Earth Day & Other Activities!

This week I seem to be playing catch up.  Last week was a whirlwind of activity!  Here are the highlights.

On Thursday, I reconnected with a great friend from college!  Dave and I had lost contact over the years, but thanks to Facebook we recently reconnected!  It had been over 20 years, but we picked up right where we left off.  It was so fun to spend time together and introduce him to the important people in my life...Max and Larry.  Max was a little shy, but enjoyed using Dave's camera!

Friday was Earth Day and I was the guest lecturer at Max's Kindergarten.  We covered some ASL (American Sign Language) signs that had to do with growing things....grow, garden, pea, cup, water, sun, etc.  After that we planted some peas in repurposed containers.  I chose peas because Kindergarten students need some immediate feedback and peas sprout quickly. 

Here are the pea seeds planted in the recycled Mandarin Orange cups.  On Tuesday (yesterday) some of the peas had already sprouted!

When I returned home from the Kindergarten class, I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me....plants!  I had volunteered to be a tester for Burpee awhile back.  Fed Ex delivered a box of live plants, and on Earth Day.  How fortuitous!

In the box were 2 plants of each:  2 varieties (Red Delicious, Costa Rican Sweet) of pepper, 3 varieties (Napa Grape, 4th of July, Early Girl) of tomato and 2 (Sweet Italian, Boxwood) varieties of basil.  I got right to work.

The plants arrived and were strong and healthy looking.  Typically, I grow heirloom varieties, directly from seed.  The row on the left are my own plants.  The middle and right hand rows are the Burpee tomato plants, which are hybrids.  The peppers and some of the basil are in the sunny spot near the tree trunk. 

Here are the black soy beans starts that I transplanted in the big garden.  These were started from seeds from the Bountiful Gardens catalog.  They have a lot of hard to find seeds and all are heirloom.

Here are some peas, started about a week and a half prior that I transplanted.  Let's see how the tomato ladders work as support for them.

Since my cucumber starts keep getting devoured by the snails, I'm trying something new.  I am covering the area in plastic and spreading diatomaceous earth on the plastic.  The back is a support so these cukes can climb.  So far, my cucumber seedlings remain unmolested by the snails.....yippee!

So hope you enjoyed my gardening updates from last week....stay tuned for more.  Enjoy your week!

Cheers~
Marti

Roto-tilling and Other Adventures

Since Max is on Spring Break, here's a short update on my gardening adventures.  My seed starts from last week are beginning to sprout! 

The cukes are the fastest out of the gate!  The white pack on the far left is the pickling cukes, which I plan to make both dills and bread & butter pickles with.

 These are some of our potatoes.  I love this leafy green plant, which sometimes will get white flower blooms.  I know these will be ready once the green portion dies off.

Basic potato strategy is to cut off any eyes that are growing on a potato in the kitchen and plant it in a pot.  This way we pretty much have potatoes year round!

 Here are some carrots in a container.  I also have carrots planted in several other areas.  We love the French varieties, which are short and round.  Purple carrots are also a favorite.

This is one of my SFG (Square Foot Gardening) boxes that Larry made out of repurposed boards from Max's play structure.  The snails have decided to munch on my green beans, so I'm outlining the box with diatomaecous earth.  Theoretically the snails will not cross this line....so far, so good.

This isn't quite a before picture (too embarrassing.....weeds were over 2 feet high before I took them down with the weed whacker) of our back vegetable bed.  It's super hard to plant from seed because although it seems flat, we're on a hill and the slope causes all the seeds to wash into the corner.

So here I am roto-tilling the back bed.  I am lucky that I married Larry.  He has a well stocked garage full of useful tools.  We've had this for quite some time.  When I got interested in gardening on a slightly larger scale, there it was...a roto-tiller, just waiting to be used!  This task would be nearly impossible without the tiller.

And here is the result of the roto-tilling efforts!  Although the tiller isn't hard to use, it really takes a toll on your hands and arms.  They are sore several days after I accomplished this clear out. As soon as my seedlings get a bit bigger, I'll move them up here.

So that's the update on my gardening adventures!  Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your day!

Cheers~

Marti