The family garden

Only the second full week in March, and we have veggies started from seed! I have never been this organized and on schedule with a garden. Usually March is spent daydreaming about an enormous, carefree plot of veggies. Then the frost free date hits in April, and I grab anything that looks edible from the garden supply store. Seeds are thrown in pell mell, a month too late. Veggies bolt a week after I plant them. Weeds and poor soil plague the season. And I scratch my head.

But this year, I must be on top of the garden for two 'get it done' reasons:

1 Little man is due in the beginning of July - I can't afford to be fighting failing tomato plants in the heat of the summer. Everything needs to be in place and thriving {or composting} when I leave for the hospital.

2 Hubby joined the gardening team - And when my man decides something needs to get done, and that something is on a time table {e.g. must be complete before I go nesting crazy and forget to feed my family satisfying my obsession with miniature knitwear}, the work gets done. He located and cut up pallets, then built four planters, two raised beds, and a cold frame, and moved all the dirt to fill them this week. I couldn't be that productive if someone held a gun to my head {because small one would still be climbing up my leg yelling, 'I poop!', big one would still be crying about dirt in her hair, and Abby superdog would still be digging through the compost bin}. I'm so grateful for my home improvement project ringer.

The 'getting it done' was possible and organized, the shopping trips had purpose and a basic list because I started a gardening journal. Nothing fancy - 4 dated columns per page. Some weeks read: rained all week. I'm so tired of puddles. Other weeks, like this one, I'm creating indecipherable abbreviations to squeeze our gardening efforts into the allotted space.

The girls have jumped into this with 20 filthy fingernails. Last year, they discovered the Christmas morning joy of tearing into seed packets. During this year's trip to the nursery, they were rabid wildly enthusiastic among the envelopes of possibility. I plant purple carrots, Mommy? I want strawberries. Can we plant purple onions? What about purple potatoes? Purple garlic? Purple beets? Purple tomatoes? Purple peppers? {notice a theme - I had no idea so many veggies came in purple. Why hasn't the grocery produce department picked up on this??}

 We snatched up carefully chose heirloom seed packets with purple produce {and green and yellow and red} and wildly scattered thoughtfully laid out rows of root veggies and cold loving leafy greens, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. Every day, the girls beg to add something new to the garden. DH keeps building planters, so Momma keeps tearing into seed packets, spreading vegetating joy.

Better than any produce we might harvest or science lessons I might teach, I love the family involvement in the production. The garden has been a little red hen project for me in the past, in part because I didn't involve anyone else. 'Help' is much messier. Accountability much more pressurizing.

We all have a stake in the garden this year, not just what we eat from it, but the shared dirt under 40 fingernails {I should probably count Abby's 16 toenails too}. The mess is shared. The pressure to produce is spread. Come July, this momma can sit comfortably cuddling a newborn in the central air, while someone else carries in tomatoes, peppers and zucchini for dinner. I should have shared the garden earlier.

An easy gardening project: clear row markers
You need scissors, a plastic clamshell and a sharpie. Cut the clamshell into strips and write the crop with a sharpie. Insert at end of row. The clear plastic doesn't block the sun while the plants are growing.

Happy gardening!

For garden journal resources, check here or here.

If you don't have a local nursery with heirloom seeds, check here.

For raised bed info, check this book out.

Garden Party 2012

What is she doing? The half-crazed woman stabs the ground over and over in the late dusk. Hurriedly plunging seeds into the ground before the sun carries its last lingering rays around the world. Must finish before dark; I will look like a cult priestess planting seeds by moonlight.

I've remained uncharacteristically silent about the garden this year, even though I have more time, plants, and successful garden-harvested meals than any other year. The disappointing end of previous gardens has humbled me. At least for April and May. All plants looks promising in early spring.

This year, I started in early April with the ground preparing and the seed buying. By mid-April, I picked up half price plant packs for spring crops and the garden was well underway. I seem to add new plants every 2 weeks as I find more space.

Space. Isn't that every gardener's dilemma? Produce is addictive. I have more space, more plants, more variety than ever, but in my head, all I can see is what I could plant with more space. Maybe this year the Lord will teach me garden contentment {a positive step from the lesson in futility of the last two years}.

ReUse the Toilet Paper Tube

This spring, I want to focus the blog on sustainability. Few things strengthen creativity like finding a new purpose for an old item, especially one ordinarily thrown away.

Today's item... Toilet Paper Rolls

With Spring comes plans for vegetable gardens. This year, instead of buying a plastic tray to house seeds, try starting them in a toilet paper rolls. Simply cut the rolls in half, making two short cylinders. Place the cylinders upright in a cardboard box or old baking tray and fill with potting soil. Plant the seeds according to directions. When the seedling is ready to transplant to the garden, you can bury it in the toilet paper tube which will compost. Personally, I've been saving rolls for weeks in preparation.

Another, more artistic option comes from Child Made:

This wall art Oak Tree is made from toilet paper tubes and paper bags. It would be a very cute addition to a nursery as a family tree.

Finally, you can always tape two together to make binoculars for little folk :)

Anybody else have some ideas?

Garden Update

I am so excited about my little back porch garden. Everything's growing beautifully, and flowers have appeared on most of my vegetables. I even found a pepper and a tomato growing. 

I'm not a particularly advanced gardener, although I do love growing things. It takes me hours to meander through a big green house. One time, I took our dog along (R.I.P.). He was so bored with my wanderings that he lay down under one of the benches and refused to move. Keep in mind, he was only 3 years old - hardly low on energy.

This summer is my first even moderately successful attempt with veggies. In Tennessee, my entire yard was full shade, even the driveway. I had no chance of growing vegetables with their 6 hours of full sun.  But here, the back deck get plenty of sun, and my plants are eating it up, literally.

Maybe it's the novelty, but I call Tim to the porch every time I find some new sign of growth - a plant newly flowering or an okra tip poking out of a cluster of leaves. In the spirit of self-sustainence, Tim made plant stakes for me. You can see one in the picture below. About half of my vines are responding to my "training." The others are trying to crawl up other plants and the deck railing. 

The garden brings me great joy. I can't wait to grill some homegrown zucchini and squash and experiment with my own salsa. Here's to summer and plants!

My Pot Garden

Made ya look! It's really a terra cotta pot garden (I hope we sell our house in Tennessee and move before the next big frost!).

My weekend project - herbs and veggies! (Can you tell that I'm excited - I'm using exclamation points everywhere. Sorry for the written yelling)

I love herb gardens. At UT, they have a beautiful section in the trial gardens devoted to herbs. I spent many lunch breaks walking through the herb garden, rubbing different leaves between my fingers to appreciate their fragrance.

Now, I have my own mini garden in which I planted:

Sage

Parsley

Rosemary

Basil

Stevia

Cilantro

Taragon

Oregano

Mint

Dill
Fennel

Also:

Tomatoes

Red Bell Peppers

Banana Peppers

Zucchini

Eggplant

Yellow Squash

Cantalope

Okra
Cucumber

Do I expect them all to do well? Of course! I'm eternally optimistic with my gardening. I even insisted on trying herbs every year in my full shade yard in Tennessee. They never really grew, but they took a while to die.

This year will be wonderful. I soaked my terra cotta pots ahead of time and bought good potting soil. The back porch provides hours of sunlight every day. Now I just have to keep the bunnies away.