Cynthia's Vegetable Garden

Need to Update!

2009-07-23T17:06:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry I haven't been able to do any posts lately :( So busy with everything.

Things I need to post soon:

New compost tumbler purchase

Grasshoppers in my garden :*(

More garden expansions

Evil weevils on my blueberries/strawberries

New harvests

Seed Saving

2009-07-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

So the last time I blogged I talked about wanting to save my seeds from my vegetable plants. Since then, I've been to 5 book stores and have not found a single book! So sad, since I used to always come across the seed saving book during my early spring trips to the book store but I was too cheap then. Booo.

But today I found this very useful site linked from Toni's blog page.

International Seed Saving Institute

It lists most of the vegetables I planted this year and the instructions seem simple enough :) Can't wait to harvest my radish and spinach seeds! Yay for frugality!

First Big Harvest

2009-07-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

This is possibly the most excited I've ever been since I started my garden!

It's not much compared to a lot other bloggers out there but this is my first time I got a significant harvest from my garden. :D Actual beans! Actual peas!! I can finally eat my lettuce!!! And I had a few more strawberries and rasberries but I kept eating them before I could bring them inside for a picture. Same goes for the peas lol. I never thought raw peas could taste so good!!! DELICIOUS :9

Tonight's dinner:

Scrambled eggs with side of garlic & butter sauteed beans and peas with a side of salad.

If only my chickens were laying eggs, I could make this meal with everything from the garden!! :D Minus the garlic and butter I guess. I need to grow garlic next year. And maybe get a cow haha.

From Seed to Seed

2009-07-07T13:02:00.001-07:00

One of my goals when I started my vegetable garden this year was to try to get seeds from my plants to use for the next growing season. So despite the fact that they hog up my gardening space, I've been letting all my bolting plants stay put in hopes of a seed harvest :D

Problem is, I have no idea how to harvest these seeds. And they seem to be forming quick! I'll definitely swing by the book store after this post for some research material.

So far this is what's going on:

My radishes! I never got to eat a single radish from my first batch since they all bolted, but they made really pretty flowers and I'm thinking these pods are what the seeds will be in. Do I pick them then dry them? Or do I let it dry out on the plant?

My spinach. I see little clusters of tiny orbs on the base of the leaf stems so I'm guessing these are their seeds. Again, do I let them be? Or do I pick them off and dry them out?

My cilantro. I hear they self seed, but since I've got them in pots (shared with basil) I was hoping I could save the seeds and plant them in various parts of the garden next year. I see no seeds yet on these but the flowers sure do attract a lot of bees! A big plus for the overall garden.

The runners from my strawberries. This is a great big surprise for me. Well I knew that strawberries send out runners and multiply every year. What I DIDN'T know was that they send out multiple runners per plant!! Each one of my strawberry plants are sending out about 4-5 runners. Not only that, upon closer examination you can see that my runners are sending out runners! (pic on bottom right) I'm gonna have so many strawberry plants next year yay!!!

June Deaths

2009-06-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

This is my first time doing an entry for Garden Bloggers Death Day. Check out the blog Gardening Without Skills by Kate and Crew for the details of this monthly blog trend :)

Surprisingly with my super black thumbs I don't have too much in my garden actually dying. The problems I DO encounter tends to be more along the lines of not germinating, stunted growth, bolting too early, or the minor pest peckage.

I do, however still have a couple of "on their way" plants that I'm trying to recover that I'll definitely post:

My parsley that is scorching in the heat. I was gone for a day and didn't water my garden. While most everything was fine, my plants in planters didn't enjoy the neglect too much. For now it's only the bottom few leaves of each of my parsley plant that withered away so hopefully a good drink will set them back to normal :)

This is one of my Shiso herb leaves that my mom gave me. I haven't transplanted them and didn't really plan to, but along with the parsley these wilted as well. Most of them perked back up after a quick shower but this guy still looks a little down.

