dahlias as big as your head

I came home from my trip to find my dahlias had started to bloom. I love how some dahlias get so huge! I need to tie them up because the flowers are so large and heavy! I also love the detail on some of the smaller ones.


P.S. I made the vases in my pottery class.

Breaking some rules

If Mel broke the rules with his square-foot gardening technique, then I can surely break his right? Well, we will see what happens but:

- I planted 2 broccoli plants in one square (they recommend 1/square foot)
- I planted a few spinach plants in the leftover space from my vine plants--my spinach is doing so good--I only have 4 plants and I've already gotten a few salads out of it!
- I'm planting more spinach next to my current spinach because I'm really into spinach right now


(my 2 squished together brocs on the far left front corner)

On a totally different subject, one of the benefits of square-foot-gardens is natural pest control. Each year you should plant your seeds in different places than you did the previous year. It makes it harder for plant-specific pests to find the plant they like to eat. Last year my broccoli was totally covered in aphids. The one broccoli floret it sprouted stayed put until it finally rotted away in March because who wants to harvest a aphid-covered broccoli floret? So I switched plots for my broc this year and they are doing marvelously. no aphids. I did find one caterpillar on it today (I took care of him!) but that's it.



Currently, my worst enemy is the chipmunk! They love my soil as much as I do. How to I keep them from digging in my garden short of building a gigantic chipmunk-proof fence around my garden??? (they even get into my little chicken-wire cage)

Also, I hate bugs. I'm totally creeped out by them. And bees/wasp/things that sound like bees or wasps make me spaz out and run around the yard in zigzags while shrieking. Any ideas about how to get over this? My friends and neighbors and children think I'm nuts.

My dahlias are huge! I sure hope they are, in fact, dahlias or I will be a little embarrassed!

Remember my Garden?

I'm very pleased with it's progress this year. I added some fertilizer to it to help out my compost a little more. I also broke down and bought tomato transplants since the ones I started from seed that were doing awesome, died when we had a couple cold nights. :(

These picture are a week or so old so things are even bigger now.

My dahlias: I should have 6 plants but I accidentally picked one when it was a baby because I thought it was a weed. oops! Now I don't weed that area...


From left to right, top to bottom:
1. Tomatoes 2. cucumbers 3. watermelon 4. peas (only 1 of the 6 sprouted--gotta plant some more) 5. broccoli 6. beans 7. lettuce (only 4 of the 9 sprouted--gotta plant some more) 8. future plot of more green beans)


Herbs--chives, cilantro, basil


P.S. I love my homemade soil. it is the best.

sowing seeds

I'm sowing some seeds today. indoors of course. I'm so excited for this year. I'm hoping to be a little more successful than last year's experiment. I'm starting tomatoes, peppers, watermelon, cucumbers, and broccoli. Also, I just joined this site called myfolia.com which is a cool site for tracking your gardening progress and network with other gardeners in your area/climate. Thanks to my bro for the tip! P.S. folia name is HollyKayleen if you decide to join. look me up!

Composting

On my other blog, one of my friends said she didn't even know you COULD buy a composter. Well the thing is, you don't have to. (I am only renting my house so I didn't want to build one and we aren't allowed to have an open compost pile in our city anyway)

There are a ton of different ways to make a compost bin. Here's an example of what I would like to have some day--when I own my own home and have a big yard. It's good to have a least 2 bins so that you can "mix" your compost if you want (mix it by shoveling it from one bin to the next). Organic matter decomposes the best in the heart of the pile so if you want your pile to turn into compost quicker, you will "mix" your pile more often so that all of the organic waste gets a chance to be in the middle!


My composter manual says that composting is the "environmentally responsible" thing to do. I already feel better about myself already! haha

Anyway, here's what you need: A good mixture of Carbon (75%) and Nitrogen (25%)

Nitrogen are your "green" materials. Think of moist things like veggie and fruit scraps, manure, landscape trimmings.

Carbon is your "brown" stuff. Think dry things like leaves, twigs, hay, etc.

Tip: I wish I had thought about this last year but during the fall, you get a bajillion dry leaves but really nothing much after that. You can save your leaves in a pile/bin so that throughout the year you can have dry things to add to your compost.

If you want to make your own closed-container composter, you can but it is a little bit more difficult. Mine was unsuccessful BUT I think it would have worked if I did a few things differently:

- I got a garbage can with a good fitting lid.
- I poked holes all over the bin. (my holes were probably too small--you want at least a half-inch in diameter).
- Your compost should look moist, but not swampy (like mine). If it is too wet, add more dry ingredients (here is where your stored dry leaves comes in handy). Also, leave the lid off so excess moisture will evaporate.
- to mix, push bin over on its side and roll it all over the yard. OR get a shovel and dig up the outsides so that they make their way to the inside of the pile
- keep your bin in a sunny place.
- If you want to get really fancy, go to a bait shop and buy some worms. My friend mentioned that if you do this, you may want to line your bin with mesh so that the worms don't escape out of the holes!
- Don't add seeds/pits to your compost. (oops)

Please comment if you have more specific questions on composting, I would love to address them!

