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What's Up?

Category: My First Vegetable (2008) | Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:47 am

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My sister-in-law called today and asked What's up with yall latly? I think she ment what were we up to, but with yall I think "What's up?" probably has a whole different meaning, so here you are.

The TOMATOES are up!

The FRUIT TREES are up!



And off in back, the HONEYSUCKLE is up!

The ROWS are up!

What's coming up? I'm glad you asked.

The FENCE is coming up! (Hooray no more waskally wabbits for me!)

The OKRA is coming up!

The HERBS are coming up!

And ofcourse what's been up?
The transplants of Jalepeneos, Banana Peppers, Bell Peppers, Chile (Cayenne) Peppers, Strawberries, Peppermint, Lemon Balm, and a great little variety of herbs, have all been up and for the moment at least are still up, hopefully they'll be down in the ground soon though!

What's getting me down? Well, of course the stuff that's still down, and hasn't decided to come up!
That would be the rest of the okra, besides the one little plant that's made an appearance, all of the Habenero and Jalepeneo seeds I had germinating, and the basil in my mini herb garden all four of which were in mini-greenhouses where other plants are doing well,(see Tomatoes).
Peppers: Habenero(left)Jalepeneos(Right):

Okra:

Basil:
I'm hoping they just have a slower germination time, I read somewhere on the stew that peppers and okra have a low germination percentage anyways but 1/72 okra/1/36 peppers thats really low. I sure hope they aren't all failures for me I was so looking forward to fried okra with seasoned deer steak, grilled with fresh sliced peppers and onions, that will be so yummy, but much less so if I have to use store bought ingredients!

YAY! So much coming along in the garden, I can't wait to get it in the ground and watch it really take off! Showers stopped progress early in the afternoon and we took a drive out to the deer lease (more on that in the other blog) but I'm really happy with all that got done. I'm thinking about putting in the new growth but I hate to have it all freeze out, do yall think it's safe now that spring is making a stand?

I feel it nessesary to add, just so no one suspects me capable of actually being skilled with post hole diggers and a hammer, my dear husband, James, is responsible for the construction of the fence. I am simply the "Holditthisthat", as in:
"Hold it right there! What are you doing?"
"Hold this."
"Hold it tight or it'll be crooked."
"Hold that board."
Haha! *Blush* Helper is just to strong a word sometimes. He also started the holes for the fruit trees, and drove me to Lowes even though he knew it was a strictly garden center visit as well as knowing that I had alot of heavy lifting in store for him. He gets most of the credit for the most recent progress, but I thought you'd all like to see how it's coming along.


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3-11-08 Beautiful weather and more progress!

Category: My First Vegetable (2008) | Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:20 am

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All that nasty rain moved off last night (Sorry Toni I think it was headed for you) leaving nothing but beautiful skies, bright sunshine, and nice cool 74F weather! I wish I could capture the feeling of being outside on days like today and store it up so that when we hit 100F and 80% humidity I can just hide away enjoying today's wonderful weather.

Well I definatly made the most of today, I was up early and I let Emily sleep in, so I got to sit out on the porch this morning and enjoy coffee for the first time in a long while. By the time Emily was up I already had her supervising seat all set up and waiting for her so after breakfast she got to go straight outside with Mommy and I got to go to work.
Supervisor's seat:


Well the first thing on the list was what to do about those beans, I should have checked the stew! Well it's a bit late now but I thank you all for advising me not to pull them, had I been thinking I would have looked here first and known that they didn't need the extra nitrogen. I dug them out, most of them at least, I noticed a few scragglers throughout the day but not many. The unlucky ones I did get out have a new home and they have become "sacrificial beans". They are my offering to the deer and rabbits, planted in the food plot behind the pipeline, far away from my little garden, in hopes that they will prefer the dark, good cover, and the distance from the house/dogs that the food plot provides. I'll be getting new seeds to put out when I finally get to planting. *Fingers Crossed*
Next I put down the peat humus, I just spaced the bags equally and then sliced em open and dumped them since that way I would at least have even coverage even if it wasn't as deep as I wanted it.
Peat Piles:


