More free plants

The other evening I was outside planting the broccoli. Pooka was inside finishing dinner before she could come help. Our neighbor was grilling and said "Hey, do you want some lettuce?"

Free lettuce

This is not a normal conversation around here. I got up and went to talk to him. Turns out he needed dirt for something, but overbought. A friend of his told him to turn it into a garden, so he did with the help of his kids. However, he then overbought lettuce plants and didn't know what in the heck to do with them. He had already asked another neighbor of ours who gardens and they didn't need it. So he figured Pooka may want it. I told him if he really didn't want it, we could put it to good use. He gave us 8 purple lettuce types and 4 bib lettuce. He didn't know what they were called aside from lettuce.

Pooka came outside after he went back to his dinner and I was finishing the broccoli and got SO excited for purple lettuce. She pulled a leaf off right there to try it. Pooka loves colorful plants.

After I get some tomatoes in the ground, I may see if he wants one. I am sure I have one I can spare.

At the end of a long day

Today was a long day. Very productive in and out of the garden, but long none the less. So it was very satisfying to be able to walk outside and pick our dinner. In fact, Pooka began to run around asking what else we could eat.

Dinner tonight

Now granted, most of it just went into a salad. But when the salad is completely home grown with romaine and bib lettuce, baby spinach, sugar snap peas, basil, parsley, red onion and cherry and regular tomatoes, I would call it a very good salad. Even if Pooka has decided to have "Yummy mold that Daddy likes on it." At least I can say I didn't grow the bleu cheese (aka mold).

OUTSIDE... Finally

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of time taking most of the plants outside. It is finally warm enough that I plan to let them stay outside for a few days.  It was nice to know they finally had enough sun.

Amaryllis went out front.

I put the amaryllis Pooka got over the holiday on the front porch. They are looking rather sad after I think a cat started chewing on a few leaves. I am trying to figure out what to do with the darn things. Can I cut them off now and then have them rebloom later this summer? Any ideas from people who have done this before?

Picture one

Getting all the plants on the back deck in one picture was not going to happen if we still wanted access to the yard and the grill. Instead, I have 3 pictures. Here is the blueberries, strawberries, lilac, potatoes and veggies is all I am going with in the little pots.

Picture 2

Here you can see the last of the plants on the deck itself. The spinach and lettuce is in the back right corner. I finally moved them out of the garage yesterday and some have already taken root. Hopefully I will be cutting myself a salad in no time. The some of the tomatoes are on the strawberry tables. I forgot to bring these in last night, but they seemed okay at first glance.

Picture 3

Here is the plants on the table. I didn't have much rhyme or reason to where things went. I just kinda shoved things places, but I wanted to make sure the roasters of "seedlings" were up a bit higher to keep them safer from the dog. Now not everything looked very healthy and in some cases it was just pots of dirt, but I am hoping to pull out the seeds today and restart some of them. Fortunatly for me they are easy to restart plants like broccoli, pak choi, lettuce, beans and herbs.  Hopefully all of these being outside will help with the gnat issue that killed so many plants this year.

 

Tomates, egg flowers, scallions and mystery

I left some of the more tender plants inside. The egg flowers don't look like they are doing so well since I kinda forgot to water them for a bit. The scallions were growing great, and we actually trimmed them for dinner. We put the cut ends back into the water to see if they regrow. I forgot to get pictures since I was more then a tad melted when Daddy asked to cut them. The tomatoes I am hoping to transplant some of them this weekend. I know they were a bit dry yesterday and I was afraid to put them out when they do not have a whole lot of dirt to hold water.

Surprise peppers

These peppers are still in the front room. I know they are having an issue with mold. Something this kind of tray seems prone to, and no, I do not plan on reusing this kind next year. I am going to keep these guys and hopefully replant them as well soon so I can strengthen them to get them outside. Maybe spring will start staying. However, I haven't taken the tables down, I think that would be testing fate.

Leaf veggies are finally stared

Monday seemed to have been planting day around here. Since we had family over the weekend, we were kinda behind on the garden. Enter a Mommy ready to start getting a payout from the garden. The easiest way to do this is to get my lettuce and spinach going.

Last year when I was fed up with the garden, it was so nice to be able to walk outside and at least come in with a salad. I know that time will be coming, so I wanted to get ours going.

