Potatoes!

My potato plants have officially broken through the ground which means that I can finally breath a sigh of relief!

This is my first time growing potatoes so I've been extra worried about these guys especially with all of the rain we've been getting. To plant these suckers I dug out some 6 inch trenches, put the seed potatoes at the bottom and covered them with soil. This will allow me to keep piling dirt onto the growing plants and provide some loose soil for the potatoes to develop in. The draw back is that we've had a very rainy couple of weeks so the trenches have kept getting filled up with water. Every time that happened I just imagined my poor little seed potatoes drowning in water and starting to rot. It worried me so much at times that I'd go out during big rain storms to bail water out of the trenches.

But everything is good now because my little potatoes are alive and well! Yay!

The Case of the Missing Broccoli

Yesterday as I was checking out my garden I noticed that there were only 3 broccoli plants where I was sure I had planted 5. I looked around and noticed two little stumps. That was all that was left of my two little broccoli plants that I had been raising and pampering for almost 2 months now.

Where once there was this:


Now all I had was this:


I know that every year I'm bound to have some crop loss, but it's still stinky when it happens. I'm also kicking myself for this one since I could have prevented it. The most likely culprits are cut worms and one way of protecting plants is to give them little collars when they are young. I save paper towel and toilet paper rolls to cut and use for this. I slip them around the stem and bury part of them. After the cut worm attack I added these collars to my remaining broccoli and cabbage plants so hopefully this won't happen again.

Waiting

It's that time of year again where I have my seedlings started and things planted outside, but still have a couple weeks before I get to harvest anything. While the seeds were still germinating and just beginning to peep through the ground I had enough to keep myself busy as I hunted to catch the next plant break through the soil and show itself. I'd scour the spot I had planted my peas to find the first pea shoot and check on my indoor seedlings every morning to see if I had anybody new to welcome. (Yes, I probably get a little too excited about my vegetable plants. Recently I've even caught myself talking to them more and more. I'm thinking that it's probably a good thing I'm forced to take a long break from gardening over the winter or else I may just loose my marbles.)

Anyway, back to the point, most of my seeds have already started sprouting so I don't have as many little surprises and am stuck just waiting for my plants to get bigger and start producing. I do love watching them grow but at the moment things seem to be progressing painfully slow. I just want me some salad with lettuce, radishes and snow peas gosh darn it. Is that too much to ask? :(

I really ought to work on being more patient. I am lucky to have a garden at all and it won't be too long until I'm overwhelmed with an abundance (hopefully) of produce and all the work that will go into harvesting and preserving it all. I should also be focused on the garden expansion since I already have tomatoes that are just waiting to be put in the ground but don't have a place yet. Alas, I can't help feeling as though it would all be so much easier if I only had a few leaves of lettuce to tide me over...

Anyone else out there starting to get impatient as well?

Early Spring Garden Pics

Here are the pictures that I promised. Nothing super exciting since it's still so early in the season but things are getting there.

These are some of the seedlings that I've got under my grow lights. They are mostly peppers and tomatoes that I'll be transplanting into larger containers once I stop feeling so lazy.


Here are zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumbers. They are all between one and four days old, which almost makes me angry since they are already bigger than some of my month old broccoli plants. But I get to eat these guys too so I'm really not that angry, mostly just impressed.

And here are some of my tomatoes that are a bit further along than those above. They are now too tall for my grow lights so have to hang out by the window. I'm in the process of gradually hardening them off so pretty soon they'll be outside full time anyway.


This is a picture of the garlic that I planted last fall. It over wintered just fine and is flourishing now. It's really the most impressive thing that I've got going so far.


Peas here. Cute beautiful little pea plants.


I know this picture isn't all that exciting but I transplanted my kale and broccoli into this bed. I'm very antsy for them to get bigger. I'm a little impatient. Can you tell?


Last but not least are my surprise onions. Last year as an afterthought I transplanted a bunch of onions around the garden but they really didn't do too well and I forgot about them. Early this spring, however, they started popping up all over the place. A very cool surprise in my opinion.

Where'd You Get Your Seeds?

Last year, since the garden was pretty much an afterthought, I ended up simply stopping by the local garden supply center for my seeds. I've since heard this isn't always the best thing to do because the seeds often sit on shelves for who knows how long in less than optimal storage conditions. Mail order seed companies typically have more controlled storage condtions as well as greater selections. This year as I begun planning back in December, I decided to order seeds online. While trying to pick a seed company I stumbled across the Garden Watchdog which helped make my decision much easier. It's a handy little site that lists tons of seed companies along with extensive comments from people who have dealt with the company in the past. This enabled me to check out a bunch of companies and see if people generally have positive or negative experiences with them. In this way I was able to weed out several companies that initially looked promising but ended up having various issues such as poor customer service or unreliable shipping.

