How Does Your Garden Grow?

An Update of how the container garden is coming along...

I finally got the second tray of seedlings in pots.

The tray consisted of herbs, melons, a jalapeno plant, cucumber, broccoli, and cauliflower (6 of each). Almost all of the herbs sprouted well in the tray, but only 1 of of the watermelon and 3 of the cantelope sprouted. The broccoli and cauliflower did ok, but I was told it was too late in the season to bother planting them, so they got chunked. :(

The day after I transferred everything to pots, I completely lost the parsley, cucumbers, and thyme. I lost all but one of the cilantro and pepper plants. I don't know if I disrupted the roots too much or if the massive amount of rain we've been getting just drowned them. Either way, I was disappointed.

Since then, I have lost the watermelon plant (the leaves were broken off either by the wind and rain or three little boys... idk which.) I also lost a cucumber and cantelope by the same means.

However, from my original tray of seedlings, I have a cucumber plant thriving that actually produced a blossom for me yesterday!!! Excitement!


After walking around the yard a little bit more, I noticed several watermelon plants that are doing pretty well. They must have planted themselves from the seeds that got thrown into the compost because here is one where the compost pile used to be located:


One in the current compost:

And another one right outside the where the compost is now:



I'm having good luck with the carrots I planted straight into containers instead of starting as seedlings.

After the excitement over last year's carrot harvest, I knew we'd need more this year!

And since these guys were doing so well, I went ahead and replanted the parsley, cilantro, basil, and thyme directly into their respective containers that I had lost them in. Hopefully I see some improvement in them if they don't need to be transferred.

We've Got Beans!

One week after planting, those flowers turned into beans! Who'da thunk? :)

More Seedlings! AHHHHH!

What was I thinking planting more??? :)

Container Garden

I have been (sort of) keeping a blog about our garden. I thought it would be interesting to keep a record of what we do and how our first garden turns out. I am a NOVICE gardener and although I'm good at planting, I am not good at maintaining. I've been known to let a plant or two (or more!) die from just plain lack of water... um, I suppose that's called laziness... HA!
ANYWAY....
We started composting last year for this year's garden. Although the compost has done really well (thanks to Jeff), we have decided to use bagged dirt this year for a couple of reasons. I suppose the biggest reason being that I got an "itch" to plant. I just couldn't get it off my mind and with him traveling, it was just easier for me.
We've also opted for a container garden this year since we're moving. I was a little scared of the cost of containers because pots are expensive! However, I started noticing all these black plastic pots being put on the side of the road from people who had planted trees and shrubs. These were the perfect size!! And you can't get much better than FREE!! (And you know I'm not against picking things up off the side of the road!)
All these black pots were picked up for free within a week... too bad I had already purchased 9 terracotta colored ones (they'll get used though!).


Last Friday, Nathan, Witt, and I got to work.

The boys had fun watering the planted seedlings with their watering cans from the Easter Bunny. Eventually they just wanted to play in a bucket of water!






So here is one set our seedlings right before transferring into containers:


The beans were already flowering!

The final result:

Then we went inside to get Wett, I mean Witt, out of his clothes. It was such a beautiful day that I just left him in a Tshirt and diaper ensemble complete with green gardening gloves. :)

He found a caterpillar and then lost it...

He searched and searched... then he found his shadow.


Nathan decided to drive a tractor.

It was a wonderful day; unfortunately it didn't turn out so great for Witt the next day.
And now I get to tackle another tray of seedlings this weekend!


P.S. One week after planting, those flowers turned into beans! Who'da thunk? :)

Planting Seeds

We finally got around to planting some seeds (about 3 weeks later than I wanted to), but I don't think we'll be getting any more surprise snow... so I think it may be good that we waited. :)

I had some Lowe's returns to do for Jeff one day and I spent the return money on three ecofriendly seed starting kits. Basically, unwrap the package, add water and seeds, put on the germination cover and wait. Easy peasy for first timers like us!

We didn't do heirloom or organic seeds this year. I just want to take this to be a learning experience and if we end up with a harvest that'll just be icing on the cake!



Will even got some handwriting practice! :)


So far we have only used two of the kits. We'll plant the third one later to stagger the planting and *hopefully* the harvesting. From left to right we have: 2 rows of green beans, 1 row of limas, 2 rows of cucumbers, 1 row of cantelope, 1 row spinach, 1 row onion, 1 row dill, and 1 row green pepper.



And now we wait...

Turning the Pile

Jeff opens the gate and empties the bin to help turn it. Here's the vlog.

Our Second Compost Bin

It took about two months for us to outgrow our first compost bin. We weren't anticipating the phenomenal number of apples our tree produced! This was the first time in three years that it gave good apples, so needless to say, we have a compost pile full of rotting apples.

When we saw that the first bin was filled to the rim, we decided to try the popular pallet idea. We loaded up the kids and drove around town to the garbage areas of local grocery and home improvement stores. We saw several stacked, but figured they were being recycled for future use.

There were a few next to a dumpster that looked like they were in good condition, so Jeff hopped out with Nathan and asked if we could take them. Turns out that the store earns $5 per pallet, so no, we couldn't have them. Bummer.

Then we traveled to the back of our mall and found 4 next to a dumpster. Jeff went in and they said we could have them! Woo Hoo! Free compost bin here we come!

Jeff's really handy and had this put together in what seemed like no time at all:


Three sides are fixed and the fourth is like a door that he keeps tied with the rope.

We have had some smelly days and the flies do like the pile, so Jeff put out a fly trap using my shepherd's hook!



And some fly paper right down to the center of the pile:



Now, the compost is supposed to stay damp like a sponge, but if it doesn't you'll probably end up with some mushrooms like we did! No biggie, though, just turn the pile and add some water.

What's Up Doc?

Will came in while I was cooking supper and said he'd really like to have carrots for supper and I said, "That sounds like a really good idea! Go pick some." He smiled so big and ran outside to his container of carrots that he planted back in the Spring.

Not too much later he came back in glowing with these beauties:


He sure did enjoy those carrots! Now I really want to get a garden started next year! That smile is such good motivation.

For more Unplugged Gardens, click here.

Plastic and Compost

This week's Unplugged Project is "Plastic". I really didn't think we were going to get a chance to work it in this week, until I walked outside and saw this:



We are turning this 45 gallon plastic garbage bin into a composting bin. I got the bin idea from here and learned more about composting here.

For more Unplugged Projects, head on over to Unplug Your Kids.