Building New Boxes & Lettuce

So I've been complaining recently that I don't have enough space in my square foot garden for all the wonderful veggies that I'm growing this year . . . So Cam, being the amazing person that he is, has built me two new boxes that are twice the size of the old ones.

The original boxes were 4' x 4' (if my memory is correct), and the two new ones are 6' x 6'. I was very happy to see Cam working so hard building these boxes.

I'd like to say that I helped, but that would be a lie. LoL. I am useless when it comes to building things. I just sit on the sidelines and look pretty. =)

Below: Cam bought some nice cedar planks at Home Depot for the new boxes.



The finished product looks amazing. We used untreated wood last year, so the old boxes look really crummy compared to the new boxes. But that's OK. I am not going for architectural look of the boxes, but more of the usability.


As you can see above, we're attempting to gather together the mix for the new beds. We are using Mel's Mix, but having a very hard time finding Vermiculite. Garden centers and the big box stores just don't sell it anymore. And if they do, they sell it in tiny little packages.

Grr...

Anyway, the boxes are pretty huge compared to the old ones, so now the challenge is going to be how do I reach in and harvest veggies that are in the middle of the box? That is the dilemma!

In between all our boxes, we're going to put in a stone walkway. I think it'll look very pretty when it's all said and done, and we won't have to mow in between the boxes. That will save us a lot of time!



I'd like some more boxes, so we may be building more later this season. Since it feels like spring weather outside, I think it's not too late to start planting lettuce and other leafy greens!

We bought these lettuce heads at Whole Foods in Franklin, TN the other day. We're going to make a delicious salad with it, and also plant it in our new beds. Doesn't it look yummy?

I wonder what type of lettuce it is. It's definitely not head lettuce, which we grew last year in the garden.


We also bought this greenhouse-type thing:

It was on sale for $25, and the shelves are removable.

I can't wait until the weekend to do major work in the garden!

** Update 2015 **

I no longer veggie garden, and now currently running a baby boutique called Preggie Baby Boutique. Thanks for visiting this blog! It's wonderful to see that I'm still getting visitors regularly. 

Broccoli

This is my first year attempting to grow broccoli. So far, the broccoli isn't doing so well. But I think this is because it's in such close proximity to the boysenberry and strawberry plants. It probably does need more room to grow, but space is tight until Cam and I built more boxes or raised beds.





The broccoli leaves are getting eaten by something... I'm not sure what. We've been spraying organic insecticide but the bugs continue to come. I've read that aphids and caterpillers love to eat broccoli leaves, and that a good way to get rid of them is sprinkling cayenne pepper powder on top. I may try that, if I see more holes in the plant.

I am wondering if my moisture problem in the beds are not good for the broccoli. They do like well-drained soil. The soil mixture in the beds retains moisture very, very well. Hmm...

It might be too warm for broccoli... I guess we'll see how it does.

Strawberries Everywhere!

What started as one Strawberry plant has spread to about three or four plants in box # 2. I only picked one strawberry last year... and this year, I'm going to have many, many. (If the birds don't get to them first!)

The strawberry plant that I had in the pot last year died and is no more. But the one in the box--I am just so surprised at how it came back with a kick!


(Yup, there is indeed netting over it!)

I am so excited about all the fruit that I'll be getting! It is just wonderful! The fruit is very small, but they'll be edible and yummy!




The strawberry flowers are very pretty to look at. White petals with a touch of yellow inside.

Boysenberry, Year # 2

My boysenberry bush came back this year! Last year, it fruited like crazy, but sadly, all the birds got to them before I had even a chance to harvest any. I did get to eat one, but it was rather sour. :-/

Maybe this year, if I leave it on the bush long enough and if I can keep the birds away, I'll have a wonderful harvest and abundance to munch on. Hopefully, they will be sweeter too!

I've put up bird netting around the bush. Can you see it in the picture below?


Can you see how beautiful and abundant that bush is? I think it's the best purchase I've ever made! They grow so well and so full. Sadly, it's only for the month of May that it'll be so green and fruiting. But I'm glad it comes back again next year.

