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!

June 28, 2009

Well, it seems like I'm on break from working at the house. We're in the home stretch with seven days before the stager comes in to take over the finished house.  Are we ready, not even close.  So after 8 hour days this weekend, we're going to pick right back up Monday after work and do that every day this week until it's done.  Actually, we're down to one page of big ticket items, and several of them have been crossed off.  It was really cranking today with everyone pitching in and doing what needed to be done.  I even tried my hand at installing quarter round base after my brother threw up his arms and gave up, hehe.  I survived it by not overthinking it. I knew I couldn't measure the 45 degree cuts with any precision so I measured once and cut 4 times for each piece.  Young legs, hehe.

Ok, I know, this is a gardening blog, but I had to share my to-do list results and it was a biggie on the list.  I also worked on the clogged drain, hehe. Cleared it with an arosol jet product rather than removing the toilet, YAY! Now the sink isn't even slow, it's been slow for months waiting for the renovation to be done to dig into it.

As for the garden, I got home from my folks at 6:30. Immediately the boys and I went out and mowed the lawn.  Boy did it need it, but alas, that's all I got done.  I had light to put up the trellis, but my arms and legs don't move. 

During my absence today, our teacher that I started the tomatoes for stopped by for an impromptu garden tour.  She was in the neighborhood, but I wasn't.  So my wife led the tour.  I was pleased that she took home with her a boatload of lettuce and my big head of broccoli.  Now I don't have to figure out how to eat it before it blooms, hehe.  She even caught that my watermelon was really a tomato. I hadn't mentioned it to my wife and our teacher said "there may be a watermelon in there, but THAT'S a tomato." Hehe.

Well, you've heard my schedule for the coming week. I can't guaranty I'll have anything to say or get to do anything this week, so the posts may be a bit sparce.  Sorry in advance.  It will all be over in a week. Eye on the prize, hehe.

Enjoy your garden!

May 28, 2009

Boy am I tired.  I'm not as young as I used to be.  Yesterday was the final show of Village Theatre's season.  Much as we enjoyed the evening, it was a very late night, followed by an early morning.  Unfortunately I was so exhausted this evening that I almost didn't head out to mow the lawn despite the calf-high grass.  It must have something to the 75 to 80 degree temperatures we've been having for the last several days.

I actually did get out and mow.  It took just over an hour and a half, which isn't bad, and the kids had fun "helping" me when I did the back yard.  The whole thing took two hours of course because I had to do the compost.  I hadn't aerated and turned it since I mowed last, which is bad, so it was difficult to turn before I added the new grass.  I actuallly had too much new material so I ended up dumping about half a 96 gallon yard waste container on top of the pile at the end.  No pictures were taken this time because it was too dark at the end.  In the end I am excited about the amount of compost that I'm making this year.  It seems like more than last year, though I'm not sure how that's possible.

Mostly this evening I spent my time staring into my rose garden.  I was searching for the bumble/carpenter bees to try to identify them.  You see, my recollection is that they had fuzzy butts which would make them bumble bees. However, EVERYTHING about their behavior screamed carpenter bee.  I've been doing a TON of research and carpenter bees nest in eves and facia, where this hive is.  They create the same size hole as I saw.  The males hang around the entrance "defending" it while the nest is being created, which would explain the bees lounging on my siding the other day.  The interesting thing about carpenter bees is that the very agressive males have no stingers so they're all bluster and no bite.  The other interesting clarification I learned is that bumble bees don't die when they sting you like honey bees, so they can sting you over and over, though you really have to piss them off to get them to attack (like get too close to their nest).  Finally, both types of bees are beneficial to gardeners, so I guess it really doesn't matter for the garden, but it does to my house (carpenter) and kids safety (bumble).

I could go on and on with all I've learned, but what I was really looking for was their torsos.  Carpenter bees have hairless black behinds and bumble bees have colorful furry ones.  When I was out there looking, I saw all sorts of bees.  My attention was first drawn to what looked like three wasps comanding the entire garden to themselves.  You know, the elongated, banded torso of and the long antenna.  Scary fighter planes is what I think of. 



Thankfully they ended up flying away over the top of my house after pawing all over all the plants.  Really odd since wasps don't like plants.  After they left, I did see several bees come and go, but they didn't hang around or go slow enough to see them, and none were lounging around the entrance. 

It wasn't until I was watering the plants in the shade that I saw a ton of bees all over my flowering rosemary plant.  They were definitely bumble bees, I got within a foot of them.  The same went for my flowering rhodie tree. However, I couldn't be sure if these were just traveling bumble bees or if they were the ones from my house.  It wasn't until I found one hanging out on the siding under the nest.  It clearly had a fuzzy behind.  I tried to get a picture of my bumble bee, but the silly bee was in the shade so my picture didn't come out.  You'll have to take my word for the fact that I have bumble bees that act exactly like carpenter bees.  So they're dangerous if the kids disturb them while they dig in the rose garden, but hopefully they'll just do fly bys over their heads until winter when they will abandon the nest and I can plug the hole. 

Of course I planned on painting the house so that would definitely anger them.  Not sure if that'll happen this summer, but if so, that'll take some thinking.

Ok, enough about bees, though that has monopolized my time ouside of work for 48 hours, hehe.  While I was out there I had to snap a shot of my purple/blue irises.



Of course my son likes the yellow the best, but they're not quite in bloom yet.  Arent these pretty?

While I was watering the scraps, I had to make note of the fact that I think I have a volunteer (weed?) in my watermelon bin.  I say this because I planted three seeds and got two different plants sprouting.



I guess I'll let them grow and see what happens.  Odd though.

Lastly, I was downloading pics from my phone, I guess I'd snapped some silly pics that I'd like to share.  First is when I was upstairs putting some things in storage I realized I still had my light setup going.  What I had really forgot is that I had some seedlings growing under those lights.  Unfortuantely I hadn't watered them in a few weeks, so there was no hope for them.



They USED to be Italienshier lettuce.  What I had THOUGHT they were originally was stevia, they were growing so slow.  It's ok that I don't have them to plant, I still have TONS of lettuce to harvest.

