Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Lookie what I did!


I grew a salad! Me! I did it! Whoo-hoo!

OK, probably not that big of a deal, but seriously this is exciting for me. My attempt at lettuce failed miserably last year. This is beautiful, edible, heirloom lettuce mix (plus a little bit of the organic spinach and lettuce I bought at Menards). I grew lunch! I rock!

Yea for free! Free is good!

I just scored some free plants. A nice flowering pot of chives for the garden and a Bluebeard plant for my front flowerbed. We have a very nice man at work that brings in plants starting around this time of year, free to good homes. Over the last couple of years, I’ve adopted several of these plants, killed a few, but have mostly been very happy with my new acquisitions. Yea for free plants!

Harvested some more radishes this morning for the DH. It occurred to me the other day that I’ve never eaten a radish. I don’t really have any intention of starting now, either. J Tonight I’m going to clip some lettuce and tomorrow I’m going to have a nice homegrown salad. Mmm… J

Monday, May 19, 2008

How much is TOO much?




Ouch. I am so sore… a seemingly simple garden expansion yesterday morning turned into an all-day ordeal, ending with a very exhausted me flopped on the sofa, unable to move. What happened? Well, if you recall, I’ve filled my already-expanded plot and still have seeds and seedlings left to into the ground. So I needed more space. I didn’t get any zucchini seeds, so while I was at the farmers market buying salad and bread, I searched for a zucchini seedling… and ended up with the following:

  • Pineapple tomato
  • Holy mole pepper
  • Anaheim peppers
  • Zucchini
  • Eggplant
  • 2 Strawberries
  • 2 Peppermints
  • Catnip

And then one of my fellow belly dancers offered up some of her extra tomato and pepper seedlings for free. Surely I have enough willpower to say no. Nope, guess not. That adds to my pile of plants:

  • Beefsteak tomato
  • 2Roma tomatoes
  • 2 Habanera peppers
  • 2 Chile peppers

This is definitely more than I planned on putting into the ground – my intentions were just to make enough room for the several packets of squash seeds sitting on my counter. But I could handle it, right? I mean, the first expansion this summer took up most of an afternoon of digging up sod, but it came up easy enough… I got up early on Sunday and headed to the local hardware store/garden center for a new (supposedly better) shovel and some organic topsoil. I also picked up some more tomato stakes, a few stepping stones…and some lettuce and spinach seedlings. Eek! More plants! Oh, and some geraniums to help shield my tomatoes…

Back home, I started to dig. And dig and dig and dig. The sod did not want to budge! I’m not sure if it was too dry or if the season had advanced enough that our grass roots are really taking hold, but after 2 hours, I had barely made a dent. Finally I gave up so I could get to belly dance practice on time… Sigh… After practice, I got right back out there and dug until dinner time. And after dinner time until dark… About 20 minutes before the sun had sunk below the horizon, I decided I’d had enough and should put in as many plants as I could before the light disappeared completely. At this point, my dear husband came out and took up the shovel, offering to help IF I swore not to let the garden get any bigger! Not a problem, honey – this is big enough for me!

I still didn’t get my squash in the ground. Sigh… but the new tomatoes, pepper, lettuces, and flowers are all in. The catnip will be potted, as will the peppermint. A nice lady at the farmers market told me that she keeps squash bugs at bay by planting her gourds in her peppermint patch, but I think I’ll pot them and sink them in the ground that way first. I don’t need a yard full of mint! The strawberries will probably go in the current radish patch – tonight I’ll harvest radishes if I get a chance…

So, gardening season is in full swing in the Happy Little Garden…only it’s not so little anymore! I’ll throw up some photos next chance I get…

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Early!

My heirloom tomato and pepper seedling sampler was due to be shipped the week of May 19th. So you can imagine my surprise when my husband called on May 7th to ask about "this box on the porch that says 'Live Plants'." Eek. I checked with some more-seasoned gardeners and determined that is was OK to put them in the ground, and so I did... along with some cilantro, anise, and wormwood.
Problem. If you look to the left, you'll notice this long list of things I have yet to plant. Well...I'm out of room! Despite the garden plot expansion, my desire to not overcrowd my tomatoes again this year has rendered me no space left for squash. Crap. Guess I'll be out there digging up sod again this week...
Oh, well. I won't be complaining when I'm eating all these fresh-from-the-ground goodies...

Monday, May 5, 2008

Another shot to rot

Well, I have officially failed as a composter.  Yeah, I pretty much stink at it… Last year’s attempt at letting my food waste rot in a box yielded some not-all-that-rotten food waste in a box.  Hmmm…I bet if I’d tried to prevent everything from rotting, it would have actually worked.  Go figure.

 

So, anyhoo, I’m moving on and starting a new with a beautiful overpriced compost tumbler, the Envirocycle.  It’s pretty.  It arrived on Saturday with blessedly little packaging – just sitting in its box with no padding. Not that it needed padding – it just seems that companies these days over-package EVERYTHING.  (Don’t even get me started on the gift card I ordered for my dad at Christmas that came in bubble wrap!)  I’m glad the Envirocycle folks figured out that a large flexible plastic can was not likely to break without the company of Styrofoam peanuts.  Good job, people!

 

So, as soon as I cover our back yard in Coop Poop this afternoon, I’ll roll out the new tumbler and we’ll let the rotting fun begin again… J

 

On a gardening note – I finally got my mile-long green beens in the ground.  I need to post some photos soon.  I definitley have dwarf sweet peas shooting up.  There are also sprouts in the lettuce and radish patches, but I have since forgetten which patch is which, so I’ll have to wait until they get a wee bit bigger to identify them. J  Happy spring, all!