St. Patty's Day Weekend

So this weekend Tony and I are staying home. It's 82 degrees and too hot for the potato and cabbage soup I had planned, and since I haven't come across any grass fed beef or even lamb recently I won't be cooking anything Irish today. This is the first time in several years I won't be making corned beef and cabbage with Irish soda bread.

We did work on the garden some today though. I pulled up the "cabbage" plant which did indeed turn out to be Brussels sprouts, just a VERY compact and broad plant with a head bigger than my fist. In the compost pile that I haven't turned recently, there is another Brussels sprouts plant that I pulled up earlier in the season that looks like a proper plant, but the sprouts are miniscule. The big broad plant had sprouts the size of my fingertips, so I picked those all off and Tony and I ate them raw. They were very good! The plant was bolting, so that's why I didn't leave it in the bed. It was interesting to see it bolt, the head split in half and flower heads popped out. Literally overnight I've had oat grass that I'm growing for my cat sprout an inch high where there was no grass before, the hickory trees and red buds have leaves they didn't have yesterday, and the Brussels sprouts bolted (the plant in the compost pile bolted as well). Observing the compost pile as well, we found half a purple cabbage head that started sprouting a new plant from it's center. I really should go out and take photos.

I worked some of my mother-in-law's horse manure into the bed and decided to go ahead and direct plant seeds into the bed since I'm fairly confident we won't be getting another freeze. I'm trying the 4 sisters in the western half of the bed and planted 2 corn, 2 cream peas, 2 sunflower, 1 zucchini and 1 yellow squash. We also used some bamboo stakes to make tipi supports for the peas, zucchini and squash. The English peas also got supports, however they are supposed to stop growing above 85 degrees, so I may not get anything out of them this year. I'm hoping I do. I also think they may be something to try in the fall garden.

Arugula, Kale, Swiss Chard, Carrots and Strawberries

In this week's gardening adventures, I had arugula bolt, kale that has begun to bolt (and if you don't know what bolting is, it's when the plant sends up a flower stalk to produce seed and that means the plant is done producing), a Black Lab mix who ate my peppermint seeds, a cat who ate some of the seedlings I have going in the kitchen, my carrots are starting to look like carrots 6 months after the seeds were planted although they are still maybe half an inch long, my green onions have been taking off again, I have some strawberries growing, and I'm starting to see bees and grasshoppers. Temps have mostly been in the 60s and 70s, although we did hit 80 on March 1.

The first photo is the bolting arugula.


Next is the Swiss chard and carrots.

Strawberries, my mother-in-law's horse manure has given me the largest strawberries I've ever had. I'm not sure what happened with that photo...

Eggplant and Peppers

The weekend of February 11, I started the Fairy Tale eggplant, Shishito peppers and jalapenos. I'm using plastic egg cartons that cradle the eggs by surrounding them in plastic on both sides and a lid that closes over the top. I took the lid off and placed it on the bottom as a drain pan, and fold over the top to create a mini greenhouse. I then placed the egg carton on my stove top, which I have been keeping the oven set at 200 all winter so my female cat has a warm place to sleep now that her brother has passed (I removed the burners so she won't get hurt accidentally).

I figured out last year with our gas stove (which had a pilot light) that the top of the stove is the perfect temperature to germinate seeds after successfully starting some lemon basil on it. I do have a germination mat, but I'm using it to place the seedlings on underneath the newly installed plant light after they germinate.

The jalapenos germinated in just a couple of days and are growing quickly. The Shishito peppers germinated after 5 days and the eggplant after 7 days.

This weekend I am starting my sweet red bell peppers, tomatillos and tomatoes. The weekend of Jan 28 I started some Red Creole onion seeds which started to germinate within a couple of days and new seeds are still continuing to pop up.

This week I added some of my mother-in-law's horse manure to some freshly potted strawberries and romaine lettuce (I don't know that the lettuce is going to make it, I seem to have horrible luck with it). I also worked manure into some potted mint and lavender and tossed some on the top of the raised garden bed. Once everything that is in the current bed matures, then I'll work more back into the soil properly.

The Parisienne carrots I planted throughout the fall are finally starting to develop more leaves than just the first set, and the kale is finally starting to take off. I still have Swiss chard that is alive, just not really producing; the Brussels sprouts are growing as well but resemble a head of cabbage more than sprouts; and the pea seedlings have made it through a couple freezes and snow we had over the past couple weeks (I kept them covered in a folded towel). Oh, and my onions and garlic are growing like gangbusters!

Purchasing Seeds

After pouring over seed catalogs for the past couple of months, today I am ordering seeds so I can attempt to start them indoors over the next few months. I have had mixed results with starting seeds, but I really want to get the hang of it so I can save money by not having to buy transplants.