Whoever said I didn't have enough space to donate a CSA share of my garden clearly overestimated the amount of salads our family can eat.  Hehe.  I've still got tons of open squares to plant in my garden.

My final pic tonight was taken one morning on the way out the door to work.  I still have tons of sprouting potatoes that I don't have room to plant.  I would compost them but with my luck they'd grow and I don't want plants growing in my constantly shaded compost bins.  But look at these sprouts searching desperately for dirt to grow.



Enjoy your garden!

May 25, 2009

Happy Memorial Day all. I hope you made use of the somber holiday to spread life throughout your garden.  Following my utterly exhausting day yesterday, I slept in and got a bit done at my folks place before heading to another BBQ, late as usual for this weekend.  We had fun, but thankfully for the garden's sake it ended early. When I got home I got out into the garden finally. 

I knew this weekend of beautiful weather would do wonders for the garden, and I was right.  We now have cantaloupe sprouts, watermelon and the corn is about 3 inches high.  What's even more special is that I even saw a few broccoli heads starting to form.  That's great since they're now shading the cauliflower and cukes behind them too badly.  Oops. 

Well, that's it for the cool stuff I didn't take pictures of.  Mainly I spent my time over at the potato bins.  I knew I was in for a bunch of soil adding with all the sun we've had.  I had left a bit more than an inch, maybe 3 last time I hilled last week.  Today I had another 6-8 inches of growth.  Amazing.  I'm not sure if it's bad or not, but there were even flowers starting to form.  That's not good if they're stopping growth and heading straight to potato formation this early.  Time will tell.  All I can do is continue to hill. 

I must admit that having 2 bins is about all I could stand.  My back was killing me after hilling each plant by the handfull.  It took two bags of Mel's Mix and another set of boards per bin.  I suppose I could use a scoop of some kind, but this works and I feel better, closer to the dirt my way.  Here's a shot of about how much I tend to leave.



All the lower branches of each plant got burried after I positioned them into a bare spot in the bin, hoping the potatoes grow where I want them.  I've had a few questions about my bins lately, and although I always try to personally reply to questions via email, I thought I'd share this pic with everyone as it seems to be a common issue.  Hope this helps.

While I was watering this part of my garden (I watered the raised beds yesterday), I couldn't help but notice the blueberry bushes are covered in flowers and/or berry starts.



And my other original planting...



Not bad for the second year in the ground.  I can't wait for these babbies to be 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide, hehe.

Speaking of tall plants, look at how well the garlic's growing.  I don't know what type garlic I'm growing, but I would love to know if I can harvest the greens for use as garlic flavored green onions?



I know it's tough to tell how tall they are, but that's about 2 feet.  This bed is constantly in need of weeding because I did a very poor job of it when I planted my blueberries.  My folks think I should use the front of this concrete raised bed for strawberries.  I may though I like the idea of containers for strawberries better.  If only I had room for them. Maybe I could hang them from the fence, hehe.  Go vertical?

Hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend.  Mine was about as horrible as it could be with such miraculous weather and two parties attended.  I am going to be so exhausted at work I'll be useless, and still need to desperately mow my lawn.  Hope you enjoy your garden~!

May 24, 2009

Wow, it's been forever since I've posted.  Sorry about that folks.  I have a really good reason why I haven't posted.  I've been on the go 24/7 since my last post, with scarely a minute to myself.  Seriously, between helping my folks and my inlaws, it's been a crazy couple of days.  About the only thing I got to do for fun this weekend was go to my best friends 37th birthday party (I'm a few months older than he is).  It was a barbeque over at their house and I finally got to see the SWCs we made at the SWC party in action.  They've got them all lined up under their deck on a concrete patio area.  They get really good sun and there are 10 tomato plants growing in them.  Interspersed between them are the scraps with cukes and other stuff growing in them.  They creatively used the lids as saucers for the scraps to fit on/in.  Apparently they recommend having a few holes drilled in the lids so they drain.  Otherwise there is a 1 inch pond the scrap is sitting in.  Sorry to say I didn't take pictures, I was too exhausted.

I ended up leaving early while the folks were playing Rock Band.  I couldn't get my fingers to work on medium, got frustrated and decided I had had enough. You see, I got up at 6 and need to do pretty much the same tomorrow, with heavy manual labor both days.  Yep, three days of manual labor on perhaps the best weather weekend of the year (including the rest of the year I'm betting).  /sigh.  Life is far from fair.

I'd like to tell you that gardening has still been happening, but it hasn't.  All I got done was to water a bit this morning knowing it would be in the 70s today and hadn't rained for days.  While I was out there I snapped a few pictures though.



Here's an early morning picture of the sprouting yukon golds.  I think I'll hill these a bit with compost to add a few inches of growing space.  Not sure it's needed, but I have the room.

While I was in that bed, I ripped out the grass that was somehow growing in the carrot squares.  I had tons of it as you saw from my last post.  No clue how it got there.  So much for the carrot seeds I planted there a few weeks ago.

I also had to share these monster broccoli plants.



No heads forming yet, but I'm hopeful I'll get an early crop.  I have other plants that are effective succession plantings to these so I should have a good harvest of broccoli all summer long.  I just hope the cauliflower does ok.

Here's the sad looking tomato plants that have miraculously turned themselves around.



And lastly, Saturday morning I got a chance to see my favorite garden growing up.  It is at the home of my Aunt Joyce and Uncle Al in West Seattle.  My Aunt Joyce passed on a month ago and we were helping my Uncle Al out before working on the house.  They have a terraced garden with three levels and have always grown the best harvests I've ever seen. 

 



This picture, taken from their deck doesn't do the garden justice, but you can see the top layer at the top of the picture planted with potatoes with a soaker hose wrapped around.  Sorry to say that their garden is in a state of over grown disarray, but it's been a few years since they've been able to tend it well.  I remember growing up their garden was alive with everything under the sun.  It is one of my fondest memories of them.

Well, it's really late and I've got to get up and do it all over again.  Wellcome to the new folks to sign up.  I hope you comment and share your insites.

Enjoy your garden!