My broccoli are still tiny compared to everyone else's. I haven't had the need to further thin them out yet, but I already know which ones are the ones that are going to get picked out. These eaten and purple looking ones! I don't know if it's from the direct sunlight, but some of my smaller broccoli seedlings are turning purple. D:

My tomato plants I planted back in April. WTH. I'm kind of hoping death would just take it away already. I have 4 of these cherry tomato plants at the same stage. I can't get the nerve to pick them out since they still have a bit of green in them... Being the first time gardener, I don't really know if these are defective or I'm just impatient. Ah well, I'll let them stay for a tad bit longer...

That's pretty much it for the death toll in my garden. Not dead, but dying. Everything else is doing fairly well though. This gardening experience is giving me so much surprises this year. I think I see a tad bit of green in my black thumbs. I guess all I needed to do was bury them and dirt for a while :D

My Garden Moves in Slow Motion

2009-06-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

Long overdue for an update!

But you didn't miss much lol. While everyone throughout the bloggosphere is harvesting their large vegetables, I'm still struggling to grow the simplest of crops...

Best example being my lettuce!

I sowed these lettuce seeds in mid March. 10 weeks later, it's finally looking like a lettuce but nowhere close to harvestable. and the slugs/snails got to the bottom leaf! Grrrrrrr.

And while everyone harvests their beautiful broccoli, mine looks so puny!

I guess the good thing is that it's still alive and no pests seem to bother it :) So maybe there is still hope! These were sown in mid-March as well. Maybe I need better nutrients in the soil?

Well all is not so pathetic in my garden though. Slow, sure, but there is definitely some progress in my garden that I can't help but be proud of :)

Top Left: Zucchini blossoms

Top Right: Close to harvest Peas

Bottom Left: Corn corner

Bottom Right: Tiny but very healthy Basil

Not only that, my spinach in pots have been working out great :D They're growing so much faster, and seems to enjoy the partial shade it gets from the herb pots on the shelf above them.

Oh and we finally got rain a week and a half ago. (28 consecutive days of no rain! VERY rare for Seattle) It's been consistently showering daily since then so my garden is just soaking it all in and lovin it! :)

Chicken Updates

2009-06-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

Since Toni from Toni's Weedless Square Foot Garden asked about my chickens, I thought I'd do an update about them :D

This photo was from about 2 weeks ago. Delta (the black australorp in the middle) is still tiny and Foxtrot (the buff orpington on the left) is a skinny young lady. Echo (the barred plymouth rock on the right) seems to be on the top of the pecking order. She always picks on poor little Delta. I can't figure out Foxtrot though. She's always picking a fight but she always gets pecked at too. I think she's just a wild child lol.

This is what they look like now! Look how fat foxtrot got! She's almost as big as Echo now. Delta still looks a bit skinny but they when you take into account the fact that Echo has grown since the last picture, you can kind of tell how much they've all grown in size :)

I've been going down to The Grange in Issaquah for chicken feed. I love that store! It's a co-op that sells lots of farm supplies, gardening supplies, and even chicks in the springtime. They even have a pet bunny there that you can pet and he is THE CUTEST THING EVER. I'll definitely take pictures next time.

Although I did find a closer feed store, the Keppler Feed and Recycling in Renton. The prices are about the same, if not cheaper, and I never realized how close it was. It takes me about 20 min to drive down to The Grange but only 5 to drive to Keppler's. And they sell chicks/pullets there too! I'll probably start buying all my chicken feed here, but I'll still go to The Grange from time to time for their gardening stuff. Oh and they're the only ones I've found close enough that sells food grade Diatomaceous Earth.

I'm surprised at just how much these chickens eat!! I get TONS of food scraps from my parents' restaurant so I dump them all in their pen. All veggie scraps though. Even though I know they can eat meat I feel weird feeding them meat... What if they get sick?

