Solemnity

Our haven is the backyard. We play. We eat. We read. We cook. We doodle. A fare of we-isms happen here. Nature exists forever within these confines, and we have (always) been content with her.

Garden Status

I have never been so ecstatic about seeing the plants bloom, and get larger. We should be harvesting some vegetables in a month. The bean plants, stringless green and golden wax, have been growing very rapidly. The lettuce bib (as shown in second picture) were the first to appear from seed planted into the ground. Only one eggplant died. I have been pruning the tomato plants, and will get a trellis for them this weekend. 

I am already planning for the Fall/Winter garden. 

Tips? Advice? Happy thoughts?

Vegetable Gardens

The two, raised garden beds are down, filled, and ready to grow. The (above) charts showed what we decided to plant. There will be a lot of eggplant, because they were the only seeds that survived during the 'seedling time'. The only Sunny window to grow them was in the living room, and the kids couldn't resist to play with the dirt. Note to self: make flourescent lamp when starting seedlings. We will try the vertical garden method for the cucumbers, and tomatoes. There is still room in the second raised bed for more veggies. Pictures to come soon.

Garden Bed 1
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Bellpeppers
Lettuce
Green beans

Garden Bed 2
Tomatoes
Sweet Banana Peppers
Green chili peppers
Oregano
Thyme
Rosemary
Basil
Thai Basil
Sage

Resources:
Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew, Website
You Grow Girl by Gayla Trail, Website

Green Thumb

Every year I say I'm going to do it. This Spring season, I'm going to (finally) work on a vegetable garden. Last year, we had good intentions, but we spent two months away from home during the Summer season.

I've been reading from this book, and this book, and working with the local extension office. This Vegetable Chart is going to help me out significanlty. I'm starting real small, three 4x4 SFG boxes. One box will be a basic garden salad variety; tomatos, lettuce, eggplant, bell peppers, and cucumbers. One box will be for herbs. The third box is for the kids to grow, well, I'm not sure yet.

We spend the last few days surveying the yard for possible locations, finding new blooms, raking up pine needles, leaves, dirt, and such. There are two loads of laundry that can vouch for the dirt we've dragged in.

We are going to build a better compost pile too, instead of just using a corner of the yard, where we just empty our vegetable scraps into. We have wonderful foilage around the house that could make wonderful compost for the gardens.

Off to start basil seedlings.

I hope everyone has a wonderful, Valentine's Day weekend.