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gardenmama's Blog
Little bit of disappointment and starting more seeds.
Category: Michele's Garden | Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 5:55 pm On Sunday the 15th i realized that an entire tray of seeds didn't grow. So I put it on the sun porch out of the way until I could wash out the tray, get more seeds and start over. The was the first tray I planted this season. I don't know what went wrong but the soil smelled strongly of manure. I didn't use manure and the soil I used was not supposed to have any in it. I have noticed that several other openings in my trays have not grown either. So I am slowly replanting and hoping for the best. I still have plenty of plants growing but it is a huge disappointment to me. So today I have replanted the entire tray that failed with new soil. I bought more seed started soil and am hoping for the best. Today I planted: A burpee heirloom mix ( these will be a surprise as to what they ar) Burpee 4th of July Burpee Super Beefsteak Burpee Endless Summer I also planted a Burpee organic Eggplant the Black Beauty. why not try again. I love egg plant and I can say that I gave them one last try. The seedlings that are going are doing well and are making a good root system. Some have started second sets of leaves. The brandywines are always the first to start making more leaves. 
Logan is excited that his sunflowers are growing so well. They really are growing fast! here is the seedling on the 17th 
And here is the same seedling today, the 21st. 
I hope everyone out there in Stew land is well! Spring will soon be here...I have to keep telling myself that. We have more snow coming tomorrow. We got snow the other day but it was so warm it melted by noon! Hopefully this next batch will melt as quick! This blog entry has been viewed 493 times
More recycling for use in the garden.
Category: Michele's Garden | Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 4:42 pm I decided that it was not going to be cheap to buy all the peat pots I am going to need to transplant the seedlings into in coming months. So i set out to find out how to make newspaper seed pots. The first site i came upon looked promising. HOWEVER, the person who did the folding pots seemed to miss out several steps and was pretty bad at the directions. After both my husband and I tried several times we gave up and I started to search again. The second site was perfect. A lady on a video showing how to use a glass and newspaper. So easy! She didn't say to use tape but I decided that some tape holding them together was a good idea. I made over 30 of the newspaper pots this morning. 
I am also cutting up soda cans to make into plant marker tags. This will take several weeks to get enough cans cut up. Then I will etch into them the plant name. I got my little helper a mini green house the other day and he planted sunflower seeds. They are starting to sprout. 
This blog entry has been viewed 503 times
More planting today.
Category: Michele's Garden | Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 8:09 pm The seeds I planted a week ago tomorrow are all doing very well. Some of the seedlings are over 2 inches tall already and growing very quickly. I received an envelope from Pepperdude yesterday containing four varieties of tomatoes: Burgundy Traveler, Super Orange, Green Grapes and Yellow Submarine. I planted them today. 
While out shopping today I picked up some pepper seeds. I have never started my peppers before, but with the grow lights and the heat lamps I am sure that I can make the seeds warm enough to grow. We shall see how it goes. Here are the peppers that I am starting from seed: Corno Di Toro: A long sweet pepper Sweet Banana A mix of hot and really hot peppers California Winder Bell Peppers Jalapeno My honey is up in his work shed making me another stand for my grow lights. Some people may not think that a stand for a grow light is the perfect Valentine's Day gift but it is for me. He knows what I need before I do! Last edited: Sat Feb 14, 2009 8:16 pm This blog entry has been viewed 419 times
Day 5...update as of 7pm
Category: Michele's Garden | Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:58 pm When I got home tonight and looked in the tray...there was 10 seedlings popping up! WOW...they are popping up quickly. This blog entry has been viewed 350 times
Day 5,...Let the growing begin!
Category: Michele's Garden | Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:41 pm I get up every morning at about 4:30 and one of the first things I do is to turn on the grow lights and heating pads. This morning I was met with a surprise! 
A super cherry tomato baby trying to pop out of the soil. When I got home at 9am, feel very down because of the weather and feeling a bit ill I was greeted by these babies! 
I can't wait to get home tonight and see what else might be waiting for me! YIPPEE!!!! This blog entry has been viewed 391 times
Ready....Set.....Go....let the planting begin!!!!!
Category: Michele's Garden | Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 6:23 pm From what I hear around, people up here in the cold region of Vermont start their tomato seeds on Town Meeting Day. This is on the first Tuesday in March. Well I am ahead of the game. I want my plants to be bigger and better then last year come planting time at the end of May. So I got it all started today. Last spring my honey made me a heat lamp set up. It worked great last year. My honey got out from his work shed and we went into the garage and found all the trays, domes and the heat pads. I had ordered 2 germination stations with heating pads last year and they worked so well that I ordered 2 more this year. 
