Documentation Post.

 I took all these pictures several days ago (save a few at the end from today), and never got the chance to upload them. So here they finally are.  Completely random, but I know I'll want to look back next year, and see where the garden was this time of year, so this is more of a "documentation" post. It's incredible to me because I know how much growth I've seen even since these were taken!  We had had some "normal" temperatures this week, which shows me just how spoiled I've been. I've had to bring IN plants, something I haven't had to do for about a month!  Plants are back outside tonight though, with a low of 50, I think they're alright.

I had my first problem with rollie-pollies as we grew up calling them, pill bugs, sow bugs to others. I have never had a problem with them, but they absolutely destroyed my pepper plants! I may have about enough to not have to buy them from the store, but I may not even get off that lucky, and I planted over double of what I wanted to plant for myself!

This particular container I used to carry the plants did not have a full bottom to it, so one day I moved it when I saw several chewed up plants and they were swarming. Literally, swarming.  This container has stayed on the patio table after that incident, and they haven't seemed to sustain any additional damage, though I'm not sure many will recover. The other containers for my plants had a lip to them, and I think that's what kept them away from my others. 

New strawberry plants have taken. The old ones have fruit set already.

I looked through last year's blog, and my earliest FLOWER was April 11, this year they are already covered with growing berries!

Tomato and pepper seedlings, broccoli and peas

My broccoli is as big now as it was at the end of May last year (I got a pretty nasty freeze/snow just after planting last year)

Radishes and peas (the radishes have been incredibly mild flavored this year, and have really filled out nicely)

Alright, Granny-- you were right! Here's a carrot seedling!

Broccoli and lettuce -- I'll need to take an updated picture, broccoli plants are touching now, and we've had a full container worth of lettuce harvested since this photo. It made for two delicious salads, but I definitely forgot how long it takes to clean each individual leaf!

Tomato seedlings getting bigger! I've had some issues with what I think is nitrogen deficiency and have tried to keep them fed-- the new growth is really LIGHT green, almost yellow.

This picture shows how much my broccoli has grown since I planted it. This is an extra seedling that didn't get planted, and has pretty much stayed the same size as the plants were when I transplanted them. 

Zucchini seedling popping up in my buckets!

Radishes popping over the soil.

 One of my favorite things about early spring-- pea tendrils. I absolutely love how delicate they are, but are still intensely strong.

 Happy Birthday Heidi! She's 9 today!

Quick and easy way to gain the title "Messy Garden"-- Maple seeds  Sometimes it sounds like it's raining when the wind blows. They're almost finished falling, so it'll be time to clean them up soon!

It's Hot.

At least there is still garden growth! I've got lots of things just taking off, and took quite a few pictures, but dinner is almost ready.

Mama! Where are the peas already!! I know they're in there!

Gardening in the Dark - Updated with Photos

This is probably a first for me. No pictures, not tonight anyway. Photos added 3/27. I did garden most of the day as well as in the dark tonight. I was hoping my dwarf Tophat blueberry bush would arrive today, and was sort of waiting on it to finish up my work, and it won't come until tomorrow now, so that meant I left a bunch of stuff out and just a bit more work that needed finished. I could have waited until tomorrow, but I got started on finishing up my newspaper pots and just went ahead and filled them by my back porch light.

Things accomplished today:

• Potting up of 81 tomato/pepper plants in newspaper pots
• Run to Walmart/Dollar Tree for more seeds, potting soil, fertilizer, and hanging baskets (I couldn't pass up a few packets of $0.20 seeds at Walmart... and I think I was short on pepper seeds anyway...
• Mixed potting soil with fertilizer
• Filled and planted summer squash and zucchini in my Dollar tree buckets from last year 
• Made remaining 25 newspaper pots
• Potted up remaining 24 tomato plants and 1 lone basil plant in the dark on the patio

I've been dreading the potting up stage. Partly because I do so many at a time, but also because, once again, I was late in making my newspaper pots so all of that had to be done at once.  My hubby helped out tons with the newspaper pot making last night, which was a welcomed first.

