Gardening: What I Have Learned + Sketchy Seeds

Gardening has been a real learning experience.  I've learned that I still need to work on my timing when it comes to planting, that bad insects are really bad, that I usually over-water and that most plants can survive with a lot less water.  I've also learned that I can grow lettuce.

I can definitely grow watermelons, and that no matter how abusive you are to Vates (the collard variety I'm growing) they will survive.

The Weekend: Final Winter Prep + Bachelor Radish Kimchi!

This weekend has been a busy one so far.  Winter is upon us now and the temps. have been dipping in the evenings to somewhere around 35 to 40 degrees for the past couple of nights.  Most of my veggies can withstand a bit of cold but I still wanted to get ready for the freeze.  Earlier on, I had built hoops out of PVC pipes.  They seem to be o.k. but wobbly.  I'm going to see how they do this winter and if it turns out the hoops aren't stable enough, I'll clamp them down to the sides of the beds. The "sand worms" were a total FAIL!!  They tended to leak sand if it rained and weren't heavy enough to hold the plastic sheeting down.  The good thing was that putting up the plastic when I did was premature anyway; it got really warm again, which gave me a chance to rethink the whole plastic situation.  In the meantime, the sand worms that I had made, I've been using to secure my tulle netting.

R.I.P. Orangeglo Watermelons + First Fall Harvest

Yesterday,  I went to check the last watermlon...

My other watermelon had been attacked by some critter and became worm food.  Well, there is a reason why they tell you to keep your melons off the ground because my last watermelon became worm food, too.  :-(  Oh well. It was time to kill the plant anyway.

Weekend Winter Garden Prep, Day 2

I spent the afternoon yesterday continuing the garden prep for the winter.  I had to figure out how to secure plastic sheeting over my hoop tunnels and came up with skinny sand worms, :-)

I just bought nylon utility fabric and stitched them into long tubes.  I bought the cheapest bag of sand from the hardware store and filled them up.  They seem to work pretty well so far.

Bye Amish Paste Tomato Plant

It's cold.  My face is cold, my fingers are cold.  It's cold.  What happened??  It feels like we just went right into winter. I think the first fall frost date is supposed to be around Oct. 31st here, but I think it's coming early!! It got really cold last night so I ended up covering some of my beds to protect them just in case it actually got frosty; and because of the drop in temp, I decided to kill my lone tomato plant today.  Of the three varieties of tomatoes I planted this year, I had one Amish Paste tomato plant that out performed all of the others.  It became this monstrosity that decided to use my Korean pepper plant's cage for added support.

Mind the Chives and Other Weird Garden Things

So if I've ever given you garlic chive seeds or plants, I hope I warned you. :-P  I usually am pretty good about being honest about my garlic chives and their ability to never die! If I didn't warn you, I am deeply sorry!  I will tell you now, please mind your chives!!!

I thought I had contained my chives by growing them in a container and in one of my raised beds, but I was SOOOOO WRONG!

My Not So Relaxing Vacation Week

This past week was my first week off!! A real vacation. OMG! Great, right?  Sleep in, watch a bunch of TV, spend the whole week in pajamas.  Yeah, I suck at vacations. I have a hard time doing nothing.  I think I spent one day sleeping in and being a couch potato but then the rest of the week, I pretty much spent it thinking up stuff to do like preserving herbs. It was "thyme" to dry thyme....

Olla Chicas!

Yesterday was a busy day.  Having a 3 day weekend pushes me into overdrive sometimes.  Besides doing more fall cleaning in the garden, I was drying peppers, putting up seeds that I collected in paper envelopes and making OLLAS!

Finally!! Watermelons!

I've been waiting for 107 days for this!!!  The bottom was my second watermelon.  It actually had a huge split and when I went to cut it open, it just cracked!  I didn't even apply much pressure.  Juice was just oozing everywhere! YUM!!! I guess this is our dessert tonight!!!

Low Ride'n: Low Tunnel Hoop Houses

I decided to try to extend my growing season for the fall by building hoop houses.  Winters here can be unpredictable; sometimes warmer than usual, sometimes a snow storm or two, but I figure hoop houses will extend my growing season long enough for some cool weather crops throughout winter regardless. And of course, I'm on a budget so my DIY hoops needed to be cheap!