May 8, 2009

Ah, having a Friday off of work is refreshing.  I got to sleep in til 9 and go shopping with the family.  Surprisingly little got done in the garden because for the second straight day off, my time wasn't my own.  Not horrible, just a bit tiring.  My wife deserves an award, or at least a day for all she puts up with the kids.  Hehe, oh wait, that's what's going on Sunday.  Just kidding. What a lame set-up.  She'll get a big box of her favorite chocolates and a day of pampering from the guys. 

Back to today though.  Before I grabbed a shower this morning, I took the opportunity to run out and hill up the potato bins.  They haven't grown all that fast, but they were definitely 4 inches high.  That and for some reason the dirt that was covering the seed potatoes kept washing away. I hope it's not a raccoon, that deterrent should be working.  Anyway, here's what one of the bins looks like when I was done...



The other bin is a bit sparse in the greenery department.  Not sure if any more sprouts will pop up, but I'm kind of holding off putting much dirt in.   Last year one corner was 8 inches lower than the rest of the bin until I finally dug down and found a dud of a seed potato.  I suppose I could plant another seed potato in the other bin right now if wanted better coverage.  I have plenty to spare in the garage. hehe.

So, after our shopping trip, the boys and I went outside and I showed my oldest everything there was to know about mowing the lawn.  He wanted to learn.  He's still too young and not strong enough to effectively handle the self-propelled mower, but at least he's learning the basics now.  It was fun.  The back yard took much longer to mow as a result, but I still got both the front mowed before 6. 

When it was time to do the compost, wanted to take a few pics of the bin before and after, however, I also wanted to get a few shots of the volutneers.



There big one could some sort of melon, but there are tons of them down in the bottom corner.  Don't worry about the left hand corner, that's a rotten white mellon that my wife got for my eldest, but forgot to feed him.  It was growing mold so it's now composted (at the bottom, the worms will LOVE it).   Anyway, here's a close-up of the volunteer.



Sorry, it's a pain holding the phone still that close.  I guess it doesn't really matter what they are, they got composted in with the rest of the partially cooked material.  I doubt they'll be back.  They'll just be fresh greens, like I need them.  I used up all the shredded paper and still probably have too much greens in the pile.  I'll check for smell tomorrow and Sunday and add some dryer lint if necessary.

Here's the before shot.



It is definitely working as the pile's half what it was when I built it.  Boy was the full yard waste container heavy to dump into the compost bin after I aerated the pile and stored it on the edges.  I normally like to fill it only half-way if I'm dumping it myself.  This time I ended up dumping it in handfuls until it was too far down to reach in.  As for the bin that I'm working right now, it's nowhere near done.  I think on the off weeks when I don't mow I need to go out and turn the compost and maybe only add my kitchen compost. 

Ok, so the pic above tops out at the second board of the pallets.  Take a look when I was done.



Wow, it's nearly to the top board.  There's less than a foot to the lid.  I figure if this keeps up, I'll have to take up all 5x5 feet by 3 feet high.  That would be cool!  Then it would be very EGish... hehe.

I sure hope you all have a great weekend and get some gardening in.  And to all you mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day!  You've earned the day and 364 more!

April 20, 2009

WOW! I just can't phathom it.  In a little under a week I've gone from 15,000 hits on my potato page to over 20,000!  I'm averaging just over 900 hits that page a day, and it's not even my best work.  /shrug.

Well, I came home a bit earlier from work than I normally do so I could take advantage of 70 degree weather to mow the lawn.  It was so bad that it just HAD to get done.  Unfortunately for me, my wife had other plans.  Off to a movie with the kids at the local community college.  It was fun.  Lots of kids, pizza, popcorn and juice.  Great fun.

Thankfully we got home around 7:30, so that gave me an hour to mow the lawn.  So I raced though the front lawn at record speed.  In fact, I used my blackberry to play my workout playlist.  I think it helped.  I ended up filling one and a half huge 96 gallon yard waste containers of grass clippings and leaves mixed together.  It was completely dark when I finished. 

Then, much to the chagrin of my sick wife, I had her go out with me and help me to aerate and add to my compost bin.  Ah, I wish you could have seen it.  I may be a compost snob, but it was a thing of beauty, even if it was dark out.  The existing pile was moved to the corners, the uncomposted pumkin remains were at the bottom with some newspaper and grass clippings, dampened, then I proceeded to add my kitchen compost, some coffee grounds, grass clippings and newspaper.  I kept going with that basic mix until I was out of coffee grounds and grass clippings.  I swear the pile is now 3x3x3, and I didn't even use the half-bin of grass clippings.  I figure that may just go to Cedar Grove.  They need all the help they can get, hehe.

Oh yes, and I've got pics to share again.  The first come from this morning.  You see, my plants had their first camp out last night.  It dropped to 41 degrees as a low for all I can tell, and here's how they looked when I was heading out to work.



As you can see, they're happy as clams.  And look at my pride and joy.



It may not be blooming like the Bloody Butcher, but it is huge and healthy.  I don't think I can bear to even burry those lower branches (I will anyway to not let branches drag on the ground), the plant is so pretty.  This weekend I need to plant them out, even if it means protecting them.  I figure I can put a garbage bag over the tomato cages at night if it looks like it'll be too cold.  I'd want to remove them in the day since I don't have clear plastic bags big enough to cover the cages.

What I didn't do while I was out there was open up the hoop covers.  I should have thought of that when I saw the temperature go from 41 degrees at 7 am to 61 at 8.  Unfortunately by the time I asked my wife to do it, she was out for the day.  When I got home I quickly remedied the situation, but not before this happened...



As you can see, my best Salad Bowl lettuce plant is wilted something fierce.  I drenched it in water, hoping to revive it, but I'm not holding out hope.  Grrr.  I have to be more careful.  Right now the cover's down and it's 52 degrees in there at 11pm.  I will NOT forget tomorrow to open it as we should get great weather again.