After the beans were so carefully dug out and the peat was out with three bags left over for the bean's area I decided that the next logical thing to do was to plow those rows down and rake in the humus then rake the garden flat again, kinda start over from scratch. That was a workout for sure! I haven't really done much working out in a year or so since I have been preggo and then I had Emily around to work me out, I was ready to call it a day with just that done!
Emily encouraged me to take a break, she "said" we should have lunch and then see how we felt. She's a smart girl, and a really nice superviser, making sure I take a break every three hours, reminding me that it's important to play in the sun as well as work, and she never lets me miss a meal, ever. LOL
Well she was right, I just needed a break, after lunch and looking out the kitchen windows at all that rich dark dirt just waiting to be played in I forgot all about being tired. I went out and spread in the fertilizer (Weed & Feed, they said it would be fine for the garden I hope so) and watered it in.
I spent almost an hour fighting with the 4-wheeler and the disks. James has been using them on the food plot and so they were tied down on the back of the 4-wheeler with these rusty ratchet straps that just got tighter and tighter the more I fought with them. Finally I noticed the nieghbor's grandson sitting out on the porch, he was kind enough to come over and get them unhooked and set up for me, such a sweet kid, even after watching me fight with the darn thing for an hour, and him getting them all ready to go in just ten minutes he didn't make any jokes about it, he was just as polite as can be, I love seeing teenagers with manners, there aren't enough of them around anymore. Anyways, before long I was disking away at the plot, and Emily was just cute as a button, watching me the whole time and every now and then she'd give a squeal and I'd rush over only to find her laughing and batting at the carseat hood, happy as can be. After I disked up the plot it was getting on around 3pm and Gracy had to visit the vet today so I decided to wrap it up and get cleaned up, as well as get Emily good and full before we went.
******Side note on Gracy: Gracy is doing very well now, she is constantly under foot/rake/dirt/etc. in the garden, and the vet says other than worms that we are already treating, she is very healthy considering the situation, she's definatly a lucky pup! Also we got an age on her 10-12 weeks, she is the same age as Emily, no wonder she likes her so much!******
After a very positive vet visit, and all the rest I had on the drive to town, I again forgot about being tired. It must be this amazing weather, I felt so energetic that I decided to rake the plot flat again so I would have a fresh clean bed to work in tommorrow. The second time around was much easier than the first time and it went much faster since everything was all disked up. Emily had moved over to the back of the 4-wheeler since the sun had made it to her old spot, she was in such a fantastic mood that we had to take some pictures before we went inside for the evening:

Hi Stewbies!

Hey Mommy! Come on over here and see me!

That's right Mommy, now you see me...

Now you don't!

With daylight savings time kicking in it was still light at 5:30pm so I went ahead and took advantage of Emily's good mood and started making rows instead of retiring inside. Her good mood didn't last too long with her 7pm dinner looming on the horizon, and bath/bedtime being not too far behind it. I got through 3 rows before the first tantrum called me away and then she dozed off, so I tried for more, in the middle of the 5th row she pulled rank on me, since she's the superviser I had no choice, my gardening was over for the day. I snapped a couple quick pictures before coming in though:



She didn't last long once we were inside and eating she had such a busy day today.
15 minutes after coming in and sitting down to eat:


She had her bath and tonight she didn't fight to stay up at all. When we started our story she already had her eyes closed. Now she's sound asleep and I am relaxing in the stew (with a heating pad on my back in hopes it will forgive me tommorow) and couldn't be happier with all the progress in the garden. If the weather holds onto spring, (and my back forgives me) I may have more to share tommorow. *Fingers Crossed*
Thanks for reading & Healthy Harvests,
Lily


Last edited: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:32 pm

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3/10/08 Progressing in the garden...

