really lable the envelopes with who gave them to me, to thank them when I get a great crop or something... hehe.

Enjoy your garden!

June 6, 2009

Ah, time sure flies.  It seems like just yesterday my youngest was born, and now he turned three last week, and we've been celebrating ever since.  Good times.

Still, gardening has been done, and I've tried to take pics of whatever I did to share.  Mostly I've watered, especially the tomatoes.  They're drinking tons in this warm weather.  I am guessing a gallon a day is being wicked up into the growing chamber.  And they're nowhere near as big as they're going to get.  Although the two bushy ones sure are huge in their own way.



I really need to take the time to prune the useless vines out to make room for sun to get into the middle of the plant.  I did that last year after researching it on the internet.  I think this year will be better as I'll do a better job of leaving shade for the tomatoes in the heat of the summer.

I also took some time to garden with my eldest.  He had his shovel out and wanted to dig.  So I gave him a kitty litter bucket and asked him to fill it with compost from the compost bin.  Then I used it to plant carrots in some blank spaces behind the yukon gold potatoes.



Shame is, about 24 hours after I planted the carrots, I realized I wanted to use those squares to plant summer lettuce so it would get shade from the potatoes and the garage that blocks the afternoon and evening sun.  Doh.

Oh, and I also took the time to re-seed last fall's carrot patch with more carrots.  I sure hope they grow a good succession crop in time to replant for fall.  No, I won't be using the same area, but I guess I mean I hope these mature before fall.  Not sure, it's a test.



Anyway, with the left over compost in the bucket, I used it to "hill" the yukon golds.  No, hilling is not needed for yukon golds, but they do need 6 inches of space to grow their potatoes.  I think I had it already from how deep I planted the seeds, but I wound the extra long sprouts pretty high in the hole, so I may not have enough space.  And since I have about 3 inches of settling of the Mel's Mix since I built the beds, I decided to use the left over compost to add some more soil around the stems.  Hopefully the nutrients combined with the added depth of soil will make for perfect growing conditions for tons of yukon gold potatoes.



If you can't tell from that pic, the potatoes have grown like gangbusters in this heat.  Take a look at the potato patch in bed #4 now.



Lastly, while I was in the planting mood. I replanted some stevia seeds in my pot.  None of the ones I planted last time germinated so this is probably the last attempt this season.  Actually, I'm a bit concerned that I may have planted marigolds instead of stevia.  The seeds were in a small manilla envelop inside the stevia package.  That and they looked like strips of paper rather than seeds, very much like marigold seeds.  Not sure what they'd be doing in the stevia package, or why I would no longer have any stevia seeds.  If I'm out I'm contacting Territorial Seed to complain that non of their seeds germinated.



Sorry for the blurry pic, I must have moved.  However, note that I've built up a pedistal of brickto make it on level with the 16 inch high beds.  That way it gets sun.

Hope you got out today to enjoy your garden!

May 13, 2009

Hey folks, sorry for the brief hiatus.  Sometimes I get hooked on something and got to get it out of my system.  I guess it's the obsessive compusive gene in me.  This time it was a silly game on Facebook.  My wife plays it and it was about gardening, so I decided to try it.  It helped that I'm always searching for things we can do together.  Of course that meant I needed to sign up on facebook.  Now I guess all my friends are my friends on facebook.  All I wanted was to play the stupid game, but it would be rude to say no to friends.  I really want nothing to do with social networking sites, hehe.

Through all this, gardening has gotten done though.  I haven't shirked that duty.  But before I get to my garden, for Mother's Day we spent the afternoon at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens.  I was kind of bored because it was 99% flowers and trees, but the mother's and kids had fun.



And of course my Aunt was in her element.  All I could think of was 53 acres of weeding, hehe.



My favorite thing there was a tiny demonstration garden.  They had raised beds with gravel walk ways, but their lettuce was ages behind mine, as was their broccoli.  The only thing they were ahead of me on were peas, but I know I started them late.  Made me feel good since they probably have master gardeners tending that garden, hehe.

For the garden, I took Judy's advice and soaked the cantaloupe seeds.  Out of 5 seeds, two sunk easily, one took some coercing and two didn't do anything.  Not particularly viable after a year.  Shame.  Anyway, I planted all of them in my large SWC, so we shall see what sprouts.

I also filled in some empty squares and sparce carrot growth with new seeds, so hopefully I will have some good succession plantings of everything.  Of course I still have TONS of open spaces. Not sure what I'll do with all of them. 

Lastly, for those of you that were concerned for my Bloody Butcher tomato plant, it appears it was just shock, because the top seems to be growing again.  Too bad the stem that had that huge cluster of blooms still doesn't look good.

Well, check back tomorrow for another post. I'm back at it again.  Hope you...

Enjoy your garden!

May 9, 2009

Well, for the first time since I started this blog over a year ago, I don't quite feel like blogging tonight. There is too much going on and I'm feeling lazy.  However, I got a fair amount done today so the desire to share overwhelmed the desire to sit on my can and read a book.

