Seriously?

We're under another Winter Storm Warning tonight and tomorrow. It's unimaginable. That will make three "winter events" in one year. Never can I remember anything like it. At least this time, the streets are too warm so I doubt they'll be any accumulations on the roadways.

The radishes I planted a few weeks ago are peeking through the soil now. This new compost I bought is almost like a tough concrete exterior although it's nice and loose beneath. None of the carrots have come up and only some of the radishes have. I wonder if it's just too thick for them to bust loose.
Bring on the winter weather if you want to. I've got my milk this go around.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Help Plan My Garden Expansion!

This past fall we got rid of my nemesis and it was a good thing, too. My nemesis was an oak tree that overhung the garden and the house, putting both into shade around 1:00 PM during the summer and dumping its weight in acorns on the garden in fall. We decided to only take the one overhanging branch off, but when the tree climber went up, sure enough, the whole tree was split and would have come down on its own...right on top of the house. I feel like we dodged a bullet AND got more sun for the garden in the process.

So, this more sun means I may be able to get one or two more 8x4 beds in that could be trellised. Now, my problem is two fold. I'm just itching to get out there and put the beds in. I hate having something in mind and not being able to act on it, but I know I need to have patience. I need to wait until the leaves fill in so I can see exactly how much and where the additional sunlight has been granted, because it would be my luck to put the beds down directly in the shadow of the remaining trees.

My secondary problem comes with how to place them since I'm notoriously spatially challenged. My garden now is laid out more for aesthetics, not taking into account the shading of one box on another. So....help me plan this out, hypothetically assuming it all remains in sunlight in spite of the tree growth. I can adjust it from there. Here's the garden as it is. Usually there is a trellis on the back of the last box, if you need that to account for shading.

The sun travels over on the far left from front to back. It doesn't cross right over it. I volunteered the boy and the neighbor's boy to stand in for the boxes since I'm not good at any mapping programs to do it digitally. Here we go:

I could do them in rows:

I could do them next to each other in a line:I could also do them L shaped:

Any thoughts? I also suppose I'd have to do them in line with the back bed or the trellis would shade them out if I placed them behind it, right? Or maybe not if it was far enough to the right.

This kind of stuff drives me nuts until I have everything in place. I just can't afford to make a mistake on this one.

Thanks for the advice!

Wish Me Luck!

Today I started my first tomato seeds ever. I have no idea how they'll do or if they'll even sprout, but it's something I've been looking forward to since last year. Today I started:

Cherokee Purple - from Dan
Bradndywine
Black Cherry -from Dan
Beefmaster Hybrid

I started five of each even though I'd only need two. I'm sure some won't sprout. I put them up on the refrigerator to germinate, but then they'll have to go under the light in the basement, which can get rather cold. Hopefully they'll still fare well, if not just grow slowly.

I also started some Bok Choy from Thomas and those German Blue radish seeds from Stefaneener. I direct sowed those, so we'll see if they germinate or not. I'm hopeful.

The shared seeds from everyone has also made it possible for me to fulfil another one of my goals this year - branching out! Thanks, everyone.

The strawberry bushes made it through the cold snap just fine. I still need to transplant that one last one now that it seems like the ants have moved on, but I don't have soil left. I may just rogue some from one of the raised beds since it's not that large of a pot to begin with.

Send me sweet tomato sprouting vibes! I'm very excited.

So, What About Those Hanging Pots?

Last year I had the idea that I was going to run cucumbers and beans out of hanging pots to vine around my deck rail. It so didn't work. The cucumbers were curled for some reason and the beans just weren't having any of it. We just can't have empty pots hanging around, now, can we? Seriously, though. So while the boy and I were picking up the potting soil to repot his blueberries we picked up a few strawberry transplants as well.
I have three hanging pots of strawberries hanging from hooks on the deck and another one that I haven't transplanted yet....when we got the transplant home we noticed it was infested with little red ants. I've left it in the original container in the front yard hoping that the ants will find a new home over the week. I'll try to fit them into their final pot this weekend.

I've heard that strawberries grown in pots are virtually tasteless, but I think it's more about just seeing them grow that will entertain the boy. Who knows, we may get lucky. That is if they survive the 28 degree lows over the next two nights. Shoot, we were in the 60's this weekend. This new cold snap is a cruel joke.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Peer Pressure Is a Powerful Thing

Yes, peer pressure isn't something just for school children. We gardeners are affected by it also..and probably more so because there really isn't a good reason for why we can't plant just one more variety of tomato or why we can't just expand the garden just a teeny bit more.

