Bad Day To Transplant :(

I made a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge mistake!!


All I wanted to do was take a nice stroll through my garden to see how everything was doing. I noticed my big dying lavender bush wasn't going to ever look any better so I decided to dig it out.


After clearing the area, I noticed how much sun this spot was getting. It probably is the sunniest spot in my pretty much shaded backyard. What a perfect spot for my corn!! The spot I originally planned on planting my corn receives okay sun, but definitely not GREAT sun like this spot.


So happy at my new discovery, I drag out my poor growing corn from my mini-greenhouse and start transplanting them. In the middle of the day. With clear skies and high temperatures forecasted for the weekend. Did I mention this spot gets great sun? *facepalm*





I hope they survive the weekend okay. I can't believe I did that. I didn't realize what I was doing until it was too late. :( Oh what a failure I am. I reaaaally hope they'll be okay...

I'm Getting So Much Done :)

Everything is growing beautifully well. I love the Seattle rain. I haven't had to water the garden in weeks!!




top left: transplanted squash and zucchinis
top right: zucchini
bottom left: radish
bottom right: spinach


I transplanted the squash and zucchinis right under the trellis. I can't wait until it grows high enough to start crawling on them! :D Their true leaves are starting to sprout too which is very very exciting.


The spinach are finally starting to look like spinach! As you can see, they're way too crowded together so I need to thin them out. I wonder if I can replant them? I seeded them in a row but it's growing only from this little patch here :( So strange... I'll try it out and if it whithers away, well... I was gonna toss em anyways, right?


There's a little hole in my spinach leaf. I wonder what it's from? The slugs? Or another pest I don't know about? Whatever it is I hope my beetle army takes care of them :)

Reinforcement Army

The slug and snail population has GREATLY reduced since making snail hunting in the garden a nightly ritual. :D However every night I still do manage to find 2 or 3 so they're not gone... they're still out there multiplying. There must be some eggs that are unhatched somewhere nearby.

After a little research I've found out that black beetles will eat slugs, snails, AND their eggs, amongst other nasty critters that attack your garden. Even the wormy things that were eating my blueberry bush!

Lucky me, I had an abundance of beetles. Haha, random, right? I have a pet lizard which I feed super worms to, and if you buy too much, the worms eventually turn into cocoons and become.... beetles! Fascinating. So I had 3 cups of worms that turned to beetles and I've been keeping them for months not knowing what to do with them (they apparently eat each other.... they've survived so long!) so I happily set them free in my garden. I hope this will eliminate my pest problems for good! :D

More Planting!

Today I planted:

Sweet 100 tomato
Eggplant
Cucumber
Celery
Soybean
Swiss Chard
Mustard
Artichoke

This time I used an old bag of potting soil. Last time I used dirt directly from my beds and it turned out nicely. I'm wondering if these would sprout just as well :) Only one way to find out! *crosses fingers*

My basil and hot peppers are not sprouting at all :( 2 out of 12 green peppers sprouted. Maybe they just take a long time... It hasn't really been super hot yet so I'll either wait it out or go buy some more seeds and retry planting them.

Transplanting Beans

I made a teepee for my beans today since they're growing so fast! I transplanted my 4 plants but one of them is starting to shrivel up :( Hopefully it likes the bigger bed better and recovers soon.

The teepee is made from the stakes I collected the other night and some twine I had left over from making the other trellises.

So I've never grown anythign before so I really don't know what I'm doing when I make these structures. It's all trial and error. If they don't work I can make a better one next year I suppose! :D

Mystery Pests

Something ate my pea plants... :(

left: eaten pea plants
right: healthy pea plants


I think something was living in the black berry bush hovering over one of my pea-rods. When I cut the black berries out all their leaves were holey and eaten up too :( I shoulda pulled it out sooner! It looks like whatever ate it only ate to top few leaves though so I'm hoping it recovers soon...

Oh Noes

I think I've been pulling out all my lettuce thinking they were weeds :( I just can't tell the difference! Maybe I'll just not touch my lettuce bed anymore...

Vote For The Free Stakes!

I went to the zoo yesterday and saw this adorable creature :D I bet he can help me put stakes in the ground for my beans! 

Speaking of stakes, I went out to the local hardware store to buy some stakes for my tomatoes, but they were about 3 bucks a stake! Why is everything so expensive? So I disappointingly drove back home empty-handed until I stopped at one of our major intersections, pondering what else I can use to support my plants. I look on the grassy patch next to me and I see stakes!! They were from the political campaign signs in which they took down the signs but neglected to take out the stakes. So there's these random wooden stakes standing everywhere on this major intersection. 

Being a bit embarrassed, I didn't go through with taking them but I thought about them all day. Then I started thinking of it more as "community service" since those have obviously been there a long time and no one had cleaned them up. So later that night, I dragged my boyfriend with me to that same intersection, parked the car and happily collected about a dozen sturdy stakes for my baby tomatoes to lean on. :D They're perfect!

Mother's Day Gifts

I got my mom a vegetable gardening book in Japanese. For my boyfriend's mom I decided to share some of my seedlings :D I saw this on an easter article where you plant seedlings in hollowed out eggs. SO CUTE!! All you do is cut off the top, empty out the egg (and eat them of course!) and poke a hole in the bottom with the tip of a knife and tadaa! An organic and compostable seedling planter. When you want to plant it in the ground, all you do is crack the egg a bit and directly plant it into the soil. The egg shell will now become nutrients for the soil and your plant :) Amazing!

There was one problem with this though... while I was merrily replanting my seedling into the eggs, a robin swoops down and perches onto my trellis right above me, literally a few feet away! It was staring at me for the longest time until I realized that I had broken eggs in my hand D: I had to yell for my boyfriend to come shoo it away since I thought it was going to try to attack me!!! Next time I'm going to make egg planters INDOORS. haha.