I still need to make them their coop. Right now they huddle in a corner at night to sleep. It's warm outside but it's only a matter of time til they start laying (2 months?) and I wouldn't want any raccoons harassing them at night either. So that is my next big project! :)

Overgrown Plants

2009-06-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

A big part of my new vegetable gardening experience is to see how much seeds I can get out of my plants this year and be able to use them next year! So despite the fact that my radish grew flowers instead of radishes :( and my spinach bolted before I could get a single big cookable leaf, I'm letting them all overgrow in hopes to harvest their seeds for next year :)

Top Left: Flowering Radishes

Top Right: Tall Cilantro

Bottom Left: Wild Rosemary

Bottom Right: Bolting Spinach

I do need to do more research on how to do that though. Yay Internet! Oh and i know the rosemary will keep growing... I do need to trim it down though. It just looks so ridiculous! LoL

More Seed Plantings

2009-06-15T00:40:00.000-07:00

Being a first time gardener, I made a stupid mistake early on in the season. Instead of thinly sowing fast growing crops and making a packet of seeds last the whole season, I dumped whole packets into single rows which led to pulling out most of the overcrowded sprouts and not having any to replant later on... FAIL.

So I went to Lowe's and bought some more seeds. I will plant them more carefully and smartly this time around ;D

I sowed the radish and carrot seeds right by the existing radishes and carrots. I'm hoping the current radishes will shade the new sprouts and keep them cool til they grow bigger.

I bought two different types of spinach. I'm hoping to use one for salads and the other for cooking. Since my first batch of spinach bolted really quickly AND had a bad case of the leaf miners, this time around I decided to grow them in containers.

I sowed about two dozen of my salad spinach in the left container since I plan to cut them as baby spinach fairly often.

The big cooking spinach is planted in the individual pots. One plant per pot is my plan. That way I hope I can space them apart farther when they get bigger :) Hope this works out good! I shaded them off by putting my herb pots on the top shelf, so I'm hoping this keeps them from bolting so quickly as well. The dirt I used was MiracleGro Potting Soil.

Strawberry Harvest

2009-06-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

My first 2 strawberries ready to be eaten :) I gave the riper one to Matt. Mine was a bit sour haha. But I see so many more strawberries almost ready to pick!

A gnome must have ran away from Michelle's fairy path :D He took refuge in my strawberry patch with his froggy friend.

New Garden Space Project Part 2

2009-06-12T23:57:00.000-07:00

I got a lot done these past few days :)

I am running into a few problems though...

First problem is, I'm realizing that I'm working with AWFUL dirt. It's so sandy and full of small rocks and even big chunky stoney rocks. I'm guessing I'm going to need to add a LOT of organic matter to this dirt before I can grow anything in it next year.

My second issue is that pompous grass. I LOVE that plant so much, I really don't want to get rid of it. But it's so in the way. I wonder how damaging it would be to dig it up and replant it? Should I wait till late fall to do it? Or do I need to just dig it up and toss it away and just be happy that I have more gardening space? Oh the choices!! :(

All throughout the process though, I'm brainstorming trellis designs for this bed :) I want plants to scramble up trellises along the metal fence which would hopefully reflect light and heat onto the plants. I think I will plant different herbs all along the bottom bed. Oh more choices! :D

While I'm taking pictures of the new bed, I'll post pictures of my currently planted beds. They look nothing like all the bloggers' gardens. It still looks so empty :( Maybe I should have started earlier?

bed#1: My lettuce, spinach and tomato bed. I planted them in 3 vertical rows. Lettuce, Spinach, Lettuce. I ended up getting random poppings of lettuce and a cluster of spinach only in the middle. LOL wth? I just added the cherry tomato plants in the top. I hope they grow okay, they're growing very slowly.

bed#2: Cucumbers in the top row, turnips in the next 2 rows, and broccoli in the bottom row. Everything is so small!

bed#3: Squash and zucchini in the top row, okra in the next row, soybeans in the middle, then radish and carrots on the bottom. The radishes are still tiny too.

bed#4: Peas on top, beans in the middle, basil under it and cilantro in the bottom 2 rows.

bed#5: The corn corner. they get lots of sun and are growing very quickly :)

