Outside Morning

 

 

Right now the temperature is dropping pretty precipitously, but this morning it was nice. After we did errands I spent most of the rest of the morning outside.

I love working outside, even though I poop out faster than I used to.

I checked on the onions I planted in my raised bed square foot garden recently. I used one whole 4 foot x 4 foot planter for Sweet Red Onions this time. They’ll stay there until harvest starting in August if all goes well. After I checked on these, I weeded another planter. We have six in all.

Then I checked on my seeds in the greenhouse. I’m trying to start Iceberg lettuce, Simpson lettuce, and spinach. So far, no sprouts.

Since it’s supposed to rain this evening, I spread fertilizer in our planters.

I walked around, drinking in the sight of our daffodils that are happily blooming from one end of the front yard to the other. I saw some hyacinths that are blooming, too – a sight for sore eyes.

The forecast is for SNOW Sunday and Monday, so I’ll find a king-sized sheet to put over the onions in the hope they’ll come through this hopefully last cold spell of the season.

I’m SO ready for spring!

Garden Update – May 7, 2018

This afternoon we went out to check on the garden – weeding, harvesting, and taking pictures. I got hot and tired, so I didn’t do any harvesting today, but will tomorrow. We got the weeds taken care of, and everything seems to be very happy.

 

I was surprised to see how the broccoli has grown! Last week I had to look really carefully to see any sign at all of the broccoli head. I’ll harvest some of this tomorrow. I learned last year that the broccoli goes from this to really spread out like a bouquet and not good to eat fast. I’m hoping that I can encourage shoots off the main plant to produce more.

 

I lost one lettuce plant, and I have no clue what happened, since all the rest looked like this. We have romaine and iceberg head lettuce.

 

The onion plants are tall and strong looking. The spinach is still looking happy, although it prefers the cooler temperatures.

 

 

I planted several squares of radishes last week, and you can see them here.

I decided to spread my plants out a lot more this year. I think that the square foot garden guy, Mel Bartholomew, gets a lot more involved with his garden than we do. My plants grew into each other last year and where the plants met, they seemed to smother. Everything seems happier this year, so far, with my idea of more air circulation around each plant.

I didn’t get pictures today of the two tomato planters on the other side of the house, but I’ll try to get some soon. They seem to be happy right now.

We turned on the irrigation system for the planters in the front yard and found where we had a blow-out. My husband said it looked like a ‘critter’ had been chewing on the pvc pipe that runs across the front of the yard, down over the edge between the ‘civilized’ and ‘woody’ parts. He had ordered a special repair tape a couple of years ago. This seemed a perfect time to try it. He wrapped the pvc pipe where the chew marks were and we’ll test it tomorrow, after it has time to adhere to itself fully.

Square Foot Garden Progress – April

 

Yesterday I showed you the first harvest from our spring veggie garden. I’m delighted that everything seems to be happy so far.

The raised bed square foot garden consists of six 4’x4′ wooden boxes about my chest level filled with Mel’s Mix (a combination of peat moss, vermiculite, and three or more kinds of compost.) The boxes are divided into ‘squares’ by stretched string. I have opted to space things out a lot more this year because I lost a lot of produce by having the plants growing into each other. I decided to opt for a lot more air and space for each plant and see what happens.

We also have tomato plants in two converted brick planters on the other side of the house. We’ll plant another group of tomato plants soon so that we can space out our harvest and extend it as much as possible.

In the picture above you can see broccoli plants, spinach, iceberg head lettuce, romaine lettuce, and onions. I’ll add some radish seeds soon (as soon as I get the squares weeded) and also celery (when the ones I started in the house are large enough.)

Each box has a sprinkler in the center that are connected by pieces of hose. These are all tied to a main hose that connects to a rural type outside faucet. We put a timer on it so that the garden is irrigated each morning.

I’m going to wash spinach, romaine, and iceberg lettuce for our salad today harvested yesterday from the garden. I hope that one day we can eat our own broccoli!

1st Harvest – 2018

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We’re having scattered showers today. I decided to go out to the garden and bring in some produce for the salad we’ll enjoy tomorrow. Of course, the rain started when I was just starting to snip…

PurifyouPremiumReusableMesh

Since Nutrisystem suggests that you NOT wash produce until just before you eat it, and also suggested that produce will last longer in these mesh bags, I took three of the bags out to the garden with me and harvested the produce right into the bags: one for spinach, one for iceberg lettuce, and one for romaine lettuce.

 

1st Harvest – Spinach

 

1st Harvest – Iceberg Lettuce

 

1st Harvest – Romaine Lettuce

Even though my efforts at growing a garden don’t save us money, the produce we get is so fresh, and it’s so much fun to go out and snip the ingredients for salad from your own garden!