Lastly, after I mowed the lawn and did the compost, I remembered that tomorrow is the pass off day for the 10 seedlings for my teacher friend.  Perfect timing as they are basically ready to be planted out.  Unfortunately, the two smallest plants were not growing fast enough to need potting up.  Too bad, I wasn't going to pass them off without being potted up, in case they needed to hang around for a while before she has time to plant them.  Besides, the bigger of the two was showing signs of being root bound.  So I potted up the last two tomatoes.  The bigger one did pretty well, but the little one did very poorly indeed.  The dirt clump basically desintegrated in my hands trying to get it from the cup to the pot.  I sure hope tomato plants REALLY like to have their roots disturbed, hehe.  I'll be disappointed if it dies.



Doesn't the one on the far left look bad?  Ah well, the ones on the far right look great.  They've grown so much they don't even fit under the lights.  In fact, none of the other tomatoes do either.  That's why the light system is temporarily off until they're outside for the day.  I haven't been turning it on during the day because there's noting left up there.  However, tomorrow there will be. Two of my moldy soil blocks of cukes germinated so far, so they'll hang out under lights until they've grown a bit more.  Then I'll harden them off and plant them out.  Gotta plant more cukes!  Not sure all the ones I planted out earlier survived.  Gotta remove the hoop cover to check.  Maybe tomorrow.

Well, it's very late, I'm beat, and I want to wrap up my article for Patti's newsletter and get it off to the publisher. 

Enjoy your garden!

September 29, 2008

Today, after an annoying day at work, I got to do two of my favorite things, play with my kids and play in the garden.  The kids got pushed on the swings and time with dad at a tea party my eldest delivered an invitation for.  For my part I brought the last two plums from the well-harvested tree we dined under.  They had fun, though they aren't fans of the sun going down so early.  Boy are they in for a rude awakening come December!

The garden part of my evening, I started by grabing the bloodmeal and 5-10-10 organic fertilizer mix I made up for the corn and sprinkled it in a plus fashion between my four lettuce seedlings and around my cauliflower.  I also hit the area where my peas aren't sprouting.  Who knows if they're down there, but darn it, one or two plants per square will not make for many meals come winter.  Grrr.  After I fertilized, I watered it in.  Oh, and as a silly side note, I figured out why I've been having really poor water pressure from my hoses.  Someone, likely 2 or 4 years old, unscrewed the adjuster peg in the back.  Tightening it up fixed my pressure issues right away. /sigh.  Kids. hehe

I also checked the temp on my compost pile.  Alas, I think it may be just about done. Although it's tall and deep and I only have a meat thermometer, I couldn't get it to read over 100 degrees anywhere.  Normally the day after I fluff and add it's over 130.  Ah well, I won't be adding too much after the leaves and the grass clippings from the final lawn mowing.  Then it will sit for the winter, hopefully under corregated fiberglass roofing to stay relatively dry.

Other than that, I watered in the blueberries again, and gave the existing blueberries some more water.  I must say a year after I planted those bushes, they still drain like a dream!  Gotta love Mel's Mix with extra peat moss.  The new bushes don't drain so well!

To make EG happy and prove he's not missing anything, I haven't harvested my russett bin.  Here is a pic of it all wrapped up to keep water away to dry out the soil.



I wasn't so worried about covering all the leaves, mostly the top of the bin.  However, if I stake it up, I could probably use that cheap thin plastic drop cloth to cover the cantaloupe to warm it up if it gets too cold to ripen.  You can see how close the cantaloupe is to the potato bin, it's at the bottom right of the picture.

Speaking of cantaloupe, I finally got the courage to pick off some of the redundant female buds.  Looks like I got good pollination, but I didn't really want 6 cantaloupe per plant.  Especially when it was all one plant.  Now I have the three best growing on the most productive plant, and as many as may be growing on the other two.  Odd that the most productive plant is to the north.  /shrug.



Here is a close-up of a baby cantaloupe.  After I took this I found one farther along, but I settled with this pic.  Hehe, I'm reminded of a thread where EG shared a similar pic and took flack for it.  Good times!

Finally, after reading on the PTF journal tonight, I found out something VERY disturbing. Territorial Seed Company may have signed a pledge to keep GMO free, but that doesn't mean they don't sell Monsanto seed. Apparently with the acqusition of Seminis seed company in 2005, they acquired ownership of countless popular vegetables, two of which I am currently growing in my garden... Red Sails lettuce and Early Girl tomatoes. I am so mad and disappointed I could spit. One company should not have that sort of monopoly through acquistion. That's what anti-trust laws were made to protect against. People get on Microsoft for anti-trust, but they created products that dominated the market, not through acquisition. Big difference folks. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Well, on that note I'm hitting the sack.  Long week ahead of me.  Here's to a little garden time for everyone to smooth out the rough edges of the week!

August 30, 2008

Where has the year gone?  It's almost September. That's what everyone keeps saying at work.  I could say the same thing about my garden.  Where has the summer gone?  My plants echo that sentiment.  The weather turned back to a plesant 70 degrees, so I finally got the back yard mowed, but since the weather has been so awful, the grass hasn't grown much so it still didn't look so bad, except the few weeds I haven't had a chance to keep up with and the various varieties of grass that grow while the rest of my lawn didn't.  But now it looks good, and the front yard looks green again where the the city had messed up the natural grass that was drought resistant and stayed green year round without any water from me, fed by the high water table.  When you mess that up, you get brown grass.  Funny to see a swath where they took out the natural grass all down the street, it's all been brown when it used to be green.  Ah well, now the kids have sidewalks, so it's not all bad.

I digress. I also dug up my compost and fixed it with the grass clippings and kitchen compost and some more of my mom's shredded bills.  But to save you thinking I just recycled the countless pictures I took of the process I go through to fold and fluff my compost, here is a picture of the finished product, it's getting really huge, though the pile had shrunk by half since the last time I fluffed it.



Anyway, the cool weather has definitely helped my cool-weather crops.  My lettuce's sprouted, both seeds I put in each hole. I hate doing that but since the last planting didn't work I didn't want to take chances.  Now I have to catch a tiger by the toe and pull one.  I also have to do that considerably with my carrots after I sprinkled tons over the area where I got shoddy germination.  Now it seems everything germinated.  That's the upshot of the poor weather for you.  And the odd thing is that the cukes and tomatoes haven't seemed to be bothered by the cool weather. I think I've got a handful of new pickling cukes ready in the next few days. 

