Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Moving!!!
I have moved my blogs and am now blogging at www.kateskitchengarden.com. If you were a follower, you can continue to follow me there. You will have to re-sign up to get e-mail notifications when I post, if you are still interested. Thanks!
Monday, February 20, 2012
Eggshells as Planters
Found another one to try...I am testing an idea I saw on Pinterest that links back to an article on Apartment Therapy. Using eggshells as planters to start seeds in. Looks simple. I wonder if it really works? They claim so, but remember I am not great at growing plants indoors. Trying it with a half dozen eggs. Planted peppers in them. We shall see. Here is the link to the article I looked at.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Ordering Seeds
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| R.H. Shumway's Seed Catalog |
It is a good time to start getting your seeds and starting some indoors if you haven't already. End of February and first of March are perfect where I live for starting indoor seeds. I am always excited to start getting the seed catalogs over the end of the winter and I save them for this time of year when I can start browsing through and then picking things to try and grow. I always end up with more seeds than my garden can hold, but it seems to be just fine. I have kept seeds for several years and they still germinate well. I have ordered from R.H. Shumway's and Gurneys before with good results. I have also heard good things about Johnny's Seeds. I was not very impressed with Burgess when I ordered live plants from them. Many of them didn't grow well or at all. Their seeds were okay. I would go with another company based on my experience. There is a very cool tool on www.davesgarden.com called the Garden Watchdog. It helps you pick a company to order from based on user reviews of the companies. You may also want to check that out.
Our local garden supply store donated all of last years leftover seeds to our church community garden this year! I love that. It is the second year that they have done so. It works wonderfully well because they can't sell the older seeds (as far as I am aware) and our church family uses what it needs and then passes on the rest of the seeds to another community garden in the area. A big thank you to Zamzows!!!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Follow up on the Avocado Seed
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| Avocado Seed Split Open |
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Seed Starts
I have started my seeds in spite of the late snow storm. Usually I have found that I don't do well with starting seeds indoors. They always seem to do the horrible "dampening off" thing. (I found this pretty good article on dampening off on a website called Dave's Garden. I plan to try the peroxide and water spray suggested there to try to prevent it.) Or they get dumped on the floor by a well meaning toddler. Or I neglect the watering and they dry up and die. Things do better when put in the ground outside for me where God can take care of them when I don't. Automatic sprinklers also help. But I often try to start seeds anyway when I am impatient. A few days ago I washed some pots out and filled them with seed starting mix. Josh and I stuck some seeds in the pots and moistened them.
Fast forward a few days and my tomatoes are up!!! I love it!!! Josh is so excited. Here you can see them poking up their tiny, green starter leaves on their thin, little stems. I have added a little Miracle Grow potting soil to their pots and will continue to do so as they grow. A good friend who does well with starting seeds offered me the advice to start with a little seed mix in the pot and then add potting soil as the plants get bigger. She said that the seed mix doesn't have enough nutrients generally to sustain a larger plant very well. I hope it works. We planted several seeds in each pot and plan to thin to just one per pot as we see which is the strongest looking plant.
Nothing else has come up yet, but I will keep you posted. Oh, and just because...Elise wanted me to take her picture too. :)
Growing Big Plants From Seeds
I have a couple of things I want to try and so I am going to post pictures as I go. Avocado and Italian Plum seeds. Will they grow, will they die? Stay tuned and find out. (BTW I am not very skilled at growing anything indoors. I always forget to water.) We shall see. I am following a Pinterest link that took me to this site to grow an avocado from a seed. Here are the initial pics.
Those are the avocado pictures. The Italian plum was a seed saved from a really good organic plum from a friend last summer. It wasn't especially interesting to see and I just stuck it in a pot with some Miracle Grow potting soil from Costco (that's the Moisture Control one since I suck at watering) so I didn't take any pics of that one. The kids are excited about both though. Pinterest is about my favorite thing right now. Such a good way to keep track of all the good stuff on the net! Thank you Pinterest!
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| Growing Avocados from Seeds |
Those are the avocado pictures. The Italian plum was a seed saved from a really good organic plum from a friend last summer. It wasn't especially interesting to see and I just stuck it in a pot with some Miracle Grow potting soil from Costco (that's the Moisture Control one since I suck at watering) so I didn't take any pics of that one. The kids are excited about both though. Pinterest is about my favorite thing right now. Such a good way to keep track of all the good stuff on the net! Thank you Pinterest!
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
That isn't a plastic bag, it's my new "Raised Bed"
My husband gets upset because each year I keep expanding the garden. He finally told me, "Look, I don't care if you take the whole backyard for your garden, but if you do I am going to rent a sod cutter and not take up all this grass by hand." I Don't really blame him. I just always seem to run out of room in the garden space I have. I see those plants on clearance at the hardware store and they are so inexpensive I just can't help buying more tomato plants than I have room for. Solution! Awesome idea I first saw in an article in Mother Earth News Magazine. Here is a comprehensive article on how to do it that I found on-line...
