A New Beginning... and it's all ours!

It has begun.

Although there is still much to do on the inside of our new home, neither of us can stand looking at the big empty potential of our back yard for much longer.

We won't get it all planted right away. And we won't likely get all four beds prepped for the winter, either. But we CAN get some plans going on paper... and that's just what I've done!

Here is a first look at a preliminary idea of what we're thinking for at least part of the back yard veggie garden.

We took numbers from the property plat and figured things out from there.

After working through the numbers we were excited and overwhelmed all at the same time. The single bed we had at Flynwood was approximately 20'x20'. ONE of the beds shown in the layout here is about 40'x32'.... and there are FOUR of them! Holy moley that's a lot of veggies ... and herbs ... and fruits ... and greens, and so much more!




~Y(&T)

Gardening goings-on

The seeds we planted are all doing well. But what is REALLY doing well is the volunteer collards and squash growing right out of compost pit behind the garden. Tom kept cutting them down, cutting them down, cutting them down. He finally gave up and just let them grow (they're flowering now and going to seed, but that's okay with T).

Here are the collards NOT being grown in the garden, but in the compost heap (as well as T's new hairdo, which did successfully get cut down) ...

The squash hasn't blossomed yet, but here it is along with the collards...

We also had volunteer garlic shoot up as well. We decided to uproot the garlic and plant them in the garden beds. Here they are, looking a little wilted after the transplanting...

The lettuce is coming along...

as is the Swiss chard.

The cauliflower, however, isn't doing so well. We went a bit too long between rainfalls and didn't get them watered so they are struggling.

The turnips are as happy as could be. (Gee, I'm not sure either one of us even likes turnips ... but they're so easy to grow T's a believer now.)

Now the spinach is the real success story. Beautiful, eh?

Last weekend we harvest the biggest leaves and had ourselves a nice side salad. We'll have another one tonight! YUM.

I think all of you who get TY's Veggie Garden delivered to your email are aware that we are in the process of purchasing a home. Everything seems to be a go for a closing date of May 19. Exciting and overwhelming all at the same time!

As far as the garden is concerned, yes we are bummed about having spent a lot of effort getting it ready and now having to abandon it. But at the same time, we look VERY forward to putting our efforts into a long-term garden that we can work and nurture for years to come (no more moving, yay!) We will continue to eat what comes up from this garden, but we won't plant anything else here. We'll keep updating TY's Veggie Garden blog for the remainder of May so you can continue watching its progress. Then sometime in late Summer (or possibly early Fall) we'll likely start planting at our NEW house - well not "new" but a house we own - and we'll start posting again.

~Y

Moving along

The garden is definitely moving along. Everything that's been planted is coming up.

Lettuce...

more lettuce...

beets....

cauliflower....

turnips...

and last but not least, spinach....

~Y

Slow but growing

No new plantings this week. Here are a few updated pictures...

Cauliflower

Turnips


Spinach


~Y

Planting #2

It's been raining quite a bit over the last two weeks (even though these pictures make it look like things are dry as a bone). The three items previously planted have barely broken ground, but they have broken through. Can you see the itty bitty leaves in these pictures?



This weekend we planted our second group of items: 2 kinds of lettuce, carrots, beets & swiss chard. Tom's been grilling a lot lately and he used the ash from the grill to enhance the carrot/beet bed.

Next planting isn't for several weeks. Hopefully lots of stuff will grow between now and then.

~y

Time to make the beds

Last month we started the planning process. We are using Master Gardener Jerry Baker as our source for what to do and what not to do.

As you read in last week's post, we got rained/snowed out and couldn't begin our 2009 garden. But THIS weekend was a different story. It was mid-to-high 70s; perfect time to get outside and start planting early veggies. Saturday Tom spent many hours trimming back overgrown trees to give our garden more sunlight. Sunday I trimmed bushes around the back of the house. Trimming those had nothing to do with our veggie garden but they'd been overgrown and bugging the heck out of me so I started with that.

We bought wide-brimmed gardening hats to protect our skin this year. Stylish, eh?

After taking all the limbs to the front yard, it was time to make the beds. When planning, we decided to create 2 more beds than last year (12 instead of 10). We also decided to plant fewer plants with a wider variety of items instead of a lot of plants of a few items. That way we'll get to know what really works and what doesn't.

They look like coffins, don't they?

Another thing we decided to do this year is to put a boarder around the outside of the garden where we can grow flowers to attract bees and detract bugs. We came up with a plan that we hope will also prevent weeds from creeping in past the fence. While I worked on the beds, Tom stared the boarder. He laid a row of newspaper and then covered it with pine needles. Later we'll plant flowers in pots and set them on top of the pine needles. Unfortunately, we had to buy the pine needles. We would have rather used leaves, but by the time we thought to do this, all the leaves in the neighborhood were gone. Next time around, we'll use use leaves instead.

We took the left over pine needles and used them for the walkway down the middle of the garden. Items that were planted for this first round were: 1/2 bed of cauliflower, 1/2 bed of turnips, and 1 bed of spinach. We were supposed to plant broccoli too, but we couldn't find the seeds.

Tom got punchy towards the end of the day...

~Y

It's it time yet? Is it time yet?

Several weeks ago, we received our seed catalogs (Burpee and Park Seeds). We took our time and carefully selected seeds for this year's TY garden. I sent the order off and minus a few back ordered items, we were set to go.

According to our charts and books, the first planting for 2009 should be done 6 weeks before the last frost. That date was this past weekend. EXCITING! We went to our local garden store Friday night to buy a few odds and ends (potash, hedge clippers, soil tester, pine needles, etc.). The plan was to get an early start Saturday morning. I'd heard rain was predicted for the weekend but figured it wouldn't be too bad. After all, we made the soil casserole in the rain last fall; we should be able to set out a few beds of seeds in the rain. Right?

A bit of a misjudgment for sure! It began raining Friday night and kept on raining all the way through last night until it became......


Needless to say, we didn't start the garden this weekend. :(

The time is drawing near, however so look for weekly updates from here on out. We'll report on what we're planting as we plant it and anything else going on garden-wise.

~Y