Sabotage in the Garden

As I posted last night, we finally got around to planting many of our vegetables yesterday, including asparagus. Turns out someone doesn't want us to grow a garden, because they made an effort to enter our fenced backyard without alerting our "guard" puppy or chihuahua, dug up the asparagus roots, refilled the holes, replaced the marker-sticks, and placed the asparagus roots on top of where they had been buried. Obvious vandalism and sabotage.

Once I discovered and calmed down, I replanted them, then got to thinking. I should have looked around for footprints, or checked the other veggie bed. I should have taken pictures before I replanted them.

I'm booby-trapping our gate (fence) tomorrow.

Beware, sabatour!

We planted lettuce today. Finally.

I've been meaning to plant our square-foot raised-bed garden for weeks now... at least the carrots, onions, spinach and lettuce. One thing after another prevented me. Today I got tired of waiting. We're expecting a storm tonight and some tomorrow, so I grabbed the seed tapes I'd made, some other seeds, my map (plan of the bed), markers and trowel, and hit the backyard.

It was time to follow the plan pictured to the right.

First I had to weed the bed again, as the bindweed had overtaken everything again. Then I had to replace the yarn where the puppy had broken it in his joyful leapings. Then Hubby came out (he was doing weed pulling in the front) and we started with the carrot seed tapes, then moved to the okra, lettuce, beets, swiss chard, etc. I still need to make seed tapes for the spinach and a couple of other lettuces, and some more onions.

(We are making a change to the plan - instead of the 4 different summer squashes, we're planting all 4 squares with the fordhook zucchini squash.)

Then I grabbed the package of asparagus we bought at a local nursery and Hubby helped there too, in the second raised bed where there is already 5 strawberry and one blueberry plant. If it doesn't rain tonight or tomorrow, I'll get out the water hose.

Gee, we really hope the new owners appreciate all of the work we're doing to this place to make it more "marketable". And I really really REALLY hope we can eat at least some of the harvest before we move!

Cold Weather Snap

The people who had this house before us had planted tulips and crocuses (crocii?) in the front tiered beds. What a surprise last Spring! During the Summer, we'd moved the bulbs over so we could tomatoes and beans there, but somehow forgot to move them back. A few weeks ago, we found the beginnings of crocus peek up, and turn a beautiful blue. Last week, the tulips popped up. Hubby called them "Carnival".

We had a weather forecast for Sunday night of rain. We awoke to 4 inches of snow on my car. Unbelievable. However, the snow quickly melted, and the budding flowers (and fruit trees) survived.

The seed tapes for carrots, onions and lettuce/greens are nicely sleeping in their squares in our raised beds. We'll find out soon enough if they died in the late snow.

Seed Starting and Repotting

I wrote yesterday about starting more seeds for our outdoor 8'x4' square foot raised bed garden. This picture shows the rectangle thingy I used to rehydrate and plant the seeds.

On March 6, I started 6 tomato seeds. Unfortunately 2 didn't germinate so I re-did those. The picture to the right is how they looked on March 21.

Then... I basically forgot about them until Sunday when I noticed two were quite large and one was dying! So Monday I got busy and helped them out.

I took the little peat pellets (with roots hanging out!) and potted them. I had the three larger in 2 pots and 1 rice pudding container (mother/necessity!) and the other three I placed in peat pots. I almost forgot to mark them again (last year - oh, what a mess!).

These are now residing in our east-facing living room window. I made a table out of spare wood and covered it with a waterproof tablecloth. Hubby installed a couple of grow lights (to extend the light from 2 hours of real sun to an additional 6 hours or so). I hope I remember to water them this time! I crave a fresh homegrown tomato almost daily.

Our Raised Bed Plan

Here's a picture of the plan I made of one of our raised beds. Since we're moving, we needed to grow most of veggies in one bed. I did the research, bought the seeds (some of which are for container plants so small), and made the plan. Here it is:

The bed is 8' x 4', and since we grew soybeans and carrots there last year, it already had soil in it. We just added more, with a little compost. On Monday, I hammered in nails every 12 inches on all 4 sides, then hooked them together with a beautiful green yarn. This outlined the square feet in which to place my plants.

Then I started seeds. I had already started my container seeds, but completely forgot about our raised bed! I placed the peat pellets in the long thin container, and once rehydrated, I placed the seeds in them according to the plan to the right. I made the plan so that once the seedlings emerge, I'll know what they are. And if a few weeks go by with no seedling popping out of one, I'll know which seed packet to go to so I can re-seed.

Anyway, our 8' x 4' bed will provide many carrots, lots of greens, some radishes, egplant, okra, peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, parsley (I love this herb!), and some tomatoes. The thinking is that if we sell the house before the end of the growing season, hopefully we get at least some harvest, and if it sells at the end of the harvest season, we'll have lots of fresh healthy produce for our little family. Fresh and for canning.

We also have the container plants, but that's different! They are mobile!

Have you drawn out your plan yet?