New Garden Space Project Part 1

2009-06-06T23:53:00.000-07:00

I've really been wanting to expand my garden lately. Currently I have three 3'x3' raised beds, one 2'x3' raised bed and a bit of space on the side of my house for my berry plants and all looks like this:

This is all at the side of my house. The farthest raised bed you see is my current spinach/lettuce bed. I used to keep my bunny Charlie in the space next to it and looks like this:

Ever since Charlie passed away over two months ago, this spot has been left untouched. I think I've finally finished grieving and ready to let go. So I've decided to take this all apart and use it as an extension of my vegetable garden. This spot actually gets much more sun than my raised beds since the house doesn't shade it during the morning and early afternoon. I think it'll be perfect for raspberries, tomatoes, and maybe even peppers next year. :) This is where my asparagus is popping up from, but I'll replant them elsewhere next year.... maybe.

I've been having difficulty reaching the far left corner of my spinach/lettuce bed so I decided I wanted a walkway between the wood bed and the stone bed. I also don't like to reach far at all, but still wanted lots of planting space so this was my solution:

Tadaa! I'll lay down rectangular stones to match the other walkways between my other beds. I've always liked the look of two-leveled planting beds and this way i can just step over and stand on the top stones instead of reaching 3 feet toward the back end of the bed. I've only got the corner done, but I like how it's looking so far :)

A Wonderful Surprise

2009-06-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

Look at what was waiting for me in the garden this morning!

My first flower on my pea plants :D The plants are about a foot tall now. If they're flowering, does that mean they stop growing? I made such a tall teepee for them, it'll be a shame if they didn't reach the top.

In the neglected corner of my backyard...

My asparagus are growing like crazy! I discovered these in my backyard last year. I didn't pick one fast enough and it started turning into a tree. I cut it down anyways though, I hope that was okay. I'm planning to dig it up during the winter and splitting them up for next year. Especially since they're growing from such a random spot, I want to actually have a "planned" spot for them in the garden :)

Okras

2009-06-06T07:17:00.000-07:00

I planted my okras in front of my squash/zucchinis. The squash all have a trellis to climb for support but for my okras I'll probably put in stakes and tie them up. I've never actually even seen an okra plant in my life so I'm really excited to see how they grow.

I'm cheating with the okra though. All the plants in my garden I grew from seed but my okra plants died when my boyfriend forgot to water them while I was gone :( So my mom graciously gave me some of her seedlings since I gave her the seeds to start with haha. One of my plants did survive though but it's teeny tiny. So a total of 6 plants. 5 hers, 1 mine. I hope mine does better ;P

Pests In My Garden

2009-06-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

Find the difference between the two pictures!

Two days after transplanting my tomatoes into bigger pots, a robin came down and completely dug out two of them!

I don't know if she's trying to make a nest or feed her young, but she keeps coming back and attacking my garden. :( I've never had bird problems before but I'm wondering if I should put up netting, especially on my berry plants. There's a couple of robins that keeps coming into my garden as well as a bunch of chickadees. The chickadees don't seem like they do any harm to my garden at all but the robins are trampling and stealing my beautiful veggie plants!

I have PLENTY more pests in my garden :( My veggies are all gonna be eaten before I can get to them...

My raspberry bush. I'm guessing it's snails, but a couple of the leaves have big holes in them. Very minor damage.

My blueberry bush is getting COMPLETELY eaten up :( So many nibble bites on them! I caught two caterpillar looking things about a month ago when most of the damage happened, but something is recently eating it up again. I hope I find those munchers.

Leaf Miner eggs on my spinach. I hand pick the eggs every day which seems to help out a lot. I get 2 or 3 damaged leaves every day still though.

My lettuce that finally came up is getting attacked too. Maybe snails? Maybe the birds, since I saw a robin trampling over my spinach/lettuce bed earlier today. BOO.

