My First Seedlings!!

Top left: parsley
Top right: squash
Bottom left: peas
Bottom right: radishes


There's signs of life all over my garden!!! :D OMG this is so exciting!!! Everything is starting out so beautifully! These were taken about 6-9 days after their sown date. As you can tell, I went a little overboard when sowing the radishes so I probably need to thin them out by 70%. Same for all my vegetables I seeded directly into the bed (lettuce, spinach, broccolli, turnips, and carrots).

Half of the seeds in the starter pots are starting to sprout but I'm a little worried about my peppers. I wonder if it's not warm enough or maybe they just take longer to germinate. I think all my herbs have started sprouting (parsley, basil and cilantro), while my spinach started sprouting but my lettuce have not. Either that or I'm just really bad at distinguishing between weed and veggies.

While I was excitedly snapping photos of my seedlings, I almost missed this pest!!!

Dun-Dun-DUUUUHN!!!!

This little rascal was just hanging out on my strawberry plant right across from my vegetable patch. He is the start of my evergrowing snail population in spring :(


Well this time, they're not going to have such a fun time in my backyard like they did last year! With leftover beer from last summer's countless BBQ's, I've set out beer traps by my garden so hopefully they like beer bars better than salad bars!

I want to try and avoid a store bought snail killer the best I can (Mostly for it's cost, but also for the fact that I want to run my garden on household items and steer clear of any chemicals and such)


I can't wait for my seedlings to grow into big tall veggie plants!!! :D

A Cup Of Coffee A Day Keeps The Snails Away

Our backyard (and front yard for that matter) has always had a very bad slug/snail problem. Since I was never really into outdoor gardening, I let them enjoy our uncut grass and overgrown weeds. However, now that I have a garden to take care of and precious plants to protect, I must do something about these pests.

To my surprise, I was told used coffee grounds does the trick! Very organic, yet very effective. And the best part is that it is great compost material and adds plenty of nutrients to the soil.

Now this doesn't kill the snail, just repels them so I need to start venturing out on wet nights to go snail hunting... They still give me the heebie jeebies though so I'll probably make my boyfriend pick them all up :D And I hear leaving out bowls of beer attracts and drowns them so I'll probably try that out too.

I don't have a soil tester but I the dirt beds were covered in pine needles during the winter so I'm guessing the soil is a bit acidic. If I understand correctly, lime helps in lowering the PH.

Being the frugal self that I am, instead of going out to buy lime, I've actually collected all the little packets in snacks that keeps food dry. Those "do not eat" packets? Apparently what's inside is... lime! :D



I accidntally went overboard and covered the entire garden with lime.... even though I've read that I shouldn't add lime to root vegetables, which I've planted already. Oops. Hopefully they still grow okay!