The flowers of the boysenberry are a lovely white color with the fruit in the middle. The plant itself is full of little thorns, so when it's time to pick the fruit, I'll have to be extra careful.


The plant is getting very tall. But we've got that wire fencing behind it, so that it can climb up rather than out.

Some up-close photos of the fruit. These were taken right after a good rain.

Going Heirloom

This year, Cam and I are trying to grow more heirloom varieties of plants, so that we can save the seeds for next season. Almost all of our tomato varieties are heirlooms.

Last year, we planted the majority of our tomatoes in box # 1, but this year, they are growing in box # 3. I think they can succumb to certain diseases if in the same spot year after year. We'll see how this box does.

We are growing about ten Tula tomatoes and five cherry/grape tomatoes in one box. They're planted on opposite side of the box with herbs and mints in between.

So far, they seem to be weathering OK, considering the chilly weather and many, many rainy days we've had.

You can see the old owl in the background. He did little to ward off the birds last year... but I think he's a cute decoration so he'll get to stay in the garden. I'm probably overusing bird netting this year, but I guess it's better to be safe than sorry.

As you can see, the tomatoes are still very little. We planted the seeds in one of those seed-starter kits you buy at Lowe's or Home Depot. When the seedlings were ready, we planted them in the box. We lost several to cutworms, and the straw method seems to work... We haven't seen any cutworms since.


For those interested, Black from Tula Tomatoes are a dark reddish black tomato with a rich flavor from Russia. Apparently, they are very delicious. Heirloom and organic. Cam is very excited about them. I'm more excited about the cherry/grape tomatoes, since those tend to produce faster and I don't have to wait as long to harvest them. (I am very impatient person!)

I bought our seeds from Seed Savers Exchange: http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=251

Concord Grapes Came Back

I was very pleasantly surprised that my concord grapes came back this year. However, I think they are only producing leaves and no fruit. Lots and lots of leaves!

Cam and I were reading that grapes need well-drained soil to thrive. I'm afraid those boxes really hold moisture well. The soil seems to very damp inside, so the square foot boxes were probably not the best place to plant those grapes . . . Oops, it's a bit too late. I guess that's a mistake I'll have to live with.

I do wonder how much the grapes have rooted since last year. Is it too late to transplant them somewhere else? Would that kill them?

I think the soil may be contributing to why they are not fruiting but instead growing lots of new leaves. Opinions anyone?

First Attempt at Blueberries

Another first in the garden this year are the blueberries. I bought two blueberry plants at Lowe's recently and planted them next to each other. Both looked very healthy; one was already flowering. And now I have the very beginnings of blueberries!

Sadly, all the blueberries are on the same plant (plant #2) . I am hoping plant #1 catches up soon--so far, it seems to be growing leaves instead of flowers.

Blueberry plant # 2 is very plentiful. And I am so excited.


As you can see in the second picture, this plant has many, many bunches of blueberries. I have read online that birds absolutely love blueberries. So I am going to have to put netting over plant # 2 very soon.

I would love to share the blueberries with the birds, but sadly, I don't have a huge blueberry garden... so the birds will have to stay away! I can't wait until this ripens!

Does anyone watch Jeff Poppen, the Barefoot Farmer, on PBS on Volunteer Garden? (http://www.barefootfarmer.com/) Recently, there was an episode and he talked a little bit about growing blueberries. He said that they can take 6-8 years before they are plentiful and give lots of fruit. I don't doubt that. My little plants are very low to the ground right now, but I am looking forward to watching them grow in the upcoming years.

The Barefoot Farmer also mentioned that blueberries grow much better if you put different varieties next to each other. It's better for cross-pollination.

Plant # 1 and Plant # 2 are the same variety, so I am now in the hunt to find a different variety of blueberry. Blueberries are one of my favorite fruits.

Something new: Topsy Turvy

I'm trying something new this year: The Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter. It's one of those "As Seen on TV" things, but Cam and I thought it was very cool, so we decided to give it a try.

