Getting carrots going and Audrey

One evening after school, Pooka and I decide to run outside between storms and plant some overdue seeds. We fully admit we are behind on the garden this year with school and me working so much, but it was nice to know a few more things are started. Our goal this evening was to get Pooka's carrots started and Audrey the morning glory. 

Seeds

Pooka and I ran out and put some seeds in the pot for Audrey and I promised to pull out her trellis soon, probably after they had sprouted. Personally, I hate morning glories, but they were a favorite of Pooka's Gremo so we decided to plant another one for her. This way we have something that would make her smile so we can smile when we see it. 

awaiting Audrey now

The carrots went into their square boxes. Pooka and I just sprinkled seeds this time since we were in a rush and I didn't have any tape made. Hopefully we will still get a good crop. I doubt Pooka will be able to take any before school lets out, but she can probably take them in the fall in her lunch. Pooka loves confusing her friends with her different colored foods.

Pooka's picture of her carrots seeds planted

Harvesting and saying goodbye

Let us start with the good things. On Thursday, Pooka and I realized the heat was definatly getting to her carrots. Enough so that we had to harvest the older pots of carrots. The older carrots were drying out and in some cases getting ready to bolt, so we pulled them. The carrot containers on the top are the older carrots, while the ones toward the bottom are the second sowing.

Carrots needing harvesting

I won't pretend Pooka and I were not a bit disappointed in how smaller her colored ones were. Brother's orange carrots were decent baby carrot sized, but the colored ones were a considerably smaller. However, Pooka and brother both managed to make short work of the over 10.5 oz of carrots we harvested for snack that afternoon. I am hoping the second and maybe 3rd sowing of these should get bigger as things cool off. Here is to hoping anyway. At least Pooka still got to enjoy ripping them out of the dirt and shaking them off. She was asking to eat them before I even had them washed off.

Last of the first set of carrot harvest

On the more somber/failure note, Pooka's Venus fly trap died. I have no idea what happened to it, I was keeping it well watered for quite a while, to the point it felt like I was refilling the water cup daily. I also know it got one good meal since we had killed a random fly (and it was in tact) and fed it to it. Pooka is very sad her little plant died. Especially since she bought it with her own money. I promised her we would do some more research and if she gets a new one (either buys it herself or receives it as a gift), we will try again. Until then, well it is another lesson in the cycle of life.

Goodbye fly trap

Lunchtime

In a bit of a rush, but I wanted to show you all what I am taking to work for lunch tonight. Everything was grown in Pooka's garden and she said I could take the second cherry tomato "since you haven't tried them yet. They are delicious."

Homegrown carrots, peas, beans and cherry tomato

I know using plastic bags isn't the best answer, but the kitchen is still in process of being rebuilt and we don't currently have a sink for dishes. I added a store bought cucumber to make sure I get enough. I am waiting impatiently for ours to come in. Hopefully I bought my last sets for awhile.

Cucumber is getting there.

Reaping the rewards

Today my kids are merrily eating their veggies at lunch. Not just store bought veggies (which they love to eat anyway) but veggies grown and picked and washed by them. I was torn on what to make for lunch and then we saw these hanging on the pea plant.

Peas are calling

After a bit more looking we also found some green beans.  The kids both asked if they could try their carrots. They are still on the small side for carrots, but we called them baby carrots. They both asked if they could have the greens off their carrots and I told them to try it. Brother was not a fan, but the ever adventurous Pooka loved it. I am thinking of putting the rest of the greens in a salad tonight for dinner, but only time will tell if we get that far.

Yummy Lunch

Round 2 planting

I can say I finished our second rounds of planting. Last Friday, Pooka and I started a second batch of carrots as well as some spinach. We were doing so much with the spinach that we had cut it back a bit to far and it was starting to struggle.

 

For the carrots, we had always planned to try and do a second set a month or so after originally planting them to extend our harvest. This was more like 2 months, but hopefully it will give us more carrots to eat throughout the summer. Now to just hopefully start really getting to see the rewards of our plantings.

 

We did manage to get some peas and green beans in the corn pot as well. Hopefully the 2 of the 3 sisters works well. That is the hope anyway. We will have to see.

Making our own

As you all know, last year was our first year with carrots. While we had an okay yield, part of that was due to them being too close together since Pooka kinda just through the seeds at the pot. Our radishes had a similar issue.

Radishes                                        Colored Carrots

I knew there had to be other ways and I had read about people using seed tape. But when I went looking for Pooka's colored carrots, they didn't come on seed tape (and the orange ones were so much more expensive). So that was out and I was seeing me and Pooka trying to use a measuring tape to plant the carrots.

A bit ago, I was reading another blog and they did a post on making Seed Mats. The lady there had been doing this for years and I knew I could adapt her napkin method into seed tape. This method would work for radishes too, but I don't see us growing those this year.

The supplies

Remember when I said I had family here a week ago, well thats when I made the seed tape. I sat at the kitchen table and measured and glued away while chatting. However, all that family togetherness seems to made me forget to get in process pictures. Oops. What you will need is super cheap toliet paper ($1 a roll here), elmer's school glue (which having kids you tend to have), a tape measure and carrot seeds (the 2 packages cost me $2.50 since I bought them when they were 40% off).