Speaking of that, we were rushing around all day so I didn't start my pickles marinating.  Tomorrow my mom's coming over and we're starting it out.  We're using her crock pot liner and she's bringing over the stuff for the pickling spices.  Seems you can buy them premade from McCormicks, but what's the fun in that?  Between our three families we should have most all the spices that go into it.  Anyway, my wife isn't  happy about making pickle chips or slices.  She likes the hole pickles.  I explained to her that we only have about a dozen or two pickles a season from these 6 plants. Did she want 24 pickles or a several pints of pickle chips because I let the cukes get much bigger than a regular pickle?  I'm not sure she's convinced, but tough.  I told her next year I may not do corn and then I could do tons of cucumber plants.

As for preserving the beans, alright folks, thanks for you comments. I will boil the heck out of them.  Hehe, I've got it in me that the less cooking the better the veggies are for you, but I'll try the boiling technique for the Blue Lake beans.  I guess some nutrition from actually eating them is better than none from not eating them at all.  I'm also going to preserve them so I can pull a pint from the cupboard rather than grabbing a can opener for Del Monte or Dole.

My mom also had me check to see if the blackberries were ready to harvest.  She, like me, has heard tons of people saying they've been harvesting for a month now.  But ours aren't ready. They don't get full full sun, but close.  I don't know what to think, and I sure hope they do eventually ripen. If not, that would NOT be good.  We rely on them for three families worth of blackberry jelly, which is a family favorite.  The irony was not lost on me that I have hardly ever tasted store-bought jams and jellies in my entire life.  We've always had home made.  So come on weather, come on blackberries!  At least the plums are almost ready. They're purple and big, just not squishy at all.  Close though.  So at least we'll have plum jelly. hehe Not the same.

I also want to install the brackets for my hoop covers.  You never know if this weekend will be our last good weather weekend of the year.  It would suck if it was, but I don't want to be setting it up in the freezing rain like last time.  I want to be able to throw up the covers all by myself in 5 minutes like I can the completed bed #1.

Lastly, for those of you that care about my sourdough starter.  Last night after I finished posting to my blog, I finished off the starter recipe!  And if you recall, I had dutifully been going through the steps of the recipe without hardly anything happening in the way of bubbles.  Still on Eric at Breadtopia's say so, I kept moving on.  So what made me know I'd arrived last night was this when I opened the margarine container to mix it for the last time that day...



Now THAT'S frothy!  And when I stirred it, there were bubbles like that throughout the mixture.  Not only that but it was as sticky as taffy, but came right off the spoon, exactly how it was supposed to.  So I decided to move on to the final step and transfer it to the final container...



Don't mind the fork, my 2 year old put it there, he calls them three horns (he loves the Land Before Time videos), or Cera (Sarah) who is the triceratops.  Funny huh? I thought you'd like that aside.  Well, I was pretty loopy by that wee hour of the morning so I went to bed.  The instructions say that after you transfer it wait an hour and the bubbles should be back.  Well I was asleep by then.  So this morning I took this picture and emailed it to my mom, who promptly wanted her starter, hehe.



So today I also pulled out a tablespoon of the starter and put it back into the margarine container.  This time I fed it with white flour since she didn't want my wheat variety.  According to Breadtopia, you can make a different variety simply by using a tablespoon of your wheat and feeding it exclusively with white or rye.  After twice daily feedings of 1/4th cup of white it'll be 99% white starter with no dicernable trace of wheat. 

Now I have to figure out what I'm going to use as a proofing basket when I make my no-kneed bread.  What a problem to have, huh?

Enjoy your garden!

August 24, 2008

Well, I'm not quite sure I'm out of the woods yet, but today was a busy day, so that may have had something to do with it.  Another could be that my youngest is still sick a week later.  Very odd.

It all started with reading a message from a gardening buddy of mine in Poulsbo (DoubleD) from Freedomgardens.org.  She informed me that for fall harvesting of peas, I should have had mine planted in early August, not late August.  So I rushed out to plant, only to remember that you pre-soak peas for best germination.  So while they were soaking, I planted more carrots and spinach for the third time.  Given how poorly these seeds are germinating, I spinkled the carrot seeds in the general locations of where the final carrots need to be spaced, and I'll thin significantly as needed if they come up.  Frankly, I think it was a mistake to keep my seeds in the garage.  Though it was cool in the winter, it's quite warm in the summer, which is bad for seeds.  Unfortunately keeping them in the fridge doesn't allow for spontaneous planting if you have to warm them up to room temperature before planting each time.  Ah well, seeds are cheap if you buy from one location and buy all at once since it's the shipping that kills you.

While I was out there I figured maybe the spinach didn't like being in direct sun, so I grabbed a screen from one of my cold frame windows and positioned it to partially block the sun for the longest part of the day.  No clue if it'll work or what, but here's what I mean...



Nothing's planted in the front of that bed except for a few squares of radishes.  As I mentioned before, I don't really have need for all that space.  As for the peas, I want them to catch up to have a fall harvest, but I really don't want them growing up and attaching themselves to the trellis since it's got to be removed to put up my hoop covers.  Kinda a catch 22 really, because my pole beans, tomatoes and cukes are all using that trellis and I don't want to cut it. hehe.

The other thing I wanted to do before I went back to work was to mow the lawn.  The grass hasn't grown an inch in a month, which is really really odd, but the weeds and other grass-like plants in my grass have grown, so I needed to mow the weeds.  Unfortunately the forecast for afternoon showers meant 12:01.  So I spent the better part of two hours dodging drenching showers to get the front lawn mowed.  The back is cleared but I ran out of time before we had to go to a birthday party for my dad, who's 69 today.

