Garden 2009

  

Planning for this year's garden is in full swing.  This will be the third year that we grow veggies in our back yard and we've got big ideas for that 15ftx 45ft plot of dirt.

 (The New Victory Garden- awesome book!)

 As much as I think that I would love taking on something like this..."Be realistic, be realistic, be realistic" is my mantra this year.  Last season I planted 4 cherry tomato plants!!??? After eating gobs of them ourselves and forcefully offering them to all of our friends and neighbors, we just couldn't consume all of them.  So, this year I am focusing on things that we like eating,in quantities that we enjoy, and that can be easily preserved.

The girls have been especially inspired.  I have been trying to find age appropriate ways of incorporating them into the planning.

After going through our favorite seed catalog (Bountiful Gardens- heirloom/non genetically modified seeds), we picked out our favorite veggies.  Each girl was allowed to pick one or two packets of seed for her very own tending.  For Hannah sunflowers are always a must.  She also wants to try some strawberries.

 

 Emma and I measured our garden space and then worked out how much room we would need to plant what we ordered.  She investigated which plants grow well together and created a little "vegetable friends and enemies" chart.  Then, I gave her some graph paper and asked her to create a map of our intended plans to scale.

 

It proved to be a great little math/science/nature study assignment.  She worked hard on it and enjoyed the detailed and spacial thinking that it required.

In the previous years we have just grown our vegetables in the ground.  However, our soil is very clay based and it has been hard to amend it for better draining.  So this year I have requested above ground beds.  My husband has also promised to a install drip irrigation system.  Last year I relied up on timed sprinklers or manual watering.  I'm finding lots of inspiration out there.

Here is what we hope to grow this year:

corn (I haven't had success in years past with non-gmo corn seeds, I'm going hybrid this year)

potatoes

zucchini

broccoli

cauliflower

cucumbers

snap peas

carrots

leeks

radishes

onions

tomatoes (roma, cherry, and large heirloom)

sweet bell peppers

strawberries

green beans

greens (butterhead lettuce, gourmet mix, chard)

squash (acorn, butternut, yellow crookneck)

The seeds are on their way and we are making room around the sunniest spaces indoors. The last frost date around here is about middle of May.  Planting day is coming soon!

Veggies in the Making

Good morning garden, how's it growing?

The process of starting this garden has been a long one!  The spring weather was less than accommodating and we got off to a very slow start.  But a little sunshine goes a long way!  Now we are seeing...

tiny tomatoes,

giant bean poles,

rows of radishes,

and climbing cucumbers.

My grandfather-in-law taught me to train them up this way:

Makes for longer cukes and prevents them from getting curvy.  Space saving too!

Here is the secret fertilizer recipe I promised- also courtesy of my g'pa-in- law.

4 oz baby shampoo

12 oz of beer (you should probably take a little swig before you dump it in :)

1/2 cup of molasses

3 T Miracle Grow

Mix all these ingredients in the bottom of a 5 gal bucket, then fill the bucket with water to the top.  Stir it up and pour it over your plants (example: about 1 gal per tomato plant).  Let it soak into the ground and then water as usual.  I use this mixture about every 2 weeks. 

Here's to the fruits of our labors!

This is not good

It snowed yesterday. All day.

My tall tomatoes, who are ready to burst out of their little pots (sitting in the window center left) whispered to the overflowing and claustrophobic herbs sitting across them "this is not good."

The zucchini overheard and began to panic.

Leave it to the girls to make the best of it.