Basically, the idea is an almost no work solution. Take a new bag of potting soil. Lay it down in a sunny spot that gets hit by your sprinkler. Anywhere you want. Anywhere. Now, cut a hole in the top of the bag and stick your new plants directly in the bag. Voila! Instant "raised bed!" You can punch drainage holes in the bottom of the bags if you want (some people like this idea, some don't think it's necessary as long as you don't flood the bags when they get watered). Happy dance! Go sip a lemonade - your work is done! I seriously want to try this this year. No weeding either! And at the end of the season, you can get rid of the bag and pour the dirt out to improve your existing soil. Easy clean up is always a plus.
The down side of course, is that it's not very aesthetically pleasing. No one wants these things laying all around their front yard. Neighbors might have some unpleasant things to say about it. But, in the back side yard - totally different story. Definitely worth a try. And easy. Yeah. Totally want to try this.
Basically, the idea is an almost no work solution. Take a new bag of potting soil. Lay it down in a sunny spot that gets hit by your sprinkler. Anywhere you want. Anywhere. Now, cut a hole in the top of the bag and stick your new plants directly in the bag. Voila! Instant "raised bed!" You can punch drainage holes in the bottom of the bags if you want (some people like this idea, some don't think it's necessary as long as you don't flood the bags when they get watered). Happy dance! Go sip a lemonade - your work is done! I seriously want to try this this year. No weeding either! And at the end of the season, you can get rid of the bag and pour the dirt out to improve your existing soil. Easy clean up is always a plus.
The down side of course, is that it's not very aesthetically pleasing. No one wants these things laying all around their front yard. Neighbors might have some unpleasant things to say about it. But, in the back side yard - totally different story. Definitely worth a try. And easy. Yeah. Totally want to try this.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Seed Saving/Storage
Guess what? I found a cool use for all those baby food jars I saved just in case. SEE? I knew I would end up using them somehow. Yeah, I know, that's probably what the hoarders say about everything they have. But I honestly did put these to good use.
I read somewhere a while back that you should keep seeds in a cool, dry location for best storage, especially if you plan to use them for more than one season. Some people have even mentioned refrigeration of their seeds. I don't think that that is necessary for me, at my level of gardening, but I did wonder about all those seed packets just sitting in my shoebox outside in the garage. Many of them were opened and partially used. And then I had saved some seeds of my own from plants that are good to save from (like pumpkins, peppers, basil, cilantro, marigolds, etc.) and they were just in little baggies and looked all messy. I decided that an awesome way to store your seeds is in old baby food jars. They are the perfect size for most packets of seeds. You can just label and date them with a piece of tape and you are good to go - keeps them dry and safe.
I even emptied several packages out and cut out the back instructions on the package they came in and just taped that right to the jar. (See image below, jar on the left.) This has worked wonderfully well. I still have some seed packets in my shoebox, but now it is much more organized and I can tell what is there without having to rummage through all the little baggies.
If you need to check your seeds for viability, here is a link to an easy way you can check them before planting. I read somewhere else, and I can't for anything remember where, (maybe in the Tightwad Gazette? - an absolutely awesome book!) if 7 out of 10 seeds germinate, then your seeds are approximately as viable as new seeds would be.
I read somewhere a while back that you should keep seeds in a cool, dry location for best storage, especially if you plan to use them for more than one season. Some people have even mentioned refrigeration of their seeds. I don't think that that is necessary for me, at my level of gardening, but I did wonder about all those seed packets just sitting in my shoebox outside in the garage. Many of them were opened and partially used. And then I had saved some seeds of my own from plants that are good to save from (like pumpkins, peppers, basil, cilantro, marigolds, etc.) and they were just in little baggies and looked all messy. I decided that an awesome way to store your seeds is in old baby food jars. They are the perfect size for most packets of seeds. You can just label and date them with a piece of tape and you are good to go - keeps them dry and safe.
I even emptied several packages out and cut out the back instructions on the package they came in and just taped that right to the jar. (See image below, jar on the left.) This has worked wonderfully well. I still have some seed packets in my shoebox, but now it is much more organized and I can tell what is there without having to rummage through all the little baggies.
If you need to check your seeds for viability, here is a link to an easy way you can check them before planting. I read somewhere else, and I can't for anything remember where, (maybe in the Tightwad Gazette? - an absolutely awesome book!) if 7 out of 10 seeds germinate, then your seeds are approximately as viable as new seeds would be.
Sure Sign of Spring!
My mom always said that the first sign of spring was to see a robin. (We are in planting zone 6.) Today, not just one robin, but a whole flock of them descended on my little pond for a stop. We used to make a game of it to see who would see the first robin of the year. I won today for sure!