Michael is going to build me 2 more lamp stations that will hold 1 grow light set up each. That way all the plants will have constant light. Last year the plants that were not directly under the grow lights bent toward any light they would sense. I started the process today by labeling each tray with the seeds that will be each. Each tray has 72 holes and I gave most varieties 12 holes. I filled the holes with a light potting soil, placed 1 seed in each hole and covered them up. I sprayed each tray to make sure they are nice and moist and then placed them on their heating pad and put on the domes. The heating pads alone keep the stations around 80 degrees. Last year the seeds germinated in a few days! Then with in a few weeks I could see which ones were viable and which ones are not. 
Here is the list of what I planted: (12) Mr. Stripey (12) Sungold Cherry (12) Yellow Brandywine (12) Red Brandywine (12) Black Brandywine (12) Pink Brandywine (12) red Lightening (12) Super Sweet Cherry (24) Burpee Roma (12) Burpee Beef Steak (12) Black Plum (12) Oregon Spring (12) Pink Ponderosa (12) porter House (12) Limmony (24) Beef Steak I plan to start yellow pear, tangerine and grapes as well. I need to hunt out the seeds this week and get more starting soil. I have given myself enough head start that if something does not grow I will have enough time and a few seeds left to try again. I can't wait to see everything start to grow. our winters up here are so long and this winter in particular very cold that I needed to bring spring into the house. To me it reminds me that winter doesn't last forever and that soon the snow will melt and everything will start to grow. I hope everyone out in stew land are well! This blog entry has been viewed 357 times
LIttle bit of sledding fun.
Category: Michele's Garden | Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:49 pm Well the frigid artic weather has gone and we got some new snow yesterday. Logan had a friend over for the day and after lunch everyone went out to play in the snow. I hadn't realized that we have over 2 feet of fresh snow outside. It has been so cold that Logan hasn't want to go out and play. We have been getting several inches of snow every week since Christmas. So there was plenty of new snow to get trampled through. The 2 boys went sledding then Nannie B started a snow fight. Getting Granddad covered in snow. It was a fun day for all the "kids" to play. 
On Saturday the weather had warmed up a lot and our little chubby red squirrel came to feed. He managed to get the corn on the cob out of the feeder, and up a tree! 
This blog entry has been viewed 359 times
2009 Seed List
Category: Michele's Garden | Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 5:27 pm I wanted to make a blog entry of what I plan to start this year, that way it is easy to find in the future. Here is the list of tomatoes that I plan to start this year. Seeds from Pepperdude Spears Tennesee Green Tomato Porterhouse Tomato Pink Ponderosa Oregon Spring Tomato Limmony tomato Sungold Cherry Brandywine Pink, Black, Yellow and Red Beef Steak mr Stripey Black Plum Seeds I need and plan to order Yellow Pear Northern Exposure Roma Christmas Grapes Other items that will be planted: Summer Squash- Saffron Zucchin-Fordhook Long Red Slim Cayenne Pepper Jalapenos Bell Peppers Sugar Snap Pea Straight Eight Cucumber Tasty Green Hybrid Cucumber Kentucky Wonder Green Bean Herbs: basil parsley thyme Onions, red and yellow This blog entry has been viewed 347 times
Winter Wild Life in Our Yard
Category: Michele's Garden | Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 6:17 pm My in laws are here and they LOVE to feed the birds and the squirrels. We get A LOT of wildlife while they are here. The bird and squirrel feeders are always loaded with bread, seed and fat balls they make. Today what should be a skinny red squirrel was busy filling his face for over an hour. He is a rolly polly thing that is for sure. He managed to eat enough of the slice of bread so that he could carry up a nearly by birch tree. He dropped it and had to fight for it. two blue jays swooped in and tried to get it away from him. I have named the squirrel Sammy. Sammy won the bread and scurried across the yard and up another tree. 
Here is one of the many, piggy Bluejays the come to the many feeders we have filled this time of the year. 
This blog entry has been viewed 363 times
Oh you better what out....he came to town!
Category: Michele's Garden | Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 1:14 pm Merry Christmas everyone! What a fabulous couple of day we have had here in Vermont. On Christmas Eve my family traveled to my brothers house about 45 minutes south of here. We like to get together either before or after Christmas. It makes the holiday less stressful, and the kids don't have to get pulled away from all their new things. Before lunch and before the kids got too tired we decided to take family pictures. What a task but we got some really nice pictures. Here is my little family. 
