Saturday, March 26, 2011
Oh NOES
Drove by a new nursery I hadn't seen before out in..Kent. Then I had to turn around and see what they had because it looked awesome. Most herbs were $1.25-$1.39 and a great prices on other edibles. Flowers were about equally priced. Finally got my first tomato plants of the season, some zuchini, cabbages, herbs and a few more pretty flowers. I may have to go back, bringing Lacy this time, and buy some bulbs. They had some hyacinths that weren't even blooming yet, and beautiful tulips. Hooray for SPRING!!!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Busy in the Garden...... Finally!
We finally got around to planting stuff. Its been lots of rain around here, and with the new jobs and still getting the house in order I haven't found the time to plant any seeds. But its warming up and we went to the Tilth Spring Plant sale and got some starts. Lacy got a bunch of flowers and some edibles and I got some herbs.
We threw some old peas and bean seeds into the ground but we don't have any confirmed sprouts, yet. The seeds were at least 2009 so it might be too late for them.
The herb bed is taking shape, chickens are happy and healthy and there are more newcomers to our garden this year. We have a new Gardening Partner!!!! We gave her a whole bed which she promptly filled with onion, spinach, and some other starts with all this room we have it seemed silly that she would pay for a pea patch, assuming she could even get one (I hear there are wait lists). Also baby chicks will be arriving in four weeks and ducks soon after. Our NGP (just this afternoon) has become employed so I don't think he will be wanting to lend much time to our gardening efforts, although he has become quite fond of all the fresh veggies and eggs, so he might be willing to help now and then.
Second composter is put together, straw bin is finished all but the lid, which is going to take me some design work and a few more parts. Home Despot how I love thee! And I want to build a potato bin this year. Bought some more worms at the plant sale, I like to think all the other little guys ran free but likely they just dried out, and decomposed. Sad. But Lacy fixed the worm bin by drilling holes in the lid so these guys should be much happier.
Our yard waste (imagine a brush pile the size of your living room) lives on. Plans to borrow Mom's truck are in the works, I just wanted to wait for some drier weather. Moving all that debris to the transfer station in the cold windy rain just sounded like a terrible way to spend my weekend.
All the bulbs planted in the front yard are blooming out and looking beautiful. Its such a nice thing to come home to the last rays of sunshine and your walk up to your door lined in crocuses and daffodils!
We threw some old peas and bean seeds into the ground but we don't have any confirmed sprouts, yet. The seeds were at least 2009 so it might be too late for them.
The herb bed is taking shape, chickens are happy and healthy and there are more newcomers to our garden this year. We have a new Gardening Partner!!!! We gave her a whole bed which she promptly filled with onion, spinach, and some other starts with all this room we have it seemed silly that she would pay for a pea patch, assuming she could even get one (I hear there are wait lists). Also baby chicks will be arriving in four weeks and ducks soon after. Our NGP (just this afternoon) has become employed so I don't think he will be wanting to lend much time to our gardening efforts, although he has become quite fond of all the fresh veggies and eggs, so he might be willing to help now and then.
Second composter is put together, straw bin is finished all but the lid, which is going to take me some design work and a few more parts. Home Despot how I love thee! And I want to build a potato bin this year. Bought some more worms at the plant sale, I like to think all the other little guys ran free but likely they just dried out, and decomposed. Sad. But Lacy fixed the worm bin by drilling holes in the lid so these guys should be much happier.
Our yard waste (imagine a brush pile the size of your living room) lives on. Plans to borrow Mom's truck are in the works, I just wanted to wait for some drier weather. Moving all that debris to the transfer station in the cold windy rain just sounded like a terrible way to spend my weekend.
All the bulbs planted in the front yard are blooming out and looking beautiful. Its such a nice thing to come home to the last rays of sunshine and your walk up to your door lined in crocuses and daffodils!
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
rambling, procrastination...or...am I way too late for seeds?!?
We like to garden by starting our own seeds...mainly it costs (a lot!) less but it is also so satisfying to see all those little seeds popping up and growing - they are so cute you can't help but want to garden. This year with moving, new jobs and a combined 6weeks-ish of being sick I'm wondering if we've run out of time. Almost every afternoon while in the office I look outside and thing "Tonight I'm going to start seeds!" or "This weekend I'll plant things!" But there are so many other things that I need to do also - or I'm just too tired. I've only been working since December and I don't think I've really re-adjusted yet - I know I should but most nights I just want to come home, eat food, take a shower and relax.
So...this weekend I'm resolved - I want seeds in the ground - at least the ones we can plant outside right now. Then I'll evaluate the others and see if I have time/energy/etc...
I'm debating buying starts this year and I keep hearing about the Seattle Tilth Edible Spring plant sale...it's coming up soon and they do have a lot of things I wanted. Doing starts feels a little bit like a failure - especially after carefully saving seeds last year from so many tomatoes, tomatillos, climbing beans and squash.
I'm going to have to do some research this week and see what can be planted still via seed, I'll get out our Maritime NW Garden guide to see what should have been planted the last 2 months and look at our seed varieties and see how long they are going to take...The tomatoes and squash might be OK from seed now if nothing else.
