My Tomato Plants

I thinned out my seeds yesterday. Each pot had about three tomato plants each. You cut away the weakest and keep the strongest one. I'm so proud of my seeds. I totally failed at this last year. Soon I will transplant them into another jiffy pot with regular soil. (regular soil mix which is Equal parts of compost/peat moss/and Vermeculite or Perlite.

A video from last August that I forgot to post. Amazing all the veggies I get from this garden

Above: lettuce plant mix up on the deck close to the kitchen, bought these at the local nursery today. I also put a few lettuce plants in the garden.

Above: Brussels Sprouts and Cauliflower

Above: Red cabbage. I didn't do well fighting the bugs with my cabbage plants last year, but I have a secret weapon for this year...organic, yes. Will show you when done.

Below: The whole garden. I know, doesn't look too pretty, but winter just finished. Grass is still in winter mode.

March 9th 2010

March 9th.

Had fun planting seeds directly in the boxes this morning. Early spring plants. Regular Peas, Sugar Snap Peas, Onions, Several types of lettuce, Turnips, Carrots, and Swiss Chard.

Next planting will be about March 15th when I try Beets from seed. My beets didn't work out last year. After that next planting will be about April 1st. I will also be picking up some lettuce already started from the local nursery and maybe broccoli. fun fun!

If you do a search for your area, "planting dates (and the area you live)" then you can get some good ideas when to plant in your area for seed and for the transplants that you started indoors.

More March 8th photos, work I did today.

Above: Worked in the garden today. All ready now. This year going to add some stepping stones and a couple wind chimes.

Above: many Cilantro plants made it through the winter in the garden boxes, decided to put one in this pot.

Above: Chives popping up

Above: Looks so fresh, love that!

Pots and Seeds, March 8th 2010

Above photo: I did these on Saturday. Now sitting on top of the frig. No sprouts yet. Packages said will be 3-10 days. After they sprout I'll put them by the window. 12 Tomoto plants, lettuce, parsley, jalapeno, basil, oregano, and some spreading petunias. I didn't do well with the stupid little peat pods last year. Using these larger jiffy pots this year. -hoping I do better this year growing my own and buy less.

above: Mesclun mix lettuce. Ye-Um!

Above photo: I broke a pot over the winter, thought I'd do this. Not sure what I'll add to it yet.

Above: All new soil in pots. Ready to go. Going to do some patio tomato plants in two of them.

March 1st

It's March 1st 2010 and I'm thinking about starting my second year of gardening. The first thing I'm going to plant this year will be lettuce seeds in a planter box and place next to the window. I may do this tomorrow if I have time, but by the end of the week for sure. Will take pics :)

September

60 Lettuce, Kale, Spinach and Broccoli plants ready to go, paid $20

Pulled out the old summer plants, ready for the new cool weather plants

One 4 x 4 foot box filled with a tasty variety of lettuce plants...YUM!

another view. I put the Broccoli in another box.

I'll post more pics at the end of the September.

Garden Update, August 1st 2009

Garden Update, June 30th

Garden update, April 28th 2009

Update:

My indoor seeds are doing OK, but I am going to plant them in a different way next year. I went ahead and bought some plants at Lowes and Home Depot. I purchased Brocolli, Cabbage, Strawberries, onions. and lettuce. I also planted seeds directly into the boxes, they haven't come up yet...but they should. Those are Turnips, Spinach, Sugar Snap Peas. This week going to plant radishes, beets, more lettuce.

(Update on this update..haha. Turnip sprouts have arrived! Woohoo!)- March 30th

Photos are of the plants I purchased. I still need to finish the garden, weed cloth still showing. Should finish it this week :)

photo update

Garden area not done yet, but I can start planting. Will be planting early spring plants today; peas, parsley, lettuce, spinach (< from seed). cabbage, brocolli (< plants that I started from seed indoors)





added the special soil mix on Saturday (fourth box going to another area in yard, will show when complete)



Made the grids Yesterday, need to work on grass and add pretty rocks, the border, a water feature, pretty windchimes....I'm sure I'll think of lots to do.




Maddie relaxing

Starting my seeds indoors

UPDATE: March 2010. Don't start seeds this way. Peat Pods are a waste. This year I used bigger jiffy pots with seed starting soil. See photos from March 2010.

I started my seeds indoors today. Not sure how it will turn out. I bought two windowsill plastic greenhouse boxes. UPDATE: this is how NOT to start seeds. I failed big time doing this, and a waste of money.

I will be storing the binder in a large ziplock bag and place in the freezer for storage.

UPDATE: I now store my seeds in a platic box in the freezer. I place the seed packages in quart sized ziplock bags and place the bag in the box and seal tight. This is so you can use your seeds for a few years. Saves money.

Building the boxes

View from the deck.
Boxes are 4 x 4 feet
Look how big they are!

My grass will look great in a few weeks, still winter grass :)
and when the trees fill in, this is gonna look great!


This weekend we shopped for all the supplies and then Sunday afternoon Doug built the boxes (While I mowed the lawn for the first time this year). So far we have the boxes with the hardware cloth stapled to the bottom to keep critters from stealing my carrots. Next we need to remove the grass, lay the weedcloth, place the boxes, add the border (so I won't need to weed-eat around each box hopefully, then fill the boxes with a special soil mix, then add the grid on top of the boxes..........then plant. We spent about $75 - $100/box, that includes everything, the seeds too. I think we'll get that back this year with all the vegetables I won't be buying. We shall see.

The garden is in the dog run that we don't use. The owners before had this dog run, I think it's a great place for a garden to keep the dogs out, plus it gets the best all day sunlight.

That's it for now. Will finish up next weekend.

I went to the library and got "The Way We Garden Now".
Cute book with some great ideas. I got the trellis idea from this book. I found the twigs while out with one of my clients, Wookie the dog. We have MANY trees here, so perfect trellis twigs were very easy to find.

I have one plant already in the tall pot, can't remember what it is called right now, but it will climb. Should look pretty. It is a fast early spring grower, so shouldn't take long. It's already coming up even with the snow we just had. I'll take pictures when it fills out. The other pot I'll need to plant something, maybe sweet peas. I won't do that until after the last frost date, which I think is the end of April here.


Wookie

My first post

I thought I'd blog about my garden. This will be my first year gardening. I have tried tomatoes in containers, but that is about it. I also helped out a neighbor with his row garden and it was a LOT of work. I just about gave up on the idea of gardening until I found this book, www.squarefootgardening.com

I am so excited to try this. It is early March. We still have several inches of snow on the ground, but this weekend it will hit 70 for the high so I'm hoping I can start building the garden boxes and get them into place.


-Jill