I think my composter is sexy

In a previous garden post, I mention my icky nasty compost garbage bin. See below:



So my wonderful mother-in-law called me a few weeks ago to tell me that she was sending me a birthday present. ???? ???? Okay. (my birthday is in December). I was a little confused. But MILs have their reasons. Anyway, I had to go to the hardware store to pick it up. again--what in the world? I get to the store and am pleasantly surprised to pick up my brand new composter!!!! awesome. This is one of my favorite birthday presents ever. (she sent it during the summer so that I could actually use it!) Thanks mom!


By the way, my garden is awesome. Lots of green beans. lots of cucumbers. peppers. and the cutest little watermelons you have ever seen (they are the size of a pea, and obviously not ready yet)


Here's some inspiration for my future garden when I own a home:

Not enough nutrients

Remember how a couple posts ago I gave a list of reasons why my plants weren't doing so well? I decided to go with the hypothesis that there weren't enough nutrients in my soil.

Last week I dug up a few of my squares and replanted green beans, another watermelon, and pumpkin. I almost dug up my lettuce and broccoli which had been stagnant for awhile. But I decided to give them a chance. I added some fertilizer I hand on hand to all of the plants--but especially the squares that I was going to replant. So far so good! My former green beans are looking greener than usual and the new crop is already so much richer and luscious than the former were when they were sprouting! My stagnant lettuce and broccoli are starting to grow again too! My pumpkin has sprouted. Still waiting on the second watermelon.

Lettuce (and broccoli beneath)


So for now I will conclude that lack of nutrients was the problem.


Here's another problem I've been dealing with:


Something has been eating my broccoli. Turns out there are little caterpillars that find their way to my broccoli. they match the color exactly so they are hard to spot. Now I know I need to check every now and then to debug my broccoli.

What to plant if you are a beginner

I recently decided to accept some of my failures in gardening. I dug up the tomato. I Dug up my spinach. I dug up my peas. I almost dug up my lettuce--more on that in another post--and now I'm glad I didn't. I dug up my "strawberries" (they turned out to be weeds) a while ago and planted some watermelon instead. So far it's looking good--we'll see if it will make this list:

What to plant if you're a beginner:

Green Beans



(these green beans that are sprouting are the crop that I replaced the spinach with)

Cucumbers


Peppers


Basil


These plants made the list because my garden has mostly been neglected for the last month or so because being 39 weeks pregnant/having a newborn decreases one's motivation to garden. And here they are doing great despite my inattention.

Here's my garden:


Here's my little helper

Gardening is hard!

I've been having a hard time getting my garden to actually progress enough to "bear fruit." The seeds sprout just fine but then my plants just go kind of latent. Some of my plants have turned yellow. My father-in-law tried to troubleshoot via the internet and figured out some possible reasons:

- too much water
- not enough water
- too much sun
- not enough sun
- not enough nutrients

Hahaha, glad we cleared that up!

I think it has to do with the nutrients though because I didn't use a mixed compost in my soil like Mel highly recommends. Why? Because I was being cheap. The compost that I have been trying to make myself is not decomposing the way I imagine it should and so I decided to buy my own instead. but I didn't want to spend too much because I thought my compost would eventually be usable this season (yeah, it's still pretty nasty. I'll save that for another post!). So i bought a composted manure at a whopping buck per bag--I only needed 2 bags. I though, hey, animals probably have lots of nutrients, this will be perfect. The garden master at the farmer's market seemed to think otherwise. Fortunately I already have some fertilizer on hand so that is the next step.

Anyway, here is evidence of my failure with my snap peas that started out with so much potential!! Here is one teeny pea that I shared with Noah. the only pea of my entire crop. It sure was yummy. wish I had a whole crop full!


Here is evidence of more of a success. my beans have been doing way better than everything else (besides the peppers and basil). Now I need to plant beans in the other failed crop squares so that I can enjoy some homegrown vegetables this summer.

Why a square foot garden....

Here are some reasons why I decided to make a square foot garden (as opposed to other gardens)

1. I am a renter and I don't feel comfortable digging up our landlord's yard

2. I have no desire to till the earth--Mel tells you how to make the perfect soil-free soil

3. Mel (SFG genius) has a very compelling and convincing book

4. Minimal weeding--maybe like 30 seconds worth every other day or when I feel like it

5. I can extend the seasons, my garden is technically movable and I can easily cover it with one tarp if necessary

6. I like the idea of compact gardening

7. Will provide exactly the amount of harvest I need for my small family

8. I can take it with me when I move provided we have room in our moving truck

9. I can easily keep intruders out of my garden because it is small and it was easy to make a small cage for

10. I can easily change crops in and out of each square foot whenever I feel like it. I could grow up to 3 different crops in each square foot during the whole growing season (meaning I could grow a spring crop and then when that's done, put a summer crop in, and then put in a fall crop)

Mel probably has way better and more convincing reasons that have to do with gardening and biology and such. check out his website or check out his book at the library!


Here are a couple pictures.



My green beans are doing really well. Wish I could say the same for my peas. (I will be planting 3 more in this box--I planted each row 2 weeks apart to stagger the harvest.



My neighbor gave me this big pot so I'm going to try to get some peppers out of it.

Hanging garden

I saw this on my friend's facebook page. What a great idea for gardening--especially for herbs which I do not want to take up room in my valuable gardening space.

Click Here: http://www.instructables.com/id/VERTICAL-VEGETABLES-quotGrow-upquot-in-a-smal/

I think I will add this to my project list...