Flyby Stardancer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
flybystardancer) wrote2009-07-12 07:08 pm
flybystardancer) wrote2009-07-12 07:08 pm
Gardening is sucking up my soul...
Yesterday I went to a talk put on by my local Master Gardeners group. It was titled "Grow Your Own Food: Save Money & Eat Healthy". Well, it interested me because I'm trying to switch to more home-grown and home-made stuff (my efforts on the bread front are being hampered by a lack of flour and parents preferring the store-bought sandwich breads over mine... d'oh!). I have some veggies growing this year in containers, but I want more... And we have plenty of space out in the side yard that Dad was going to do some project or other with...and hasn't started in over 15 years. So I'm slowly preparing it for putting in raised beds so I can have a much bigger veggie garden.
The talk was interesting, but very general and just gave a basic overview of what you need to do, from why to have a veggie garden to where to put it and how to get it started. They also had a raffle (I didn't win anything), free papers with tips (I grabbed most of them), and free seed packets. I ended up with six of those. :D Two tomatoes (Better Boy and San Marzano varieties), two peppers (California Wonder-a bell pepper- and jalepeno varieties), and two zucchinis (Raven and Ronde de Nice varieties).
Speaking of seeds... I want to try starting my own seedlings. I'm thinking I can probably take those plastic pint-sized strawberry containers we get from the store and separate them into six compartments with cardboard, then stick them in a tray that I put water in. That'll allow them to be watered from below (so as not to disturb the seeds) and the tops of the containers can be used as mini-greenhouses to help the seeds warm up and sprout faster (though they'll have to come up as soon as the seeds sprout--not enough room). Buuuuuuuuut... I'll need to prepare an area to grow the seeds. Starting them on a windowsill is actually not a good way to get them light, despite being traditional (it makes them grow tall and spindly, rather than stalkier, and there's cold that seeps in through the windows even with the best of insulation). Starting seeds in a windowsill is doubly-hard for me because we have none that get direct sunlight! So I'll need to set up my own area for seed-starting... Which means picking a location (I'll likely have to ask my grandma if I can use her garage since we have no room here), setting up benches, getting ahold of some cheap fluorescent shop lights and setting up some way to have them just a few inches above the seedlings and with adjustable heights... I'd need a timer for the lights (those sell for cheap on eBay, though), and a seedling heating mat, since none of the potential areas to start seedlings have any heat in the winter. The seedling mat will likely be the hardest to acquire... Those things are expensive!
So anyways, to round this post off...
Pictures of my garden, as taken a little over a week ago!
Tomatoes:
The one on the left is a Husky Red Cherry tomato plant, while the left is of the Big Boy variety. And the branch on a sling in the upper left? That's actually from the Big Boy plant. Unfortunately, the Big Boy is putting out few tomatoes, and those that are out are still green. According to the Master Gardener I talk to, that seems to be the norm for tomato plants this year, since we've been having a relatively cool summer.
Peppers:
From right to left: bell peppers, poblanos, and jalepenos. Yes, our jalepeno plant is very runty. It doesn't get nearly enough sun thanks to the neighbor's tree which has branches that hang over our yard. And we can't cut the branches over our property off because it would kill the tree, which we can do everything short of. But it's put out more peppers than the other plants! And the poblano pictured is a lot bigger now. I'll be picking it soon to eat, as well as some of the other peppers.
Strawberries:
They've finally started to put out berries, and I've eaten some of the ones in the picture already. However, they don't put out enough at once for more than a snack. Definitely not nearly enough to fit my consumption needs!
Side Yard containers:
The black plastic sheet is where I'm solarizing the ground to kill weeds in preparation for putting in raised beds. For herbage, I have basil, oregano, coriander, and golden lemon thyme. The coriander I was eating as cilantro, but when it bolted I let it flower, and now I'm waiting for it to develop seeds for me to harvest to plant as more cilantro... But it seems to be taking its own sweet time. Other plants I have out there are okra, more okra, pinto beans, a few straggling radishes, onions, a few struggling carrots, and a head of lettuce. The okra are bigger than pictured now, though still not as tall as the stakes I put out for them just after the pictures, but they already have 11 pods between the three plants! The two in the cooler are doing much better than their third, but I think that's because they have more room to spread out their roots. Also, they're very short for okra... Okra's supposed to get up to 10 feet tall! Those are like 2/3 of a foot. heh. But they do have huge leaves. I started them waaaaaaaaaay late, though, so it's likely to be expected that they're runts.