I pulled out the planter boxes I used last year for the lettuce, but emptied the dirt from them last fall. This meant they needed new coffee filters. I forgot to get pictures of the pot with filters in it, so just pretend they are there.

Ready for action

Then Pooka got to add the dirt. Some of the dirt was recycled from the failed radish pots. We made sure to set the dirt out all winter to hopefully kill off anything that might of laid eggs in it. I am also making sure to put something of a different family in it just in case.  We then added some new potting soil on top to make sure it has plenty of food for our lettuce.

Dirt for a Pooka to play in

The last step was for Pooka to sprinkle her seeds. We planted some surprise Spinach from Aunt B. Pooka loves getting seeds from people. It made her whole weekend when Aunt B showed up with seeds. We also planted 4 types of lettuce and one other type of salad spinach.

Seeds, seeds seeds.

Pooka did learn this time to not just throw them in there, but rather to sprinkle them like she would decorate a cake. It should help so that not everything is growing in one spot. In a month, I am hoping to get salads from the back yard. Cross your fingers. This whole salad bar may save me many a long day of "why do I do this?"


Seeds added, now we wait.

Surprises for a Pooka

Our family came into town this weekend and Pooka became a very happy girl. It seems her Aunt B brought her some spinach seeds she had apparently promised a Pooka. I know it meant a ton to Pooka and to me it meant having a kind of seed that we know should work well. If I can grow it. Aunt B has alot more experience then I do, but I am lucky to be able to ask her or any of my other sisters for advice.

The little green package of spinach from Aunt B and others

Daddy got a surprise on Saturday after Aunt S and I went out for a bit. I came back with a second blueberry bush. You see I did some reading last week on the blueberry bush, and all the reading says that you can get blueberries from 1 bush, but it does better with 2, and great with 3. I talked to Daddy about it, but we decided to table it. Well as Aunt S and I were out, I decided to go look. Bad idea. However, we found a nice new bush that would transplant well and brought it home. It got planted while we had all this family here. I am sure they were entertained since I did it solo since I didn't feel like getting all the kids that were here involved. Although sadly it has kinda fallen over a bit since I planted it. I will probably spend part of this evening staking it back up to stand up straight.

The second blueberry bush

Sunday evening, Pooka and I were sitting in the computer room and the butterfly habitat was above my desk. I was zoned out (as I tend to do after having family all weekend and a funeral on top of it). "Mommy, look a butterfly" Pooka exclaimed.

Hello Spot

Sure enough, this little guy was flying around the habitat ready to play. He is the only one that has hatched yet, so at least we got one. Pooka decided to name him Spot and he has spent the last few days being feed by a flower and living on my desk. It should warm up enough to release him in a day or so.

Pooka's picture of runt

However, Runt went for a bit of an express trip due to the cats and hasn't moved much since. Out of the whole group, we got at least 1 butterfly. Possibly due to the cats. We may do this again, but with the wild caterpillars we find the garden. It wouldn't be the first time. Now we at least have the right places for them to live.

Hello Peas and friends

Now that all the seeds were started, I realized that the pea plants were going to need more then a pellet fairly soon.  If you remember, it was already 8" tall in 6 days. Well by the time we transplanted it, it was closer to 10" tall.



8" tall in a few days

Well, I knew the pea plant wasn't going to last in that pellet much longer, especially since it was more then likely going to fall over and not get back up. So Pooka and I got some potting soil and decided to plant.












Clearance pots are good


 Earlier in the week we had been out and found these brown pots at Meijers for $1 each. I knew I would need some this size for that akward stage when the plant is bigger then a seedling, but not quite ready for the garden (especially if the winter continues to linger). Now it is true that I have pots very very similar to these in the shed, but remember, the shed is still snowed in currently.



 

Add a coffee filter


Add our signature coffe filter to the bottom of the pot. I am not 100% sure it works, but it has seemed to do really well for us, I don't have many problems of losing dirt, and I know they decompose into the soil, making a bit more compost with a reason.

A bit of potting soil.

Add a bit of dirt to keep them fed....

The bigger pea plant

Finally, we added the pea plants in 2 pots,                            

2 bok choy plants

The bok choy in 2 pots. They look a tad worse for the wear, but I did just water them with the spray bottle.

Lettuce anyone

and the 2 grow um's lettuce into pots. Now I do admit the lettuce and bok choy (once we had started to transplant them, turned out to not be as ready as we thought. However, they are still alive, so I am counting it as something.