Category: My First Vegetable (2008) | Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:15 am

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Saturday I called up the local dirt sellers and get some pricing on mushroom compost, whoooweeeee they wanted alot for that stuff! I only need 7 yards but it seems everyone has to get it by the dump truck full and so for my little bitty 7 yards they wanted me to pay $250 dollars and come pick it up, and that was the cheap place! I was shocked, and very disappointed too.
Since, I got three bags of the peat humus for just over a dollar each last week I decided that that's the way I would go instead. I picked up 12 more bags, all that would fit in the mommy mobile, and some fertalizer that will balance out my soil since the test showed very low nitrogen and high phos. & pot. I went ahead and put down the first three bags Saturday to see how many I'd need and I think since three just barely covered the entire plot I'll probably have to get more but it's still cheaper than the mushroom compost.
I also began "defining" the garden plot. I had to battle the spiders and a few other creepy crawlies but I dug out some decent 2x4s from the "deer stand" pile (Shhh... If you don't tell my husband I won't either.) and buried them (after a long time puzzling over how to properly use the post-hole-diggers) now I just have to add in the rest of the compost and maybe disk it over once to mix it in and I'll have a healthy little plot. I haven't decided what to do about the beans I already planted, I may end up digging them up and replanting the ones that have started taking off (there are a few peeking out already)that way the whole plot gets the nice rich soil. I plan on putting up chicken wire around the outside of the garden once I'm sure I have all the disking done that I'm going to do, otherwise I think the rabbits will take it all out fast as I put it in.

It was just plain yucky outside today, so I decided to skip the picture taking, but the beans were happy to get the rain and it also helped get the new layer of humus blended in with the the ground. Weather man says clear skies and warmer temps to come this week so maybe I'll have a better progress report later.
Lily

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Progress at last! 3-4-08

Category: My First Vegetable (2008) | Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:53 am

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Finally, progress!

Last night I got some good shut eye and then I spent the cold morning cuddled up to my keyboard with hot chocolate and little miss Emily. I hadn't planned on working on the garden with it being so cold and windy here. I kept sitting here thinking, "What can I do today? (That won't give me and Emily the flu!)"
Right about that time I went and took the pictures of the garden that I posted here and it hit me that I oughta get the seeds started now and have nice big transplants to put in once this crazy spring today/winter tommarow stuff passes. So off we went to Lowes for some more (yes I know, I have way too many all ready) seeds and some of those cute little greenhouse thingys to germinate them in.
Of course, I mentioned that my mother-in-law plans to get me tomatoes for Easter, but I bought a few seed packets anyways, if nothingelse she can get me the calla lily bulbs I spent 20 minutes debating over, and finally decided weren't worth nearly $10 for two. I also added celery to my planting list though I haven't a clue if it will grow here, and I got the cantalope and habenero seeds I forgot last trip, I got seeds for more Jalepenos per James's request too. Then I spotted a soil test kit for $3 and snatched it up saving me a trip to the extention agents office. Also, I was looking at the different varieties of those little green houses and stumbled onto a set of three (72 pots each making 216 little pots) of them for only $8 which ofcourse I got since they wanted $20 for the kind with 72 slots alone and the little pellets that grow. Had to buy the peat moss but that was 1.22 for a 40lb bag so it was no problem. Bringing the grand total of my vegetable garden, counting all my tools, transplants, and seeds from the last trip as well...... $75!
Que the music! Oh yeah!
*happy dance* *happy dance*
LOL... I know I'm rediculous.
Anyways... so then as usual plans changed! ( I should change the title of my blog to that) Low and behold what should I find when I get Emily buckled in and everything loaded into the back of the car (on top of the spare tire, mind you) Yup you guessed it.. My tire's flat! Oh I'm a big girl and all, I can change my own tire, I just never had to do it with Emily (who can't stand to sit quietly in the car unless we're moving) screaming and crying, and I had never attempted to change a flat on my new car I only had experiance with my old truck, (alot of it with that one). Well the problem was very clear, Lowes sells nails as well as gardening supplies. Who would have thought, a home improvement store selling nails? LOL. Well a "silly" son of a "muffin" spilled quite a few of them apparently, and thought it unessesary to pick them up, or even sweep them out of the parking space for that matter. And I had driven right over them. Okay so maybe it wasn't all the muffin man's fault.. but I still say he was "silly" (I didn't say stupid, but "silly"). Well after unloading everything and pouring over the instructions I got the darn thing all changed and the spare on just in time for a quite attractive older man to walk over from where he was standing (almost the whole time) and offer his help. I didn't say he was considerate just attractive lol. and I told him that yes I could use a hand getting the nuts tightened. I may be a big girl but I'm not such a strong one. I might have hurt him when he smiled and said that he was always happy to help a pretty girl, but the darn trowl was buried in the back and the jack would have killed him. So I simply smiled and very calmly rolled the flat tire over his foot on the way to putting it in back of the car. No, he didn't offer to help with that part either, I bid him thanks and told him to have a great day while I was thinking to myself something quite the contrary.
Well after that little adventure Emily and I needed some dirt therepy, it took us a couple of hours and we had a few disagreements over what was edible (milk won - dirt, seeds, and fingers all lost but put up a great fight) but we finally got it all done, now we're, once again, cuddled up with the key board and coco, all done and feeling quite happy and very accomplished.
Pictures:
72 Tomatoes in back, 72 Okra on the side, 36 Habenero peppers and 36 Jalepeneo peppers right up front.