For Easter, we set one up for my 94 year old American Grandmother. She used to love to garden, but now because of her age, it's not something she can safely do. We put the topsy turvy on her porch, planted two cherry tomato plants in it, and hung it low enough so that she can water it without any discomfort. So far, her tomato plants seems to be growing fine in it.

At Cam's house, we "planted" two Mr. Stripey tomatoes in the Topsy Turvy. We hung it on one of the satellite dishes in the backyard.


It was very easy to set up. All you do is slip your plants through the hole at the bottom and fill it with potting soil (with time-release vegetable fertilizer). It did become very heavy, though, once the soil was added. It's a two-person job!

I am very interested in seeing how this works. If it works.

According to the company's Website (http://www.topsygardening.com), you can use the topsy turvy to grow fresh herbs, zucchini, eggplant, and even peppers. It apparently also minimizes pests and diseases because your plant is above ground. Hmmm.... We''ll see.

We paid about $10 for this at Wal-Mart, so it won't be a total loss if this fails.

At least I won't have any problems with cutworms with the topsy turvy! I'm excited about the Mr. Stripey tomatoes too! But more about that once it begins to fruit! I can't wait!

Spring Garden Update

Hi Everyone,

I have officially started to garden again in the garden. I'm getting a late start, mostly because I was unsure of when to start. We've had several cold spells in the Nashville area, lots of rain, and a tornado that came through Murfreesboro (a small town an hour away from Nashville).

It's almost May, so summer is practically here, but I started to plant seeds and transplant seedlings into the garden. I'm still using the square foot boxes, but I'm letting them "go wild" this year--no wooden bars to separate smaller boxes.

We have some herbs and fruit that came back this year, and I'll be blogging about those later this week. I am going to try to blog at least once a week, but depending on my work schedule, I may not be able to blog as much as I did last year. Blogging does take a lot of time, so I'll do my best.

This spring/summer season, I've growing the following in my garden:

* Broccoli
* Black from Tula tomatoes (Heirloom)
* Cherry/Roma tomatoes
* Mr. Stripey (Heirloom)
* Peas
* Red cabbage
* Crookneck Squash
* Onions
* Garlic
* Oregano
* Sage
* Sweet Basil
* Stevia

If Cam and I have more time this summer, we're going to build either raise beds or more square foot boxes to grow even more vegetables.

I know it's getting a little late, but I haven't started any lettuce or spring mixes yet. I hope to be able to do that soon. (Hopefully before the heat comes).

I am extremely excited about all the different varieties of vegetables and mints I've started.

Cutworms are the biggest pests that we've faced in the garden this year. They've cut all of the bush beans seedlings that we planted in the garden, three heirloom tomato plants, and three of the peas that we're attempting to grow.

We didn't have any luck growing peas last year because we planted them so late in the season; it was already June when we tried. But with these cutworms, I am worried they're not going to survive this year either. *sigh*

These are the only pea plants that are remaining:



I think we'll try bush beans again later this summer. To combat these evil villains, we've cut plastic straws into 2-3" sections and wrapped them around the stems. Hopefully, this will work and we can save our remaining plants.

We got the idea of plastic straws after reading this gardening forum:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg0319423621784.html

If you are interested, there are photos of the process on the forum.

Info on cutworms can be found here: http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/M1225.html

I've found the U of Minnesota's Website extremely helpful.

-DP

Happy Winter from Luka and DP

Hi All!

I wanted to take a few minutes to wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope the new year will be wonderful for everyone... and for all the flowers, plants, and veggies!

It's been pretty nice in TN. I think if I had done more research into growing winter vegetables, I would have been able to pull it off this year. We've only some extremely cold days, but recently, it's been pretty warm outside!

-DP

P.S. Some pictures of Luka from Christmas. She's about 9 months old now (maybe 10).

Goodbye... Til Next Spring

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to let you know that I am taking the winter away from blogging... And I will return next spring when my plants are starting to sprout and form.

I'll be reading your blogs as often as I can, though I don't know if I'll have the time to comment. I hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed Christmas season!

Take care!
-DP

P.S. I leave you with some photos of Luka... watching Frasier on TV.

