Garden Update

Hallelujah, our garden is finally planted!  Accomplishing this feat took a lot longer than it was supposed to, but someone (me) neglected to realize that the original placement of two of our raised beds didn't get any sun whatsoever.  Obviously, you need sun to grow most plants so we had to move them.. once they were built... and had dirt in them.  Yes, I feel like an idiot. 

We decided that we had to move them this weekend.  It was finally supposed to be above freezing all weekend and it was time to get our seedlings in the ground.  We planted them in this seed starter kit that Corry found at Walmart and they had taken off!  Well, all except for our bell peppers and our Ancho peppers.  For some reason they were the slowest seeds that we had. 

We decided that we were going to start with the following items in each bed:

1st 'big' bed - parsley (1), green bell peppers (4), Ancho peppers (3), cucumber (3), and cauliflower (3)
2nd 'big' bed - onions (1/3 of the bed), tomatoes (2), and bush beans (2)
1st 'small' bed - basil (3), zucchini (2), butternut squash (3), spinach (3)
2nd 'small' bed - romaine (3), zucchini (1), spaghetti squash (3), carrots (3)

We still have one strawberry plant, and two blueberry bushes that have an undecided location. 

Corry saw online something about a strawberry planter and so now there is confusion about what to do with that strawberry plant.  I only have one of them - do I need a planter or can they just go in the garden with everything else?  This is our first year with a garden and I am nervous about what is going to turn out.  I did tell Corry today though that I will be happy if we get one thing out of the garden, because in the past, I have been known to have a 'black' thumb when it comes to gardening.

This picture totally describes me and my previous gardening style:

 

Here's to hoping that this year will be a different experience!! 

- Sara

Backyard Garden: Building Raised Beds

So the day is finally here ... drum roll please...

Raised bed building day!! 

My mother definitely deserves much more credit than she gets for helping me bring to life all my crazy ideas.  Mid-afternoon today we left the brats with my father and sister and took off to Lowe's.  With Ana White's blog post in mind about how to cheaply and quickly make a raised bed, we took off towards the cedar fence pickets. 

We found them just as she mentioned for $1.59 a piece which was nice since we knew that we needed 24 of them for the amount of beds that we were looking for.  Without thinking about the exact dimensions of the beds we spoke about wanting to make four raised beds to handle all of the plants that we wanted to experiment with this year.  We found the 1'' and 2'' screws as well and we were on the way. 

Ripping the fence pickets down to 1x2's was a scary time with a table saw.  Too many stories about people with now missing limbs have made me weary of that tool.  I wish that we would have figured out before ripping them that we were going to greatly differ from the plan. 

Her idea of how to make raised beds is a good idea.  Her subsequent blog post and description leave something to be desired.  And her photo of how to put the boards together is sub par at best.  I am going to show an equally lacking photo but I am not expecting anyone to follow my directions to reconstruct these beds. 

We put almost the entire bed together before we realized that her idea works in theory but in practice it probably was best if built another way.  Corry showed up and saved the day.  We ended up removing the braces that she calls for on the outside of the boards and went a new direction using scrap wood that was originally in 2x4 form and ripped it down to 2x2x11. 

This is the basics of how our beds look right now. 

All sides are two fence pickets stacked on top of one another and screwed in with 2'' screws.  It's certainly not the most pretty looking thing but it will definitely be more than functional.  These are the dimensions on the first one.  The two others will be half as wide at 1x6x17.5 which were the original dimensions from Ana's blog post.  I am experimenting with both and will decide which one I like better. 

I haven't been this excited about a household project in awhile.  I don't know what will succeed and what will fail miserably, but I am definitely psyched to try it out.  We are currently growing onions, two different kinds of tomatoes, jalapenos, oregano and parsley in our kitchen window that were already potted.  The oregano so far is the only thing that is just looking sad.  The tomatoes, onions and parsley have taken off and are growing insanely fast.  We also got a seed starter container today so I can start my seeds that we bought a few weeks ago - I am super excited about that part for some reason.  The only item left is a second blueberry bush since we need the cross pollination from two different types of blueberries. 

