I Am the Lorax, I Speak For the Trees

I wish you would believe I drew this, but you won't and I didn't.

Randy's sister is in town for the week – hi, Megan! - so I neglected to write the regular Monday post, but that doesn't mean I've been slacking. Next week will be a gluten-free bonanza – bread, muffins, and bread sticks. Maybe even drinks served in hollowed-out pineapples. It's been a good week.

I made gluten-free bread - quite the different experience

Then these GF blueberry muffins, which were delicious!

Then we had pineapple drinks, and I coincidentally forgot to take pictures of the GF bread sticks. 

I did want to make sure I didn't totally skip all posts this week, so here's the regular Thursday garden update.

Baby bean!

It's a week for small successes. Our beans are finally starting to show up. We had tons of blossoms, but no beans showed up. I was getting discouraged, but then a few tiny little beanlettes showed up. These things are everywhere; I'm looking forward to eating them. I'm even more excited because we'll probably have enough to make pickled green beans, which I love.

The pumpkins are still winning the production race – there are now well over a dozen pumpkins started...on just one plant. We have three. Time to start looking up pumpkin recipes!

Itty-bitty pumpkins!

Future pickle!

The cucumber plant has decided to join the party, and has several small cucumbers on it, with more blooms coming out every day.

Similarly, the squash has eight or so small squashes growing.

[insert witty caption here]

Even the poor broccoli and cauliflower plants – the plants that Zoey helpfully weeded a week ago – are still alive. Six of the original eight, anyway. Most of them are a bit beat-up and rough around the edges, but alive is alive! 

The photographer should learn not to cast shadows like that...

 

Eat Your Greens!

Great googly moogly, our garden has exploded!

We picked peas last weekend, and a crapton more appeared. Yes, crapton is the technical term. You weren't aware of that? Against our initial judgement, we let Zoey know about picking peas. Because, really, what's the worst that happens? She eats vegetables?

She was a big fan of every part of the process: picking them off the plant, putting them in the basket, and eating them. Well, eating part of them. She took a big bite out of the middle of each pea, then put it in the basket and picked another one.

Really, the only downside came when we finished and took the basket away. She was Not Happy with us.

Since then, she's been picking a few peas every time she goes outside, which is fine. There are plenty left (and even some new flowers!) and it keeps her happy.

Zoey was too busy eating peas to pose for me.  Luckily Parker helped out.

As far as the rest of the garden, it's loving our weather.

After they finish building their wall, they'll put in an irrigation system.

The beans have grown past the top of their fencing and decided to create their own latticework of tangled vines. They're just starting to flower; I have high hopes for a big crop, since green beans are just below peas on my list of favorite fresh veggies.

Bean blossoms

The mini-pumpkins are trying to take over the world. I'm looking forward to painting some with Zoey for Halloween, and trying a bunch of recipe ideas with the rest. A pumpkin shell with soup inside? Miniature cheesecakes in a pumpkin shell? Stuffed with wild rice? There are zillions of recipes – both sweet and savory – for these little gems, which is good, because I have a feeling we'll have a lot!

Pumpkins with Zoey for scale purposes

Bonus Zoey picture because I couldn't decide which I liked best

Even the plants that initially struggled are thriving now. Our sole surviving cucumber (out of the several we planted) is finally getting some height to it.

Still not that impressive

The leaves look neat - hope the squash does, too

A couple of different squash plants have started to really put out lots of leaves. It's probably too late for them to catch up to the pumpkin, but I have a feeling they're going to try! I hope we get enough that we struggle to find ways to eat them all. Somehow, I doubt we will, since only two plants are any size at all, and I have no idea how many squash we'll get off one plant. I also don't know what kind they are, since the seeds were in an envelope helpfully labeled 'squash'. I know think they're some sort of summer squash, but beyond that? No clue.

Despite our best efforts to kill them via late transplanting, the broccoli and cauliflower plants we got from my mom are even starting to look like they'll produce something. We even planted them too close and re-transplanted them in an effort to test their hardiness. Those plants are survivors! No idea which is which any more. It's going to be like Christmas when we find out what all of our plants are. Good thing we like surprises, especially when they're almost guaranteed to be pleasant.

Brocciflower?  Caulolli?  Delicious!

This one lived!

The one disappointment so far is our garlic. We got several kinds from my sister, and they initially looked like they were going to thrive. However, the cat decided the garlic bed was just the right size for him to sleep in (1'x7') and killed most of the plants. We only have a few sad survivors left. Next year will be different; we put several large rocks on top of the bed to reduce the comfort factor.

They're putting out runners like champs!

Our strawberries also received the 'cat compactor' treatment, but have come back nicely. I'm hoping they will put out lots of runners and produce more than two berries next year!

