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!

Great Vegetable Growing Books

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...

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?) :)