Cukes and sunflowers from seed are going crazy. Tomatillos from seedlings seem the same. Onions from seedings seem 50/50 happy and unhappy, so I'm not sure I did them right.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Bed C 1.5 weeks after planting
Butternut squash and beets are growing fast! Only took a week for the seeds to sprout in the 80 degree heat. Still waiting on the peppers to sprout.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
So many babies today!
We've had a run of 80 degree days, and our first day near 90 this past Thursday. I've been watering diligently. This morning there were suddenly so many babies in the garden! Rows of corn and green beans, circles of cucumbers, companion sunflowers, and even a teeeeny beebee basil bit.
I also discovered that one of our random vines is Honeysuckle, and taught the kids how to eat it. Mothering success!
Friday, May 9, 2014
Planting of garden A
This was done on May 3rd, after receiving some beautiful free seedlings from a wonderful lady at my fellowship at an Earth Day event. The kids had been there as the sole representatives of their Navigators USA Chapter, spreading their knowledge about compost.
It was a warm, sunny weekend and the plants seemed happy to get into the ground. First, L helped me make a list of what we had and a few things we still planned to get, and make a general plan. We used a little bit of basic knowledge about companion plants (like cucumbers and sunflowers, corn and beans), and about keeping tall things from shading low things, except maybe the lettuces that might like it a little bit shady at times, but otherwise didn't stress it a ton. I've read more since then about the soil qualities and nutrients that the plants I have enjoy, and worry that maybe I should have grouped them like that, but I've also read that there are a million gardening charts and you can make yourself crazy with them. Better to just get the stuff in the ground, I'm thinking.
From the previous post on filling the bed, it was mostly full. I just used bagged garden soil massaged into the native soil around where the plants were going.
The rear portion is lettuces, then a collection of three tomato plants lined with Thai basil, an empty spot where some peppers will go when they've sprouted, and those sticks are two lines of corn and beans. There are also some marigolds in there along the edges. It's a bit tight, yes. But this is how it is in the city. The plants will just have to learn to be cuddly.
Lastly, on May 4th I gave everything a good soak and mulched with grass clippings.
It was a warm, sunny weekend and the plants seemed happy to get into the ground. First, L helped me make a list of what we had and a few things we still planned to get, and make a general plan. We used a little bit of basic knowledge about companion plants (like cucumbers and sunflowers, corn and beans), and about keeping tall things from shading low things, except maybe the lettuces that might like it a little bit shady at times, but otherwise didn't stress it a ton. I've read more since then about the soil qualities and nutrients that the plants I have enjoy, and worry that maybe I should have grouped them like that, but I've also read that there are a million gardening charts and you can make yourself crazy with them. Better to just get the stuff in the ground, I'm thinking.
From the previous post on filling the bed, it was mostly full. I just used bagged garden soil massaged into the native soil around where the plants were going.
The rear portion is lettuces, then a collection of three tomato plants lined with Thai basil, an empty spot where some peppers will go when they've sprouted, and those sticks are two lines of corn and beans. There are also some marigolds in there along the edges. It's a bit tight, yes. But this is how it is in the city. The plants will just have to learn to be cuddly.
Lastly, on May 4th I gave everything a good soak and mulched with grass clippings.
Filling and planting of Garden "B"
Garden Bed B is in the center of the three, more or less in the middle
of the yard. It gets a bunch of morning sun, a bit of shade in mid
afternoon, and then late afternoon sun until dusk. It started like this on May 4th - 
Then I put the guinea pig cage stuff in the bottom.
Covered that with some grass clippings my friends L and G were lovely enough to scavenge for me from a relative's neighbor's curb (feeding a garden > rotting in a plastic bag).
Then the remains of a bag of topsoil.
And a big layer of scavenged native soil from the concrete. See the rest of the walkway and the patio showing up in the background?
Another bag of topsoil and a bag of garden soil massaged into the mix.
And then it got planted! In the front third I planted cucumber and sunflower seeds. In the middle third (divided by some zinnias) are tomatillos, and in the rear third (divided by more zinnias) are onions. I believe the onions are red cabernet onions, though there may be a mix in there, according to the wonderful woman from my fellowship, who gave me all these seedlings for free. Of course I, not knowing anything about anything, got 22 tomatillo plants, since there were tons and no one was taking them, only to find out later that they get as big and bushy as tomatoes. My mom, who has a green thumb and I actually trust to transplant, is going to try to take some when she comes to visit next weekend. Oh! And there are also some green onions in there which are growing quite happily from little butts of green onions that I saved from what I got at the grocery store and used in a recipe, and then randomly stuck in the ground.
Sproutlets!
Who doesn't love babies?