ETA: Gah, I'm having html problems all over the place with this post...
The talk was interesting, but very general and just gave a basic overview of what you need to do, from why to have a veggie garden to where to put it and how to get it started. They also had a raffle (I didn't win anything), free papers with tips (I grabbed most of them), and free seed packets. I ended up with six of those. :D Two tomatoes (Better Boy and San Marzano varieties), two peppers (California Wonder-a bell pepper- and jalepeno varieties), and two zucchinis (Raven and Ronde de Nice varieties).
Speaking of seeds... I want to try starting my own seedlings. I'm thinking I can probably take those plastic pint-sized strawberry containers we get from the store and separate them into six compartments with cardboard, then stick them in a tray that I put water in. That'll allow them to be watered from below (so as not to disturb the seeds) and the tops of the containers can be used as mini-greenhouses to help the seeds warm up and sprout faster (though they'll have to come up as soon as the seeds sprout--not enough room). Buuuuuuuuut... I'll need to prepare an area to grow the seeds. Starting them on a windowsill is actually not a good way to get them light, despite being traditional (it makes them grow tall and spindly, rather than stalkier, and there's cold that seeps in through the windows even with the best of insulation). Starting seeds in a windowsill is doubly-hard for me because we have none that get direct sunlight! So I'll need to set up my own area for seed-starting... Which means picking a location (I'll likely have to ask my grandma if I can use her garage since we have no room here), setting up benches, getting ahold of some cheap fluorescent shop lights and setting up some way to have them just a few inches above the seedlings and with adjustable heights... I'd need a timer for the lights (those sell for cheap on eBay, though), and a seedling heating mat, since none of the potential areas to start seedlings have any heat in the winter. The seedling mat will likely be the hardest to acquire... Those things are expensive!
So anyways, to round this post off...
Pictures of my garden, as taken a little over a week ago!
Tomatoes:
The one on the left is a Husky Red Cherry tomato plant, while the left is of the Big Boy variety. And the branch on a sling in the upper left? That's actually from the Big Boy plant. Unfortunately, the Big Boy is putting out few tomatoes, and those that are out are still green. According to the Master Gardener I talk to, that seems to be the norm for tomato plants this year, since we've been having a relatively cool summer.
Peppers:
From right to left: bell peppers, poblanos, and jalepenos. Yes, our jalepeno plant is very runty. It doesn't get nearly enough sun thanks to the neighbor's tree which has branches that hang over our yard. And we can't cut the branches over our property off because it would kill the tree, which we can do everything short of. But it's put out more peppers than the other plants! And the poblano pictured is a lot bigger now. I'll be picking it soon to eat, as well as some of the other peppers.
Strawberries:
They've finally started to put out berries, and I've eaten some of the ones in the picture already. However, they don't put out enough at once for more than a snack. Definitely not nearly enough to fit my consumption needs!
Side Yard containers:
The black plastic sheet is where I'm solarizing the ground to kill weeds in preparation for putting in raised beds. For herbage, I have basil, oregano, coriander, and golden lemon thyme. The coriander I was eating as cilantro, but when it bolted I let it flower, and now I'm waiting for it to develop seeds for me to harvest to plant as more cilantro... But it seems to be taking its own sweet time. Other plants I have out there are okra, more okra, pinto beans, a few straggling radishes, onions, a few struggling carrots, and a head of lettuce. The okra are bigger than pictured now, though still not as tall as the stakes I put out for them just after the pictures, but they already have 11 pods between the three plants! The two in the cooler are doing much better than their third, but I think that's because they have more room to spread out their roots. Also, they're very short for okra... Okra's supposed to get up to 10 feet tall! Those are like 2/3 of a foot. heh. But they do have huge leaves. I started them waaaaaaaaaay late, though, so it's likely to be expected that they're runts.
ETA: Gah, I'm having html problems all over the place with this post...