In the end I settled on Victory Seeds and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds because they both received great reviews. I ordered mostly from Victory Seeds and used Baker Creek for some additional items I didn't see at Victory Seeds. I was extremely happy with both companies. Both have great websites that are easy to use, great selections, fast delivery and reasonable prices. For some reason I really liked the packaging for the Victory Seeds, which include an internal mini-ziploc that holds the seeds inside the envelope. It makes it much easier for me to get at the seeds and I feel like I lose a lot less when I try to get them out. On the other hand Baker Creek seeds had very pretty packets and even included a freebie packet of carrot seeds (gotta love freebies!). Seeds from both companies are doing extremely well and I've had no problems with germination. Next year I will be ordering from these guys again.

Hello!

It's gardening season again and I'm feeling the inexplicable urge to continually talk about my garden and my little baby plants that are popping out of the ground. I'm pretty sure even though we're only a few weeks in, my husband is growing weary of it all, so I figure I'll lighten his load, write it all here and pretend that people are reading it :)

Just as a quick overview I'll let you know some of the things I've already got started for the garden. Inside I have tomato, pepper, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, basil, parsley, cucumber, squash, watermelon, chamomil, marigold, and zinnia seedlings started. Outside I've already transplanted my first batch of broccoli, kale, spinach and cabbage into the garden. I've direct sown peas, snow peas, radishes, carrots, onions, lettuce, beets and chard. The garlic I planted in the fall is growing and looking fantastic. Hopefully tonight I'll locate some batteries for my camera so I can add some pictures which are always more fun.

The Latest Pickings

Check out my latest pickings from the garden.


I got chard, green beans, cilantro, basil, oregano, parsley, a giant mound of lettuce and a bunch of beets. I love having a garden.

Should I be worried?

I have to admit that I'm getting a little scared. My tomato plants are getting ginormous! All 13 of them. I planted so many so I'll be able to do lots of canning, but now I'm starting to get a little nervous.

Do you think maybe I over did it and will be buried under tomatoes soon?

Come to think of it though, I tend to get this feeling almost every time I embark on a big canning project. Last year it seemed like a great idea to get 100 lbs of apples. But once I was in the midst of all of the canning, the 100 lbs didn't seem to be the greatest idea. Now that I've forgotten the pain and run out of applesauce, 100 lbs doesn't seem like too much after all.

It happened again with the strawberries. Once I started working on canning and freezing, I was definitely overwhelmed with all 50 lbs of strawberries. However less than a month later I'm wishing that I had had more to freeze.

Maybe the tomato canning will be overwhelming as well, but a few months later I'll probably forget how much work it was and wish I had planted more tomatoes. Needless to say, these 13 plants are going to keep me very very busy.

The other thing I worry about concerning the tomatoes is that in just over a month I'll be making my way down to Chile for about 2 1/2 weeks, and I'm not sure exactly what to do if my plants produce tons of tomatoes while I'm away. Maybe I'll be able to put my mother to work for me :)

In addition to the plants getting big, they are starting to make little tomatoes! Imagine that! It still amazes me when things actually grow and produce things- it's like magic.

Check out my roma's. I planted planted 8 of these suckers since they are good for canning.

Here are my cute little cherry tomatoes.

And the big ol' beefsteak tomatoes.

I've got to say, I'm feeling a little bit more relaxed now after looking at those perty tomatoes. Think 13 plants is going to be enough? ;)

Making Some Progress

I only have 3 more days to finish my 31 in 31 Days list! I have a feeling I'm not going to reach my goal, however, I have accomplished a few things so far:


1.) Bake cookies.

I made raspberry jelly thumbprint cookies. Yum.

5.) Finish knitting the sock that I started a while ago.


6.) Pick strawberries and make jam with Brittany @ Little Miss Scatterbrained, Amy @ Little Miss Moon Blossom, and Kara @ Lil Miss Wisecracker.

First we picked some perdy strawberries at Highland Orchards.

Then we made some delicious jam.


It a very enjoyable day!

10.) Finish Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth.

Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome book. I loved all of the birth stories and the way Ina May describes birth and the things that influence it.

11.) Wander around the library.

13.) Harvest and eat beets from the garden.

Yummy!

20.) Finish reading Pushed by Jennifer Block.

This was another totally awesome book. It's packed full of tons and tons of information about the short comings of our modern maternity care. Everyone really needs to read this book.