The 2 pea plants also got a nice bamboo stick to crawl up. And how is the larger of the pea plants doing, well look for yourself. Here it is, over 12" tall and reaching for the stars. I think I need to get a meter stick.









Sunflowers awaiting their turn

 

What is next you ask... Well I think next the sunflowers will need a similar treatment as the pea plants. I think Green Thumb has returned from her vacation is is ready to be back at work.  But more about the sunflowers in another post.










Talk about confusing

Like many people, we have been hit with late winter storms. In fact, if you look out the back door right now, you will see well at least 4+ inches of snow. That doesn't count the ice that came before it.

Rosemary, Lavender, Audrey's empty pot

Basically, our dog loves it, Pooka went out and played in it this morning for a few minutes before deciding it was cold.  I am okay with it, (but I desperatly need a snow day), but it reminds us that winter is not yet over. Although one would think heading into March we would be past most of it. The rosemary in that small red pot is pretty much dead, the lavender in the green pot may come back and the stuff in the tan pot was the dirt from Audrey, so I have nothing to worry about in it.

On the flip side you walk into the house, and you see spring everywhere. Pooka's Grow um seeds are very busy sprouting left and right. Daily I go through and turn them 90 degrees since they are reaching for the sun outside.  Here you see the lettuce, bok choy, Peas, broccolli, cilantro all fairly well established. The basil is just starting to really grow.

Half the grow ums.

At the other end of the table you will see the rest of the Grow ums.  The oregano has tiny tiny sprouts. I didn't see them but Pooka did since she takes her magnifying glass to them daily to watch for changes. This is her favorite part, she loves planting the seeds on top so she can watch the roots come out and go into the dirt. I also placed the clearanced herbs here so they are all in the same spot.

Rest of the grow ums and clearanced herbs

We have been very busy around here. We also got most of our veggies seeds started. I was worrying that the peppers would take too long to germinate, so I wanted them done early. Pooka and I did it very rushed on a Saturday night in those 16 cell starters. Those are an interesting contraption and I will get a post up on them later.

Seeds seeds at least they are started.

Then I realized I was well into the window to start tomatoes. Except I didn't realize till after I started to hydrate the pellets, did I realized I grabbed the 72 cell starter instead of the tomato starter, so Pooka and I just went with it and spent an entire afternoon on Monday starting the tomatoes, sunflowers, and well everything else. Now we wait. I still need to start the snapdragons, and most of our herbs, but those will go into peat pots probably this weekend. Right now, Pooka is having plenty of fun watching her plants change and grow, and I am running out of places to put seeds. Plus, I think if I have to use a third card table, Daddy may have something to say about it.

Grow ums

I have other posts I mean to put up today, but this afternoon, I went over to let the dog out (the seeds we have started are next to the back door) and low and behold, we found a surprise...

Lettuce sprouts

The lettuce and the bok choy from Pooka's Grow um's kit were growing.

Bok Choy sprouts

What are Grow um's you ask. Well, they are a little like combining gardening with the interwebz.  They give the kids and animated character of each plant, so the children can see what the food will look like once its grown. The kits Pooka got for her birthday did not come with a pan to hold the seeds. The directions said to use a pie pan, but we are using muffin tins since I didn't view the videos before I picked up the supplies. Plus, I could make the arguement that this way they are less likely to be mixed up.

Pooka recieved the Taco garden, the Herb garden, the Stir fry garden and the Ratattouille garden

They come in these little kits that contains 4 types of seeds, 8 dirt pellets, and the tags (although our herb set was missing the tags) and you plant them. However, to get the directions on how to do this, you have to go online and it has animated videos with the vegetables talking to the kids about how to care for them.

The contents of one grow ums kit

Pooka loves watching the videos and while she knows what they are doing, it is important to her to keep up on the directions. (In fact, she just came back and told me none of our seeds had any water at the bottom like Tomas Tomato said they needed).  The directions are fairly good, although I did have to go through a BUNCH of different areas (luckily they let you look ahead if you so desire) to find out what kind of spacing each plant needs, how much sunlight and other information you would normally find on a seed packet. They were very easy to plant (well as easy as most seeds are) although when doing 4 kits with 8 seed pellets per, it took a bit of time. Pooka had a very late night that day.