Welcome To the Jungle, We've Got Peas and Beans

What? A mid-week post? You know it!

I actually intended to post this last week, but got distracted by the sunshine and bratwurst making. However, it's been a couple of months since I posted about our gardening adventures, and thought an update was in order.

Beans last week

Beans this week - they're taking over!

However, the pictures I took last week are no longer good, so I had to go play in the sun with my camera again. Shucks darn.

We simplified many of our garden plans from our original plan based on the seeds my parents donated and our lack of adventuresome spirit around my due date. For example, I really didn't want to lug my belly down to the FFA sale, so we have no tomatoes. Sadly. I'm going to try to convince my neighbor to give me one really good tomato to harvest seeds from for next year. We'll see how that works out.

What we ended up with was primarily peas and beans, which I'm OK with, since they're my favorites! They are also pretty low-maintenance, which is what we need this year! We also planted some squashes, cucumbers, and mini pumpkins. Later, my mom donated some broccoli and cauliflower starts. We got potatoes from my sister, but lost them somewhere in the garage until it was too late to plant them. Whoops!

I can't really blame Zoey for eating these!

Aside from vegetables, we planted a few strawberries (also from my mom. Have I mentioned what a kind, wonderful woman she is?) and our blueberries. We didn't get a lot from the berries – only two strawberries achieved any size at all, and we got maybe a dozen blueberries. By which I mean Zoey got a dozen blueberries. Someone, who may or may not be me, showed her the berries on the bush and she took it upon herself to harvest them all. This was the first year we've gotten any blueberries, though, so we were excited.

So how has it turned out? Results are mixed at this point. We planted all of the seeds at the beginning of May, when it was still on the cool side. This was a mistake for most things. We got a couple of pumpkins and squashes to sprout, but only one cucumber came up out of the several we planted...and it was sick and sad until recently.

The peas and beans did fantastically, although the beans got off to a slower start than the peas. The peas are starting to develop, and hopefully we'll be able to pick them in a couple of weeks. The beans haven't flowered yet, but given their growth recently, I anticipate a healthy crop of beans as well.

Peas were starting to form last week...

And this week, I'm tempted to pick them!

The broccoli and cauliflower were victims of neglect for a while, but are now planted and recovering nicely. And so we wait...and make more plans.

He thought he was safe...

But the pumpkin came for him in the night.

When Randy's parents came to visit, they brought us a wonderful greenhouse. This should help us make our own starts next year, and have a more productive start to our garden. Also, Randy plans to try growing peppers, which require a bit more heat. We'll see how it works out. So far, it's just a greenhouse with no shelves, although we do have a folding table we might donate to the cause.

Oh yes, we have plans for this...

Also, we want to try to save our own seeds. In theory, this will mean a better crop next year, as we'll save the seeds from the plants that do the best. If we manage to do this for several years straight, we'll end up with seeds perfectly adapted to our soil/climate/growing season. Since we don't know if it will work or not, though, we're going to hedge our bets and plant half the garden with our saved seeds and half with store seeds for a side-by-side test. If ours work, then there's another cost saver for future years! And if not...well, we'll have learned a lesson.

We're also looking into fall/winter planting. Given the requirement of going out in the rain and gloom to care for them, however, that might dwindle. It's a lot easier to stay motivated at this time of year, when the sun is shining every day!

The gnomes will watch over all (and hopefully weed for us, too!)

Getting Started On Gardening

When we moved in, we asked the landlord if we could plant a garden, and got permission. Immediately, we started planning. As these things go, our plans got bigger and bigger – never completely out of control or ridiculous, but pretty elaborate for a couple that has successfully made one garden ever (and it had all of four different things in it).

This time, however, Randy had been reading and researching different things to plant and what would grow here, planting schedules, etc. We were ready. Unfortunately, a combination of nasty weather, a failed grow-box experiment, and lack of funds to buy the dozen different packets of seeds we wanted combined to simplify our plans.

The final plan:

Three raised beds made from 2”x6” boards. The beds are 3'x7'. We chose those dimensions for two reasons. First, we knew we'd have a trellis of some sort built along the back of the beds and wanted to ensure we could easily reach the back of the bed, so we didn't want to make it more than three feet deep. The seven foot length was a result of Home Depot's pricing; the true 8-foot lengths cost $5/board, but the slightly shorter boards we bought only cost $3/board. Sold!

Along the back of the main beds, we built a trellis using leftover fencing. It's not as tall as we will probably end up with (only about five feet) so we will probably make a PVC/twine extension that – while not attractive – will serve to let the vines grow taller.

