Gardening 2012 - Part 3

So, here are the latest pictures from my garden.

 The potatoes are growing like crazy. 

I added the second tire to each stack, put in more soil, then promptly had to return to the store for even more soil. Bought their last five bags. Sure hope they get more in soon.

The peas are doing great, and I will have to move some of them to another box so I can get them all tied up and climbing. The black radishes are doing OK. Thinned them out a bit and we'll see what happens. 

The box in back was onions, but only about three ever came up, and they never grew. Bad batch of seeds maybe? Who knows. I am transferring some of the peas to that box and will go from there. The box in front is a late planting of a small breed of carrot. They are coming up well and will have to be thinned out.

My red and yellow bell pepper plants. They started looking a tiny bit sickly, even though there was already a pepper on one, so I decided it might be best to split them up. 

They are now in two separate buckets. 

Here's hoping they will thrive with the extra room

My tomato plants never really grew much, and the leaves on the bottom of them started turning yellow. After talking with a friend about what the problem might be, I went out and bought some Miracle-Gro and have given them one dose so far (and removed the yellowing leaves). They're already showing lots of improvement, and when I researched the issue on the internet, most things I found said it could be a low nitrogen issue. Guess the plant food was the right idea.  

Got my corn planted. Doesn't look like much, but most of it is really growing. Two at the bottom have died, but that was my fault. Should have kept the area more uphill and should have moved more of the dirt/grass out down there. They ended up with lots of standing water and that's probably what did it. But, you learn from the mistakes and do better next year.  

It's a bean. I get my crates from a local produce stand, and some of them will have a bean or two still stick in the bottom, caught on the wooden slats and such. So, I decided to look at that as a gift and try planting them. This is one of the first ones I planted. I have others planted in around the tomatoes and peppers, seeing if they will come up. If they do, I will carefully transplant them, maybe in with the corn so they can grow up the stalks. I may have green beans this year as well. Cool. 

Google tries to watch what I'm doing sometimes, but once the water hose is pulled out, 

he doesn't usually stick around for long.

Better than any old French manicure if you ask me.
:-)

Gardening 2012 - Part 2

So, after nine bags of topsoil, I still need more. Sheesh. I thought I'd estimated correctly. Guess not. But, that's OK. I got most of the stuff planted, the rest will just have to be done later this week.

I had planned on only doing one, maybe two tires with potatoes this year. My friend Meredith called her in-laws and got me some seed potatoes. A lot of seed potatoes. I now have three tires planted with potatoes, plus enough left over to pass along to my friend Judith. Cool.

I got these crates free from a local produce stand. The two in back are planted with peas (on the left) and green onions. The one in front is planted with black radishes (had to use a bit of garden fabric to block the gaps on the sides of that one). These are sitting by my back deck. My idea, if it works, is to tie twine from the lid of the one holding the peas up to the railing of the deck for the vines to grow up. We'll see if it works.

I'm doing the tire and crate thing since kneeling on the ground with my arthritic knees is not an easy thing. These containers are pretty low to the ground, but will still make it easier when it comes time to harvest, especially the tires as they will be stacked up 3 high and, in theory, you can just push them over to get at the potatoes. Plus, my yard has a very limited area that would be good for planting, so I'm able to plant more in containers.

My pepper plants; one red pepper and one yellow pepper. Wanted green peppers actually, but no one seemed to have any. But, it's more expensive to buy red or yellow peppers than green ones, so I might as well grow those.

My tomato plants. There are three in there right now, but one is so tiny, I might just take it out and throw it away. I'm also thinking about getting cages for these as well as the peppers instead of using the stake and twine set up I did last time. Right now, I'm just waiting to see how they do.

Yes, I have corn seeds planted in cat food cans. I'm sprouting them here, then will plant them somewhere in the yard; just haven't figured out exactly where yet. Hopefully I'll know by the time they're big enough to actually plant.

I am going to be getting another crate for more radishes. Or, I have these big wooden containers that held boat motor parts when I worked at OMC, and I may just drag one of those to the back yard. I have red radish seeds as well as small carrot seeds that I'm hoping to plant as well. I'm not putting any root veggies directly into the ground because the last time I did, everything got eaten. I had a lot of potatoes planted and every single one I dug up had teeth marks in it. Obviously my vole hunting cat wasn't too diligent that year.

Besides the small bit of planting I have left to do, now the whole waiting thing starts.   **sigh**

Around the Yard

Went for what is becoming my daily walk around the yard today. If I just went out there and walked, it wouldn't take long at all as it's not that big of a yard. But, I have gotten into the habit of grabbing my iPod and listening to a podcast or two while my ever present outside kitties walk around the yard with me. We meander through the tall grass (yeah, need to mow already) and sometimes I even pull up some wild onions which seem to grow abundantly in my yard. Today, I carried my camera with me and took a few photos, mostly of the cats of course.

 Here is my little swing, just waiting for me to start coming outside and while away some hours sitting there with a good book and my ever present cats. Hope even jumps up in the swing with me sometimes. Mostly though, they lay around or under it.

 Here is Google (Da Goog as we call him) trying to ignore me and get some shut-eye. Didn't work of course. 

 This is Muffin. Queen of all she surveys. She's a temperamental little girl sometimes, but I love her. 

This lonely little tire filled with topsoil is just waiting for me to plant some potatoes in it. I have a couple other tires waiting to stack up as the potatoes grow. I can't wait. 

Well, at least Goog is winding up to pounce on his Uncle Tango and not on Muffin. She doesn't put up with such shenanigans.

And here's Tango. Like most orange tabbies, he has such a laid-back disposition. Such a great guy. ("Does this flower make my butt look big?")

And this is Goog's sister, Hope. Hard to tell from this, but she is a really tiny thing. Tough girl though. She likes me to throw pieces of kibble to her so she can pounce on them before she eats them. She also hunts voles, moles, mice, chipmunks....pretty much everything.


I always said I'd never have outdoor cats, then they started showing up. What can ya' do? I've gotten some of them to the shelter and new homes, but for one reason or another, these guys are still here. And I love them all.

This year, I'm going to try some gardening again. Tomatoes in buckets, potatoes in those tires, lettuces and/or kale in wooden pallets (if I can get them), and just maybe I'll put some corn in the ground. We'll see. Seeds are pretty inexpensive, I can get the buckets for a bit over $1 each, a friend has some pallets he's willing to give me, and I already have the tires (which I got for free from a local tire center). Yeah, I have plans. They're not written in stone though, so if I don't get all of it done, that's OK. There's always next year.