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.

It's Almost Here...!

I'm talking about SPRING of course, and I can't wait!

Along with spring comes gardening. I've been busy planning our spring garden. We have 3, 4x4 boxes and 1, 2x2 box. I felt pretty good about our garden last year with it being our first real garden, but I definitely want to improve.

My friend, Rene, and her family have a huge garden that feeds them (4 families!) all summer plus enough left over to get them through most of the winter. They also raise their own chickens. When it comes to gardening I have a lot to learn. Fortunately, I knew exactly who to go to for advice.

This past Wednesday a group of us went to buy seeds with Rene and her family. We went to a store a few towns away so we could get good seeds (heirloom). You can learn more about seeds on Rene's site here. I learned so much from just this one trip... I can't wait to get my hands dirty!!

I ended up buying broccoli, cabbage, peas, carrots, onions and 2 different kinds of lettuce.

I learned that you can plant certain types of flowers in your garden and they will help keep bugs away and/or attract the good kind of bugs. I will probably do this since I want our garden to be organic.

Everyone at this family owned store was very friendly. Here we were checking out the broccoli and cabbage plants, when this guy walked up and started telling us all about them. By the time he and Rene's mom were finished teaching us how to plant them and care for them I wanted to buy the whole table! But, after giving it some thought I decided against it.

Because this trip happened in the middle of our school day I wanted to make it count. I had to be creative, but found a way for it to be a field trip. I am so glad I did. It turned out to be a lot more than just a seed store. They had fresh produce, farming equipment, livestock supplies, gardening equipment/supplies and a few animals. I had the kids take their journals to draw pictures and take notes. Joshua was in charge of the camera and making sure to get good pictures for the blog. I think he succeeded. When we got home, Seth and Noah finished their journal entry, along with a few sentences about what they had learned.

Here are a few of the animals they had at the store...



These pigs look sooo cute...



too bad they grow up and get stinky!!



Chickens.



And then there was this cute guy...

I will probably work out in the garden this weekend. I can't wait! I'll try to get some pictures up as soon as possible.

Be sure and check out Rene's website for more on gardening. Her website is budgetsavingmom.com Then click on the "gardening" tab at the top of the page.

Fall Garden Update

I had big plans for my first "Fall Garden". Unfortunately when school started everything including the garden fell by the way side. So here is what we have to date... lettuce (which is growing pretty good), cauliflower (which has been half eaten by rabbits) and 1 radish (which is not pictured here because I had already pulled it.) Even the mum I planted in the center is dying. :o(
I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL SPRING!!!

Here is the one radish that made it... well sorta...



look closely and you can see the teeth marks from some animal.

It was a tasty little radish though! you don't think I'd let a little squirrel or rabbit stop me from eating my first home grown radish do you? of course there wasn't much left after cutting away the teeth marks!

Now remember the surprise cherry tomato plant that grew out of my compost bin? Well it is growing like crazy!

Look at all these cute little guys... in a few days they will be perfectly ripe to go with the lettuce from the garden.

I peeked at Seth's sweet potato plant and I actually saw a few buried in the dirt. Shhhh don't tell Seth I want him to be surprised when he goes to dig them up.

A New "Mama" in Our Midst

No!

I'm not pregnant!

(Mom and Dad You can breath now!)



But I think this girl is...

We found this hornworm on our tomato plant. I didn't know they got so big and eat soooo much! I am very fond of babies but we just can't afford to have that many of those guys around!

For a worm it was kinda cute, but with those black and white little claws not so cuddly! (Eeew!)

I like the fake eyes down its body. I guess its kinda like when I tell the boys that I have eyes in the back of my head. Well what did you expect... with that many babies you would need eyes all over your body too!