Garden of Eatin'

Update: See the row covers here!

Today dried out enough to do some work on the garden. I transplanted the onions and lettuce and planted the peas. Started the pea trellis. Decided to do row covers over the lettuce and onions. We ran to Lowes to get the twine for the trellis and wire and plastic for the covers. Found 16, 14 and 9 gauge wires. I remembered seeing Territorial Seed selling 46″ lengths of 9 gauge wire but in the interest of saving money, got 14 gauge.

Did I say saving money? Phht, just wasted $8 :irked: No way will 14 gauge work, it’s too flimsy. So back to Lowes we go tomorrow to do it right. We set up the covers using this wire for the night because, being Oregon, it started POURING just as we got home and I wanted to protect the plants from too much abuse. I came in and did proper research and found everyone says 9 gauge. Duh.

Once I get it done *properly*, I’ll post pictures. Hopefully this will be tomorrow between expecting rain showers. Ah, spring in the Willamette Valley!

There’s definitely an abundance of clay in the garden, while working in the garden between downpours, my shoes ended up being platform shoes with 2 inches of mud coating the bottom and sides :rofl

Here’s our redneck mini greenhouses:

Water bottle, cut in half. 2 notches cut on the bottom edge for drainage. Fill bottom half with damp soil, add seed or plant. Water well. Cut slit on bottom edge of top piece so you can insert the top into the bottom. Ta-Da! Tacky but it works! And it’s getting one more use out of them before they go to the recyclers.

Here’s the onions after their flat top hair cut -

And stage 2 of the garden, post tilling. The fence looks like crap because all we did was pull it up at the old place and roll it up, then roll it back out and pound the stakes in, so it’s a little worse for the wear, but functional -

We have a very nice full moon this month. I was migraine-y so wasn’t up to getting out the tripod (….still packed, I think) and setting everything up fancy, so this is just a quick point and shoot on auto -

And my helpers… since the older one took over the kid-barrow, the younger one wanted to help so he used the scooter and pushed it around saying “I helpin, I helpin!” -

Super nice today! We got out and got the fence up around the new garden area and started tilling (the soil is AWESOME by the way, tilling is mostly needed to break up the overgrowth of weeds), plus started spreading the huge pile of wood chips (left here by the previous people from a downed tree) around the back wooded part of the yard to make it look better, and it does. I’m looking forward to getting it all cleaned up and finding a park-style bench and a concrete birdbath or something equally quaint to put out there.

I also gave the seedlings a good sunbathing, I need to post pictures of my redneck pots I transplanted some into. Tomorrow, with pictures of “stage 2″ of the garden’s progress (once we’re done tilling).

I’ve mentally planned out where some of the plants will grow, but I need to get a map planned, and figure out row spacing, I’m not doing a fancy-ish design like last year. Just your basic functional garden!

Not much to say, the pictures speak for themselves. It’s not amazing or spectacular growth, but I’m happy with it….

Someone on a gardening forum I visit posted a link to a method of growing potatoes in basically a box, adding height and soil to the box as the plant grows to encourage more growth. I have heard of this, but didn’t have time to try it last year and of course forgot about it. I think I’ll make one and put it next to my regularly planted potatoes and do a little experiment to see if it actually produces better!

The link? http://www.gardencityseeds.net/growers1.php

Enjoy!

Since I haven’t ever gardened at the same time I had a wood stove or fireplace, I never needed to look this up, but I was curious tonight if our ashes from the fireplace would be beneficial, or at least safe, for the compost.

The next door neighbor and I chatted a bit about gardening tonight and he was ecstatic about our garden spot, the people who lived here before had an excellent garden for years and they let him grown what turned out to be the biggest, best corn he’s ever seen. Other information is the rest of our yard is useless to garden as is, it’s all clay (but we knew that)….

So it doesn’t sound like there’s a need to buy compost or do a bunch of amendments, and after a quick Google search showing fireplace ash is good for raising the PH of soil, I think we’ll add some to the compost, but not much. And mix it in well.

So far the composter has grass, leaves, and a whole bunch of kitchen scraps like egg shells, potato peels, apple peels and cores, banana peels, coffee grounds, carrot and celery ends, etc. Add in a little ash and we’ll have a nifty little worm food party. Still kicking myself for leaving the compost at the old house!

I remembered today that I promised my 13 year old I’d grow cherry tomatoes next time. Well, it’s next time :lol and I’m not sure what kind to get. Territorial Seed has a pretty big selection I think, any suggestions? (link goes to the cherry tomato category on their site, opens in new window) Thank you for your help!

These babies are going to be ready before the weather is if this keeps up!

The onions are perking up quite nicely. I planted most of the rest of them in the far tray today, here you can see the ones I planted on the 18th with the cabbage just behind it -

Better view of the cabbage (right) and the lettuce (left)…the green peppers in between haven’t sprouted up yet -

Basil to the right of the stick and thyme to the left -

Can you see the teeny bit of green in the upper left of this pot? That’s my first celery ever!

Some chives -

Top view of both trays -