Lovely Red Strawberry

2009-06-05T09:20:00.000-07:00

Do you see what I see? :D

There's a LOT of buds and berries on my three tiny strawberry bushes. This is soooo exciting!! I've grown strawberries once a long time ago but they were teeny tiny ugly looking berries that didn't taste very good. This time I bought Ranier Strawberries which are supposed to yeild bigger berries. Looking great so far! The backside is still a bit green so I'm hoping it'll be edible in another day or two. YAY.

More To Harvest

2009-06-02T00:35:00.000-07:00

I harvested a handful of baby spinach, parsley, cilantro, basil, and asparagus from my garden for my lunch today. The menu is spicy salmon, spinach salad, and a side of asparagus.

The flavors of the herbs are so amazing! It's so different compared to the dried kinds I'm used to from my counter top spice rack.

I can't wait to be able to harvest tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, and all that good stuff. I'm still in shock at how much I'm actually able to grow outside! My black thumbs are apparently slowly turning green... :)

Random Aspagarus

2009-05-29T08:37:00.000-07:00

Here it is again!!! Last year I found them randomly popping out of my garden! It's not the most ideal gardening spot for me especially since it's coming out from the edge of the fence, almost directly alongside the border rocks. I'm hoping to dig it up and replant it but two problems so far:

a.) When is a good time to dig up and transplant asparagus?

b.) I don't know where I want them to grow year after year. I have such limited space...

I'll find space for them though. It's exciting that I got a free crop! If only I had a whole garden just magically start popping up from my backyard... ahhh, how nice that would be :)

I Think I Found My Lettcuce

2009-05-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

top left: lettuce(?)

top right: carrot

bottom left: radish

bottom right: corn

I think I have finally found my lettuce. I was letting ALL the weeds grow in my lettuce/spinach bed because I just couldn't figure out what was lettuce and what was weed. Since I sowed the seeds in mid-April, I thought I had accidentally pulled up all the lettuce in the beginning but maybe they just take a while to sprout. I've been finding really light colored leaves where the lettuce are expected to be, which aren't like the weeds that I've been seeing all over my garden. I'm going to let them grow with my fingers crossed!

My carrots are finally looking like carrots too. My garden grows so slow compared to all the gardens of the bloggers in the east coast. I'm sure they started their seeds much earlier than I did so I know I shouldn't be discouraged but... I'm just worried that they're not gonna grow fast enough to become a successful harvest! :( Maybe I'm just impatient.

I Finally Got My Chickens!!! :D

2009-05-28T10:38:00.001-07:00

I drove down with my boyfriend all the way to Orting to pick up my new babies!!! :)

The guy at the farm was really really nice and I chose a Buff Orpington (5 weeks old) and a Black Australorp(4 weeks old). They're still pretty young but they're big enough that they'll be perfectly fine outside. Perfect! I wanted 3 chickens though but I couldn't decide on the last one so I let my boyfriend choose. He picked out a Barred Plymouth Rock (8 weeks old). She's a tad bigger than the other two but that means she'll lay eggs sooner too! YAY.

We've been naming all our pets after the aviation alphabet (Our lizard is Zulu, my rabbit was Charlie, and we used to have a betta named Alpha). So our newcomers are named Delta, Echo, and Foxtrot. Here they are:

left: Echo(Plymouth rock) with Foxtrot(Orpington)
right: My baby Delta(Australorp)

My boyfriend has been AWESOME this week and actually built their pen for me! He used mostly 2x4's with a few 2x2's. Most of the wood was lying around in our garage so we only spent about $5 for a little extra wood and $40 for the hardware mesh. I was gonna cheap out and buy the chicken wire which was $27 and you get twice as much of it, but my boyfriend insisted hardware mesh would be sturdier, keep more pests out and overall look nicer.

I'm glad he chose it though cuz after he finished it, it really does look sturdy and nice :) We bought exterior paint from the clearance rack at Lowe's so we got half a can for $1, which was more than enough. We probably have enough paint leftover to paint their coop when we make it.

top left: the temporary cage they stayed in for 2 days

top right: before; the far back wall of our backyard

bottom left: after; we still need to clean up the area around it

bottom right: I think my babies are enjoying the new space

For $46 we built a 3'x7'x3' pen. It ended up being a bit too tall that I couldn't climb in (we're going to put hinged doors on the top) so we decided to bury it down a little. It's perfect now!