I made them in about 4 squares of toliet paper lengths since I wasn't entirely sure how big a planter I am using yet. This gives me some flexiblity. My carrot seeds need about 3" between each other, so I was able to do a row at the top and the bottom of the paper.

I put my first dot of glue down and put about 2-3 seeds on it. Then using my tape measure (since I am not great with spacial relations), I went 3" and put another dot of glue, then another, then another. And the same with the bottom row. Place 2-3 seeds on each dot and move to the next one. You may end up having to thin once they start sprouting, but this way you have a better shot at at least 1 sprouting per spot.

a good morning's work

In about an hour of just chatting with family and what not, I was able to make 4 lengths of colored carrot and 4 of orange carrot. I will probably need more, but this at least gives me a starting point to work from.

I had the plastic on the table from the night before (it saves clean up when we have guests), but I would recommend putting something down to protect your work surface. A couple of times the toliet paper tried to glue itself to the table, but with a gentle tug it usually popped free and I didn't rip anything. I then folded them up and put them in ziplock bags to hold them until planting time.

Awaiting warmer weather

Busy busy busy

Sorry that there hasn't been an update recently. We sure have been busy here, and while busy seems to be our base setting, this last few days have been busier then most between my birthday, Valentines day and some family coming to visit.

I am planning on a more indepth post of a few things, but for now, lets just play catch up with what is going on here. I also got a minor game plan in place for the garden. But I am still trying to figure out how many we need to plant.

First off, Pooka managed to find some clearance herb seeds at Lowes about a week ago. I will get a post up on how we did them and how they are doing now in a few days. At least one set is already sprouting

$3 for the plant kit.. OKay

We also had our first Amaryllis bloom from Christmas. It has captured Pooka's attention and she is very interested in it. I think I may need to stake it up soon. Aunt T was here over the weekend and took some "art kid" shots for me. I admit her picture looks way better then anything I would have been able to do. I will admit that it has been nice to have some color while the outside world tries to decide what season it is.

Aunt T's Art Kid shot

Also on Saturday night, we started some seeds. Pooka was so happy to finally be able to get her hands dirty. We got the grow ums in seed starters.  Pooka got these from her scientific birthday party from Grandma. Now to see how well they grow. I know Pooka is excited to see how many eggplants we get. I may be starting these way early, but the website doesn't say when to start them, just to do so, and I figure I am starting it now, so they may be a tad too early yet.

Time to plant the grow ums

Last but not least, I was finally able to pick up some extra plastic for our table. This meant even while we had family here, I sat down and chatted to them while making our own seed tape. We made tape of the colored carrots and the regular orange carrots Pooka asked us to buy for Brother since he didn't like the colored ones.

Seed Tape for Carrots

 

Colored Carrots

Winter had finally started to hurt our carrots. They looked great, but some of the greens were starting to get a bit of frost damage. We decided to go ahead and pull them. We probably could of gotten away with just thinning them, but since it is Nov, the decision was made to pull them over the weekend. Sadly, I forgot to get a picture of the pots filled with green. Daddy and I were trying to beat a storm when we decided to pull them.

This is what we initially pulled. There are a few that are still a bit small in here, but they made for great baby carrots. These are not the baby carrots you buy in a store that are just real carrots whittled down. These were true baby carrots.

Washing the carrots

Pooka couldn't wait to try her new carrots. She ate one and then grabbed a tiny orange one and ran to Brother and begged him till he tried it. He didn't initially want it, but he realized there are somethings you do to make smaller siblings go away. What was better was after he tried it, Pooka looked at him and said "How did my experiment taste Brother?" Daddy and I had quite a few suppressed giggles.

The carrots we can use

 Baby carrots were on the menu with dinner that night. We were originally going to saute them, but Pooka asked Daddy not to since she didn't like carrots that are cooked. They went over quiet well, the carrots are not woody or tough. They are actually very tender. We didn't finish them all, so Pooka asked if she could take a few to school to show her teacher. That is the plan for today. Here's to another science filled day.

Colored Carrots for dinner anyone? 

Long day

I had planned to spend today working on the garden. Pooka was itching to get her fingers dirty and help me harvest.

Sadly, my job had other ideas. I got called in early and stayed longer then I had hoped. We were still able to get a few things done, we got some herbs harvested to dry (Stay tuned for that on Monday) but Pooka found a surprise when she went to look at the garden.

Baby carrots are starting

Her carrots are sprouting. This discovery turned a tired grumpy Pooka (and a tired Grumpy Mommy) into a much happier girl. We are all anxious to see which colors we will find. Brother asked if he could only take orange carrots to school in his lunch. I told him he will get what I find that morning.

Pot numerous dos with little green sprouts

By the looks of things, both pots will probably need some thinning, however the 2+ inches of rain we got yesterday seems to have helped. Pooka's beloved cilantro does not have any real sprouts yet, but I told her not to worry, they have been in the dirt less then a week, and then they will go wild as soon as they emerge. Cilantro in our experiance (in the one time we have grown it) will suddenly just be there and from then, we better have alot of tacos.

A good end to a long day.