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Forget the Groundhog - 2 Sunny Days!!!!
So here's the here and now.
It has been sunshiny for two whole days! Naturally, this inspired me to get out my seeds, and garden catalogs and plan outdoorsy things. This summer I want to make our backyard more of a haven and make it really inviting. We are going to try to accomplish the following: 1. establish a permanent home for the fire pit so we can have more marshmellow roasting moments. 2. Move the strawberries to a new home closer to the pond and establish a cool herb garden there too. 3. Research and begin construction on an inground trampoline. 4. Install a zip line from our big tree over to the swingset. 5. Build "Kid's" raised garden beds. 6. Raise some of my own garden beds. 7. Plant more flowers.
I am sure there will be more things to add to the list. And I have no ideas what opportunities will await at the church garden this year.
In other news, I tried the Timothy Ferris slow carb diet with my hubby, because he wanted to do it for work. It worked amazingly, but I am not holding out hope that it will be sustainable. Since we have finished the experiment, I have already gained back some of what I lost, but that was to be expected. One thing that I did not expect, however, was the difference in the way I am now looking at food. Honestly, this diet really killed my enthusiasm for yummies. Now I am seeing basically two categories of foods: foods that are not good for your body (i.e. worthless to eat), and foods that I have no desire to eat (like beans, lentils, beans, beans, beans - can you tell what we ate a lot of on this plan?)
I am looking forward to establishing a base line and then continuing working toward a more healthy body weight for myself. I am in about the same place I was in last year when I began trying which is both discouraging and encouraging. Discouraging because I haven't made very much progress (though I have a little bit) and encouraging because the biggest holidays are over and I didn't gain. Well, I did, but it's gone again. Easy come, easy go type pounds. So, now I am at square -1. Little better off, but not much. The Wii and I are going to have to make friends again. The other good news here is that gardening season is just around the corner. I have always preferred to do exercises that actually produce results. I am sure that there will be enough to do (It's a big pit to dig for the inground tramp after all) to give me lots of productive exercise opportunities. And get me some fresh air and Vitamin D which I think that you lack on the slow carb diet personally.
Homeschooling is going pretty well, though I am starting to get some of the spring fever and my kindergartener is really struggling to stay motivated with reading. Hubby and I talked about using a new reward system for him because he is very motivated with rewards. Even small ones. So, I think that is the path we will take for him going forward. He knows what he is doing mostly, and understands the "how," but doesn't seem to have any desire to actually do it.
It has been sunshiny for two whole days! Naturally, this inspired me to get out my seeds, and garden catalogs and plan outdoorsy things. This summer I want to make our backyard more of a haven and make it really inviting. We are going to try to accomplish the following: 1. establish a permanent home for the fire pit so we can have more marshmellow roasting moments. 2. Move the strawberries to a new home closer to the pond and establish a cool herb garden there too. 3. Research and begin construction on an inground trampoline. 4. Install a zip line from our big tree over to the swingset. 5. Build "Kid's" raised garden beds. 6. Raise some of my own garden beds. 7. Plant more flowers.
I am sure there will be more things to add to the list. And I have no ideas what opportunities will await at the church garden this year.
In other news, I tried the Timothy Ferris slow carb diet with my hubby, because he wanted to do it for work. It worked amazingly, but I am not holding out hope that it will be sustainable. Since we have finished the experiment, I have already gained back some of what I lost, but that was to be expected. One thing that I did not expect, however, was the difference in the way I am now looking at food. Honestly, this diet really killed my enthusiasm for yummies. Now I am seeing basically two categories of foods: foods that are not good for your body (i.e. worthless to eat), and foods that I have no desire to eat (like beans, lentils, beans, beans, beans - can you tell what we ate a lot of on this plan?)
I am looking forward to establishing a base line and then continuing working toward a more healthy body weight for myself. I am in about the same place I was in last year when I began trying which is both discouraging and encouraging. Discouraging because I haven't made very much progress (though I have a little bit) and encouraging because the biggest holidays are over and I didn't gain. Well, I did, but it's gone again. Easy come, easy go type pounds. So, now I am at square -1. Little better off, but not much. The Wii and I are going to have to make friends again. The other good news here is that gardening season is just around the corner. I have always preferred to do exercises that actually produce results. I am sure that there will be enough to do (It's a big pit to dig for the inground tramp after all) to give me lots of productive exercise opportunities. And get me some fresh air and Vitamin D which I think that you lack on the slow carb diet personally.
Homeschooling is going pretty well, though I am starting to get some of the spring fever and my kindergartener is really struggling to stay motivated with reading. Hubby and I talked about using a new reward system for him because he is very motivated with rewards. Even small ones. So, I think that is the path we will take for him going forward. He knows what he is doing mostly, and understands the "how," but doesn't seem to have any desire to actually do it.
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