I added in a perch made from a wooden rod that was lying around and 2 of the stakes I pulled out from the side of the street haha. The hens are still kinda clumsy on it but it's adorable to watch them try to balance and walk on them.

I wanted to post up pictures sooner but I have literally been GLUED to them since I got them :D I can't wait til they start laying eggs! I need to get started on their chicken coop now!

First Harvest!!!!!

2009-05-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

My very firs harvest was baby spinach! :D They've been getting attacked by leaf miners though :( Not too big of a damage but there were a lot of teeny tiny eggs under a lot of the leaves. I've been going out every night to scrape off the eggs to hopefully decrease the damage. I never see the suckers though. I just find their eggs. Grrr...

My friend's dad let me take home one of their chicken's freshly laid egg to try. I've never had a "fresh" egg like this before so I didn't really know what to expect...

My breakfast. Salt and peppered pan-fried egg, spinach with olive oil, pepper and feta cheese.

Here was my breakfast. Very small and very simple but VERY satisfying :D I've never had such a delicious and flavorful meal!!! I think it also helps that I'm finally eating my spinach I've tended to for over a month. Soooo good. And the egg? Unbelievable. The whole egg was so thick and the yolk had so much more flavor than the store bought ones do.

I can't wait to get my own chickens!! I've been doing tons of research and my boyfriend and I are finally starting on making the chicken coop. I've narrowed down my choices to an Orpington, an Australorp, or a Wyandotte. Maybe I'll just get one of each. I think I only want 2 though. We'll see what happens. :)

Productive Saturdays

2009-05-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

I got up and out to the garden super early and I've gotten so much work done already! And it's not even noon yet.

My basil never sprouted, but my friend had a bunch of sweet basil she had started so being the uber awesome friend that she is, she split some with me :)

I thought she had given me just 4 plants or so but when I split them up I ended up having a whole row of 12 or so basil plants :D

It looked so nice having herbs in the bed (My cilantro and parsley are currently in pots) I decided to expand and transplanted 2 rows worth of cilantro :)

I think this bed is pretty much full now. Maybe I can plant one more row of herbs and fill up the dead space by the peas with some brassicas or sumthin.

Seedling Heating Mats

2009-05-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

I want a heating mat to speed up the germination process. I plant seeds and I swear it takes weeks for them to germinate even in this hot hot weather (70 is quite hot here in Renton). I've been looking around but heating mats specifically made for seedlings are just not in my budget. So I'm looking into ways to make my own. I hope I can put together something efficient in less than 10 bucks :)

I want CHICKENS :D

2009-05-21T12:25:00.001-07:00

It's supposed to be in the 70's for the next couple of days :D That should do my garden some good!

Lately all that's been on my mind are chickens. I want chickens. I've wanted chickens since forever. I asked around and my friend whose dad owns chickens in the middle of Seattle said they can go find me some if I wanted. YAY!!

Now that my chicken source is confirmed, where to house them.

I have this gigantic shed in the middle of my backyard that's barely being used. I was thinking of converting it into a chicken coop but I don't know how well it would work. The walls are all made of wooden lattice so it would be cool in the summer but I'm sure it won't be the most comfortable in the wintertime.

After doing research online, all chicken coops

seem to need a "chicken run" where the chickens have a little door to a caged spot outside to run around and receive sun. Will this shed not provide sufficient lighting? Maybe I'll add on to the side of it so they can come out and play.

And how about flooring? I think the shed is currently lined with crates. Should I keep that as is and cover it with bedding? or should I pour down some concrete? Concrete would be my favorable choice but I don't know how into it my boyfriend would be since he will do most of the work :(

Plant Recoveries

2009-05-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

left: corn

right: tomatoes

My corn, despite planting them on a super hot sunny day are looking fabulous. They've grown a bit and is loving their new sunny location.