The first set done, we ended up with 6 muffin pans

I will say as of right now, they are giving Pooka a ton of fun. She is enjoying them and has already taken her magnifying glass to the new sprouts to see them up close. I suggested her microscope, and she was afraid she might damage the sprouts, so we decided to wait until later.  

Science anyone?

Hopefully the rest of these do well. I know Daddy is all excited since one of the gardens comes with Bok choy, something I didn't know he liked, and he is hoping to make stir fry out of it. If not, well even the grow ums say sometimes seeds don't start and to try again.

Cleaning up

This weekend I finally did something we have been meaning to do for awhile. I finally pulled the bolted lettuce. You see, we planted lettuce and well no one really liked the very strong flavors of the spring mix I bought. So it grew, and grew and grew and eventually bolted to flower. Finally this weekend I cleaned it out.

I admit in the sea of the tomatoes, its hard to see how badly neglected the poor lettuce is. Once I moved them to the garage to be cleaned out, I realized how sad they really were. Now granted, I picked up a part of broccoli leaf on the way around the house, but the rest look sad. Even the little plastic water bottles we used to water the plants during the horrible horrible heat (I swear I made a post on it, but I can't seem to find it now. Such is life I suppose) now looks more like litter.

Very Sad looking Lettuce 

The greens mostly went into our bucket of yard waste that goes to the city. Now, yes, we should compost it, but that is a step Daddy and I are not sure we are ready to dig into. However, we did save some of the roots and greens.

Maybe one day we will compost, but not today

The dirt that was in the boxes (and the bits of greens we kept) we tilled into a flower bed in the front yard. A very empty flower bed. A flower bed that we pulled the bushes out of awhile ago. Now we tilled in the new soil and finally have a plan for that space. What is the plan? you ask. Check back later this week and I will tell you.

What will this become? 

The paradox of me and gardening

I have finally hit that point. I am tired of the garden. I am tired of the waiting and the hoping and the "Did I water it? Did I not? What did I do wrong? When will I get something from the darn thing." This is when I get fed up and go "You know what, I am tired of waiting. Give me some instant gratification, now." while picturing beating the plants one by one.

Oh come on, tell me you have never visualize beating on the plants before.... Oh, you haven't... Forget I said that okay?

This is the reason I get fed up, that I get tired and stop caring for it. The waiting and the work for no real reward. Now Pooka, she still adores it (partially by having Mommy do all the boring work). She's out there having fun, picking a few strawberries, being amazed that her tomato plants are bigger than she is. Most of the strawberries are being eaten by Pooka, her brother and E (Pooka's friend).

I know what your saying, We have gotten a few cucumbers already, and strawberries, and like 3 green beans. So you have gotten something. And it is still early. Things don't appear over night. But right now, I want those nice big tomatoes I have been waiting for, I am still searching for the beginnings of a pepper on the pepper plants.

Do I think I did something wrong? Nope. Am I tired of waiting? OF COURSE. And I know the wait will be worth it, but this is the point where I get frustrated.

However, today I found a way past this. This afternoon, I decided to go get some lettuce for my lunch at work. I walked out there with a trusty pair of scissors, a bowl and  Pooka. We harvested the tops of some of the lettuce. (It shouldn't kill it). It's still young and while it wasn't enough for an entire salad, it was SOMETHING, (besides the strawberries the girls ate). I know by the time fall comes, I will be making ENTIRE salads out of the garden, but today, I was ready to eat something we grew. And today I will be.

A busy few days

After a super busy weekend, and a even busier week (Daddy and I realized this week and next will be nuts, then we will hopefully fall into a routine for the summer). The garden has been a bit neglected. Not horribly, it was still being watered more days then not (missed a day or 2 over the weekend).

Anyway, I went outside yesterday and actually looked at it. Strangely enough, I have lettuce growing. I was shocked. I never expected it to grow, but hey, luck is on my side, since it's certainly not skill. One of the 2 window box planters I planted it in is growing like mad. The second hasn't sprouted yet, but I think thats mostly due to it only being 7 days yesterday and the package said 7 to 10 days for sprouts. And while I don't remember which seeds I planted where (I really need to pay better attention to that next year). It is growing.

In other surprising news, the herbs I had literally given up on (and bought plants of) started sprouting too. So now we have Basil and Oregano sprouting. I really need to stop giving up on things. Oh well, more herbs means more to eat right and maybe at the end of the summer I can keep them alive indoors since they are in pots.