Herb/garlic bed

One raised bed measuring 1'x7' for herbs. This got changed into a garlic bed because of a lack of herbs and a plethora of garlic. I'm ok with this; there is no such thing as too much garlic.

One planter measuring 6”x3' from my sister for planting garlic.

One “planter” for blueberries made from a large rubbermaid bin.

A non-raised bed along the side of our patio for strawberries, measuring 2'x8' or so. This one needs the most work still.

We filled the beds with high-quality fertilizer courtesy of my mom...more specifically, my mom's three horses. The soil here is not great – sandy and rocky – but the composted horse manure should help it out significantly. It took two pickup loads of manure to fill all the beds. The manure is dense and rich and loaded with worms, which should help the mixing process immensely.

Crops:

As far as crops go, we had originally planned for about 20 different types of vegetables, including some that needed to start inside. Randy built a miniature grow-box out of a milk crate, some old yogurt containers for planters, and a shop light, and tried to start ten or so broccoli plants. Unfortunately, each container seemed to grow something (or things) different from each other, none of which looked like broccoli. Combining that with the need to use our starter room for a nursery, we decided to put that off until next year...or maybe the year after...when we could afford to build a more permanent station in the garage.

Also, as it got closer to time to plant, our budget got tighter and we didn't have the money to go on our seed-buying spree. We took stock of what we had already and got some freebies from my mom, who always has leftover seeds and my sister, who is working on a sustainable garden – using the crops she has to collect seeds to re-plant the next year. Check her blog out at rainydaygardening.com! 

Now our plan is to plant the following:

Peas and beans along the trellises. You can never have too many of these two things, in my opinion. When we were kids, Sarah and I got in trouble every year for stripping the garden of peas. I doubt my restraint has gotten much better. Fresh peas are one of the world's tastiest treats. Green beans aren't quite as irresistable right off of the vine, but I can make any excess beans into spicy dilled green beans, which are irresistable.

Potatoes. Just yesterday, my sister gave us a bag of seed potatoes. We haven't quite decided where these will go yet – we may put them in a bed, but we might also find/build a container for them so we can try some techniques to maximize output.

The garlic is growing quickly

Garlic. My sister got me a planter and three types of garlic for my birthday, and my mom gave me a bulb of elephant garlic to use to plant. Of course, I planted them way too late, so they won't get as wonderful and developed as they should, but better late than never!

Tomatoes. We got some seeds from my parents, but it's too late to plant seeds, so we'll get some starts from my school's upcoming FFA sale. I love working at a school with an active FFA. We might also try making some of our own starts just as a test – we have the seeds, after all, and there are plenty of ways to use tomatoes.

Cucumbers. Our plan was to plant and pickle, but we have seeds for slicing cucumbers, not pickling cucumbers. We'll do some research into what kinds of pickles we can make/how to use the larger cucumbers for pickling, but we might just end up with lots of salad fixings!

Lettuce. Not much to say about it except it'll be nice to have on hand to make salads. You know, to use up all those cucumbers!

Squashes. We're planting yellow summer squash, grey zuccini, patty pan, and miniature pumpkins. These take up a lot of room, but we love eating squash (and mini-pumpkins are just fun!) so it's worth it.

The strawberry patch still needs a bit of work!

Strawberries. My mom has extra plants she's going to give us to get started here; hopefully they thrive. Fresh ripe strawberries are marvelous. Also, a strawberry bed to the side of the patio will look much nicer than the current crop of dandelions.

Blueberries - still alive!

Blueberries. We've had these for three years now, and somehow didn't kill them. The first year, they stayed on our front porch in the bags they were purchased in. The next, they got moved into old cat-litter buckets. We upgraded them into a rubbermaid bin this year; we'd plant them permanently, but we're renting and don't want to have to leave them behind. We haven't gotten any berries from them yet, but this year we hope to get a few.

Techniques:

The square foot grid laid out and ready to plant

We're mostly using the square-foot gardening plan from this book. Basically, it calls for dividing the garden up into one-foot squares (hence the fashionable yellow yarn in our garden!) and planting each seed to maximum density within a square. This helps get the most out of the garden and eliminate much of the need for weeding, as the vegetables grow more closely together and don't leave room for weeds. I like this a lot, because I loathe weeding. There is nothing fun about it, and it never seems to end. Reducing the need to weed is a big benefit to any garden plan!

I'm sure that we will have plenty of learning-curve experiences throughout the year, including plenty of mis-steps as we miss deadlines for planting/harvesting as we try to juggle a garden, a toddler, and a newborn. It should be fun, though!

Next week: Jam! Because really, who doesn't love jam?

This post is linked to Made From Scratch Mondays at The Daily Dish