The kids and I are so tickled over these little baby sprouts we just spotted in our egg carton seed starters (cardboard egg cartons filled with dirt). Beets, cucumbers, and a sunflower!
The kids also have some little tomatoes in these "grow your own" pots they got from our aunt and uncle last year. How fun! It's been about two and a half weeks since they planted all the seeds and started diligently watering and watching.
Friday, May 2, 2014
Filling Garden "A"
Many, many updates are long overdue, and perhaps if I get time I'll share them all, BUT that's not the purpose of this particular post. Sometimes I'll think of blog posts to make with specific purposes, but then get overwhelmed with the fact that I haven't been updating, and there is backstory, and I simply don't have time for both the backstory and the specific purpose. So I put it off more, and of course more time doesn't come to deal with more backlog of thoughts, and the problem snowballs.
Long story short, since the last series of somewhat routine posts -
I started going to and getting involved with a Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. It is/they are awesome. I met some friends. They are also awesome. In February we moved out of the apartment in the suburbs of Hampton to a house in the city of Norfolk. Guess what? It's also awesome. I'm keeping busy. Homeschooling is happening. Projects are everywhere (if not mostly in my head). I've been painting a little, writing a little, baking a little, cleaning a lot, exercising not so much.
However, since updates were not the purpose of this particular post, let me get to that particular purpose.
We have a yard!
And I'm starting a garden in it!
I really like the idea of an urban homestead, however, this is not our forever home. We don't own it, and don't even plan to rent here longer than a year or two, so I'm hesitant to do too much to set up "home" here. Gardens are good, though. They are as cheap or expensive and as simple or complex as you make them. In late winter, when we knew we would be getting a yard for sure, I was really excited and gung-ho about doing research for what type of garden was best and what type of plants I wanted. I already owned the books The Urban Homestead and The Backyard Homestead. I had all the pins on Pinterest. But I quickly got overwhelmed.
Guess what? There is information out there! And some of it is conflicting! There is no one best way to grow things! It's kind of confusing! So by the time we moved, unpacked, settled, and got back into some sort of a routine, as lazy and half-assed as it is, spring was upon us and I'd gotten scared and mentally pushed the garden thing to the side.
Then suddenly, it got warm. Like, high 70's warm. Trees, flowers, and grasses started popping out, telling me about how wonderful but generally inedible they were, asking wouldn't I like to plant them some friends? I couldn't procrastinate any longer. Either I was going to have a garden or I wasn't. I had wanted to make raised beds out of freebie materials, like pallets, from craigslist, so the next delay was in carefully combing through the ads once a week. Eventually we ditched that plan when M told me that the pallets I eventually settled on wouldn't fit in the back of the car and would need to be busted up first, which would result in a lot of lost wood and crumbles. Rather than continue to spin my wheels thinking of the next best freecycled, loosey-goosey, slap-it-together, hippie garden plan, I showed M the raised bed plan in The Urban Homestead and put him in charge of the building with real lumber and tools and all. Which he did for me Sunday.
Look how lovely!
I now have three 4'x8'x8" raised beds. We only sunk one in the ground at first, because I was being non-committal about where I wanted the other two, despite trying to carefully observe the sunlight patterns in the yard. As soon as I realized the size of the project I'd asked for, I asked my friend L if she'd like one of the boxes to be dedicated to her. I'd realized I might have bitten off more than I can chew by asking for three!
With the challenge of the building material for the raised beds out of the way, the next issue is figuring out how to fill these boxes. Again, I've read all kinds of things, and while I'd like to do this "right", I'm realizing that there isn't really a "right" way. However, getting worried and scared into not doing it at all will for sure result in garden failure. This is all going to be a big experiment, and we'll see what, if anything, comes of it. So I'll be taking notes here on the blog.
Garden Box A
I started on filling the first box, box A, on Monday. It is on the southeast edge of the yard along the fence that divides our yard from the neighbor's, and is probably the sunniest spot in the yard. To fill it, I first scattered the contents of the guinea pig cage (soft wood and paper bedding) on the ground, and took out the shiny print paper after I took the picture. It didn't take up nearly as much space as I was hoping.
I started scraping dirt off the cement walkway and patio in the yard, which we suspected might be a little larger than they appeared and largely covered with leaves and dirt. I don't have a wheelbarrow, so I started with using a cardboard box as a cart.
Isn't that the most pathetic thing?
It turns out an empty trash can does the job much better.
We've had a compost bucket, which at one time was an Ale Pale of M's, filling with kitchen scraps for about two weeks. Though the contents were not even close to composted, I decided to mix that in with the dirt and grass roots I was dumping in the hole. A lot of happy earthworms joined in. I'm sure it will compost-in-place in no time. I hope? I really have no idea what I'm doing.