Most of my gardening today either happened while I was playing tag in the sun with the kids.  You see, my wife wanted them out in the sun for 15 minutes to get their natural Vitamin D.  While I was out there, I couldn't help but be struck by the beauty of Owen's apple tree in bloom.

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I've said it before but I sure hope this is a dwarf or semi-dwarf, because eventually it will shade out my prime extra growing space.  You can see the potato bins in the background.

Then, as we were heading out for errands, mostly to wrap up shopping for Mother's Day and visit the hospital where some good friends just had a baby (Welcome Joshua!), I stopped by the garden.  The temperature was pushing 70 in the shade in the garden area.  I've removed the bed thermometer and put it back up on top of the fireplace bricks under the eaves.  That way it's in shade and dry.  Anyway, I wanted to remove the plastic from my hoop covers so they didn't fry.  As it was, some of the broccoli looked a little toasty and some of the lettuce wilty.



What's worse is that for some reason, my Bloody Butcher tomato plant doesn't seem to be perking up after all that rain.



I sure hope I don't loose that bunch of tomatoes that was prime to grow before I transplanted them.

Anyway, before dinner I decided it was past time to plant my cantaloupe.  I got the seeds too late to get a crop to mature, but that doesn't mean I can wait forever to plant them this year.  So out I ran to position my final SWC.  This one's the 31 gallon kind and should fit three cantaloupe plants if I trellis them.  I knew I would place one half of the bin on a cedar tree stump, but the other end I didn't what I was going to do.  Thanfully there was a cool flat rock that was the perfect height to even out the SWC.  Here it is in it's final position.



Right after this I raced and dumped two bags of used potato bin Mel's Mix into the bin to fill it.  Unfortunately I don't have a shot of it because I was called in to dinner and didn't get back outside.

However, after the kids went to bed I pulled out of the fridge several packets of seeds to plant tomorrow morning.  I want to plant more carrots, spinach and radishes, though mostly I wanted to fill in the blanks on the peas.  I have no clue why I have such bad luck with peas and beans germinating in my garden.  It's wierd.  Maybe you're not supposed to soak them overnight?

Speaking of soaking, anyone know if I should soak the Minnesota Midget Cantaloupe seeds or not before planting?  I decided I would direct sow them since that's the safest method.  I have 5 seeds left from Judy and need 3 to grow so I can save seed for next year.  If only one matures, I have two spares, hehe.  Wish me luck.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mother's out there!

And enjoy your garden.

May 2, 2009

Well, today was a very interesting weather day.  It was raining off and on all day, but I was cooped up inside pretty much all day working over at the folks.  My poor niece though was loading the truck for a dump run so she got pretty wet.  And as I type this, we are having a pretty good storm.  Wind and drenching rain.  It started about 5:30 when I was trying to plant out my tomatoes.  Good thing I only got this far...



Actually I got the two bins going in the garden area placed in their season locations.  To do that I needed to remove the trellis from bed #2.  I was going to set up my tomatoes and put the trellis on bed #4 so my peas can grab something in a week or two.  It was about then it started to sprinkle big drops, so the kids and I went in.

It was about then that I felt exhausted from the day.  So I tackled a project I've had in the back of my mind for a while.  My seed packets have been hanging out in the big bubble envelope that I got my original seed order last year.  For a while I've wanted to keep them in the fridge out in the garage.  So, while I was sitting watching some new Cinderella movie with the kids (they wanted to go back outside, rain or shine, so this distracted them), I sorted out my packets.  Then I grabbed two Costco peanut jars.  The mouths are wide enough to get a seed packet in and out, and are just deep enough to hold a standing packet.  Unfortunately I have more seeds than can fit in one container, so all the store bought seeds went in one and the traded seeds and tomato seeds went in another.



On this one I taped a discant (can't spell it or say it) packet to the lid before I screwed it on tight.  That way, any moisture will not get to the seeds.  Finally, both jars got stashed in the mid-level cheese crisper of the extra refridgerator.

At around 8 I had noticed the typhoon winds (kidding) outside and was thinking about the SWCs outside.  They're fine, but then it dawned on me... the tomatoes!  So, out I ran to grab the trays.  It was the first time in three plus days that they've been inside.  I wouldn't have done it but they were almost laying flat in the wind, and that place doesn't get much comparatively.

So, the tomatoes are hanging out on top of the freezer in the garage once again, but tomorrow they'll be planted out.  Hopefully the cages can keep them from blowing over if there's another storm.  However, I agree with all the comments that they just need to get into their self watering containers. 

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that on the way home from my folks old house today I ran by the dollar store.  I remembered my brother's finds from there and wanted to pick up a few things for the garden...



As you can see, I got a wide color variety of jumbo clothes pins.  They're cheap, 6 for $1, but they should last longer then the rusty binder clips since they're mostly plastic.  I figure even if the spring rusts it should work well enough for a few years before I have to spend another $5 on another 30 of them, hehe.  Also, what you can't see is that I'm holding a brick of popsicle sticks, 200 of them to be exact.  I'll use them to label my plants, especially my tomatoes.  Not a bad haul for $6!

Enjoy your garden!