I know it's early to get those zucchini and summer squash started, but they worked so well in the buckets last year, and it's been so consistently warm. I noticed a few volunteer watermelon plants growing in the compost pile the other day, and found a squash of some sort (probably zucchini) that already has its first true leaves back in the turtle pen. I figured if they grew in nature on their own I could risk a few seeds now. The pots are portable too, so that means a trip to the garage or even the dining room if we get a temperature drop. I just about wrote "late" temp drop, but Spring has come so early, that I feel thrown off, it wouldn't be "late" it'd be normal.

Squash volunteer in turtle pen

Spinach seedling (excited with how much growth I have so far, spinach is not one I've had much success with)

Lolla Rossa lettuce seedling

Valerie lettuce seedling

Broccoli and lettuce

Snap peas, radishes, and the non-existent carrots

I feel like my tomatoes and peppers are "behind" because they are so small in this potting up stage (they do have a phosphorus deficiency at the moment, but that will clear up with the fertilizer and fresh soil...). Realistically they are way ahead, they are completely hardened off, seeing as how they have spent MAYBE two days inside at the very beginning. IT'S STILL MARCH. I have to keep telling myself that. 

Solomon on the compost pile

The turtles think Spring is in the air. There shouldn't be any shortage of fertile eggs (at least next year..), I'll just leave it at that. I'm wondering if there will be early egg laying... May 18th is the earliest Eleanor has ever laid. We'll see... 

Gardening in the Rain

My strawberry replacement plants came yesterday (All but three or four plants died from the heat and lack of water last year...) So that meant I had no choice but to do some gardening work.

I planted 25 strawberry plants, transplanted broccoli and lettuce starts, planted red onions, and did some weeding. All of this is the rain.

I'm definitely seeing green out there now! The warm weather has been lovely, but I'm definitely afraid of a late frost/freeze. It was only in the 60s today, so that rain that has now taken residence in all of my clothes has chilled me to the bone. At least I got out there with the camera!

In turtle news, all turtles have now emerged. Nadine was the slowest, and I saw her out there this morning for the first time. (she was the one who gave us fertile eggs last year, so I was rather worried about how long it has taken her to come out!)

Confession helps

So I guess just confessing that I had no motivation was enough to give me some motivation. A high temperature of 83 today didn't hurt either.

Today, Hubby helped me get the compost moved back to its normal area, and loosen/fertilize the soil. I have a nice sunburn on my back to prove it...

I also planted some additional shelling peas, carrots, radishes, spinach, and assorted lettuce varieties.  I did this part all with the help of this post from Annie's Kitchen Garden.  I had never made seed mats before, and truly only did it for the carrots that I was planting for the first time, and ended up doing all of it with this method. It was rather windy, and it was incredibly quick and easy to do the spacing sitting at the kitchen table, and do the back bending work without seeds or seed packets in hand. Definitely a process that I'll be reusing!

The camera battery was dead when I went to go take an "after" picture of the garden, but truly, it's just a brown soil patch with a trellis at the end, and it'll still be that for a few more days.

I didn't have a true "plan" this year, no diagram to go off of or anything. I held pretty close to my spacing and planting from last year, with slight alterations, just so that I'll shift my peppers and tomatoes a bit. With as small of a space as I have, true crop "rotation" just isn't feasible.  Last year's plan worked well, so I'm glad I put all of the effort into it a year ago.

I'm looking forward to seeing some green in the next week!

I can't get going...

I just can't get myself going this season. I have gotten some garden work done, but not much. The "non-winter" we have been having this year has not kept me inside, especially since I've continued to run all winter. That inside time is what makes me long for outside time.

I've got broccoli planted. Twice actually. The first batch that I planted died. It took too long for me to get the shelves and lights upstairs, and they literally died.  The new stuff is happy, with second leaves, and is ready to be potted up. They've even been fertilized (I know, right?!). I'll need potting soil to pot them up though, and I haven't made so much as ONE newspaper pot yet, so where they're going, I don't know yet.

I've got all of my peppers and tomatoes planted. I took it down a notch this season. I doubled what I wanted for myself, just to be safe, and plan to give extras to my mom and my neighbor ladies, but otherwise this "nursery" did not take orders this year. That still means I have 40 some peppers and 60 some tomatoes that I will need tending.