My mom and the 4 grandkids. 
All the family 
My honey, his parents and Logan 
We had a nice meal of roast pork, sweet potatoes and carrots. I brought over items for a nice veggie platter including dill and garlic dip; 3 nice cheeses, summer sausage, pepperoni and crackers; and my wonderful stuffed mushrooms. The meal was nice and then off to the living room. After lunch we all gathered around in the living room, my brother has a 10 foot tree this year. His has a cathedral ceiling in the living room and can have a very larger tree. We spent some time letting the kids out their gifts and then the adults as well. It was a nice time. We stayed until about 3pm. It had started to rain and we didn't want to risk the chance of it freezing. We got home at about 4pm. I normally do a huge Christmas Eve Dinner of several fishes, appetizers and the works. But this year I decided to make it simple. I had cooked a spagetti sauce all night and into the day. So for the non fish eaters there was a nice pasta and garlic bread. I had picked up a nice piece of salmon and a few large shrimp on the way to my brothers at a nice fish shop. I marinated the salmon in a wine and spicy mustard vinegrette and then the shrimp in coconut milk and chinese chili garlic sauce. I did steamed snap peas and a potato tart. It was the best salmon I have ever had. So buttery and tender. I was amazed! 
One Christmas tradition we started doing when I married Mike was to have christmas crackers for both our Christmas Eve and day Meals. I had no idea what a cracker was before we were married, I thought it was something you ate. But they are cute little tubes that once pulled apart Pop like a fire crackers. Inside there is a toy, joke and a paper hat. Very cute. Logan with is Christmas Hat on. 
Logan using a nice wine glass for his chocolate milk. 
Logan loved having a big people glass to make toasts and have his milk in. He was very careful and didn't spill a drop! After dinner it was time to feed the reindeer. His teacher had made up jars of reindeer food and we went out to sprinkle it on the snow piles. The directions say to sprinkle on the lawn but we have 3 feet of snow covering that! 
One tradition from my childhood is to have the children open one gift before they go to bed. My mom was spending the night so she had Logan open a gift from her. It was Thomas gets messy for Logan battery operated Thomas trains. Of course he loves it! 
Before Logan went to bed he left a glass of milk, a cookie and carrot on a nice plate. 
In the morning the cookie was partially eaten as well as the carrot and our magic key was placed on the plate. The key is placed in the porch so that Santa can get into the house easier. 
This is the dining room and living room Christmas morning. You can see a large red sack. Santa must have thought Logan was a very good boy this year, it was all for him! 
I was up at and decided to get some things done before everyone woke up. While I was cleaning up the kitchen and emptying the dishwasher...the POWER WENT OUT! So I gathered up the candles and was about to light the forth and the power came back on. It was very, very windy out. I cooked some rolls and started the ham, everyone was up except Logan and my mom. Mom on the livingroom couch and Logan snuggling with my honey in bed....then at 7:30 I heard feel land on the floor and start running down the stairs. I yelled for my mom to wake up and she did just as Logan got to the tree. 
I let Logan open one gift as we waited for Nannie and granddad to come over from their place. Logan was so excited. It was the polar Express train. he has been asking for it for 3 Christmases now and Santa couldn't find it! 
We had a surprise visitor...Santa came for presents and breakfast. Granddad Philip dressed as Santa and surprised everyone! Logan was so excited. 
We opened all the gifts in the main house and then had a nice breakfast of crossants and jam. Logan got lots of games, trains and other toys. Then we headed over to Nannie and Granddads apartment ( located 10 feet behind our house) and santa came there too! We all got England Football Tops, English Chocolates and lots of other things. Logan got great toys and games. After all the gifts were opened and the mess cleared away it was time for lunch. I made ham, mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli. PLUS...Yorkshire puddings...My honey and his family loves them...and Christmas Days came out huge! 
Logan spent the rest of the day playing with one thing or the other. Going from our house to the apartment. I needed a nap. I had a migraine come on and needed to sleep. After a dinner of this and that we all snuggled on the couch to watch tv. Logan passed out at about 8:30. Mid sentence and he was out cold and off to night night he was until 7:30 this morning. We had a lovely day and I hope you and yours did as well. Merry Christmas Everyone! This blog entry has been viewed 504 times
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