Also, a repeat from my forum post but they're getting put in with my garden so here's the fruit trees & their blooms.
Pear, Peach, and Plum.


Blooms of the pear and peach, in order, no buds on the plum tree yet but it has greenery coming in all over, poor things are getting an early start we still have a few more days of winter to go This weather is messing with everyone it seems.





Better pictures next time James has my camera with him so I was stuck with his, the quality isn't anything to brag about.
More to come! Thanks for reading my ramblings!
-Lily & Emily-



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Pictures of the garden so far.

Category: My First Vegetable (2008) | Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:24 pm

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Here's the view from the pipeline behind the house, the tall windows are my kitchen, I'm so looking forward to looking out and seeing some sprouts!


And here are my rows of beans, messy as they are, I wish I'd waited now but hopefully they'll be alright.

I feel silly posting pictures full of browns and greens when everyonelse has so many beautiful flowers, hopefully once the vegetables are in and growing I'll be able to invest some time and energy on getting some flowers in and photographed.

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First Vegetable Garden 3-(1-3)-08

Category: My First Vegetable (2008) | Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 2:26 am

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My grandfather always told me "If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans." Boy did I have a good one for him this weekend.

Saturday after I filled in the progress and updated the blog (with my plans to sow more seeds and finish the rows, mowing, etc.) I was feeding Emily when my husband came in and started packing bags and loading them into the truck, apparently his mother wanted him to come in and Bar-B-Q Saturday instead of Sunday. She had called and told him to head in. Knowing that one day Emily will move away and I'll be calling and begging for a visit, I only sighed and packed up the diaper bag for a weekend trip.

It was disappointing to leave knowing that I had so much work planned for that day and knowing that Monday was quite a ways off but we went in anyways. I did get to get my hands dirty on Saturday, pulling weeds and planting calla lilies at my mother-in-law's house while my husband cooked. It was a shame it wasn't my garden I was working in on Saturday, I accomplished everything I had planned to with minimal disruption, and still got to enjoy dinner with the family, that hasn't happened in a while.

