Seedlings a growing!

It's almost time to get those seedlings in the ground! My tomatoes are growing nice and strong, no leggy stems here! The eggplant and peppers finally sprouted, so  I might wait an extra week before those go in the  ground. The weather has been gorgeous and my semester is finally over, so I can't wait to get into the garden and plant, plant!  

I got a little ambitious and decided to take over the plot next to me to plant some potatoes and melons, the plot is a mess and hasn't been planted in three years - oy vey!

 My cherry tomatoes and cukes looking good! 

Cilantro - DELISH! 

Kholhrabi, and peppers, and eggplant oh my! 

Garden progress

The  weather here has been gorgeous, which means that plants are growing at the garden - and that makes me happy! My peas have sprouted and are a  couple of inches high already. 

 Yummy lettuce! 

 The slugs are eating my brussel sprouts, so I tried putting some rocks around the plant to see if that will deter them.  Cross your fingers and hope it works!

 I decided to build a strawberry topsy turvy tower so my plants would not take over the garden and yeah, didn't turn out like I had envisioned.  This was super easy to make, I just threaded the pots through a metal rod and tipped them off to each side.  

I am not sure if the pots were too heavy or if the metal rod was too flimsy. Either way, I had to take some pots off.  It still turned out great, just not has high and I wanted.  I can't wait to see this in June, when those plants are spilling over the side! 

I added another tower, but only with two pots. The second pole I bought snapped in half when I was trying to stake it in the ground.  It's so exciting to see them grow! 

How is your garden? 

The joy of vermi-composting!

Last year I decided I was going to start vermicomposting, or worm composting.  So I did all this research, went out an bought my bin and that was it.  I never got around to buying the worms.  So my bin sat for a year, collecting my recycling, I'm sure living a sad existence because it was not contributing to the greater good of the world.  Then last week I decided to get off my ass and just buy them.  A few days later my box arrived and I realized I needed to hurry up and set up my bin! 

Here are some questions you might be asking yourself if you are wondering what in the world is she going to do with worms? 

What is worm composting?

Worm composting is using worms to recycle food scraps and other organic material into a valuable soil amendment called vermicompost, or worm compost. Worms eat food scraps, and basically poop it out in what is called "castings".  

Why compost? 

There are several beneifts to vermi-composting, but the two main reasons for my doing it are so the food doesn't end up in the landfill and so I can use the castings in my garden.  I don't have the space for a compost pile, so vermi-composting fits my apartment living.  The castings are rich in tons of nutrients and are a great addition for organic gardens.  

What type of worms do you use? 

Red wigglers and brown nosed worms work the best, do not use regular earth worms.  I decided to go with red wigglers.

How do you set up the box? 

1. Buy a big plastic tote. I bought an 18 gallon tote. 

2. Drill holes in the sides, bottom, and top.  This is not only for ventilation, but for drainage.  Your worms will produce this fabulous "tea" that can be put in the garden as well. 

But what when you are drilling in the top, you don't bust through. Whoops! 

3. Add several inches of newspaper and cardboard. This is the bedding for the worms.  I would recommend taking several days to shred all this paper, my wrists started to hurt while ripping cardboard.  Not the funnest part of the process. 

 4.  Wet the cardboard.  You do not want it dripping wet as this will drown your worms, but a good bit of moisture is ideal.  I set my bin in the shower and let it soak, you could also pour water into it.  (my picture below is after I added some dirt and food).

 5. Add a bit of dirt.  I've read several places that worms need "grit" to help digest.  You can do this in the form of coffee grounds or dirt. I'm not a coffee drinker so dirt it was for me.

  6. Add a bit of food. Do a small amount so your worms adapt to their new home, they are already in hyper-shock from their journey to you.  They will not start eating everything right away and if you add too much, then you have a fruit  fly problem which is no bueno.   You can feed them almost any fruit and veggie, however too much acid is not good, so limit the citrus.  Also never feed them dairy or meat products, although eggshells are good.  You will start to see what your worms like best by how fast they are eating. They got a bit of kale and carrot leftover from my juicer here. 

7. Add the worms! When you add them, they will be all small and shriveled and you'll wonder if you got ripped off, but the worms are there. They just haven't been feed in a couple of days so they are a bit dehydrated.  

8.  Sprinkle a bit of water on the worm pile, but don't overdo it. Put the lid on and leave your bin in a cool place.  Check on your worms everyday to make sure they are not drying out.  You will want to add about a pound of food everyday once they get adjusted which should take several days.  More on taking care of your worms later. You want to make sure you put another bin underneath the worms to catch the tea later. I had a different size tote laying around and it fit perfectly! 

   

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And they are off!