When do you start planting seeds? Last year Jen started in December if I remember right and we grew just about everything from seed. This year with all of the herbs and veggies I want I think starts are going to be in the plan.
I'm also looking at growing a bunch of edible flowers this year - mainly I think it will be pretty but I'm also thinking ground cover.
So...this weekend I'm resolved - I want seeds in the ground - at least the ones we can plant outside right now. Then I'll evaluate the others and see if I have time/energy/etc...
I'm debating buying starts this year and I keep hearing about the Seattle Tilth Edible Spring plant sale...it's coming up soon and they do have a lot of things I wanted. Doing starts feels a little bit like a failure - especially after carefully saving seeds last year from so many tomatoes, tomatillos, climbing beans and squash.
I'm going to have to do some research this week and see what can be planted still via seed, I'll get out our Maritime NW Garden guide to see what should have been planted the last 2 months and look at our seed varieties and see how long they are going to take...The tomatoes and squash might be OK from seed now if nothing else.
When do you start planting seeds? Last year Jen started in December if I remember right and we grew just about everything from seed. This year with all of the herbs and veggies I want I think starts are going to be in the plan.
I'm also looking at growing a bunch of edible flowers this year - mainly I think it will be pretty but I'm also thinking ground cover.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Pictures, finally!
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| Sedums to go on the rock wall |
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| garden shed in the backyard |
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| Apple tree, chickens and yard. The vegetable garden space is against the bamboo fence |
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| chicken run next to the vegetable garden |
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| cardboard put down around the blueberries to sheet mulch - dirt will be put on top... |
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| leftover plants - what are they? |
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| It's SooOOOO fluffy! |
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| more shore pine and ivy to remove...somewhere under all of this is a rock wall and some honeysuckle |
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| the chickens love love love the garden |
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| roses! |
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| blueberry - obviously it needs more dirt over that cardboard....in time, in time...lol |
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| what are they? Wood hyacinths perhaps? There are clumps all over the yard like this :) |
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| black bamboo...pretty pretty! |
work, work, work
Well....some pruning, no gravel path or dirt by the blueberries. I dug up some sedums to put in the rock wall and found out that it was basically falling down in one spot...we proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon rebuilding that section. Now it looks better than it did when we moved in and it won't fall on anyone walking by - hooray! It looks nice with all the sedums in it too...I wish I'd gotten a before picture of the hole but I only got one afterwards, we rebuilt the middle section on the 2nd picture
sunshine!
Heading outside to work in the garden, I'm going to let the chickens out to roam and do some prunning, I'm going to also dig out a path to the chicken coop and fill it with gravel, perhaps haul more dirt up to finish covering the sheet mulch around the blueberries.
I'm going to take some more pictures and then upload them!
I won a book that I'm excited to read from the lovely Meg at http://growandresist.com/ you should check out her blog, she's a much better writer than I am and her garden and chickens are gorgeous!
I've already learned something new I'm excited to try - broccoli likes to be planted with aromatic herbs, rosemary in particular! I'm excited to try this since we have tons and tons of rosemary and I have not had any luck whatsoever with my 3 attempts at broccoli.
In other news I found out the weirdly pruned shrub outside is indeed a forsythia since the golden yellow flowers have started to bloom. Also the NGP's mother was down last week (she lived in this house for 30+ years) and said the old pear tree is delicious yellow gold pears and the apple tree is good for cooking though it has problems with scab. I will plant chives around it asap to help with the scab and hopefully after some pruning both of them will produce lots of fruit this year! I'm excited to try canning fruit and with apples, pears, plums, peaches, raspberries, blueberries and grapes there should be plenty to experiment with.
I'm thinking if there is a large yeild to have a canning/harvest party. I'm thinking bbq on the patio and come can, take some home, eat some fruit...something. I don't know entirely - just the beginning of an idea and fall is a ways away right now anyways.
I'm going to take some more pictures and then upload them!
I won a book that I'm excited to read from the lovely Meg at http://growandresist.com/ you should check out her blog, she's a much better writer than I am and her garden and chickens are gorgeous!
I've already learned something new I'm excited to try - broccoli likes to be planted with aromatic herbs, rosemary in particular! I'm excited to try this since we have tons and tons of rosemary and I have not had any luck whatsoever with my 3 attempts at broccoli.
In other news I found out the weirdly pruned shrub outside is indeed a forsythia since the golden yellow flowers have started to bloom. Also the NGP's mother was down last week (she lived in this house for 30+ years) and said the old pear tree is delicious yellow gold pears and the apple tree is good for cooking though it has problems with scab. I will plant chives around it asap to help with the scab and hopefully after some pruning both of them will produce lots of fruit this year! I'm excited to try canning fruit and with apples, pears, plums, peaches, raspberries, blueberries and grapes there should be plenty to experiment with.
I'm thinking if there is a large yeild to have a canning/harvest party. I'm thinking bbq on the patio and come can, take some home, eat some fruit...something. I don't know entirely - just the beginning of an idea and fall is a ways away right now anyways.
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