Garden Update

It's spring, heading into summer and my garden has taken off!!  Yay!  We've eaten some lettuce, green onions, carrots, cilantro and basil from our little garden and I have learned a lot for the next planting season!  Like for instance, when my Dad comes over and says, "wow, that's a lot of plants in one small space" that actually means - you planted way too much!  I have (sort of) learned how to properly thin though, so hopefully that has made my small little garden a little bit more successful.  I also have learned that if I don't eat cilantro with each meal, and in copious amounts it's probably not necessary to allow all 6 giant plants to grow.  I must also say that it feels very wrong to pull perfectly good plants out of the ground in the name of "thinning", however it must be done for the overall health of the garden...Here are a few pictures of the progress since I last posted

Lemon tree

Tomatoes!!!

The plant is loaded with these everywhere!!

Basil - used some in Turkey burgers last night - it was so yummy!

Carrots and Bell Peppers

Onions, Green Beans

Lettuce, Zucchini and Squash

My Farmers!

  Happy Summer!

Sprouts!!

We have sprouts!!! 

Lettuce!! 

My little lettuce was the first to sprout!  I am so excited!!  Now, I need to figure out how to thin as the instructions state?? 

Zucchini and Squash!

Do you see the ground coming up behind the sprouts from the ones in the foreground?  I love being able to see the seeds actually push the dirt up and sprout through..it's so cool! 

Roma Tomato! 

I think I have bugs!  See the holes in the leaves?  What kind of bugs cause that?  How do I fix it?  My dwarf lemon has a few holes as well, is it from the frost or do I have bugs??? 

So fun to look down the planter and see some green starting to sprout up!! 

 (The pipe was my frame for the greenhouse)

Now off to google how to organically get rid of bugs and properly thin your garden sprouts!  Happy Spring!

A Frozen Garden?

My poor little fledgling garden, not even a week old and the forecast a few days ago was calling for super cold rain and snow possibly down at 1500/1000 ft.. What???  The forecast has since been revised, higher snow levels, but still probably cold enough to do a bit of damage to my little seedlings.  My Dad had suggested  building a portable greenhouse to keep it from freezing, so I went to Lowes and bought some supplies (which the husband told me later we had most of the items already, oops - communication has never been our strong suit...).  I must say I felt rather industrious picking out pvc pipe and connectors and even a pvc pipe cutter (to my male readers, please stop rolling your eyes at me).  After lunch Noah and I rolled out some burlap and wrapped my new baby citrus trees and then I attempted to use the pipe cutter...after several minutes my prior feeling of industriousness was gone and in a moment of frustration I asked my almost 5 year old if I was not talented enough to figure out how to open the the pipe cutter if that meant that I should not be using the pipe cutter...he said, "Yeah Mom, I think it does..." and he kind of chuckled as he said it.   Honest kid...love it.  I did finally figure out how to get it to work  (have all my fingers left too!).  Shay came home in the middle of my "building" (thankfully) and took my maybe-ok-and-probably-more-complicated-than-necessary idea and modified it into a simple, but very viable solution - it's like he's has experience in building things or something?!?  So,we'll see how my "winterizing" techniques stand up to the great Southern California blizzard of 2011, HA.



A Garden, Finally!

Back in May of 2010 the very talented hubs re-designed our backyard a bit to put in a small garden area.  I had great hopes for this garden!  I was going to plant lots of yummy veggies and herbs, it was going to be great!  We decided to wait just a tiny bit to plant so we could replace the fence behind the garden area and put in some irrigation.  So we waited a bit, and a bit longer, and a bit longer...why put off today what you can put off tomorrow, right?!?  Fast forward to this weekend...the in-laws had the kids overnight so we went to a nice dinner last night (at 8:00, when was the last time we had dinner that late??), walked aimlessly around the Apple store, enjoyed drinks, it was fantastic!  During dinner we casually talked about what we might do with an entire day to ourselves, we decided to get coffee and go by the Home Depot to pick up a few things and clean up the yard a bit.  That's how it always starts, a seemingly insignificant trip to Home Depot...


Halfway through our "little stop" by HD I was looking at fruit trees and convincing Shay that fruit trees would fit in our backyard and we could also plant the seeds that had made their way into our cart...and so, our garden was finally born!!  TA, DA!

The Dwarf Lemon!

As you see, the fence is still not fixed (nor is the irrigation in - the hose and I are now the irrigation) - there's always next year...

Sorry, for the life of me I can't figure out how to change this picture's orientation...but this is the Mandarin Orange at the other end of the planter

Shay is still not totally sure that the fruit trees in a small area will work, but he was kind enough to give me the chance to try!  In between the trees I planted tomatoes, chives, basil, cilantro, bell peppers, zucchini, squash, lettuce, green beans, onions and carrots!  I am so excited to see what comes of my little seeds!!

 Tomatoes and herbs

Carrots, Onions, Bell Peppers! 

It's still a little early in the season, per the seed packets' instructions, to be planting some of these items - so I'm not sure if they will all be successful, but I will give it my best effort!  (Oh, and I am notorious for killing all living plants..so...there's that too..). The front yard got a mini make over too in the form of some serious rose bush pruning and shrubbery pruning and re-planting (not as fun to blog about - but was so glad to have Shay home to help with this huge task!)

When the kids got home Noah was SO excited to see the garden, I can't wait to water it with him and watch our little veggies sprout!  If it's successful I'll post some pictures!