I caved to the pressure of growing potatoes. Everyone has such beautiful potato pictures and I wanted to share in the potato joy. My problem is that I just don't have the garden space to dedicate to potatoes, especially when I hear so much about bins and covering them with more and more soil as they grow, but I do have pots. I have a TON of pots that I used while container gardening and now that I transplanted the blueberries, I have more pots. I thought to try to grow bin potatoes in a pot...wouldn't it really work out the same? Hopefully?

So I put the cut seed potato in the bottom of the pot with a few inches of soil.
Then I covered the potato with another few inches in hopes it will sprout. As it grows, I'll put some more soil in the pots The only problem is getting that sun way down in the pots. So I tipped them all to the side.

Yeah, I'll be hearing from the HOA about this one, won't I?

Please let it work, please let it work, please let it work.

Be Proud Of Me, Mom. I Asked For Help.

You may remember the last time I went to try to fetch compost or potting soil in bags. It didn't work out so well.

Earlier this week, the boy and I bought three containers to transplant his blueberry bushes into. We needed tons of potting soil to fill these mammoth pots as well as to take care of other container plantings. I needed those huge 2.5 cft bags. I almost hossed it out myself, but then remembered what happened last time I tried to be awesome (note sarcasm) and asked for help. After I watched two grown men struggle getting the five bags I bought into the truck, I was glad I asked.

The boy got these blueberry bushes for his third birthday. He'll be six next month. The man ordered them through the mail for him and they arrived as bare, almost dead twigs. We've transplanted them into larger pots each year, and they sure are looking good. Last year the boy got his first few blueberries off of them. He only got a hand full over all, but he loved them. This year, hopefully we'll get more. He's got four plants and I've never pruned them. I know I need to do that, but they'd be so sorry looking if I did. I'll most likely begin the pruning process next year as they'll likely remain in these pots for years as I don't think I can buy any much larger.

We also planted lavender and strawberries for the boy and started some potatoes in pots for me. I really hope those work!! I'll post on everything throughout the week.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Green Grows Again!

It's been beautiful here for a few days now and I decided it was time to allow the seedlings to stop bathing periodically in the sun and get moved outside for good. We're supposed to have a week or more of beautiful weather, so I'm hopeful they'll get acclimated enough and not be too shocked when cold weather comes again, which it undoubtedly will.

Here are the lettuce seedlings. They look really nice, but their roots were awful shallow and made them difficult to get out of the cell packs.

Below are the cauliflower and cabbage seedlings. This will be my third attempt at cauliflower. I'm so hopeful that they'll work. If not, I think I'll just concede defeat.

Stringing the grid with one piece of yarn is one of the best things I learned last year. Last year, the first time I strung the grid, I cut it into sections and stapled it down every foot. That didn't last and just made things difficult since I was so worried about dislodging the string.

This is so much better. I drive in a small nail every foot and anchor a piece of yarn to one corner nail. Then I wrap it around the nails to make the grid.
It's super easy and it stays all season. Now, the nails are a bit hairy at times. You can't prop your tuchus on the edge of the bed, but they work so well that I've just learned to be careful around them. Not the safest thing, I know, but terribly effective.

I took the cabbage and planted it in every space. I learned last fall that this was too close of a spacing, but this is supposed to be a tiny, dwarf cabbage, so I'm helpful it will work. I then checker boarded all of the broccoli and cauliflower.

I can't speak much for the cauliflower, but I've tried the broccoli checker boarded and then planted every square. The checkerboard was certainly the way to go. They all grew large and had beautiful heads. When I got greedy and planted them every space this fall, some didn't even grow heads since they were so shadowed by the others. I think SFG spacing is good for many things, but not broccoli for me.

I'm not happy with that compost I tilled in earlier this month. Now that it's dried out, it's just tough and chalky. Certainly not the quality I picked up from this place last year. I'm worried that it doesn't seem to hold moisture very much, but it may just possibly be that the top layer dries out quickly since when I was digging holes for the broccoli, it seemed to at least be somewhat damp down in there.

Now, if I can just keep the dog from eating the seedlings, I'll be doing pretty darn good.

Woohoo! It's gonna get green out there, my friends!