From D. Landreth Seed Company I ordered a mixture of items: Great Northern Beans, Kidney Beans, Big Red Bell Peppers, Yellow Squash, Feverfew, Zucchini, Sage, Fairy Tale Eggplant, and Queen Anne's Pocket Melon. I'm really excited about the Fairy Tale eggplant, which I bought from a farmer at the wholesale Dallas Farmer's Market and sold at the Saint Jo Farmer's Market in 2010, and Queen Anne's Pocket melon. Tony doesn't care for melons, I think he has a mild allergy, so I wanted something small that I would be able to eat by myself and not get tired of and the Queen Anne's Pocket seems perfect. I can't wait to see what they smell like!

From Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds I ordered tomatoes: Morning Sun, Amish Paste and Atkinson. I was really hoping to get yellow cherry tomatoes again, I grew them in 2010 and had a lot of luck with them, but everyone is sold out so I'm going to try the yellow grape tomato instead. The summer of 2010 I was given tomatoes from a friend at the Saint Jo Farmer's Market, German Queen, and I made the best pizza sauce with them. I'm hoping to do the same with the Amish Paste and as insurance if they or the Cherokee Purple I have don't produce well like this year then hopefully the Atkinson will produce.

The Heat Won't Give Up...

We live in the South, so as much as we long for cooler weather, the heat doesn't want to give up. The next few days we'll be in the mid to upper 90s, if not low 100s and that's not good news for my newly planted fall garden. The varieties I planted are heat tolerant, but not satan's armpit tolerant, so I used a bed sheet to create a tent over the bed. It seems to be working like a charm. I'm still having to keep an eye on the plants at each end because they aren't covered all the time, but they seem to be doing okay with some heavy watering.

In other news, Tony started drilling holes and setting pipes for the plumbing drainage system this weekend and realized he bought some of the wrong parts for the pipes so I'll be making a trip to Home Depot this week so we can work on that more this next weekend.

As for me and my personal projects, I'm looking into switching us to a diet that isn't so heavy with meat and dairy. I'm tired of battling sinus infections and I'm hoping that by eliminating the dairy from my diet it'll clear up the chronic infections. I also watched Forks Over Knives on Netflix and I'm amazed at how a plant heavy diet can reverse so many medical conditions. It's inspired me to figure out more ways to expand our garden beyond the 5-6 raised beds we have planned.

I have several knitting and crochet projects I'm working on, but the one I'm most excited about is the Palindrome Scarf. It may be hot outside and I'm forced to sip iced green tea but I'm daydreaming of winter and mugs of hot green tea. The local/little yarn shop in Fort Smith is closing and she has all her yarn on sale for 50% off. I picked up a couple skeins of a no-pill acrylic in Iron that is super soft. I'm in love with this yarn and so I decided I wanted to teach myself to knit cables with it. The "palindrome" comes from the scarf looking the same on both sides.

Cost of Building Square Foot Garden

Today Tony is putting up insulation in the bathroom and running the plumbing lines. It's not anything he needs much help with, so I'm working on plans for other things like our square foot garden beds. Since we ended up moving in June instead of May, I'm too late for a spring/summer garden, so I'm planning for a fall garden instead.

Tony's mother has had a garden for years. She has always used cinder blocks as a border and when she downsized her garden just over a year ago, she gave us all her extra blocks. I'm going to simply build one garden at a time and since at the moment we only have enough blocks for one or two beds, I thought I'd price the blocks as well as potting mix.

At our local Home Depot, the blocks run $1.53 for 8" x  8" x 16" blocks and $1.09 for 4" x 8" x 16" blocks. We will need a total of 16 of each type of block to make the bed a depth of 12", for a total cost of $41.92.

For the potting mix, a mixture of 1/3 organic compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 vermiculite is recommended. We will need 16 cubic feet of potting mix to fill each bed, although I plan to go a little less than 16 cubic feet to allow space for mulch. Let's say I do 15 cubic feet just to approximate the cost of potting mix. I will need 5 cubic feet of each component. The organic compost I was viewing didn't give a measurement in cubic feet, so I had to do some math. Just in case you ever need to know, there are 1728 cubic inches in one cubic foot (and to measure cubic inches or feet, multiply length x width x height). Each bag of compost is approximately .5 cubic feet at a cost of $1.67 per bag. The peat moss is 3 cubic feet per bag at a cost of $9.75 per bag. Then the vermiculite holds 2 cubic feet per bag at $19.97 per bag. So I will be needing 10 bags of compost, 3 bags of peat moss and 2 bags of vermiculite for a total cost of $85.89.

This will bring my total cost per bed to $127.81. Now since I will have some leftovers from the bags of peat moss and vermiculite and I do have some cinder blocks on hand, my cost will end up being a little less. It may seem expensive to initially build the beds, and it is, but when I consider how much I spend on fresh produce each week, the cost of each bed will pay for itself in one growing season.