It turns out the walkway and patio that are covered in dirt are much more substantial than they appeared at first! Also, all the soil that covers them is from composted leaves that had been left to sit there, so it is just lovely. I scooped up as much as I could on Monday before it started to rain. For a short time the kids joined me, using the box as their cart and me using the trash can, and we played archeology, trying to discover the edges of the ancient concrete.
It's supposed to rain most of the week, but hopefully there will be some time in there to finish up.
Long story short, since the last series of somewhat routine posts -
I started going to and getting involved with a Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. It is/they are awesome. I met some friends. They are also awesome. In February we moved out of the apartment in the suburbs of Hampton to a house in the city of Norfolk. Guess what? It's also awesome. I'm keeping busy. Homeschooling is happening. Projects are everywhere (if not mostly in my head). I've been painting a little, writing a little, baking a little, cleaning a lot, exercising not so much.
However, since updates were not the purpose of this particular post, let me get to that particular purpose.
We have a yard!
And I'm starting a garden in it!
I really like the idea of an urban homestead, however, this is not our forever home. We don't own it, and don't even plan to rent here longer than a year or two, so I'm hesitant to do too much to set up "home" here. Gardens are good, though. They are as cheap or expensive and as simple or complex as you make them. In late winter, when we knew we would be getting a yard for sure, I was really excited and gung-ho about doing research for what type of garden was best and what type of plants I wanted. I already owned the books The Urban Homestead and The Backyard Homestead. I had all the pins on Pinterest. But I quickly got overwhelmed.
Guess what? There is information out there! And some of it is conflicting! There is no one best way to grow things! It's kind of confusing! So by the time we moved, unpacked, settled, and got back into some sort of a routine, as lazy and half-assed as it is, spring was upon us and I'd gotten scared and mentally pushed the garden thing to the side.
Then suddenly, it got warm. Like, high 70's warm. Trees, flowers, and grasses started popping out, telling me about how wonderful but generally inedible they were, asking wouldn't I like to plant them some friends? I couldn't procrastinate any longer. Either I was going to have a garden or I wasn't. I had wanted to make raised beds out of freebie materials, like pallets, from craigslist, so the next delay was in carefully combing through the ads once a week. Eventually we ditched that plan when M told me that the pallets I eventually settled on wouldn't fit in the back of the car and would need to be busted up first, which would result in a lot of lost wood and crumbles. Rather than continue to spin my wheels thinking of the next best freecycled, loosey-goosey, slap-it-together, hippie garden plan, I showed M the raised bed plan in The Urban Homestead and put him in charge of the building with real lumber and tools and all. Which he did for me Sunday.
Look how lovely!
I now have three 4'x8'x8" raised beds. We only sunk one in the ground at first, because I was being non-committal about where I wanted the other two, despite trying to carefully observe the sunlight patterns in the yard. As soon as I realized the size of the project I'd asked for, I asked my friend L if she'd like one of the boxes to be dedicated to her. I'd realized I might have bitten off more than I can chew by asking for three!
With the challenge of the building material for the raised beds out of the way, the next issue is figuring out how to fill these boxes. Again, I've read all kinds of things, and while I'd like to do this "right", I'm realizing that there isn't really a "right" way. However, getting worried and scared into not doing it at all will for sure result in garden failure. This is all going to be a big experiment, and we'll see what, if anything, comes of it. So I'll be taking notes here on the blog.
Garden Box A
I started on filling the first box, box A, on Monday. It is on the southeast edge of the yard along the fence that divides our yard from the neighbor's, and is probably the sunniest spot in the yard. To fill it, I first scattered the contents of the guinea pig cage (soft wood and paper bedding) on the ground, and took out the shiny print paper after I took the picture. It didn't take up nearly as much space as I was hoping.
I started scraping dirt off the cement walkway and patio in the yard, which we suspected might be a little larger than they appeared and largely covered with leaves and dirt. I don't have a wheelbarrow, so I started with using a cardboard box as a cart.
Isn't that the most pathetic thing?
It turns out an empty trash can does the job much better.
We've had a compost bucket, which at one time was an Ale Pale of M's, filling with kitchen scraps for about two weeks. Though the contents were not even close to composted, I decided to mix that in with the dirt and grass roots I was dumping in the hole. A lot of happy earthworms joined in. I'm sure it will compost-in-place in no time. I hope? I really have no idea what I'm doing.
It turns out the walkway and patio that are covered in dirt are much more substantial than they appeared at first! Also, all the soil that covers them is from composted leaves that had been left to sit there, so it is just lovely. I scooped up as much as I could on Monday before it started to rain. For a short time the kids joined me, using the box as their cart and me using the trash can, and we played archeology, trying to discover the edges of the ancient concrete.
It's supposed to rain most of the week, but hopefully there will be some time in there to finish up.
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