Most of my tomato plants look like they're getting their color back after their dry-out scare. I still see no pepper or eggplant recoveries :(. My cucumbers are looking good though and I might still be able to use two of the okra seedlings.

I feel bad for my veggie babies. They've got such an amateur momma. It sucks that I leave town a lot for work too. But I'm not giving up on my goal to a bountiful harvest in the summer! I hope this week's hot and sunny forecast does my garden good :)

Berryful Delight

2009-05-19T08:59:00.000-07:00

I see flowers on my berry plants! There's always a pleasant surprise waiting for me in the vegetable garden :)

left: blueberries

right: strawberries

My berries are all placed right by my house where they receive a lot of full sun. It seems to be doing them pretty good. My blueberries are doing really well despite the worm attack it received pretty early on. A lot of the old leaves are eaten up but the new leaves stay untouched. I hope the beetles are eating up whatever attacked my blueberries!

My strawberries are perky and grew twice the size since I transplanted them from the pots I bought them in. I'm surprised the slugs and snails aren't attacking them since I always see them the most around my strawberry plant. Strange....

My raspberries seems to just LOVE the sun it's getting. The plant was less than a foot in height when I got it in April but now it stands about 3 feet tall! I see a couple buds on it now. I hope I see more real soon!

I can't wait to have fresh berries in the summer. I hear birds every morning around my garden though. Maybe I should put some netting around my plants?

Little Duckling Visitors

2009-05-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

The other day we took our bikes out and found a momma duck with baby ducklings following behind! Too cute. They were pretty far from the lake but as we followed them around, we noticed they were actually heading right for it! Animals always amaze me :D

Dried Up Seedlings ;____;

2009-05-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

I was gone for work for two days... two very hot days. Sadly my boyfriend didn't water my seedlings enough and I came home to dying/dead sprouts in dried up dirt ;____;. Sadness rains in my sunny garden today...

top left: eggplant

top right: okra

bottom left: green pepper

bottom right: tomato

The tomato doesn't look too bad in the photo but all the leaves that were lush bright green on Saturday are now looking frail and yellow.

The pepper and eggplants don't look like there's much hope for revival which is so sad since it took FOREVER for the peppers to sprout, and I don't have any more seeds left :( The eggplant on the other hand I planted a new batch last week so I am so grateful for that.

I'm most saddened by my okras :( One looks weak but might recover.... The other sprouts don't look so good. The whole reason I started a garden was because I wanted to grow and eat my own okras. Everything else started out being the "extras". So I reaaaally hope they do okay!!!

The one thing that did survive okay despite being in such dry soil were my cucumbers. I was surprised, but I'm guessing it was because they're pretty big and strong at this point compared to the others that were still just sprouting.

They are still a bit frail compared to how I left them so I'm hoping a good soak will help them regain their strength :)

I hope my boyfriend will consistently keep my sprouts watered from now on... Coming home to a dying garden is a bit depressing......

Bad Day To Transplant :(

2009-05-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

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 :)

2009-05-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-05-12T14:39:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-05-11T08:03:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-10T09:07:00.000-07:00

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.

A Teepee For My Peas

2009-05-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

My peas were growing so fast they were pretty much bulging out of my starter pots! D:

I quickly built this teepee (wig wam) out of iron rods that were lying around the backyard and some twine left over from the trellises I made. The rods were SO long, it's probably jammed at least 2 feet into the ground, but it still stands to be 7-8 feet tall. I don't know if I'll be able to reach that high come harvest time, but I also don't know how tall my peas are going to get... so I'm hoping it all works out.

