Wednesday, March 30, 2011

(Mostly) Wordless Wednesday--busy day on the farm-like trailer park lot

Goodness, I've been busy!  I got the whole house picked up, ran the sweeper, took the kids to tap class, went to the library, made yogurt, made laundry detergent, transplanted the lettuce to a planter box, did a ton of laundry (why I needed more laundry detergent!), put grids on my raised beds, and made chicken stew with dumplings for dinner!  All in one day!  I still need to do dishes, but I'm getting pretty pooped, so I think rather than writing a lot today, I'll just take you on a visual update of how the garden grows.
This is the garden box that sits right outside the front door.  The grid is to accurately plan and place plants or seeds for maximum effective space usage, per the square foot gardening method.
I peeked under the tarp I had set over the garden bed I overzealously planted on St. Patrick's Day and, to my amazement, there is stuff growing!  I think pictured here are onions, but there were also carrots and spinach peeking up in places!
The leaf lettuce was looking a bit sad to me today, so I decided to move it into a planter that will be just visiting outside for a little bit, then probably moving outside permanently once the weather starts behaving more.  If it works out, I may use this planter to give me lettuce year round (fresh plants at all times, of course)!

These are beans that I saved from last year.  A Facebook friend initially sent me a few last year that had been in her family for generations.  They are pretty cool beans, so I was hoping to get a really big crop of them this year and saved way more than I originally had.  I was storing them in the fridge, but then I noticed to my horror that some were growing mold (despite being stored with a desiccant packet) the other day!  I took them out and disposed of the moldy ones, so I'm hoping that these will be okay!

This is a new addition to my weekly photo updates.  These are my tomatoes!  In the back are the Beefsteak, the middle are the Brandywine, and the Ace 55 are right up front.  Not pictured are the peppers I tried to germinate at the same time.  They seem to be a little slow and I think it is just from the cool temperature we keep the house at, so I put them in my top dresser drawer today to see if the warmer temperature helps.
My broccoli and cabbage that weren't massacred a couple weeks ago (story posted on Facebook at the time).  I'm thinking they are looking antsy to get outdoors as well, but I think it is still a bit early, especially since the soil in my garden boxes is barely thawed (actually still a little chunky in places with ice!).
It looks like the cold snap we've been having should end soon.  It's even starting to get up into the 40s during the day now, so I think by the end of the week, I'll be golden on getting the cold hearty stuff set up outside, since the lows are only going to start dipping into the upper 20s at night, instead of the teens and lower 20s we've been having.  It's slow going this time of year, but when that warmer weather hits, I'll be ready!

3 comments:

  1. Your little garden looks great. I laughed at cool beans.

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  2. Peppers need light to germinate. It also takes about 10 to 14 days. I tried to germinate some under a grow light and it took more than 3 weeks. I then planted some in flower pots on the back deck and they came up in about a week. Try moving them out in the sun.

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