GARDEN 01.28.2012


Last night we had fish and brown rice for dinner so I cut about a pound of broccoli florets and David steamed 'em for dinner. Well what was left after I tasted several...

I left some that are bolting (flowering and going to seed) so I can gather seeds from these plants. They were super hardy during the drought and I'd like to be able to plant them again.

The lettuce is ready to be cut again - I see Chicken Cesar Salads in our near future. Lunch probably since we have left over chicken in the fridge. The barrier is doing it's job and the mint and strawberry have been corralled. The cilantro is growing like crazy too. It's going to bolt soon. I've been pulling up the cilantro one by one, washing them and drying them for use. I don't really want it to bolt because the seed will end up everywhere and I'll end up with massive amounts. I hate pulling good plants, even to make space for new seeds. By keeping it from bolting I can prevent the need for pulling seedlings.

The baby garden loved all the rain and has doubled or more in size since the last photo two weeks ago.

I put garlic in the ground in the herb box two weeks ago and have sprouts on all three. Yea!

Our composts have been switched. The green compost from two weeks ago is being stirred regularly and will be used in the next bed. I'm relocating the mature compost from the pics two weeks ago, so I can squeeze in one more bed. It'll then be the green compost.

We have a little green frog living in the broccoli plant. I've been hearing toads from the garden at night too. I want to get a toad house and a frog house for the garden to encourage them to hang out permanently. David's building a birdhouse too. I plant the empty bed next weekend but don't have my final plans ready. I am going to put flowers between sections of veggies to encourage bees, butterflies and birds.

We got lots of rain last week. I was really happy that all my beds drained well. Too much water, not enough drainage, encourages grub worms, which are happy to be in Texas anyway. In my original 4*4 I lined the bed and when I tore it out to build a bigger bed, there were lots of grub worms. (I've learned so much since then...) I squished the ones I ran into and treated the soil with organic granulated sugar. When I turn the new, empty bed now I don't find any grub worms. Just happy fat earth worms. Yea!

My strawberry transplant from two weeks ago is doing well too. It's growing and seems happy in it's pot.

Gardening
Soothes the soul and feeds the belly... Also I really like it. Thus we've built several. I went to get soil for the one bed but it was less to get a pick up truck load than a few bags... so then we had to build a few more. And sweet potato has a was of taking over the world if one lets it.


A small mint plant was placed directly in the ground about ten months ago. A few feet away was a small strawberry plant. A foot or so from there, an oregano. All of them are vigorous spreading plants. Especially the strawberry and mint. So we dug a foot deep barricade and dropped a board in before my entire long garden became mint. I'm quite pleased it's doing so well and all but there's only so much mint a girl can use. I also dug up a strawberry runner and planted it in a large pot, hopefully we'll get loads of berries between the potted one and the garden.


Basically what I have now is three full beds.


One is my baby garden, planted just before Thanksgiving and carefully covered when the temps are supposed to drop below 40 degrees at night. It's quite the jerry-rigged affair these days as the plants are growing so quickly but thus far we've lost none of the babies to the freeze. I tucked an old bell pepper that might be a goner in the corner in hopes it'd come back. She didn't do so well in the first freeze.


Another garden, now partitioned to keep the mint and strawberry at bay, has two broccoli plants, a variety of lettuce and a couple cilantro. I haven't ever covered any of this but it's hardy and doing well none the less. I just picked back all the lettuce so they are a bit naked right now but I get a few salads a week from them. The broccoli was growing in another garden up against chicken wire so they look scraggly but they are still producing quite well in spite of the freezes, the transplant and the general abuse from chicken wire.



The third garden is basically a doubling of my first garden, which was a 4*4. We basically used the wood from that garden and some other scavenged wood to build a much bigger bed then transferred the soil from the original garden into the bigger, slightly rearranged bed. (It was up against the short fence on the right.) Because about 1/2 the soil had been planted for a full year this bed, built in November, won't be planted until early February, although the soil seems good as I can't keep the volunteer plants out of it.


The fence to the right in the first photo, we put up right before adding the beds. There was a chicken wire fan fare that, while mostly did its job of keeping the dogs out, was ugly and difficult to work around. I wanted something more workable and pleasant to look at and I think we got both with this semi-pre-fabricated fencing from Home Depot.


We have two composts. One is mature and I use it in the gardens. The other is immature and we add our (organic) scraps from the kitchen as well was tea and coffee grounds.


I have a box that's dug into the ground that I am planting herbs in. I have cilantro and dill already and there's three garlic bulbs planted that will hopefully be ready in June or so.


Lastly, I have a box that has a bottom on it in which I'll plant sweet potato. I planted last year and it took over the entire 4*4 and when I dug up the 4*4 in November, despite the lining that was down, I found sweet potatoes. They were the size of peas up to the size of a thumb but they were there despite the fact that I had dug up all the sweet potatoes and turned the soil really really well over a year ago. And so, I'm planting sweet 'taters in a box this time around lest my entire yard be taken over by sweet potato.