I was really excited to go to my folks because we were going to do a pickling party there with my brother.  Our cukes are not getting any fresher in the crisper so this was the last chance before next week to do any pickling. It just takes too long to do in an evening if you're learning.  Anyway, we get there and find out that he's going to do bread and butter pickles, which are a fancy name for sweet pickles. My wife can't stand sweet pickles. In fact the smell of them makes her ill.  Also unfortunately, we found that it takes 2-3 weeks of marinating to make dill pickles, with regular tending to the brine to skim off the scum.  Given her reaction all night to just making the sweet pickles, it looks like I'm going to be skimming scum for pickels I really don't want.  That's love for you. hehe.

Actually, it's not that far off the work going into my sourdough starter.  Which by the way, is looking quite nice. I did the second step today, adding more flower and pineapple juice to the mix.  When I went to stir it later I found what looked like a couple of bubbles.  It's supposed to get frothy at some point over the next two days. I can't wait. That will prove it's working.  So tomorrow I'll be on the lookout for a dill pickle recipie and go buy some dill and onion etc.  Hehe, fun.  At least now I've seen pickles made.  My brother borrowed two cukes from me to make his batch, and ended up with 4 pints of pickles.  Not bad I guess, though a lot of work for a small amount.  /shrug Anyway, I look forward to canning more stuff.  Maybe green beans.  I can't say I like them fresh, maybe canned will be better.  I'll chat with my mom.

While I was making pickles, my brother and I got into several gardening discussions. One I wanted to share, especially for my local readers.  As everyone is aware, we've kinda skipped a month, I say we skipped August because this is NOT August weather by a long shot.  Tie that locally to the fact that we had our latest snow in 100 years this April (remember the late-night hoop cover incident) and you can see a major problem for warm weather crops.  So my brother's theory is that we will have an "Indian Summer" of a 70 degree September and warmish October.  His theory has some facts to back it up.  For instance, plants and animals may know more than us hairless apes.  According to my brother, dogwoods and lilacs should have changed their color and dropped leaves in late August. They're showing no signs of fall despite the cooler, wetter weather.  Further, domesticated animals haven't stopped shedding which they should have done weeks ago in preparation for cold weather, and squirrels haven't started bulking up for winter as they should in August.  He's got several good points there. 

So maybe I'm in for more cukes, beans, and ripe tomatoes, as well as bigger potatoes? and even maybe a cantaloupe or two.  Go figure.

Hope you had a good weekend. Tomorrow I go back to work and try really hard not to work long into the night to catch up, hehe.

July 27, 2008

Man, I felt lethargic today.  The weather's been humid and cloudy.  Ugly weather when it's showering all day long and the kids just want to stay in side and play.  I did take a moment to go out and let the kids play so I could get some stuff done in the garden.  I planted two squares of carrots in the front of bed #1.  I ripped out the dead basil and planted a fourth square of spinach, plus replanting the blank spots in bed #2. 



I planted three squares of cauliflower in bed #3.  In each case I threw a few handfulls of my first compost and mixed it into the top few inches as Mel suggests.  It's not the best compost but it should do fine considering my Mel's mix is only a year old.

The problem I'm having with the whole spacing and shading part of my fall/winter planting plan is that my existing summer crops are interferring with my plantings.  By the time my beans and cucumbers are done and ready to pull out, I expect my cauliflower to be too tall to effectively plant anything north of it.  Not sure what I'll do but I guess worse case scenario is that I let those squares go fallow for a "season". 

I also found what looks to be evidence of raccoons sitting in my yukon bin this time.  Grrr. I put down a bunch of deterrent, especially around my bins.  This time however, it looks like the stems are resilient enough to bounce back without tying up.  We'll see.  Hopefully the potatoes are almost full grown.  I swear I never saw any flowers from the Yukon Golds, but I guess what Tim says is possible, that I missed the flowering.  I'm assuming that potatos are growing fine in there.

I didn't get around to yanking out the three foot tall lettuce because I'd like to compost it but didn't feel like setting up the chipper to cut up the big stalks.  Look how tall they've grown!



I still think the lower leaves are edible. I didn't try any yet but I won't eat them if they're "woody" like I've heard they can get.  In contrast, here is the new monster patch of lettuce.



I'm not sure this patch will tide me over until December when my September planting should be ready. I may want to plant one square of lettuce mix (two salad blowls, an Italiansheir and a Red Sails) to tide me over until then.  Maybe tomorrow after work I'll plant it where my cauliflower was.

We've been wittling away at our carrot stock, which is part of the reason I planted so many. They taste so good and the kids love them as much as we do, so these mokums are a hit in my family.  Not huge but a good six inches long.  I'm sure the spacing has something to do with the size, and maybe the lack of light. Here's what the current stock looks like.  The bare spots you see are some of the succession plantings for fall and winter that I already did last month.



You can also see in the lower right corner the marigold square starting to blossom.  Thanks Judy!  As you can see we've got quite a few carrots left, but we only eat them for a treat right now.  I'm sure we could go through an entire bed of carrots if we had the space.  Maybe if I don't do corn next year I'll devote much more to them.

The tomatoes are doing quite well. The Early Girls are fattening up quite a bit (no pun intended), in fact I bet some are just about full sized if the smallish size I expect is what will be the end result. That and I found another set of three Momomato's growing farther up the plant.  I keep shaking the cages to hopefully polinate the flowers. I've got a ton of them.  Would be great if I had tomatoes for every flower!  I'd be able to make sauce or even freeze some.



Lost in all those beans and tomatoes are a few cucumber leaves right above the marigolds.  I hope they don't get smothered out because they'e got nice flowers under all that mess.  Who knows.  They're a random pickling variety is all I know about them. Oh, and as you can see, I still haven't removed the peas, mostly because there are still two stalks producing late and boy was the one I had sweet.  Also, as I commented below, I'm not certain I'll save the peas this year. I've got tons still in the package and I'm not sure if I'd be saving snap, snow or shelling peas. I don't necessarily want to save anything but snap.  They were our favorite so that's all I'll grow from now on (starting in a September).

And so far my bush beans are kicking my pole beans tail.  Who'd have thunk it.  Those little tiny things at the base of the tomato plant on the right are my bush beans. They're not even a foot tall and producing beans left and right.  My pole beans on the other hand...



