Thursday, May 31, 2012

Forgetful

So I finally remembered to take my camera to the garden... four days ago! I've just been too forgetful to post the pictures. So, without further blathering... garden pictures!!

Cucumber, Squash
 Pea
 
Small tomato
 Radishes
 Green beans
 An unknown herb (Al planted it) May be sage...
 Green peppers




 Tomato!
 We picked it...
It was delicious. Sun warmed and sweet.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Pool

The pool opened this weekend. I dislike some of the people who "hang out" there, but I know Bastian will have a good time if we go so I can suck it up I suppose. *laugh*

Made honey wheat bread the other day. It came out beautifully and we made some fantastic French toast with it. I have pictures, but the computer is being lazy...

Some radish and beet seedlings have started to come up in the garden. Still need to get pictures, but I can never remember the camera!!

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Water!

The hardest part of the land share is that it's 8 miles away and a pain to get to daily to water. It's good for me to get out and about, but -geez!- is it a chore. More than going out in my backyard would be. Still, I'm very proud of it. Can't wait for the seedlings to come up. I do have a few still in the house... I kept the strawberry basket and one tomato (heirloom rainbow) and radish, lettuce and beet seedlings that still need some time to get stronger. Not to mention Steve (our resident avocado tree, sprouted from an organic avocado pit.) --->


I actually harvested some tiny strawberries yesterday. They were tiny because they were on the vine during transplant to the basket and so were stunted from transplant shock... they were a bit tart, but still "berry" tasty!! *giggle*



Friday, May 18, 2012

Land Share!

So I have been horrible remiss in posting. But summer break is upon us and my only classes will be online, so I should have more time to post. The last few days we've been very busy at a friend of ours home. We helped him with some landscaping then his neighbor offered this little parcel of land to us to grow veg on. It's just a tiny alley beside the garage but it's beautiful to me! Any space outdoors is better than space indoors. I took progression pictures to show how we changed it:

The beginning -
 This is my seed drawer. It's horribly unorganized right now... semi-alphabetical. I love seeds!


This is the alleyway beside the garage... or at least this is how it looked three days ago. Just a poor scrap of land sitting very unused and begging for attention. *laugh*

Then we pulled up the large weeds by the roots, yanked a few patches of stickerburr type plants and mowed it all down. The hedge is still there, but you can't see it in this picture... we didn't remove it or chop it down, it provides a nice barrier from the road and dogs and such.











Then we tilled, turned and sifted out roots. We thought about renting a roto-tiller, but decided to do it by hand with a pitchfork instead. It let us see what we were working with dirt wise and we could control the weeds better. The soil is very clay heavy, but we added some "Sheep and Peat" (peat moss and sheep manure) and some Cottonburr blend to help it out.












<--- This is the Sheep and Peat mixed with the Cottonburr and some topsoil/compost dirt. It doesn't show well in this photo but it has the most encouraging dark black color... Which you can see better in the photo with Bastian. --->


 All set up. We put in so many things. There on the left are tomatoes, which I had started indoors and on the right are green beans and peas, also started indoors. On the back riser there are cukes, squash and zucchini which should sprout in a week or so and below the riser are carrots.
 
 Coming down a bit you can see a large blank area on the left which is corn, well... will be when it sprouts, and the little plant there is a bell pepper. We also planted a Bell Pepper "Color Mix" set in there, but again - seeds. On the right we have some more beans (a yellow version) and just in the left corner there are some watermelons! In between the flat packed squares (where we plan to put paving stones or something if we can find them on Craigslist) are rows of radish, beet and lettuces, easily stepped over plants. We tried to make the most of the tiny space and I'm pretty sure we did.


 It's not going to be easy... we'll have to hand pollinate the corn, which is time consuming, and we'll have to really keep up with compost/manure spreads and weeding because of the way the ground was. Next year we won't be here.. since we're moving to another state... but our friend Al will have a good base for it. Especially if he mulches it over the winter.

I hope to be able to remember the camera when we get in the sprouts and as it gets greener and more exciting in there I'll be sure to update.