I suppose it was for the best, if I had been working here I would have planted the cukes and carrots and maybe even a few of the herbs. They would have had to sit through tonight (Monday) and the freeze is here, it's dropped at least 15 degrees in a couple hours and I have a laundry room full of transplants, herbs, and fruit trees that are glad that they didn't get planted this weekend.
Pictures:
These are the collards and the jalepeneo, banana, chile/cayenne, bell and habenero peppers


These are the strawberries, and peppermint, lemon balm, cilantro, oregano, and parsley transplants.

And one of all of it.

On the bright side the herbs I planted in the mini greenhouse have begun to sprout.



I was very surprised since I left them (the herbs) on top of the rabbit's cage and they were blown off, and all the way to the ground from the porch. All the little pots were flopped out of their holes and I wouldn't be surprised if I end up with parsley in the basil, and oregano as that pot was spilt all over the rest.
I have a few transplant of parsley, greek oregano, peppermint, and lemon balm that will be going into the herb garden with the mini-greenhouse plants so it's shaping up to be a nice little herb patch.

This weekend I spoke to my MIL and aunt who gave me a different idea for the actual arrangement of the garden. I had planned to do rows in a large rectangle and box it in with landscape timbers or tree trunks from the trees James is clearing out of the back. Mom said that a four or 5 small boxes would make it much easier when I went to tending and harvesting and I really hadn't put too much thought into it. Now I am thinking maybe put the herbs in a bed all to themselves with the garlic, the watermelon, cantalope and strawberries can go all togeather in a small bed as well, then do three or four beds with different veggies but give them alot of space to grow and alot of space for me to get around in there tending them.

Does anyone on here plant their vegetables in multiple beds or is it best to put them all in one area? I thought this was something that might also help with my pepper problem, I have 5 different kinds of transplants and I still haven't bought any of the seeds that I want to get so that will probably up the number as well and I have to at least separate the sweet peppers from the hot ones. If anyone's done this could you let me in on the problems I might have to worry about? If it's a bad idea is there any reason I can't leave a large space in between rows for me to work in?

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My First Vegetable Garden Day One

Category: My First Vegetable (2008) | Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 4:16 pm

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My First Vegetable Garden Day One: 2-29-08

What a day! I could sleep for a week! This morning started slow with the baby up all night and into the wee hours I didn't start bright and early like I had planned, It seems with the little one plans change like the weather.

I was finally out on the 4-wheeler to finish disking at 10am, Emily supervised, as usual. I ended up with a smaller plot than planned after I relised how far over my head I was, it's probably about 15X20 instead of 15X30.
Today was the last day of James's deer season at his lease and he missed an early morning doe so he was in about noon and helped after checking in on the food plot in the back and clearing some more of the woods out. Thankfully he's all done with the season so I can look foprward to alot more help with the garden for a few weeks. We fought roots from the oak trees for most of the day after I finished disking up the plot, and that was quite a fight! There is one at each of three corners and they are very large and old so the roots were huge and ran almost all the way through the garden. I had soaked seeds for the green beans over night and so when the sun began to set I decided we'd go ahead and make two rows for them, no fertilizer other than the burnings we had from cleaning out the garden and some rotted oak leaves but maybe they'll be okay anyways. Fingers crossed.

We had some mower trouble, a broken belt, but managed to get it fixed just in time for cleaning up. He plans on mowing tommorow while I dig more rows, should we put the clippings over the beans to give them a little more warmth or would they grow grass?

Oh, and I found out this evening there may be another freeze (low of 32F) Monday, so I am still trying to decide whether to plant the pepper transplants before then or not, that's also going to be the first really good rain we've had in a week or so and the highs are still in the upper 70s with only mid-40s for lows except that one day. What do yall think? I suppose I could keep them up on the porch under cover til the freeze either comes or doesn't, but would it make a difference?
I really want to get them in as soon as possible since the beans are in now and the tomatoes will be here Sunday evening (Easter presents from my mother-in-law, hooray!) and I have the herbs and a few other veggie seeds just begging me to plant them.




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