Are all leaf and no bean.  I don't know what's worse. Pole beans that won't produce or bush beans that won't sprout but will produce like crazy if they do sprout.  Here's to hoping the pole beans start producing.  Either way, I think when I pull them I'll throw them directly into the corn bed to "fix" the nitrogen as they decompose in anticipation for that bed becoming my primary bed next spring.

Speaking of the corn bed (gotta love segways, hehe)...



It's nearly as high as an elephant's eye sometime in July, if not by the 4th...  Look how it's almost to the top of the window now!  Here's another angle.

As you can see the last succession planting is really benefiting from the fertilizing I did a week ago.  Unfortunately they're still leaning out over the gravel...



Sorry about the tire. I have no idea where it came from. Likely my father-in-law came by to "store" more crap.  I sure wish they could build a garage for him to put all his stuff.  Not that my garden is particularly beautiful, but I'd prefer only my junk in it, hehe.

Now for some close-ups of my corn.  As you can tell I'm pretty proud of it.  Is it just my imagination, or is there a cob forming in this picture?



And here is my first clear 2-cob stalk.  It's more towards the interior, which is a good sign as I have been warned that this intensive gardening method will only form cobs on the very outer edges. 



Oh, and Judy, if you read this, be forewarned that I'll likely need to call you again to discuss what to do from here on out with the corn, and more importantly, when to do what... Don't worry, it won't be as long a call as we had convincing me to go the SWC route.  hehe.

Finally, as the sun was going down, I went out in the front yard after dinner and weeded a bit.  It has been sad to drive by and see brown grass and weeds that my neighbors have long since removed from the new parking strips and that's the only green in the area for me.  Odd that the native grass in my yard is still green, but the newly seeded grass from the sidewalk project is brown for everyone.  Nobody's watered since we're all so used to not having to with our high water table.  /sigh.  So I got a full 5-gallon bucket of weeds. They came up fairly easily as it rained a bit over the last two days, but I almost never got the entire root, so I'll see them again.  Again /sigh.  But I feel better and i won't see weeds sticking up as I drive by and nobody else will either.  I've still got tons of weeding to do, but I hit the high points.  No more weed and feed for me as I'm composting.  Apparently it's bad.  I'm sure I can get rid of the bag I've got in the garage. My neighbor does it three times a year.

So this was a slightly relaxing weekend. I took naps both days and didn't get out much but I got some stuff done and we got some much needed rain.  Enjoy your garden!

July 14, 2008

Well, busy evening.  I got home at a relatively reasonable hour. I would have been home on time but my computer crashed when I had 2 minutes worth of work to do before leaving.  So I kept a Vice President and Senior Vice President waiting while I tried everything to make it work and finally hard booted and did it all over again.  A half hour later I walked out the door.  Grrr. And it's a new computer. hehe

This evening was beautiful and the one free evening before I go camping, so I decided to mow the lawn.  In this heat the lawn hasn't grown much (we don't water the lawn).  In fact, I hadn't thought about how busy my week would be and the weekend out of town, or I would have mowed this last weekend. I purposesly decided not to mow because it didn't need it.  As it is, I only filled up half a yard waste container.  It didn't add much to the compost.  Ah well.

When I finished, Toasty and her husband stopped by to see the garden (and pick up some great yellow irises).  We toured the garden and yard, sharing my plans and possibilities.  It was coincidental that my peas got even worse today.  The leaves had been browning on the bottom over the last week or so, so I watered it more, thinking it needed it.   Today they were falling over and just dying.  Thankfully Toasty was here to tell me that they are supposed to do that, and that she yanked hers a few weeks ago.  Now I have to figure out what to do with several pounds of peas.  Hehe 

Darn it, I had so hoped that I could hold out for Wednesday so I could make a veggie tray like you get at the store, with broccoli, cauliflower and snap peas.  Maybe even some carrots.  Wouldn't that be cool!  The ones from the store are so tasteless, and fresh veggies would taste so good!  In fact the cauliflower I harvested yesterday was mostly eaten raw by my family.

So this weekend will be play time, not garden time.  My aunt isn't going so she'll water and take care of the kitties.  That also means no to-do list this weekend.  Think of mowing as my to-do list and it was checked off.

Enjoy your garden!

June 28, 2008

Well, today was fun.  I slept in until my body woke me up (10 pm). I haven't done that in over 5 years.  Then I leasurely tended the garden before my folks came over to help trim back some more plants that had gotten unruley.

While I was out there, I realized we'd be chipping up the branches and I swore I was going to stop adding to the compost bin.  So the solution was to run to the hardware store (True Value to save on gas... shop locally) and bought galvinized 3" deck screws.  I used only two of my remaining four pallets because I used the side of my first bin as a side of my second.  It also saved on space as I am almost touching my pear tree.   I used cardboard this time to line the bottom because newsprint is just too flimsy to keep the pitchfork and weeds from penetrating it.  Here's a pic of it, sorry it's soooo dark, I forgot to take a pic of it since my folks showed up as I was finishing it, so I went out at dusk.



I think I'll move some of the old compost to the new bed to make it not so much.  It's nearly to the top of the bin. hehe.  I'll also have more chips tomorrow and likely grass clippings. I've got to mow.  My aunt wants to use some of my compost to mulch the rose garden.  I'm not sure it's the perfect mulch, but it should help them grow, hehe and if it smothers out morning glories, then I'm all for it. hehe

Anyway, today it was pruning the "parking strip" which is the area on the edge of my property just outside my garden on the corn side.  It's where I park my car and has a storm sewer down the middle of it.  Well between a vining maple, a lilac, a rhodie and some other bush, they were all too tall and definitely encroaching on the parking area, especially where my mom parks when she comes over.  So that's why she wanted it done.  Hehe.  Anyway, we didn't do much for the height but it looks much better now.  We didn't get it all chipped up so we just left it in the driveway and will finish tomorrow. 

After that we went out for a nice steak dinner and stopped by at the dollar store afterward.  There I found a great deal on a tricky component in building an SWC.  When I was shopping for materials, the pond basket I found was too big and nearly $10.  It would have taken up too much of the reservior space.  I went with a smaller improvised basket though it was still $7.  Anyway, in the dollar store I found a basket that would work just as well for, you guessed it, $1.  Hehe look at this.



