I don’t have much to say right now because it is STILL RAINING and we still have had no sun. My garden is water-logged and my tomatoes and craving some sunshine. The peas are still delicious and my lettuce (the 2 heads out of about 100 that actually grew) are happy and delicious.
This weather is really starting to get to me. I have never been a summer person but gloomy skies and rain clouds at the end of June are too much for even this Fall-lover. Rain rain, go away!
Our current weather (zero sun, ALL THE RAIN!) is starting to depress me. At this rate I fear I will have no peppers at all and very few tomatoes. Caterpillars or slugs or some sort of critter have been eating my lettuce. I had to replant all of my carrots and parsnips because I think that part of my garden was being used as a cat littler box.
In happy news though, my peas are growing beautifully and tasting even better! My first strawberry ripened the other day and it tasted DELICIOUS. Hopefully more strawberries will follow and I can make some jam.
PEAS!
The yummiest strawberry I have ever had
I decided to spend Earth Day (April 22, when I started writing this post) this year doing what made sense — working in the garden! There were various events taking place in our town to celebrate Earth Day but it just seemed much more fitting to spend the day worshiping the Goddess in the dirt.
My little rock star celebrating Earth Day in the dirt and grass
I came home from work the other day to find that James had built me a third raised bed. We hadn’t thought we had long enough pieces of wood to build a proper box but James pieced them all together and build a 3×6 box! $35 later (and with the help of my dad’s truck!) we had soil to fill the new box and the remainder of our second box.
Our eldest getting in on the work (this is his guarantee that he will eat this summer)
I jumped the gun a little bit and put some tomatoes out in the garden. They were some of my weaker seedlings and I wasn’t sure if they stood much of a chance regardless of when I put them out. (two weeks later as I finish writing this post they are doing fabulously!).
The milk jugs are mini greenhouses 🙂
I spent too long in the sun and ended up with my first OFFICIAL Farmer Tan.
Well… it’s official! I am a *real* country girl now. I stopped by Buckerfields to ‘inquire’ about their chickens. While chatting with the young woman who works ther I learned that they had already pre-sold two of their three upcoming chick orders. Not wanting to miss out on my chance, I put in an order to pick up 5 chicks on May 2!!! I’m getting chickens!!!!!!!!!
Our girls will be 2 days old when we bring them home. They’ll be living in the house (most likely our bathroom) for their first 4 weeks or so so I have until then to build a chicken coop. And to decide on names for them of course.
Red Sussex hens (these are not ours!)
Well…. it’s the middle of April now which means we are only a few weeks away from our last frost date! I am so excited to get these puppies outside! My tomatoes are doing ok but only about half of them have their second ‘real’ leaves so far. I’ve been searching for the perfect spot to keep them but our house just doesn’t seem to want to be hospitable. The living room is too cold, the teenager’s room was too out of the way (I kept forgetting to check on them!) and our room is too warm. I decided they’re probably better off in our colder living room than roasting and wilting in our bedroom so they have made their way back to their first home.
My beauties re-potted into larger homes
I can't wait to eat this!
I had been planning on planting potatoes in tires (which I had read about online) but wasn’t totally set on it so we decided to plant them in an old Rubbermaid storage container. James took to it with an awl and next thing we knew, we had a planter!
My fancy potato planter puts the new Williams Sonoma line to shame
My most exciting garden news this week is definitely that there are actual things growing outside in my garden! Here are my first couple of pea shoots. I know it seems silly to get so excited about them but I have never grown anything before in my whole life and these little guys are a huge success for me. In addition to them, we also have shoots coming up from our purple and yellow onions as well as little sprouts of lettuce and spinach.
PEAS!!
Before I know it, there will be no peas left at all having been massacred by a toddler and two teenagers (and probably their dad too!)
Frost be damned I am putting stuff in my garden now! We have had quite lovely weather lately so I decided to start *actually* growing things outside. I had planned to plant my peas today but when I went to get them, I realized they were still at the store….. yeah…. I completely forgot to buy them. Oops! We took the opportunity to get the pea section of the bed ready though. We were given a crib a few months ago which we turned into a co-sleeper (which I must remember to blog about one day). Since this required only 3 sides of the crib, we saved the other railing with our garden in mind.