I'm working up the plan for my February planting - only 2.5 weeks away!! And then the long garden will rest until mid-March or so when I'll plant again... Lots of planning to do.

SEEDS!!

I ordered seeds for the first time from an online source. They came in today and I can't wait to plant....

5 weeks

As this week ends I look forward to the last five weeks of classes!! In those five weeks I will have:

2 business analysis quizzes
2 business analysis exams
1 business analysis excel assignment
2 business law exams
4 monetary economics quizzes
2 monetary economics exams
2 monetary economics reports
1 monetary economics semester report/presentation
2 accounting quizzes
1 accounting exam
2 marketing exams
4 marketing quizzes
1 marketing report

Nothing like the end of the semester push. So forgive me if I become overwhelmed and disappear for the next five weeks. Following finals, of which I believe I should only have to take 4, I will have 4-5 weeks off from classes before starting up again.

I am introducing my friend, Hannah, to the family I have been working with since May. I will have to take two accounting classes next semester which will prove to be quite overwhelming if I continue to work three days a week. Hopefully Hannah will work out with the family so that she can pick up one day a week for me and also provide back up for those weeks when I'm just barely pushing through.

Our little garden is getting HUGE!! We have little cucumber the size of a mans thumb, little green beans and little melons just a bit bigger than grapes. It's so fun to watch them grow and we can't wait to pick 'em and eat 'em!! The pics here are about a week old. We have been having great sunny days and the fruit/veggies are thriving.

A few weeks ago, my neighbor allowed me to pick a lime from her tree in her front yard. We used the tasty lime in beverages and on fish. Then I planted a few seeds. And now I have an itty bitty little lime tree! I am most excited about this. Lime trees are supposed to be really
hard to get started. This little guy is doing really well though. I have no idea how long it takes to get it mature enough to actually produce limes but we'll see. My neighbors lime tree looks more like a bush and is always heavy with limes.

David's been out of town since early Monday morning. He's had a class in Dallas. Today is the exam and this evening he finally gets home. It's the longest trip he's taken this year so we have all been missing him! Sunshine especially as he runs with her in the early morning hours.
Walking with me just doesn't cut it for her any more. She's been restless and grumpy.

While I am awaiting final confirmation from SHSU, I expect to be graduating in May!! David and I are more than ready to see my education complete. I love school and learning and will probably continue to take classes for most of my life. However, school will no longer require so much time and energy after mid-May 2010. I'm not sure what I am going to do once I graduate. I asked David if it'd be ok if I just sat and stared at a wall for a few weeks. He said it'd be fine because he knows after a few hours I'll be bored and out searching for a fabulous job that I can throw myself into. Clearly I'm not so good at sitting about doing nothing.

I am most looking forward to FINALLY being able to upgrade my goofy green carpets to some sort of (hopefully) bamboo! We have been saving and anticipating since we moved in 2 years, 1 month, 1 week ago. We have a few things to do before we can start but it's getting closer. We hope to finish the tiling in the guest bath room and the laundry area in the next few weeks. First, we need to do a bit of painting in the guest bath. = )

Pics of our garden from this morning. =)


Our little inside garden grew right out of our little starter boxes so I asked David to build me something that could be in the house for a while and then if the plants got too much could be moved out side. So now I have two of these little guys in the kitchen.




Our outside garden looks great! We should have fruits/veggies by Thanksgiving. How cool.

11th Day of Gardening.

We are both really excited about how well our garden is doing. We got loads of rain for about four days (I think we got about 6-8 inches in 4 days) and it's not been great for our tomatos but everything else seems to be thriving.

FALL GARDEN

On Monday David and I planted our first vegetable garden! We were pretty stoked. Down here the soil is really poor. Well it's not really soil. It's more along the lines of clay. Friends of ours that have gardens in this area usually do these square by square gardens. Since we have the space from removing our above ground pool, and the wood we kept when we removed the attached deck and some compost and soil, we decided to go for it. I measured it all out and David cut up the boards and used the old screws to hold the wood together. We lined the wood with cleaned sections of our old pool liner. So the entire garden is pretty much re-purposed material. While we did have to purchase some seeds I had saved some acorn squash and red bell pepper seeds. SO we planted: carrots, peas, green beans, broccoli, red bell pepper, jalapeno, tomato, cantaloupe, acorn squash and cucumbers. We already have little sprouts! We planted the tomato and jalapeno as little plants and they have grown some already also. Anyway we are pretty excited about the prospect of picking our own vegetables in about 50-75 days. If this plot does well, we hope to do a second in the winter. One nice thing about this area: 4 planting seasons!