Seed Bomb Sunday!

Sorry for the little hiatus.  I had every intention of continually posting but between life and the holiday season, I lost track of time and now it's the middle of December.  Sigh.

Anyway, in the handmade, gift giving spirit, I decided to make seed bombs for a friend who loves zinnias but due to physical limitations can't garden as much anymore.  I thought the seed bombs would be perfect since you can just throw it out in a bare, sunny space and let them just do their thing.

November Garden Update 2013

It's been a busy weekend.

Rescued a Woolie Bear Caterpillar....

He/she now lives in one of my half barrels that I've prepped with a layer of grass and dead leaves to compost during the winter...

Arrival of Jack Frost in the Garden

The first frost came early this year!  Last year, the first frost came on Nov. 6th!!  This year, October 24th.  I think we're in for a bad winter!! BAD!  I'm O.K. with cold but snow?  Not really. 

Well, the one good thing that happened with the first frost is that my crazy, mind-of-its-own pumpkin plant finally croaked.

I thought at one point that it would start climbing up the house. :-P

Transplanting Strawberry Plants + Other Garden Surprises

It's been rainy, rainy, rainy all week!!  The plants are loving it and so am I since I haven't had to get up early to water!!  Being that it's rainy and overcast outside, it's also a good time to transplant my new strawberry plants. 

When Squirrels Attack + Happy Garden Surprises

This is about the time the squirrels go crazy.  They just have digging on the brain. My raised beds look like Swiss cheese lately and I'm finding acorns and peanuts stuck in the dirt in the beds.  Crazy squirrels.  And when they attack?  This is the result...

Fall In The Garden

The weather is changing here!! It seems a little early compared to last year, but I welcome it.  I've been trying to clean up my psycho garden.  I've chopped down a lot of my squash plants and finally pulled out my melon plants.  All but one tomato plant have been pulled out.

Labor Day Weekend: My Psycho Garden + If You Grow It, They Will Come

Happy Labor Day Weekend!!  Here's what's happening in the garden:

MADNESS!!!

The garden has turned wild, crazy, out-of-control!!  This weekend and probably the rest of the week will probably be my clean up/prep-for-the-fall week.

Desert King Watermelon

This season, I grew a yellow fleshed heirloom watermelon called Desert King.  I had very high hopes since I don't care for the typical red fleshed varieties. I'm not a big watermelon eater especially the conventional variety that's sold in grocery stores because of the strong watermelon flavor.  This year, I was a bit disappointed.

August 2013: Garden Update + Hugelkultur

It's AUGUST!!  AUGUST! This summer is really going by fast!  I've been trying to get all my fall crops in before Sept.  I sowed mustard seeds and lettuce seeds but of course, it's become a buffet for my slug population.  Thankfully, some have survived and sprouted but I ended up having to sow more seeds, which sadly were eaten within a day.  So, I decided to start mustard seeds indoors using wet paper towels!!

This is the komatsuna.  They germinated in a day and this pic is from today, DAY 2.  I'll be able to set these guys out tomorrow morning.  The Korean mustard is being started using the moist paper towel method, too.  Apparently, carrot seeds can also be germinated this way if germination is an issue.  I've never had a problem with carrots but it's good to know!

July Update: Harvest+ Clean Up + Fall

It's the end of July!! The summer seems to be flying.  It's been a busy, busy weekend.  I lost two days during the week due to a freak'n cold.  I literally slept for two days and spent any time awake stuffing myself with spicy, super hot soups and stews.  I was eating my weight and then some in food and I think it worked since yesterday, I felt almost 100% with tons of energy!! 

Anyway, end of July means harvest time in these parts... 

July 2013: Garden Update

It's July already!! Where did the time go?  I LOVE July because the watermelons and melons are in full swing!!  I spent the 4th with family and left the garden to do its own thang.  I came back to total chaos!!  With all of the rain we've been getting, the garden just went crazy and took over the yard. I LOVE IT!!  That's my kind of chaos!! Nature taking back the hood. The grass and weeds were so overgrown in the melon/watermelon bed and my winter and summer squash plants just took off crawling out of the beds!!!

These are the summer and winter squash plants. 

What's Growing: Watermelons, Melons and Long Beans

Things are happening overnight these days.  I love it!!  It's nice to see something you've never grown before do well like these Chinese Long Beans...

They are full of beans and growing like crazy!!  I'm surprised that they haven't been affected with mildew or insects by now. 

June 2013: Garden Update

I love June.  My plants are filling out the raised beds and the summer crops are starting to fruit.  It's amazing and lush right now and by the end of this month, it'll be even better.... I hope!  Here's how the garden is looking now...

I don't know but writing everything I did last year may have paid off. Everything is growing a nice dark, healthy GREEN as opposed to the light green last year. I have consciously tried not to water too much and to fertilize regularly, which I royally failed to do last year.

Bucket Composting

Two years ago, I really wanted to compost outdoors in addition to using my fabulous worms.  At the time I was living in an apartment with a balcony so I decided to do it on a very, very small scale using a little red bucket. 

Total experiment, but it worked really well and fast relatively speaking!

Bunny Chronicles 2013

So from the beginning, I wanted to garden by working with nature and not fighting nature.  Of course, you fight certain aspects like bad bugs, slugs, which I continually battle right now, and bad weather, but for the most part, I don't want to spend a lot of energy fighting.  Period.  Last spring, we had 4 baby bunnies born in our yard and one stayed; we called her "our bunny" because she seemed to recognize us and had a very relaxed attitude when I was out in the garden.  Anyway, I didn't fence off my garden last year nor did I do it this year. The bunnies never damaged a whole lot last year.  When they were babies, they definitely nibbled and the only plant that really got damaged was my sugar snap peas that I did fence off eventually, but beyond that, when the babies grew up, they stuck to munching our lawn. I'm sure our neighbors think we're absolutely nuts!!

Anyway, this year, our bunny showed up with a friend!!

May: The Garden So Far

We're now into late spring, I guess, and it's cold!!  This morning it was in the upper 40s.  Last year around this time, we were already deep into the 80s and only getting hotter.  As much as I complain about the cold, I'm glad we've actually had a spring season this year.  So here's what's going on in the garden now....

So everything I grew in the fall/winter has or is going to seed now.  These are the collards above.  They'll start putting out little green bean like pods and I'll actually be able to collect seeds this year!

Spring Garden Update

This morning I planted out my Korean peppers and Riesentraube tomatoes.  Besides slugs eating everything in sight, the expanded garden is doing o.k.

Early Spring Harvest + Bunny Sighting

This is the first and last spinach harvest for early spring.  I overwintered spinach this year and they did SOOOO much better than when I tried planting in early spring. Besides some minor damage from slugs, the spinach grew bigger and healthier than my spring spinach and avoided these guys....

Confessions of a Seed Hoarder: Sharing and Collecting

This Easter weekend (Happy Easter BTW) started with a frenzy of planting and dirt slinging!

My dirty fingernails are proof that growing season has begun!!!  This time of the year is definitely my happiest.  I always look forward to warmer weather and starting seeds and planting out seedlings. I naturally get up much earlier (farmer's hours, I call it) and itch to get outside.

Update: Garlic the Wild Card

Last year, I had my garden planned out.  I knew what I wanted to grow and incorporated experimental vegetables and fruit and then, my cousin gave me giant cabbages; a veggie I had no plans to grow at all.... the wild card. I gave away 3 and kept 1 and surprisingly, even with neglect and cabbage worms, I harvested a cabbage.