We're still getting a steady supply of lettuce from my Aerogarden. Tender lettuce knocks the socks off of any store bought lettuce we get, so it is a nice treat.  I know not to plant any more "red" lettuce in it though, it starts out trying to be red, but then goes green and stays that way. I'm not sure if there is a nutrient deficiency from the liquid components that we use, but it's not something that concerns me enough to try to fix it.

Yesterday, it was 72 and beautiful (though very windy) and I got the first "Spring" glimpse of Eleanor! She was "out" before I stuck my phone in her face to send this picture to the hubby. She is never shy once she's out and about for a while, I very rarely see her shell close this much.  We've never let our turtles come out of hibernation naturally because I always want the compost that they are hibernating in. This year we moved the finished compost to the garden, and have done all of our composting on a pile in the garden, so we're going to let them do their own thing this year. Eleanor is from Pennsylvania, so we know she's used to a bit colder weather. I'm anxious to see when the others will emerge.

The only gardening I've done was to stir the compost in the garden, and move some of the finished compost we'd piled in so I could build a new trellis and plant my snow peas.  I haven't used a pitchfork or those muscles in months apparently, because I was SORE after even that little amount of work!  At least something is in the ground, even with my lack of planning. I have really good luck with peas in the location I've used in the past, and I know they SHOULD be rotated, but something keeps them doing really well there, so I'm not changing that up this year, but I did have to rebuild the trellis.

I'm a part of a group getting ready to start a community garden in my area, so some of that planning took place yesterday.  Night shift has really taken the life out of me I guess, but I'm hoping some motivation blows my way soon!

I'm glad to catch up on blog reading when I get the chance... Happy Gardening to all!

January Update

It's been a while, of course.

This winter has been so warm.  I've been running outside. I work nights, which is weird. I may be moving in August.

All are reasonable excuses to why I have not been blogging for a while.  The garden is in limbo due to the moving part. It's hard to get terribly invested in it when I may be missing out on one of the most productive months of the year for me. The hubby is looking at an art school in downtown Philadelphia, so we may be packing our bags and heading out. That leaves me with all of the other things to think about BESIDES gardening... (where will we live, I'll need a PA nursing license, I'll need a PA nursing JOB...)

We visited the school on my 25th birthday.  My first reaction was that I was getting cancer from the lack of GREEN in the city. Granted, it was January, but there is next to nowhere for even a patch of grass.  I claim that I "live in St. Louis", but the bulk of the St. Louis population lives outside of the city in the 45 minute straight sprawl of suburbia, me included.  When we lived in Lebanon, PA, I could readily smell horse manure several months of the year just by walking outside, and though I love my garden, I proclaimed myself a "city girl". This is going to be a whole different ballgame. We had lunch with a close friend, and it helped to take away some of that instant culture shock. That is mainly where my mind is right now. We're praying for a scholarship opportunity to come through, so the decision hasn't been made, but once it has, it means packing up a house we've lived in for three and a half years for quite a big move.

I did get some new Aerogarden bulbs. So I do have some things growing right now. (This may be my only "garden" besides containers or a *rooftop garden* fingers crossed on that one if we move to Philly)

This is from January 11, when we returned from PA. I had to do lots of thinning. Most of my seeds were old, but they had only just begun to sprout when we left.

This is 12 days later, from today, January 23.

I've got three buttercrunch lettuces, two red sails (Thanks Daphne!), black seeded simpson, and little caesar. We'll be having salad in the near future!

My broccoli will be planted this week, but I'm nowhere near ready. This year it feels like I just finished cleaning up. We just threw out the last of our ripening green tomatoes, and bought our first store bought tomatoes since September. 

Our average high temperature in St. Louis throughout this December was somewhere in the low 50s. Nowhere cold enough to keep me inside, so I haven't been having that cabin fever issue which normally lends itself to massive garden planning. I've got seeds to order, and I've only just begun to peruse the catalogs. 

My church has begun some thinking on creating a community garden that we'll donate the harvests, and have asked me to be a part of that. I'm incredibly excited, and I think that the planning for that will take up more of my time. I'm off to run, and then hopefully to get a nap before my first of three night shifts this week. Happy Gardening to all!