Basically for 3, 4 ft. X 4 ft. raised beds, I used 6, half inch diameter X 10 ft. long PVC tubes and one, 1 inch X 10 ft. long tube and 1 hacksaw.  I cut the one inch diameter tube into eight, 6 inch high tubes for the corners of my two lower sided beds and four, 12 inch high tubes for my higher sided bed.  The cut tubes were then buried into the corners of the beds and the 1/2 inch diameter tubes were bent and inserted into the buried tubes.

Fall Garden Clean Up + Felt Pot vs Plastc Pots Update

This morning I started my garden clean up for my fall planting.  It was perfect since we had a storm last night that really soaked the garden. I really want to plan ahead so I don't have to do so much in the spring.  I feel planting now will give me veggies throughout the winter AND get me ahead of the game for spring!!

Boooo...End Rot!!!

This is my third watermelon or I should say was my third watermelon.  I'm so sad.  The poor thing had to be sacrificed for the good of the rest of the crop.

Kimchi + Tomato + Frog + Mulch Weekend

Pickles.  I love pickles- dill, bread & butter, relish- LOVE pickles.  But, I don't know how to make Western pickles because I didn't grow up canning or pickling them.  I do know Korean style pickling! So, what to do with 1 small green cabbage and a couple of cucumbers from the garden?

KIM CHEEEEEEE!

Tuesday Morning Garden Guest

I guess the garden has enough insects.  Hope he sticks around for a spell!

First Real Harvest + Garden Update

The garden has been doing great so far (knock on wood).  In the last several months, I've been harvesting this and that throughout the season ( kale and collards, 1 or 2 cucumbers) but none of my crops have ever ripened all at the same time until this morning!! Today was the first time that I was able to harvest more than 1 or 2 things from the garden....

Seeds!!!

I'm a psycho seed hoarder.  I admit it.  My kitchen table is now a seed saving station. Not only am I saving seeds from the plants growing in my garden, I am buying them, too. I LOVE buying seeds!  The growing season isn't anywhere close to ending and I'm already planning for fall and next spring. Psycho.... but I love the whole gardening process.  I really do.  If I could re-live my life and knew what I knew now, I would be a farmer or go into some aspect of horticulture.

I recently bought these from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds....

Viva Pinata Gardening + Update

Years ago, I was totally addicted to Viva Pinata.  I've never been interested in video games and still don't care for them but this particular game was different.  There was no shooting or killing of other people or zombies, you planted a garden and attracted pinata animals and insects.  Then you proceeded to nurture your plants and animals and from the produce you grew or the baby animals you raised you could sell them to make money.  It was fun because when you had the right amount of plants or the right types of plants, you could attract animals, which in turn attracted other animals, etc. etc. I played for a while until the new version came out and pretty much lost interest because I wanted to do it for REAL!  I honestly feel that working with nature is better then working against it and like in Viva Pinata, I really wanted to grow a garden that attracted beneficial insects and animals with the plants I grew.   I know in a previous post, I was thinking of fencing off my garden and I do see the necessity in it (even in Viva Pinata, you can buy fencing materials).  I did have to finally fence off my sunflower and cosmos beds since the baby bunnies were 1) using it as a race track and just running back and forth in it and 2) they LOVED eating my cosmos to the point where there were bald spots in the beds.  I finally had enough and it was time to discipline the bunnies.

Felt Pots vs Plastic Pots

May 2012

So I bought these felt growing pots because 1) They had rave reviews about plants growing bigger and better and leaping over tall buildings. 2) They were fairly cheap 3) I thought they would be great since they fold up so they don't take up a whole lot of space.  Well...... 

Summer in the Garden

The sugar snap pea LIVES!!!  And it has flowered!!

It's surprising how fast it recovered after the bunny attack.  I was sure it would die like the other two. :-(  The pea seeds that I planted later have sprouted but look puny right now.  I hope they do well.

Hello, Summer!!!

Well, we went from 80 degrees to 90 degrees overnight here in the South. I'm just glad we had a little bit of Spring this year.  Sadly, tragedy occurred in the garden yesterday.  This guy...

and his family visited the yard the night before.  It was cute watching the parent rabbit and this baby bunny and his sibling running around our yard, but then, I woke up to find 2 of my sugar snap peas had been taken out!!  They ate just the stems and left the rest of the plant hanging.  Can you believe that?!! I wish I had taken pics of what I woke up to the other day but I was so upset! Here's how the plants look now...

 

I'm down to 1 semi- o.k. sugar snap pea plant.  I'm so sad!! But then I realized while examining the damage that all of this water was oozing out of the chomped stems.  I think the bunnies were thirsty. :-(  I'm still miffed though.