We are currently building the beds at mom's house since the table saw is there, but my next post will include pictures of the installation of the beds and later the planting. 

-Sara

Backyard Gardening: The Real Plan

So a few weeks ago I wrote a blog about my plans for my backyard garden.  At that time we had plans to order a dozen or so varieties of seeds and plant them in one long garden bed.  After a bit of research a few things have changed. 

Our plan to make one long bed has changed to make three small planters.  My mom found this woman's website that has fairly explicit instructions on how people can make $10 raised beds.  We liked the look of these smaller beds and it seemed easier and not nearly as expensive as we originally thought.  Ideally it should be around the same total size but will just be split up. 

I ordered seeds from http://www.seedsnow.com .  I already had two different varieties of tomatoes, jalapeno, oregano, parsley and a blackberry bush from Lowes.  I loved the idea of seedsnow.com because I could get relatively inexpensive non-GMO seeds.  I bought bush beans, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, zucchini, sweet peppers, ancho grande hot peppers, romaine lettuce, cucumber, cauliflower, basil, spinach, and carrots.  We received the seeds within a week.  They arrived in a padded envelope with the seeds in individual little baggies.  They wrote a note that they didn't have the cucumbers that I ordered so they exchanged them for another variety and gave us a second order of romaine and zucchini and an extra order of tomatoes.  I was pleased with that customer service! 

Our plants are all indoors right now, we are starting seeds this weekend and our garden is being built this weekend as well. 

Next: Building the beds

Backyard Gardening: The Plan

For years I have wanted to have a garden.  Like a real garden that would actually grow and put off fruits and vegetables. I would have even settled for plants that didn't bear any food.  However, it is a well-known fact that in the past I have had a brown thumb.  There are even arguments that could be made to say that I had a black thumb.  I have been HORRIBLE at growing both indoor and outdoor plants.  I have only kept one plant alive in my entire life, not including the plants that we have in our front yard right now that my mom takes care of during the day.

I am, historically, a difficult plant owner.  I either forget to water them, or I don't pay attention to which plants need sun, which plants need shade, etc.  I can blame some of it on the Texas climate, because for months during the summer the ground in Texas feels like it's on the face of the Sun, but that's only a little piece of it.  Other people can keep plants and gardens alive in Texas.  I should be able to do this. 

I have decided to take a stand this year.  No more procrastinating.  This is going to be the year.  I am going to build raised beds in my backyard and plant a garden.  I have decided that I am going to plant a little bit of a lot of different items that way we can see what is successful in the area that we are in and what we would potentially like to do next year.  This is a learning garden for all of us.

We don't have an ideal set up in our backyard for a garden because about 4-5 feet out from our front porch starts this fairly steep slope all the way down to our fence at the end of our property line.  I read on some one's website re: raised beds that, ideally, you would want the long sides of your beds to face north and south, which would mean that we would need to build the beds on the slope.  I am not sure of the logistics of this plan, but since I am doing the actual marking out of the beds tomorrow and hopefully the building this weekend, I will let you know when I know. 

My mother and I were running some errands today with the kids and ended up at Lowe's in the garden section.  I went ahead and bought some plants that I would like to plant that can grow in pots indoors until the beds are built and the temperatures have leveled out more.  I bought jalapenos, two different varieties of tomatoes, oregano, flat leaf parsley, onion bulbs and a small blueberry bush.  I need to do some further research because there is a sign on the blueberry bush that says that it requires a pollinator and I have NO idea what that means.

Eventually, I would like to have the following items in my garden:

• at least one variety of lettuce (Lowe's had a salad mix which I thought looked neat)  
• onions
• potatoes
• tomatoes
• cucumber
• zucchini
• oregano
• parsley
• mint
• blueberries
• jalapenos
• bell peppers
• carrots

I have that one bush of blueberries that will be external to the beds but everything else will go within the beds.  I am thinking that I would like to build two raised beds.  Anything else and I think that it would require more work than I would be in for at this time. 

Next up: building the raised beds