And for all you "guys" out there, sure it's purple, sure they're butterflies, but who cares, once you build it, you never see it again.  It's a good height and width and everything. I won't let out much dirt and will definitely let in water.  That makes the SWC even cheaper to build.  Too bad I don't need anymore SWCs or I'd have bought one.

As the evening drew to a close, my mom (the veggie gardener) checked out my cauliflower. I've got a second head forming and my first is almost the size of a soft ball now. WOW!  She said it's not time to tie up the leaves but she did bend a young leaf over the top of the head to keep the sun out.  The big leaves are doing a good job of that too since the sun is never directly overhead.  She also picked close to two dozen radishes for her radish sandwiches.  I didn't mind since I went overboard planting after we ran out the first time.  I have GOT to eat more salads now that I'm healthy.  Tomorrow for lunch for sure.

She also showed me how to cut or pick off the suckers on my tomato plants.  NOBODY ever told me that tomato plants get suckers.  Apparently when a vine splits it splits it Y's.  Sometimes a third branch will sprout from the middle of the Y.  That's a sucker. It won't grow flowers or fruit and should be removed to conserve water and nutrients.  Since I didn't know that before some of mine were pretty big. Those got snipped with my key-chain leatherman.  The small leaves got pinched and that was much easier.  Now that I know I'll keep an eye out.  Learn something new every day.

I have to admit that watering today was an afterthought, as in I wanted to water all day when it was 95 degrees in the sun (per wunderground.com), 85 in the shade, but forgot to water at dusk.  So I took my flashlight out about an hour ago and watered.  Under the flashlight it kinda looked like I was developing broccoli heads in my biggest plants. I'll check tomorrow.  Wouldn't that be cool! 

Well that's enough for me for one day. Enjoy your garden!

Forgot to post my to-do list yesterday so here's a quick make-up post from by Blackberry.

This weekend I'm bacheloring it. My wife is away and the kids are at my in-laws. So I may go into the office or just work in the yard and on the house.

- Plant beans, carrots, radishes and maybe more spinach in the open squares around my beds.
- Finish building my potato bins and add the last dirt. They're really looking good.
- Build a new compost bin. I want to let the full one finish up so I can use it to replant and maybe mulch my rose garden.
- Harvest peas for a meal. I've got tons right now.
- Start the Steve Soloman book about Growing Veggies West of the Cascades. It's been highly recommended. Thanks Tim.
- Mow.
- Then there's a ton of projects around the house that need to get done and would benefit from an empty house. Too many to list.

Weather's supposed to be in the 80s so we'll see.

Enjoy your garden!

June 12, 2008

YAY! I FINALLY MOWED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hehe, today was the first day over 60 degrees that didn't rain in over two weeks!  In fact the high at my house was 66 today, and it was during the two hours that I mowed.  After working 11+ hours at work yesterday I felt justified taking an hour off to get a jump on it.  Good thing because my wife had a get together tonight.  I would be embarrassed to take a pic of my yard before I mowed, but here's a shot afterwards.



Oh, and it was pretty tall, so look what my compost bin looks like now that I added all that green grass (and a full under-sink can of compostables).



I didn't mix it in very well, but I fluffed it  a great deal before I started adding the grass.  If it doesn't heat up tomorrow I'll mix it up and maybe add some water.  It looks a bit dry but I figured the grass would moisten it up a bit.

Lastly, thanks to Tim for making me jealous of his pole beans.  Mine are 9 inches at best and his are 9 feet and producing like crazy.  He's only 3 hours south of me and experiencing the same crappy spring I am.  How fair is that?  Boggles the mind.

Enjoy your garden!

June 8, 2008

Well, I must say, exhaustion has kicked it up to another level.  Cramming an entire to-do list into half a day will do that to you.  Today was the only dry and partially sunny day we've had in weeks and likely the only one we'll have until mid to late next week.  So I wanted to get as much done as possible. 

Unfortunately (though not so unfortunate) my wife wanted to run some errands today as a family, which was fun. But by the time we got back it was 2.  The only thing I got done before the family outing was to spray the garden down with Spinosad.  Let's hope the buggers are active before the weather turns sometime late tonight or tomorrow. 

I needed to cut back a tree in the front yard on city orders.  The city left me a nice note on the door saying I needed to cut back the low branches so they were at least 8 feet over the sidewalk.  I could have sworn they were, but oh well.  So I broke out the chainsaw and ladder and my brother, father and I trimmed back the tree.  Then the promptly left, leaving me the truck so I could go get my compost.  I was racing the clock (it was 4 by then) and I had a ton to do.  When I got back I convinced my wife to bring the kids out and help hold the bags while I shoveled my Mel's Mix into old vermiculite bags to save for later.  The kids were a pain because they wanted to help but couldn't and then wanted to play where they shouldn't (the front yard's dangerous).  When we filled up all the old bags I've saved, she took a break to go feed the kids and put them to bed while I burried the potato bins.



As you can see by this picture and the one from yesterday, I had a ton to burry.  Oh yeah, I also added a board to both bins because it was way over due. Darn this rain. This stuff should have happened a while ago.

So here's what one bin looks like post burrying.  Unfortunately I may have lost a stem.  It sure is hard to only burry what you want in these bins.



Unforunately I didn't have my phone when I started the mixing or shoveling.  But here's a pick of the near finished task.



Look familiar, well I had deja vu over doing this four months ago when I built my beds.  This time it was just my wife and I and it was only 3/4 yard of combined material.  I didn't use much peat moss to save money as the compost and vermiculite cost me $100.  To get a magnitude of how much we got out of it, the pic above is about what I put into the bins. Here's what I've got left...



By the time I got the truck and drive way cleaned up, the light had started to leave us, so mowing alas won't get done today.  And if my nifty personal weather forecaster sitting next to the computer is right (it seems to be) we're getting rain within the next 12 to 24 hours.  Grrr.  I hate this weather.  Can't we have a real June?  Hopefully I'll be able to get the lawn mowed before next weekend.

Enjoy your garden!