Apple Tree Pruning

Remember those beautiful apples (above) from our very plentiful apple tree? By summer's end, the limbs were out of control--way too many apples. The tree had begun to slant, but it was too heavy for us to straighten out.

A few weeks ago, we picked all the apples that we could save. I made the apple jam and some apple sauce; we gave buckets of apples away to friends.

Then, recently, we started to trim the tree. We trimmed everything, and now our two once-plentiful apple trees are now just bark...



It will come back next year, and I hope the apples return as well. I have no luck with trimming trees, but the trees do look much neater now, and we've used straps to pull them up as straight as we can.

Any tree trimming/pruning at your home?

Happy Birthday... To Me

Today is my 24th birthday. I've always hated having my birthday in November. It's always a bit chilly, and I'm not a fan of the cold weather. (and it's cold and a bit wet too... Grrr.. Why couldn't I have gotten sunny weather! Oy! LoL).

For my birthday, I wanted to share with you my one and only doll...She's an Adora doll. I picked her out because she looks exactly like me when I was a baby. How rare is that?

Check out her photo and my baby photos... (can you tell who is who?)


Doesn't she look a lot like me? She's one of only 700 dolls that were produced, and I think she's just precious. Cam bought her for me for Christmas last year. We saw her at an old-fashioned European toy store in downtown Franklin, TN, and I just had to have her. She cost about $120-130 bucks, and I absolutely love her.

She sleeps/lies in this toy crib that I bought. (The Adora accessories were way too much money).


Now some up-close photos...

And here's the baby in her entirety. Her outfit is pretty cute too!


Okay, so I probably went a little obsessive with the photos. But how often do you have a doll that looks a lot like you when you were a baby? Almost exactly.

My mom says she's like my baby clone, that's how freaky it is. When I first got her, my mom used to hold her and just squeal at how much she looked like me... And now I love her... because maybe my kids will look like an Adora doll. How cool would that be?

Anyway, enjoy your weekend!
-DP

Now officially 24 years old!

Fall Leaves

I apologize for the lack of posts. With the fall weather, there's not much to post about. There are a few things still growing in the garden, but nothing new has gone in. I think we're going to wait until next year as we begin to plan what we'll be growing.

Today I wanted to show you some photos of beautiful leaves that grace my yard. It's my next-door-neighbor's tree, but when it's sunny outside, the orange color fills the windows in the front door and in the kitchen, it's magnificent.


This photo was taken a few days ago, but isn't the tree so pretty? The orange color still remains on the tree, but its leaves have started to fall. It's not too cold in Nashville yet, but we've had a few cool/frosts I believe. All of our indoor plants are now safely in the house. In the upcoming weeks, I'll be posting photos of the last days of the outside garden as well as some of our indoor plants.

Enjoy the fall!

The Last of the Apples and Apple Jam

The last of this year's apples were so perfect and ripe that I decided that I would make apple jam. I guess there's no such thing because I've never seen it at the store. It's always apple butter or apple preserves.

I used a package of pectin and followed the directions to make the jam. It's delicious and sweet, but the consistency and taste are a bit like apple sauce. It's a little thicker than apple sauce, but still it's pretty liquidy.

Next year, I think I will just make apple sauce and can it. The apples were perfect and were so delicious.

Here are a few photos.

The Last of the Tomatoes and Luka

When the frost killed all the tomatoes, I took Blogger Tina's advice and put all the green ones in a paper bag. It will be going in the garage, and I guess we'll see if I will get to taste any ripe garden tomatoes soon...

Below: Beautiful green tomatoes


As I look back on this summer, I will miss these ripe tomatoes the most. They were so tasty and so delicious in my salads. Store-bought tomatoes just don't taste the same; they are too watered down. Now that I've tasted the real thing, I don't think I can ever go back. I have to wait until next summer and try to grow some more.

I may be planting a few seeds in pots and place them in the sun room, and hopefully it'll be like a green house for these seeds and maybe I can have some veggies in the winter. We'll see if this experiment works out.

