2013 Garden, Take Two

When we returned from vacation the first thing I did was peak under the ag cloth at 9:30 at night.  I did not see anything, but did not worry about it since it WAS dead dark by then.  Morning would tell the story.

The story was this: one sugar snap pea, one radish, three possible spinach plants, and two wax beans!  That was not much to have accomplished in the garden!  Well, not liking to be disappointed, I went out this morning in the rain to work on renovating the garden.  After sharpening the shovel (I used my very meager personal funds to purchase a nice single slant bastard file (yes, bastard..you tell me why it is called that.  I don't know.); finding the trowel I had put away last fall; collecting two small sections of 2" by 4"-maybe 6" wire that was on the trailer getting ready for the metal recycling as well as a couple pieces of PVC pipe from a defunct try at making a tomato trellis in the growbox in the field, and collecting the tray of seeds I had put in the peat moss disks on 3 May, I was ready for work.

Single Slant Bastard File--It worked great to sharpen the round-pointed shovel

Did I forget to tell you that, different from the outside garden project, the INSIDE garden project was WAY more successful, at least in some ways.  Only one of the 72 disks I had planted did not have a plant coming through the peat...the zucchinis were the winners, so to speak, as several were 6-8 inches tall.  Really, that was not success because you want short fat plants to put into the garden, but I am planting them outside anyway and will take our chances with them.

Below are some pictures of the reprised garden:

Along the right side you can barely see the wire with the white PVC stakes to hold it upright in the ground where I hope to train the tomato (maybe one more will be added) and the cucumbers.

 

 

 

 

Front garden, take two

Along the front you can see in the distance the planted carrots and beets.  Yes, I do know that you are supposed to plant them in the ground, not transplant them, but I wanted to give it a try.  Next year I am hoping to build a "real" seed starting area in the cellar...will have to save my pennies and nickels to buy the wood and light (if we have disposed of the one we had a few years ago when I tried it before) fixture.  I will also need to finish organizing the cellar so the table I have in mind to use will be available as a seed garden.  Hope springs eternal...

This shot below shows you where the beets and carrots are planted in their disks. I really do hope they work.  The "cloth" that holds the peat moss together has a hole in the bottom so I am hopeful that the beet and carrot roots will find their way through to the soil and be very happy campers.  You will notice that the pepper plant has some blossoms on it.  A wonderful friend gave me the pepper and the tomato.  I have added three more bell pepper plants in the messed-up grid beside the nice looking pepper plant.  I do not know what kind of pepper that one is, but actually hope it is not a Scotch Bonnet!  Those are bit much for my palate.

Carrots, beets, pepper and tomato

 The picture below shows the one sugar snap pea, a weed or a radish, and the one good-looking zucchini plant.  I put the zuke very near the edge of the garden so that half of its growth will be over the lawn and not taking up so much of the garden. Time will tell.  For all I know, the lawn mower with prune the zucchini regularly!

Zucchini plant bottom left and sugar snap pea plant upper right

Collard greens that I hope will survive, and even thrive this season.

This seed packet is something new for this season (I do not count the four collard plants I put in from transplants last year that the moles, field mice/voles, or other varmint took out very early on!) since I have become greatly enamored of collard greens.  They are so good lightly sauteed in olive oil with chopped onion and garlic.  Yummy, yummy, yummy!

So, the 'addition garden' is now planted and ready.  We can hope for the best.  If Mel Bartholomew ("Square Foot Gardening" author) is correct, it will take about two hours a week to make this garden productive.  I am hoping he is right.  I am going to try to tilt things in our favor by using Mittleider method fertilizer.  I also hope to get the growbox in the field planted at the end of the week after purchasing two more pieces of rod to hold up the climbing fence in that garden.  I am in search of 6-foot rebar.  Wish me luck on that one.  When I have those in place I will look for some heirloom tomato starts, will plant more wax beans and the rest of the zucchini and cucumbers.  AND THE COLLARDS!  I think I will plant some of them on the back side of the tomato climbing fence so they will stay cooler through the hot summer.

So, we are