Hard working... but finally seeing some beauty.

So I have spent the last two days working my tail off to get my garden ready for planting. I purchased some middle of the road quality landscape fabric to help prevent weeds, warm the soil, and retain moisture. I've used this fabric for the last 2 years with good success. It really cuts down on the weeding and watering...mainly the weeding. :) I don't think anything is more frustrating than to have all my hard work squeezed out with ugly grass and weeds. I treat my plants like they are my babies..I give them lots of love and attention, and my husband laughs at me when I go out during the summer to just stand around and admire my fruits and vegetables. He thinks I am absolutely nuts, but he doesn't complain too much when he is munching away on fresh cherry tomatoes or squash.

Anyway... I divided up my 10 ft by 28 ft space to give me 4 beds that are 4 ft by 10 ft and one bed that is 4 ft by 7 ft. I used cedar mulch in the 2 ft walkways between beds. One of the reasons I divided the space like this instead of using it all for planting is that it makes it easier to reach all of my plants to tend them. I have used a square foot grid with jute twine to try my hand at square foot gardening (my adaptation-in the ground vs. raised bed). Here are a couple of pictures of my garden before I planted. I think it is kindof beautiful. :) I almost hated to start cutting into the landscape fabric... ALMOST. ;)




After getting everything laid out and ready, I planted 100 onions on one row (5 plants in 10 squares), 18 onions in two other squares (to harvest early as green onions), and 20 cloves of garlic.


The weather forecast says there should be rain on Wednesday, so I plan on getting some peas, carrots, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and cauliflower in the ground during the next two days.

My garlic should be ready in July, and my onions should be ready in May.
:) Here we go garden! It gets really busy now. :) LOTS to do...sure wish there was more time in the day!

The Time Has Come My Little Friends!

It's here... the time I've awaited since those first seed catalogs came during Christmas Break... My father came today and tilled my garden for me, so I fully plan on planting SOMETHING tomorrow. :)

My girls must be just like me. They couldn't wait to get their hands in the freshly tilled soil. :)


I've been saving some milk jugs and jugs from sweet tea and juice and things, so I've got some tiny "mini greenhouses" that I'll be putting over some of the things I plan to plant tomorrow. My plan is to get some onions to plant... I will also plant my broccoli plants that I purchased last weekend. I've spent the week hardening them off, but a few of them look pretty pitiful right now. I'm hoping they will perk up once I get them in the ground and cover them with a plastic jug. If not, then I may have to get a few new plants.... how sad...

I'm also awaiting a delivery from Gurney's. I got some romaine seed and carrot seed, as well as a floating row cover that protects my plants down to 10 degrees. That should help me out with my early planting too. I can't wait until March 15th..... 8 weeks!

MORE MORE MORE

:) I got another Jiffy Professional Greenhouse today, and I purchased a carnival mix of bell peppers to plant in  it. I plan on getting a couple more lights to install on the next shelf down on my unit I built. :) Everything looks great so far! My dad is going to come till my garden for me soon, and I'll be laying out paths and laying down weed fabric, and planting onions and broccoli! I might even go so far as to plant some lettuce... I may need to invest in a floating row cover for now. 

PICTURES... :) 

They emerge!

So I have seedlings for everything but spinach. I have basil, cilantro, lolla Rossa lettuce, chives, chamomile, tarragon, supersweet 100 tomato, and early girl tomato. The baby plants love the new light shelf I built (go me)... I used a power tool and everything lol!Looks like I'll have to add pictures later.

Well that was fast

So my seeds got a little ambitious. The seed packet said they would take 7-10 days and 7-14 days to germinate. My seeds don't know how to read I guess, because they germinated in 2 days and 3 days. Not all of them have sprouted, but a few of them did. I'm not sure if they were eager to please or just really antsy to show off, but whatever the reason is, I still have sprouts with no light. I'll need to get busy today to put a lighting system together. I just can't stand the thought of all those teeny baby tomatoes and herbs who were so anxious to get a jump start on the world withering away from lack of light. Looks like a trip to Home Depot is in my very near future!

The beginning of the garden adventure...

So that's it. I got my seed catalogs in the mail and started planning. Of course, the gardening bug bit me a little early. I was still on my Christmas break, which was good since I sat down and immediately began to plan my little garden. Since I'm a little (okay a lot) OCD, I ran outside with my tape measure and determined the exact length and width of my garden. I sat down with several sheets of paper, a straight edge, and a pencil to plan out how I would arrange things this year, then I printed out a little chart, with each square representing one square foot of my garden.
This is the part where I should mention that I've been the proud owner of a garden for 4 years now. Each year it takes up just a little more space in my yard and time in my spring and summer. My first "garden" consisted of a tomato plant that produced nothing, a squash plant, and a zuccini plant (which somehow combined to make interesting and not at all tasty squashinis). I now think of myself as an average gardener, and I'm always looking for ways to utilize the space I have. I tend to want to plant some of everything, so this year I looked into square foot gardening. My husband said a big giant "NO" to the expense of raised beds, so I am going to adapt square foot gardening to fit the space I have. See here for an example of my square foot-yet in the ground instead of above it- garden.

So, what I've decided on is a system of sections that are 4 ft by 8 ft, with walkways in between. I am also going to be adding a small strawberry bed outside my fence, tomatoes in a separate area, and cucumbers along the back fence of my yard. :) I tend to take up whatever area my husband lets me get away with.
I also have a plan in mind to build a small indoor greenhouse shelf system to help me get some seedlings up and running to get a jump start on things and save me some money on tomato and pepper plants. I started some seeds in a couple of Jiffy Professional Greenhouses. I started some Early Girl Tomatoes and Super Sweet 100 Tomatoes in one tray. In another tray, I planted 6 different herbs. Now I just have to wait for them to sprout. Hopefully I can get my lighting shelves built before they do!