It's That Time Again

I started my garden last week. I'm a little late due to moving my garden to another location.

I still have a 2x2 box on my deck and three 4x4 boxes in the middle of my backyard. My 4x4 boxes no longer get sufficient sun for most of the plants I want. because of that I plan to add additional 3x6 boxes in my side yard. I've been busy clearing the area and hope to get at least one box constructed within the next week.

In the meantime I did plant some herbs in the 2x2 box.



I planted Cilantro, Basil,...



Oregano and Thyme. I can't wait to have fresh herbs again!



I also planted some early spring crops to see if they would grow in my shaded 4x4 box. I planted radishes, bush beans, onions and spinach. We'll see what happens.

Garden Update

Our garden is going pretty good. We are trying some new things this year. Mike bought me a Topsy Turvy made for strawberries.

I use the same soil mixture that I used in my garden. (1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 compost) We planted a total of 30 plants!

You can put two plants in each hole.



It took some working to get the plants through the holes.



After topping it off with the last bit of soil, it was now time to find a place to hang it.

We hung it from our deck. I'm glad it came with strong wire to hang it with cause that thing was heavy!

It was a little bit of a job, but hopefully it will pay off in the end with lots of yummy strawberries in our own back yard.

The other change we've made is adding mulch around the garden. I thought it would be soooo easy... you just buy mulch and pour it out around where you want it, right?



WRONG!!!


When we tried that around one box it was immediately apparent that it wasn't going to work that way. The mulch was mounded up and falling all over the place. We quickly realized we were going to have to dig out the grass. We did that on one box first to make sure that worked. It worked beautifully!

WARNING... WARNING... YOU MIGHT WANT TO READ THE REST OF THIS POST BEFORE YOU GO OUT TO DIG.


ITSHARDWORK!!!

I don't know if your soil is like mine... the red clay kind... but man did it take a long time to dig around those boxes. We had 3 shovels and 4 people taking turns and it took us about 2 hours from start to finish for just ONE box. But it was so worth it! Look how pretty and neat it looks...

now just two more to go. UGH!!!

Now that we've finished with the mulching, YEA!, we can move on to how the veggies are growing. Well... everything was going great UNTIL a few days ago when I went out to check-up on my little guys...

and to my horror this is what I found. Something had turned my lettuce, peas, broccoli, and green pepper leaves into swiss cheese! YIKES!!!

look at these poor guys! can't you just feel their pain? feel free to send your donations of any amount to help support the "ryals garden restoration fund"!

So, I've been busy researching how to get rid of whatever is eating my garden. I don't want to us pesticides of any kind. I have found some interesting ideas online. Here are a few tips if you are having the same unwanted guest in your garden...

1. You can use egg shells and used coffee grounds to get rid of gnats and slugs. I just keep a jar by my sink and everyday fill it with egg shells (we eat lots of eggs) and coffee grounds. When its full I take it to the garden and sprinkle it over the soil. I had forgotten I did this last year and it really does work.

2. The next thing I'm going to try is an onion/garlic insect repellent. All you do is save your onion skins, peels and ends. Once you have enough, soak them for a few days in warm water. You could just leave them outside in the sun. Then strain the onion/garlic pieces out and pour the liquid into a spray bottle. Bury the strained parts around your plants. You can spray both house plants and garden plants with this spray. I am going to test the spray on the plant first just to make sure it doesn't harm the plant. Do this by spraying one or two leaves and wait three days to see if there are any changes.

i hope my plants will make it three more days... those bugs are serious about their eatin'!

To find out more about homemade natural pesticides check out this great site I found... Tipnut.com

Another thing I've done to help keep bugs from my garden was to plant some herbs and flowers among the veggies. Some of my Marigolds look like this, GREAT!

But most of them look like these poor guys... hmmm?

Anyway, on a positive note... My cabbage is getting huge. Still waiting to find a head? I keep trying to sneak a peak, but I still haven't found anything yet. The broccoli is growing well too. I have 4 heads of broccoli so far.

And the peas are growing like crazy! They are almost to the top of the trellis. I really hope the natural pesticides work. Have you tried any that worked? Leave me a comment... I'd love to know what's worked for you.

Garden Update

A few weeks ago we were sowing seeds... and now look at we got...

We bought broccoli and cabbage plants. They are getting pretty big, but no broccoli or cabbage head yet. The onions we bought are called Plyer onions. (i think) They are about the size of a radish and you just break them open and plant the little parts. Each little part will root. Pretty easy!

