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

Bedding down for the winter

It's the end of the growing season. Some things worked well and others did not. In an effort to have a fantastic garden come spring, we agreed to use the winter to prepare the soil so it will be in tip-top shape. Using Jerry Baker's Soil Casserole recipe, we began by pulling up all the plants and tossing them into the compost pile. Then we....

Covered the entire plot with newspapers. We've been collecting them all fall for just this purpose. The "recipe" says to use 2 to 4 inches of newspaper, but we didn't have quite that much - more like 1 inch. The newspapers help suppress weeds and attract good earthworms.

A few months ago our neighbor (Dusty the cat's family) had a truck full of compost delivered. The neighbor's only used a small amount and invited us to help ourselves. So we did! They were happy to get rid of it and we needed it so it worked out perfectly.

Wheel barrel full by wheel barrel full we moved the dirt from the neighbor's pile to our plot.

The first compost layer of the casserole was to be between 2 and 4 inches thick. There was plenty of compost so we were able to make it 4 inches deep.


Next was to be a layer of organic material. Lucky for us, our neighborhood is full of leaves. Tom was able to procure several bags from various neighbors. (You can see them in the upper left corner of this photo.) Here you can see the first three layers of the casserole: newspaper, compost, organic material.

We finished the first three layers two Saturday's ago.

This past weekend, we finished out the layers by topping the leaves with a 6 inch layer of compost.

Layers all done...
Only thing left was the topping. The soil casserole topping consisted of a can of Coke, ammonia, and instant tea granules.

And yes, it was pretty darn cold both weekends we worked on this. But we feel that it will be worth it when it's time to plant again. We're done for the winter and look forward to a true BOUNTY in the spring. After the holidays we'll start some seeds to get a head start on the spring planting season.

~Y

The end is near

Tom pulled a single beet Sunday that looked like it was ready to eat. I roasted it and added it to a salad, made from lettuce harvested from the garden. We sauted the beet greens along with a batch of collards and mushrooms (not from TY's garden) for dinner. YUM!

Ah the signs of fall. Last night a freeze warning was in effect. Tonight as well. We aren't quite ready to give up on the vegetables yet so we decided to cover everything with newsprint to save what we could. We'll likely be harvesting what we can over the next week or so to get all we can before the really cold weather gets here.


~Y

It's a Garden, By Golly

Update for this week...

SPINACH:
Y - Not doing too well. Most of the green shown here is clover and weeds. Just the clump in the middles is spinach. Not even enough to make a small salad. Don't know why it didn't take off like the collards. Might not have planted enough seeds.
T - It all comes down to the dirt ... and hey, we actually got SOME of it to grow. Spring will be better!

SQUASH:
Y - Got our first blossoms this week!
T - Suddenly two blossoms have become five or seven.


BROCCOLI:
T - Stems of the broccoli are FINALLY starting to get thick and characteristic of the luscious vegetable that gave President George H. Bush nightmares.

CARROTS:
Y - We replanted a whole bunch that were too close together and got a look at what's growing underneath all these fuzzy green tops. And sure enough, there were little orange carrots starting to appear!

LETTUCE:
Y - After doubting if these would take hold or not... there are no doubts now. We had a mini salad last week. YUM! Next week I'll be harvesting a bunch to make salads for 4 people for a trip to the mountains.
T - I thought that the weird color was a sign of poor growth. I couldn't have been more wrong. This beautiful yellow-green-red lettuce seems to be of the butter crunch variety and is so delicious. Y tried my suggestion and cut leaves off to see if they would regrow like Chard does, and sure enough it regenerates. Winter salads, here we come!

SWISS CHARD:
Y - This is probably the most exciting for us because it looked the saddest in the garden for a while and we both like eating it so much. The large plant in the background is almost ready to harvest!
T - And this stuff keeps giving and giving and giving leaves after harvests. We now have 8 big plants, and a couple of stragglers.

CUCUMBERS:
Y - What a difference a weak makes! I've counted 10 cucumbers growing and LOTS more flowers with potential.
T - They seem to like being strung up on our homemade twine lattice.

BEETS:
Y - Looking strong!
T - I moved and replanted 7 or 8, and boy they're looking GREAT! Greens for sauteing, and that sweet red root roasts like no other.

GREEN BEANS:
Y - We'll be eating a third meal of beans this week and I'll be picking some to take to the mountains. They are producing so many it's almost hard to keep up with harvesting them.
T - These Blue Lake plants are small and bushy, and don't need the lattice I put up. And the beans they give off are HUGE.

~Y&T