A week ago, I started seedlings for a whopping 72 plants and within a few days my cherry tomato plants had sprouted.  It makes me a little too happy when I see my seeds have sprouted, it's a small feeling of accomplishment.  Even though those little seedlings have a long way to go before fruiting those delicious little round drops of joy, when they sprout you know they are on their way.  

As soon as my seeds sprout, I take them out of the oven and put them under the grow light.  I do not rely on window light to produce healthy seedlings, I've had much more success putting them under grow lights.  they are not as leggy and have a greater chance of making it to a full plant size.  

How do you start your seedling? 

I also used some tires I collected last year as planters for some squash and beans.  I only have a limited amount of space in the back yard, so I need to maximize my planting.  The is the first time I've used tires so this will be a fun experiment to see how well the plants grow.

  

New seeds for the garden!

For the past few weeks, the weather here has been hitting 75 degrees, so I decided to plant some cool weather veggies outside and finally got around to starting seedlings indoors.  So of course since I planted seeds outside we are going to get a snowstorm and the city will shut down for a week!! HA!

I went to my favorite local organic garden supply store and bought some soil and planted away.  72 seedlings in all!!  I've got cherry tomatoes, Mr. Stripy tomatoes, Sweet Italian Peppers, Asian Eggplant, Red Tail lettuce, and Kholrabi.  I don't think I forgot anything.  In the garden I planted spinach, beets, kholrabi, lettuce, and carrots.  I tried carrots last year and they got to be about 3 inches long. I just decided to throw the seeds in the garden and let nature take its course.  I also planted peas, brussel sprouts and kale.

I have two friends that want to garden with me in the community plot this year, so I am hoping that between the  three of us we will have a kick ass garden with lots of yummies.

Have you started your spring garden yet?  

Leeks after a few weeks!

I posted the other day about some leeks I placed in water to see what would happen.  The picture I posted was after a couple of days. It's been about two weeks and I am really excited about where my leeks are now! The stems are at least 4 inches high!

They dried out a bit while I was out of town, but I expect them to be fine by tomorrow.  I think I am going to buy more leeks to eat and stick in water.  Now I am wondering how many times can I grow leeks from the same root?

Has anyone else done this?

I am a huge fan of leeks.

Which is surprising because they are related to onions and me & onions are not friends.  I love making a bowl of potato and leek soup on a chilly day and the other week was one such occasion.

After cutting the ends off, I has some bits with roots left and I wondered what would happen if I stuck the roots in some water.  Would the leek grow and could I just reuse the roots to grow my own leeks?

So I stuck the ends in some water and set them on the window seal, next to my sweet potato that is  sprouting.

After two days this is what I have:

I am excited to say, they are growing. I am out of town and am excited to see how much they have grown when I return! Stay tuned.

First Cabbage Fermentation

One of my intentions this year was to make more stuff from scratch: bread, cheese, yogurt, etc..  I can now add sauerkraut to that list.  I haven't tasted it yet, but it's in the jar, sitting on my kitchen table looking delish.

I used the basic recipe, cabbage, carrot, salt.  Packed it into a jar and now have to wait.  I don't like waiting, my patience is non existent so waiting for food to ferment is going to seem likes years for me. And although the cabbage looks really good, I am not sure if this type of cabbage makes for good sauerkraut.  I picked it from the summer program that I volunteer.  The school planted a lot of veggies with the kids and I have been going down a couple days a week to work with the kids in harvesting all this food that is ready.  They planted a lot of cabbage that I had not seen before.  It's a dark green, loose head cabbage.  It doesn't grow in a tight head and it's for sure not Napa cabbage.

So I chopped it up, salted it, put it in a bowl and started squeezing to get the juices out.  After a minute I discovered this type of cabbage doesn't have much juice or it's already gotten to tough while growing. So, I added more salt and let it sit on the counter for a bit hoping the salt would draw the juices out.

 After about 2 hours I had a couple of tablespoons of juice, so I packed it into the jar.  Now I must wait.

I will taste it tomorrow to see if the fermentation is taking place.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!

How does your garden grow?

In the past week I've picked almost 20 pounds of blueberries! My freezer is packed with berry goodness.  When  cleaning out my freezer to make room for all the stuff I am going to freeze soon I found four bags of cranberries, three of which that were opened! So much for looking in my kitchen to see what I have before I go grocery shopping.

I finally got around to getting some pictures from the garden.  It's been a week since I visited my plot at the community garden and the grass has taken over.  I seriously need to go down there to do some weeding, but it's so hot! Yes, I am lazy.  You can see my gypsy peppers in there somewhere! My strawberry plants are hidden. 