I also have some cucumbers really getting to good size. I haven't really seen much for the tomatoes or the peppers, but I know they are blooming and just hoping I will walk out there and see signs of color in the mass of tomatoes. Or maybe I am hoping for too much. I just don't know yet.

All in all, its growing, and with this cooler weather (Compared to the GIANT heat issue we had a few weeks ago) I think its helping but I don't know for sure. I know its helping the stupid morning glory. That thing has climbed the entire trellis and is almost taller than me. But it is Pooka's garden, so as long as she is happy with the darn thing (And she is, she checks every morning for new flowers) then that's all that matters, I guess. (these were there yesterday morning).

Oh and one last science experiment since I could. I pulled some garlic out of the fridge yesterday and it had sprouted. I took it outside and put 2 cloves in the ground. I found a bit of space around the pepper plant the most beat up from the bugs. Maybe the garlic will help protect it, or it will be fertilizer. We will see.

Well its been a busy couple of days here.

First off, our gardening book arrived. I have read about half of it and while it has some info in it that I already knew, it is giving me ideas. Some might argue that me with ideas is a bad thing, or that it is entertaining. However, the best part is the minute I brought it in from the porch and Pooka saw it was a book on gardening, she grabbed it and ran off to read it. Now while she still can't read (but we are working on that) she loved looking at the pictures. As it stands, Pooka has looked at it numerous times and had me read different passages to her about things like. "Mommy, what does it say about Pablano plants or tomatoes."  So its a good thing for both of us.

Today we started some lettuce. I know its late to be starting that, I am hoping I can get something out of them since I read I could possibly have lettuce in 3 weeks (yes, this is something I got from the book). I am really hoping for that since I eat a ton of salads with my work schedule and it would be a nice change. Otherwise I will hope they make it to fall and try again. I think this might be one to cross our fingers on.

A funny thing happened the other day as we went out to buy a wedding present for some good friends of ours. While we were at Kohl's, I noticed they had some little end tables for patio sets on clearance. Being that I have a hard time not checking out a clearance area. I went over and found a nice slate tiled top table that wasn't priced. I asked someone (turns out it was the manager) and she said "Well, even if its not officially marked down, I will give it to you at 60% off." Uh, okay. So now the new strawberry plant has a "plant stand" that can double as a table when all our family is visiting and we need the horizontal surface.  I liked that table so much I may go get another and call it a match set. *smirk*

One huge suprise yesterday was OUR CELERY is growing. I put it in the ground on about 4 days ago and it's already got a nice little set of leaves going. Who knew. I so thought it would end up fertilizer.  (It's a bad picture since it's a vertical picture and I can't seem to figure out how to flip it).  Now to wonder how long till we can harvest the thing.

This morning we also noticed our Chives are sprouting. So Pooka is all excited. She has to taste everything and wanted to know when she could  taste the chives. I told her to let them get a bit bigger first. 

Last time I promised some quick pictures of the raised beds.  They aren't much, but the lattice work is for the climbers and then the bed itself is made out of wood from our old deck. We replaced it about 2 years ago now, and the old decking was in good shape, so saved it (because we just couldn't throw away good project wood) and it's become a good home for the plants.

The side with the pepper plants (Note I took these pictures at like 9 in the morning. By 10:30 almost everything is in the sun for the rest of the day.)

The tomatoes and the cucumbers. And I am aware I planted all this too close together. It had to do with the pots I left them in between the seed starter and putting them in the ground. They seem to be growing fine and all have tons of flowers. Good thing I plant in miracle grow. 

 Oh and yes you may see little sparkly dragonflies and butterflies. I originally let Pooka pick out a few to let her be creative with the garden and have some fun with it. Since then, I realized the metallic coloring and the fact that they move a bit and flap when its windy is keeping birds and critters out the garden. So she was allowed to pick up some more and she gets to go out there every couple of days and rearrange them "so I can tweak the birds." (Her words, not mine). 

Last but not least our broccolli and Pablano plants. This little bed is under a window and next to the house. I have since learned I need to watch it because even if it rains the overhang from the house may prevent the bed from getting much of water.

Please remember all, I am still learning so some of this is a giant swag to me as well so advice is appreciated. And thank you to all our friends who gave me some advice on how to save the poor pepper plants.