Crib trellis
Since I was determined to plant something today, I decided it was a good time to start my carrots and parsnips. I just discovered parsnips a couple of years ago and love them. I always thought I didn’t like them but it turned out it was just my mama’s dislike of them causing me to never try them (silly mama!). I planted them at the base of the bed next to some lettuce I put out yesterday (some seedlings that got leggy and were most likely going to die anyways) and threw some carrots in next to them.
Carrots, parsnips and lettuce (in plastic mini greenhouse)
I also planted some more lettuce and spinach in a long window-box container which you can see here under the makeshift greenhouse (actually and under bed storage unit with some holes in it)
My seedlings are doing quite well, especially the tomatoes. Some are starting to get their second set of leaves which makes me hopeful for their future.
(left to right) Parsley, lettuce, and cukes (the parsley and lettuce need to be thinned more)
My left-leaning tomatoes show the importance of rotating them so they aren't reaching for light.
Finally, here are my zucchini seedlings that started busting out of their egg carton homes and needed to be transplanted to a bigger pot.
They kind of remind me of Audrey II
Following my next trip into town I should be able to plant my onions, potatoes and peas. I can’t wait!
They’re here!!! James build 2 of our 4 beautiful raised beds the other day and they look fabulous. We wanted to spend as little money on them as possible so we hunted high and low for some free/cheap wood. Well…. it turned out we just needed to look next door because this is what we were given by our fabulous neighbour:
Gorgeous cedar planks
A $4 dollar box of nails later, James had turned that beautiful wood into this:
How cute is my kid, eh?
Our next step was to kill the weeds. I absolutely refused to do any digging so I did some hunting online and learned that I could just put down wet cardboard and it would work the same as that fabulous weed killer fabric you can get. Plus it will compost eventually!
I forgot to take a picture of the compost we threw in from the Fall/Winter but let me tell you, it is PRETTY! Ok… not really pretty at all but for anyone who has watched their veggies, fruit and coffee filters turn into “black gold” that is going to help grow the yummiest veggies ever, you understand how proud I am.
Our final (well… before planting!) step was to add the soil:
Lyric "helped" by walking across the bed
This week we will be picking up some more cedar boards from a friend to finish our other 2 beds and then I will take a picture of the whole thing. I can hardly wait to plant my seedlings in there! Alas, our last expected frost date is the end of April so I won’t be putting anything in there until the beginning/middle of May.
Toddler + dirt = ridiculous amounts of fun. (it was warm yesterday, hence the no pants look)
Thank you for your kind words in response to my panic yesterday. My mum called me on it and said that I take after her in the way that if I am not doing something perfect right away, I feel like a failure. This is generally the personality trait that gets me promoted in jobs — I just cannot stand to not know everything there is about a subject.
I took some deep breaths and came to the realization that this garden is not going to be perfect, that some of my crops may not grow at all, some may get disease/eaten by pests, and some may be pathetic specimens that people only eat out of pity. BUT THAT IS OK! Because some of my veggies are going to be the best veggies my family has ever eaten and I am going to be feeding my husband and children with food I grew from seed! And that is pretty damn cool. I am going to learn from my mistakes and every year my garden will be better.
Can someone please talk me down from the ledge? I have/had all these fabulous plans but I’m terrified I’m going to fail. My seedlings are started but a couple have started to get leggy and topple over. I also foolishly planted more than one seed in each egg carton space with my first batch so they are now competing with each other. Without realizing I might have been doing something wrong, I planted my first seeds in potting soil instead of seed starter mix (my second batch is in the seed starter). I keep reading about all the insects and diseases that can kill your plants and I don’t know how to help my plants (also have I mentioned that I hate bugs?) if or when they get sick. I read yesterday about how different plants need different types of soil and fertilizers but I was planning on just getting the same soil for everything. Do I really need sandy or loamy (wtf does that even mean???) soil in different beds? I am freaking out and I have barely even started!!!
I have been using the Smart Gardener site to plan my garden but it seems a little too smart for me and doesn’t let me change things around as much as I’d like. So I signed up for a free 30 day trial of the Vegetable Garden Planner from Mother Earth News and planned our garden there!! Basically I did that for the picture aspect but I’ll continue using the Smart Gardener because I love that it sends you reminders when to plant/transplant/fertilize etc…
My beautiful garden plan!
The Hidden Hippie 