Everything else is looking great.  Over half my tomato plants are fruiting, hopefully I'll have some tasty tomato goodness soon.  I have two eggplant growing, I am surprised at how small the eggplant plant is, I would have thought it would be much bigger.  I guess because eggplants aren't small.  I picked my first zucchini and squash yesterday and they look tasty! Look can be deceiving because my squash was no so tasty. Very bitter and hard.  I asked a farmer at the farmers market yesterday what might have happened and he said it was either bad seed or it cross bred with a gourd plant.  I don't have any gourds growing nearby, maybe a neighbor at the community plot does.  So we'll see what happens when more start to grow. 

Been a long time coming

The past two weeks have just been beyond crazy! I will give you the highlights and save you from the boring stuff. 

My car broke down outside of Columbus, OH and turns out I had a cracked piston so now I have to buy a new car.  Soooo, tomorrow I pick up my new Honda Fit.


The week after my car broke down, I had to fly to Naples, FL for the Pure Romance Board of Directors trip, and I just returned today.  We did horrible things like go to the beach, lay by the pool, eat  fancy dinners, and go shopping at the Coach store.  We also had some great meetings about changes in the company and networked with amazing women! 

Tomorrow I will post some pictures from the garden, things are growing like crazy!  How is your garden growing?

Remember that pin up  girl photo shoot I did the other week? Well the pictures are in and I FINALLY decided on some I liked.  What do you think?

Garden Update

Today was the big Brunch with Besty Johnson! I ended up not wearing the lace skirt I made but this adorable pink dress I found the other day.  I am waiting to get some pictures from my friend so I should have some in the next day or  two.  There were tons of fabulous hats and outfits at the brunch, and Betsy looked great.  They gave a way a Derby hat designed by Betsy, I didn't win, but the woman who did was very excited.  Betsy will stay in town until Derby is over and is judging the best dressed runway walk at the Oaks tomorrow. 

After the brunch, the afternoon was the first gorgeous, sunny day in what feels like a month so Sadie and I headed out to the dog park to get some exercise.  However, the dog park we visit is near the river and is still flooded so instead we headed to the park to walk some of the trails.  Sadie loves going out into the parks, she  gets so excited and I can't walk fast enough to keep up with her.  Every once in a while she'll turn her head to look at me in a look I interrupt as "Come on mom, you're going too slow!"

After the dog park it was a trip to my favorite gardening store, Bluegrass Organics to buy new containers for my tomatoes.  I noticed last night when watering my seedlings that the roots of my tomatoes were starting to push through the starter containers.  Probably about time I transferred them to larger containers.  Upon  transferring everything I realized I have 12 tomato plants growing.  Holy Moly! I'm gonna have lots of tomatoes to eat and can this year!

After their stunted growth they are now growing like wildflowers! Aren't they pretty?

 

My squash seeds I started haven't germinated yet. Not sure why they are  taking a year and a day to grow.  I didn't get a chance to take some pictures outside, but all my outside veggies are doing great! My beets and kohlrabi are looking good.  I just need to figure out when I will be able to harvest them....


I also started sewing an apron today for my pin up girl photo shoot. I am doing the red version using a vintage floral sheet and a turquoise accent from another sheet.  Hopefully I'll have some pictures for you later.  Off to sew some more. 

News from the Garden

It finally stopped raining long enough for me to take some pictures from the garden.  Some seeds have finally started to sprout! As leaves from the trees start to grow, I realized I probably didn't pick the best spot for my garden, so have decided to do the tomatoes & squash in containers and keep everything else in the garden and keep my fingers crossed!  I am so impatient, I want everything to be edible now! And I keep looking at spaces in my back trying to figure out what I can grow there and won't get destroyed by dogs or random people walking down the back alley. 

But we do have some life! The kale is growing and I plan on harvesting some of it soon! Some plants are bigger than others, haven't figured out why. Maybe it has something to do with the sun.  Or I just have dwarf kale plants. 

The kohlrabi is growing! I just started some more seeds in doors the other day, and will start more in a couple of weeks.

My peas are coming slowly, but surely.  This isn't the best picture.  I have some more I started inside I am going to transplant to a container so they can get some more sun. 

The carrots finally sprouted the other day, I am wondering if the downpour of rain has helped. I might try some more in a container. 

And my beets are growing.  Well, one beet has taken off, the rest are a little slow.  When I planted them, I could have sworn, I planted two boxes of beets, but I have four boxes with sprouts that look the same, two of those boxes are supposed to be spinach, so we'll see what happens in a couple of weeks.

And my brussel sprouts are growing, but something is eating the leaves an I can't figure out what.  A caterpillar maybe.  I need to do some serious research to find out what's going on. 

How's your garden coming along?