23.) Make fried lentil balls.

I'd show pictures of the actual finished product but they really didn't turn out that well. Let's just say I need some practice. Interesting process though. My friend gave me this mix so it really wasn't too hard. You first add water to your mix (pictured above) and let it sit for 15 minutes. Drop spoonfuls of it into hot oil and cook until done. Place in a bowl of lukewarm water. After about 10 minutes take the lentil ball out and squeeze out the water. They are then eaten with some yogurt and topped with some cumin and salt. It was definitely interesting and not too bad. But again, I need practice and I'm not even completely sure exactly how they are supposed to turn out!

25.) Participate in Chinese Thursday at work (we all order Chinese food together).

I ordered chicken w/ string beans and fried rice. It was delicious.

27.) Stake, cage and/or trellis tomato plants.

Needless to say I've got a lot of work ahead of me if I want to even get close to finishing my list in the next 3 days!

Garden Harvest

Today I picked a bunch of stuff from the garden.

I got some giant chard. This bowl is actually quite large, although it's a bit hard to tell in the picture.


I got a large mound of lettuce.


More radishes. These were some of the biggest ones I've gotten from the garden so far. Do you see the double radish on the right? I didn't know they grow like that.


And beets! I love me some beets so I'm excited to cook these up. Did you know you can also eat the beet greens? They are quite tasty.

Natural Bug Repellent

One of my goals for this year has been to keep my garden chemical free, however that doesn't mean the bugs will leave my plants alone. Therefore as an added defense for my vegetables I occasionally whip up this quick natural bug repellent to spray on my plants. It's made from inexpensive ingredients that can be found in most kitchens. All I use is a small onion, some garlic and a few drops of dish soap.


I quarter the onion and smash the garlic cloves. I place it all in a pot, bring it to a boil, then simmer for an additional 20 minutes. After letting it cool a bit, I strain the liquid to get out all of the onion and garlic chunks.


I pour my mixture into a spray bottle and then add a few drops of dish soap. This can be sprayed directly on the plants without hurting them. The rain will rinse the repellent off of the plants so it does need to be applied fairly often.



I've been using this a bit to try and deter the slugs from eating my veggies, and it does work pretty well as long as I remember to apply it fairly frequently. The beer traps have been helping too. However, I'm finding that the most effective way to eliminate slugs from the garden is to pick them off by hand. I know it's gross, but it works. The best time to do it is after it rains or right before it gets dark when the slugs are starting to come out. Here is a batch of slugs that I collected just the other day.


I seriously don't know why there are this many slugs in my garden, and the scary thing is more keep coming. Hopefully one day I'll get ahead of them.

By the way, I apologize for the yucky slug picture, I just can't help it.

Slug Wars!

I've been noticing for a while that something has been nibbling on my vegetables, but I haven't been able to figure out what. However, last night I was out in my garden a little later than usual and discovered slugs crawling all over my plants! Boy did it make me mad. So they are what's been eating my plants! Well, I was not having it, so I picked off every last slug I could find and tossed them in the woods. There were literally hand fulls of them. Needless to say, it was not the most enjoyable experience of my life.

Today I continued my battle against these nasty little creatures and placed little slug traps around my garden. This is something I remember my mother doing in our garden when I was a little kid. Apparently slugs like beer, so I placed small cups of beer around my garden. The slugs will be attracted to the beer, fall in, drown and stop eating my plants. My cups were a bit tall so I cut them down a bit and filled them with about an inch of cheap beer.

What's fairly ironic about this whole slugs and beer thing is that my husband and I are on a budget and on account of alcoholic beverages being a tad unnecessary as well as on the expensive side, we really have not bought beer or any other alcohol in months. And now that we finally buy some beer it's going straight to the slugs.

Warning, this next picture is definitely not for the faint of heart.





I'm really sorry about putting this up here, but I just had to.






I just want others to really understand what I've been through.





After setting up my slug traps I went hunting for any slugs I could find and unfortunately I found some. I ended up sticking them in a cup until I could dispose of them. Here's a picture:

Looking at this makes me a little nauseous and brings back some traumatic memories. Maybe after some therapy I'll be ok again.

On a brighter note, I'm really hoping the beer cups work. Don't worry I'll keep you posted and I'll try to keep myself from putting up more slug photos.

Quick Garden Update

The garden continues to do pretty well. We've had a lot of rain recently so I haven't had to go water things as much as usual, meaning I've gotten a bit of a break. Last week I planted my tomato seedlings and they are surviving. My beets, lettuce, Brussels sprouts and radishes, which you can see above, are still growing very well. I even got to pick 3 more radishes yesterday, which we've been eating with the salad greens from the CSA.