I planted 3 plants per pole and sprinkled lime around them to hopefully deter the slugs and snails (I read this online somewhere). And the big plant behind one of the poles is NOT my peas, it's actually a blackberry bush I need to yank out. It's a bit discouraging though when they keep coming back, esp with the neighbor letting it grow so big along our fence... that big bush hovering above the fence is all blackberries :(

Making Plant Markers

2009-05-05T08:45:00.000-07:00

The other day I went to go buy some plant markers (They're currently labeled with post-it notes which obviously DON'T work too well esp. when I water them lol). The price was about 3 bucks for a pack of 10 or so? Maybe I'm being a little overboard cheap but I don't know... I was hoping to buy a pack of 100 or more so I can use them for gifts and such too so I was not expecting to be spending over 30 dollars on plant markers.

So instead I decided to do a little arts and crafts! After a bit of brainstorming on the materials to use, I ended up choosing an empty juice carton box and some plastic forks (We have a big Costco box of them that rarely gets used).

I am highly pleased with my final product :D I made them big enough so I can even write down the specific type of whatever plant. I also cut up a bunch of thin skinny pieces for labeling starters. Everything's written/drawn in permanent ink so they don't wash off and if I lose them they really won't be that big of a loss.

One carton made enough signs but I'll probably start saving and cutting them up for future use as well.

Sprouts, Sprouts, Everywhere!

2009-05-04T15:41:00.000-07:00

Everything is suddenly growing so fast! I was expecting maybe 10% of my seeds to sprout but almost 75% have sprouted!! 8D How amaaaaazing!

top left: spinach
top right: turnips
bottom left: squash
bottom right: peas

So I've come to realize that gardening is very.... therapeutic. It's nice to escape into the garden and be able to create my own little world. I feel like a little kid again, eager to see something new each and every day :)

My First Seedlings!!

2009-04-29T08:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-26T13:38:00.000-07:00

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!

Great Vegetable Growing Books

2009-04-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

The weather forecast keeps saying rain, but the rain has yet to come...

Since my vegetable patch hasn't been very exciting yet, I thought I'd share some of the books I've been buying/reading that I've found very helpful in starting my new hobby :)

The Vegetable and Herb Expert by Dr. D.G. Hessayon.
I've found this to be my most useful book! It's quite small and not very thick, but it is just jam packed with information. Not only does it describe veggie types, sowing directions, plant specific diseases, and more in great detail, everything has a picture to make it that much easier for the reader to understand.

Grow Magazine by Fine Gardening Magazines I love this magazine so much, I've already pre-ordered volume 2 that comes out in May. :D Every article is worth reading, and there are plenty of fun tips and info. For every type of vegetable/fruit it covers, it follows up with a few recipes that I can't wait to try out with my harvest.

Grow Vegetables by Alan Buckingham and Jo Whittingham

My most recent purchase. It is just overflowing with gorgeous photos in every page that I just can't stop flipping through them. This truly keeps me motivated in the upkeep of my garden :) My favorite part of this book is that it includes a yearly planner that pretty much tells you what you need to do/plant each month. Very very useful for a beginner like me!

The next book I'm hoping to buy is a book on companion planting, as none of these really goes into that in much detail... Hopefully I find a good book soon!

Starting a garden blog...

2009-04-23T21:26:00.000-07:00

This is more so for my personal use, to keep track of dates, what I'm planting, how things are going, etc. But if this expands and I meet new friends that's pretty cool too :D

So this is my garden so far. I bought my house 2 years ago, and it already had raised beds in the backyard. It was filled with rose bushes and weeds though so last fall I dug up everything (I replanted the roses in various parts of my yard) and added compost and rabbit manure to it. So hopefully it's good soil for vegetables.

I built the trellises myself. It's a bit flimsy but I hope it'll stay put. I think I'll put bricks on the bottom to better support it. I'm planning to grow my squash, okra, eggplants and cucumbers on it.

I've sowed most of my seeds already. Half are in a mini-green house and and the other half are directly planted. I sowed on 4/20/09, and I can't tell if the stuff sprouting up are the actual veggies or weeds >__>;; Well, I'll try to update this regularly. Wish me luck on a bountiful harvest in the summer!! (Or at least a tomato... please?) :)