In the meanwhile, it's time for a Luka update. Skeeter mentioned that I should've posted pictures of Luka for Halloween... but I forgot, so here's my belated Luka pictures. As you can see in the photos, she's been a busy kitten... (and it's very hard to take photos of her cute little face)




Now that we're starting to bring a lot of our potted plants inside, I'm trying to keep Luka away from them. She really does like to eat those leaves, and I noticed that she ate some rose petals (from a vase on the living room table) when we were away... And then she threw up... and it was not pleasant to clean up. So I bought her some pet grass at the pet store, and hopefully this will keep her thirst for greenery away from other plants.

I'm keeping my eye on her!

Planning For Next Year

Cam and I have started to plan for our garden next year. We decided not to purchase seedlings next spring, but to plant heirloom seeds. We figure if we can save the seeds from all our heirloom vegetables, it will save us in the long run.

We may have gotten ahead of ourselves, but we purchased many, many seeds for various vegetables. Some of them I can probably plant this fall, but I'm not sure what. Is it too late?

Here's what we purchased. What do you think? Which can we plant now that won't die with the intermittent frosts? Also, what's the best way to save the seeds? Do I need to freeze them?

America Spinach
Monnopa Spinach

Calabrese Broccoli
Dragon Carrot
Scarlet Nantes Carrot
Country Gentleman Corn
Bushy Cucumber
Boothby's Blonde Cucumber
Seed Savers Lettuce Mixture
Australian Brown Onion
Yellow Onion
Amish Snap Pea
Alma Paprika Pepper
Orange Bell Pepper
Early Scarlet Globe Radish
Blacktail Mountain Watermelon
Amish Paste Tomato
Black from Tula Tomato
Cherry Roma Tomato
German Pink Tomato
Italian Heirloom Tomato
Brandywine Tomato
Boston Favorite/Eating
Dwarf Gray Sugar Pea
Stowell's Evergreen Corn
Early Snowball Cauliflower
Buran Pepper
Apollo
Long Island Improved Brussel Sprout
Blue Solaize Leek
Star of David Okra
Purple Top White Globe Turnip
Amish Melon
Double Yield Cucumber
Lao Green Stripe Eggplant
Copenhagen Market Cabbage
Mammoth Red Rock Cabbage
Chioggia Beet
Detroit Dark Red Beet

Lots of dead things....

Today's post is short and sweet. This week's light frost has killed almost all of my plants. Even drapping the cloth over the tomato plants didn't help them. All of the green summer leaves have withered and only sadness remains.

I'll post pictures of the sad garden this weekend.

The only thing that currently survives are the carrots. The leaves are still green, and I'll be harvesting those soon.

How did your garden do?

Cold Weather and Bell Peppers

It's been a bit on the nippy side in Nashville. My tomato plants have been growing strong, despite the cold, but this weekend's cold weather has given me quite a chore. I had to find a way to cover up all my plants to protect them from any chance of frost. Cam and I read that you could cover them up with bed linens, if you didn't have the fancy plant weather protectors. So far, the plants look safe and snug and green underneath the linens. We'll see how they hold up if or when the weather decides to warm up. Nashville weather is always a bit unpredictable.

Here's something I wasn't expecting--my bell peppers seem to be ALIVE! After staying dormant and fruit-less all summer, I had given up on them. But I guess they like the colder weather because they are really growing quite well.

Below: One of the bell peppers out back

I really don't think this is a green bell pepper. It looks like a huge mix between jalapeno and bell, but when we bought it, it said bell pepper. I read that peppers can cross-pollinate, but I don't think this is the case for this plant. It's nowhere near any other variety of peppers. It was planted next to a purple bell pepper and a red bell pepper. Anyway, maybe Lowe's labeled the seedling incorrectly...

We've picked this particular pepper, and the flavor was mild enough to eat in a salad. Pretty tasty!

Below: Bell Peppers from the Front


These peppers will hopefully ripen into beautiful red bell peppers.

I'm excited about the bell peppers actually doing great! I guess the cold weather hit the spot, and maybe they didn't grow well in the heat. Or my bell peppers are just special. Whatever the reason, I am pleased!