Yesterday I did my second planting of green beans and cucumbers. I'm hoping to have enough cucumbers to make into a bunch of pickles. I also planted some okra, but I actually have no idea what okra plants look like so this will be an interesting surprise.

Growing Onion Seeds

A few weeks ago I discovered that a couple of onions in my cupboard had started to sprout. Because I was curious, I decided to stick them in cups of water and see if they’d continue growing.

Please note the lovely view from my apartment- yup that’s a sound barrier.

I did a little research because I didn’t know too much about onions. I was sort of hoping that if I let these grow in my garden then some how they’d make me more onions. Apparently, however, that’s not the way they work. From what I understand these will continue to grow then make flowers and finally produce seeds. Then next year these seeds can be planted and they will grow into onions. Therefore my plan is to put these in my garden let them go to seed then harvest and dry the seeds to use next year to grow onions. It does seem like a bit of a long process and I’m sure that it would be much easier to go out and buy a packet of onion seeds but this seems much more exciting. Plus I'll get to learn a lot more about the process of seed saving. I’ll let you know how it goes.

For now, here’s a picture of them actually in the ground. I think they look cooler in the glasses though.

Running today: 1.5 mi

Weekend Update

This weekend definitely kept me busy. Friday night I got to eat some delicious homemade Indian food at my aunt and uncle's house. Then I saw my cousin perform for the first time with his band "Katie's Got Guts". I was actually pretty impressed with them and had a lot of fun listening to them. I couldn't believe how good my cousin has gotten at guitar, he's the third one from the left in this picture. Check out their page on Facebook or you can just wait until they become famous rockstars.

Saturday I did exciting things like clean my apartment and finish that dang puzzle so now I can move on with my life.

I canned another batch of beans. Don't worry, at some point I will tell you why I am canning so many beans.

I cooked a bunch of random food so that we can eat leftovers all week and I can be lazy. Some of the things I made include sourdough mushroom stuffing, cinnamon chipotle chicken, baked corn casserole and a pot pie using my canned pot pie filling.

On top of all of that I went running for 1.5 miles.

Sunday was filled with doing about a million loads of laundry and helping my parents with yard work. Of their 5 acres, hardly any of it had been mowed yet this year, so we had a lot of work to do. However, they made us dinner and bought us ice cream so it's all good.

Lastly, I am proud to announce that I had my first harvest of the year this weekend. Check out the radish.

It was very tasty. Hopefully later this week I'll be able to pick more radishes and maybe even some lettuce.

A Radish!!

Look! A radish!!


Do you see it? Its so cute and pink. I have to admit that I was a bit surprised to see a it, as though I still doubt whether or not my garden will produce anything. But this proves it, I will at least have one radish.

And now I know you're just dying for more pictures from my super exciting garden so I won't keep you waiting any longer.

Here are the rest of the radishes. They really are growing like weeds compared to the other plants started at the same time.



A beet plant!



And lettuce! See, I have two different varieties.



Here are all of the plants that I have yet to plant outside. In the back are the tomato plants (which are getting quite leggy) and towards the front are some herbs and marigolds. I've heard that marigolds can be good at keeping away various insects and other pests that aren't so nice to your vegetable plants.


Unfortunately it continues to be too cold at night to get these in the ground. Tomato plants are very sensitive to frost so I don't want to take any risks. So for now I'll keep working on hardening them off. I leave them outside during the day to let them get used to being out there but I bring them inside the house if there is a chance for frost at night.

And now for a real post- My Garden!

Sadly I live in an apartment without sufficient light to grow much of anything so a few months ago I asked my parents if I could plant some green beans and a tomato plant in their yard. They took to the idea of a garden right away and started to make grand plans. At first I was freaking out about the garden idea escalating into this huge project for I feared it wouldn’t be ready in time to plant anything and that I wouldn’t be able to devote enough time and energy for something so big. However, in the end we were able to make 8 garden boxes, each 4 feet by 8 feet, and put up a fence in time for planting. Now I’m actually really looking forward to having so much space to grow veggies. I guess things worked out pretty well even though I was worried.

Look at the photos of my lovely garden!




It’s definitely a good amount of room for a first time gardener!

So far I’ve planted chard, lettuce, beets, broccoli, radishes and Brussels sprouts. The radishes are by far doing the best and unfortunately the broccoli is practically non-existent.

Here’s a picture of the radishes from a week or two ago.



And here’s a beet plant.



Indoors I’ve got some tomato and pepper plants started. They’ll go in the ground soon.

Stay tuned for many more updates from the garden.