moving already?

I wondered how long it would be before I would want to tinker more than I can on WordPress.com. The answer is…a week and a half or so.

Please visit me at my new site. Still wordpress, just not dot com.

more and more

The corn is coming up!

But something is eating my eggplant.

I think the consensus is that it’s an animal eating the lettuces and a bug eating the eggplant.

I was going to pick up some irrigation supplies and some things to build critter barriers, but I got caught up pulling weeds instead. It’s tough being back at work!

good news…and bad news…

…the good news is

I’ve got sprouts!

…the bad news is

something has been eating my lettuce. And I’m guessing that means that my little bok choi sprouts will be on the menu tomorrow.

Oh well. I’m back to work, so whatever is eating the lettuce (and a bit of swiss chard) will get another day of feasting. Life in the garden.

I broke out the big camera to take these and more fun macro pics.

a reflective sunday

I’m a teacher, and spring break is rapidly coming to a close. We always think we’ll get more done than we do when given a window of time. This time, I probably got more done. I didn’t do some of the stuff I would have liked to have gotten done and some of the things I should have gotten done. But I got ALOT done! This may be the best spring break ever. (Or maybe not…we usually make it somewhere in Northern California…but this one is right up there.) Time at home with the dogs, cats, and husband is pretty darn good.

something a little different

I had this patio installed a few years ago. Long story about why it is where it is and looks the way it does (the guy never finished it…3/4 his fault…1/4 my fault) and I was going to have it ‘fixed’ before I planted this border.

But after three years…I just needed to plant SOMETHING. And I needed a little instant gratification that buying things in bloom could provide. So it seemed like a good fit. So I planted this part late yesterday.

Spring break is winding down and I’ve accomplished a lot (outside). One goal I had was to get the patio area to a point where it was pleasant to have a meal out there. I’m almost there. I’m short a few plants for the other side. And the plant at the far end of that picture is a bulb (starts with a c…) that hasn’t bloomed yet. I want to wait to move the bulbs after they’ve bloomed and the foliage has died back. So the whole area will have to wait. But the immediate area around the patio…it can have flowers.

we have structure

I debated quite a bit about what kind of material to use for the vertical structures. I opted for 2″x2″ rough redwood. I was planning on buying netting to go in between, but for a couple different reasons, I didn’t. One, I hadn’t ordered it and didn’t want to wait to get something to attach stuff to. Two, this was cheaper. And three, I realized that I should have done something to attach climbing gear to the top piece BEFORE I put it up and attached it to the bed. They are about 7 feet tall (figuring my husband is 6’2″…he can reach the stuff at the top), but on top of that, the ground below them slopes downward. So it’s treacherous to even think about putting a step-stool there to attach stuff. I opted for making slip knots in the twine, tossing the roll of twine over the top, cutting the piece to length, and feeding the end through the slip knot to tighten. (Thanks Matt and Kathy.) That was not a fun process. I still have another bed to go and I’m not looking forward to it.

I did a little more planting today. I ran out and got a couple more squash plants and got them tucked in. And I planted more seeds.

I mentioned that I’m using the sixth bed as a combo nursery bed and cutting flower garden (I think). Anyway, I planted many different kinds of flower seeds.

first bed planted

7 more wheelbarrows full of soil moved (some to random points around the yard where I plan to do some projects, some to freshening containers I’ll be planting soon) and the first bed planted! There are 16 Quinaults and 16 Chandlers in there. I was going to have the strawberry bed be the one bed that I planted “traditionally”…meaning in rows. But I found evidence of strawberries being grown successfully via the squarefoot gardening method. I know…I need to get some mulch.

I actually got much more than the first bed planted. I planted everything I got the day before, and some stuff I got today. My husband was also ready to buy his tomatoes today. They’ve been purchased and planted too. I did some ‘shopping’ at my father-in-laws. He gave me some onions that he’d started from sets and some from seed and a couple tomatoes. He also gave me access to his extra seeds and I planted some things from his seeds and some from seed I had purchased.

I really can’t believe all that I accomplished the past few days.

(…and no, I don’t plan to leave the little plastic tags…I just don’t trust I’ve recorded everything correctly with all I’ve been up to this week.)

the beds are ready

I got up and started moving soil. I was so anxious to get plants and start planting. I wasn’t nearly as tired or sore as I thought I’d be. My biggest complaint was that my forearms were a bit tired from gripping the handles to the wheelbarrow. But I wasn’t dying.

It took me a while to figure out the glove situation too. The shovel I was using to fill the wheelbarrow required gloves. It’s old and the wooden handle isn’t in primo shape. But to ‘drive’ the wheelbarrow down the hill…no gloves worked better. I had better control and it seemed that if I wore gloves all the time, I would possibly get blisters from the gloves rubbing when I bounced down some steps.

I moved a total of another 17 wheelbarrows of soil today. That’s a total of 60 loads! My husband scooped the soil into the wheelbarrow exactly twice. The rest was all me. I also bought the first round of plants. It was kind of funny about buying the plants…

I used to not like tomatoes at all. It’s a texture thing. I liked tomato sauce and salsa, as long as they weren’t too chunky. A few years ago, I started to appreciate good tomatoes by eating Insalata Caprese. But since tomatoes are the thing that my husband has the greatest interest in in the vegetable garden, he gets to pick out the tomatoes. We went to buy plants together, so I assumed we were going to come home with tomatoes. When we got to the nursery, he announced that he wasn’t ready to buy tomatoes. Huh? We did get an assortment of hot peppers, some strawberries (Quinault), some lettuce, and some artichokes though.

the day the soil arrives

This was an event that was a long time in the making! My soil arrived today!

It arrived about 10:30 am…all 6 yards of it. I started moving it immediately. I moved 43 wheelbarrows full (sort of full) and they were nearly full at the end of the day. I should have watered them down as I went. I’d think they were full, I’d water them down, and they’d need more soil. I should have realized that they’re essentially just big containers and I should have treated them that way. At that point, though, I was happy that they’d take more soil because there was still SO much left.

the beds

I built these…

…in the summer of ’05 and they’ve just sat there empty (or weed filled) since then. Why? The aforementioned over-analysis.

One of the ‘sticking points’ for getting the soil was that it just killed me to pay for the delivery. We had a truck and I figured I should just go pick it up a truckload at a time. But I never did. Now that gas is so expensive and we no longer have the truck I thought the delivery wasn’t too bad of a deal. So I got 6 yards of soil delivered from here.

Also, we got our first dog earlier that year and I found out that it is very difficult to work in the yard with an energetic puppy around. Particularly one who charges and barks at shovels, rakes, and the like.

I built six beds that are 8′ x 4′ out of 1″ x 12″ redwood. The five that are grouped in this picture have hardware cloth stapled to the bottom because of the many underground critters in our yard. They are ‘seated’ into the slope of the yard so that they’re level. I wish I would have left more space in between them, and I even thought about moving them. But I realized I just needed to get them filled.

The sixth one has since been moved to an area that is shadier. I’ve always wanted a ‘nursery bed’ to have a place to stick things when they pop up randomly. Whether its a volunteer that’s in an inopportune spot, and you know you want it, but you don’t know where. Or to ‘start’ things. Or to otherwise keep things temporarily.

And now I have it.