I bought two kinds of lettuce. Leaf lettuce and Butter-crunch. These were the seeds we were planting two weeks ago.

See the larger lettuce above? That is actually from last year!!! I noticed something green starting to poke out of the dirt in one of the pots on my deck. I decided to leave it.

really i thought it was a weed and was just to lazy to pull it out.

Well it turned out to be lettuce.

i knew it all along.

Something new I'm trying this year are peas. I bought these as seeds and sowed them right into the ground. They are growing really fast. Everyday they get a little taller.

Last week we went back to our favorite new farming supply store. We bought tomato plants(Roma and Better Boys), marigolds, zucchini plants, squash plants, green bean seeds (bush tenderette beans) and a rosemary plant. We transplanted the two roma tomatoes and marigolds today. We sowed two more squares of half long carrots and leaf lettuce.

We transplanted two cauliflower plants that we grew from seeds. One looks okay, but the other one doesn't look so hot. We will see how they turn out. It's all trial and error with lots of reading and planning. I know it will be worth it in a month or two when I'm grocery shoppin' in my back yard!

I can hardly wait!

Book 5/13

I finished the square foot gardening book. I told you I was flying through it. I am so glad I broke down and bought this book. The resources in this book are invaluable. My favorite part of the book are the charts in the back of the book. I also like the fact that you can look up a certain vegetable and there is a quick reference page that tells you all about how to grow that vegetable.

Here's whats going on so far in my homemade planters...

Leaf Lettuce and Butter-crunch Lettuce... I can't wait to have fresh lettuce. I look forward to trying the butter-crunch lettuce. I've never had it before.

The oregano is sprouting, but it is really tiny. I didn't bother taking a picture of it.

And here above and below are Marigolds. They are growing strong. I don't particularly care for Marigolds, but I have been told they are great to help keeps the bad bugs away from the other crops. I plan on planting one plant in each corner of the boxes and one in the middle. We'll see how good of a job they do. I'm trying my best to not use any pesticides on the garden.

I can't wait to see when the carrots and radishes start poking through.

Spring Garden

We started planting our spring garden about two weeks ago. I've been reading "Square Foot Gardening", like a mad woman. I'm already half way through. My plan is to try to have a better garden than last year. I am learning a lot! "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew is a great resource to have.

To go along with the book, I would also suggest this fantastic website... littlehouseinthesuburbs.com. They have a great FREE planner you can print out. After printing the little planner you have yourself a guide book that tells you exactly what to do and when to do it.

that's my kinda book!



We currently have 3 (4x4) boxes.

It takes a lot of planning in the beginning, but I am hopeful that it will get easier the more I learn. I basically am starting from scratch, trying to make sure I have a plan and work the plan.

I learned how to make containers to sow indoor seeds in. You simply use rolled up newspaper.

Find something that is the desired size you want your containers to be. Here I used a spice container as a model.

Then you simply roll it together. Carefully remove the spice container and...

then wet the bottom and fold closed. Fold the bottom like you are wrapping the ends of a cylinder shaped present.

Fill each seed container with potting soil.

Figure out what you want to sow. Sow your seeds in your new seed containers. We put at least two seeds in each container just in case one didn't grow.

Then all that's left to do is to water them. We put lots of water to soak the whole seed container. Once the newspaper was thoroughly wet it stuck together nicely. You just want to be careful when you water your newly sown seeds, that they don't float to the top of the soil. A few days after we did this I noticed one of my seeds laying on the top of the soil, so I just pushed it down again.

We were also able to get our beds ready.

I thought this was a cute picture of Seth and Noah sitting on the peat moss. They were taking a break after working hard at getting that stuff down to the garden.

Here they are spreading the new mix into the box. I love it when they work together on a project. It may not always be fun, but it's good character training to learn how to work together. They learned the importance of having a good work ethic and how when one person doesn't work hard it makes it harder for others.

The weather was beautiful and we were able to accomplish much.



Here we are checking our plans to see which square we need to plant next.



We planted broccoli, cabbage and onions.



I love the squares! They look so neat.



I can't wait to get more planted in the boxes.

I have definitely fallen in love with square foot gardening. Once you figure out when to plant what, it is so easy. My favorite part... NO WEEDS to pull. If you have never tried this method of gardening I would highly recommend trying it. Get the book! Don't try to be frugal. You will use the resources in the back of the book a lot. It will keep you from planting broccoli, which is a cool weather crop, in the middle of summer, like I did last year!!