Well we are really enjoying the veggies from the garden. Last night we ate our first cauliflower and I was going to cook it. My husband usually doesn't like raw cauliflower but one bite of the fresh out of the garden one and he said "nope don't cook it", it was so sweet and tender, one of the best we've ever had.
A couple of days ago I had peas, carrots and garlic shrimp, it was delicious. Seriously nothing beats fresh veggies out of the garden. My speghetti squash is looking amazing, can't wait to eat that sucker. My mom and dad were up visiting for a few days and I put them to work ;) my dad shelled a big bowl of peas for me and my mom helped me deadhead all my flowers. Unfortunately the sugar daddy peas that I thought you could just eat off the vine are a bit stringy and need to be shelled. My search for the suger snap pea continues.
Look what I found. That's right, one lonely little cucumber. I had just about given up on getting any cucumbers this year, the cucumbers I planted in my garden boxes got overrun by other plants and didn't flower. But one of my cucumber plants I planted on it own in just a plastic container flowered and I have one cucumber on it.
I think next year I won't start them early, I will plant them directly into their own boxes outside and there they will stay. The squash wasn't quite as finicky as the cucumber so I might start them again. So far I'm very happy with how my first year of gardening has turned out, I will change a few things for next year but I'm loving being able to eat food that I've grown.
So I was trying to figure out how to store my seeds nicely and to see exactly what colour flower is in the packet. This is what I came up with. I went to the dollar store and bought small plastic re sealable bags, they didn't have the small brown envelopes so I went to staples and bought those there. They were a little more expensive then I would have liked them to be but I did get 250 of them so they will last me awhile ;)
Last year I just put my collected seeds in plastic ziplock bags, but I wanted to do something a little prettier this year. I haven't collected to many seeds yet this year but I did collect a few pansies. So the flowers in the picture are from the seeds I collected last year and so are the seeds. I'm hoping to collect more seeds this year and maybe some veggies too, we will see.
Ok back to the envelopes, I cut some of my blooming flowers and layed them flat in the plastic bags and sealed them. Then I took what I had left of my seeds from last year and put them into the brown envelopes. I taped the plastic bags onto the envelope and wrote on the back what it was. So along with the text there is a visual as well.
I just hope they dry nicely, the bags are not airtight.
Wow!!! So I went on vacation for almost two weeks (which I'm never doing in the summer again btw) and I came home to giant veggies. Thanks to one of my best friends who took really good care of all my plants, they look amazing. I had my first kohlrabi out of my garden today and it was delicious.
All my vegetables are doing amazing in the soil mixture I put them in, even my squash are now starting to produce fruit. Here again is what I put into my soil.
In a 6' X 2' X 2' garden box
12 bags 50 L organic all purpose potting soil
1 bag 50 L sea soil
1 bag 50 L sheep manure
1/2 bag 25 L worm castings
1/2 bag 25 L vermiculite
1 C Epsom salts
1 C egg shell powder
It's been about 5 or 6 weeks since everything has been put in the garden and we are now starting to eat veggies from it. My peas are blooming and carrots and beets are doing great too. It's a little crowded in there and I will be doing things a little different next year, but I'm quite pleased with how things are turning out.
Omg!! My first harvest, ok so it's one radish but I'm totally excited! I planted everything about 3 weeks ago in my awesome dirt mixture, well at least I think it's awesome. The recipe is in an earlier post. Everything is doing really well, and when I saw that radish a couple of days ago I thought, wow that's big. I pulled it out today and it was a decent size radish. I say was cause my husband and I gobbled it up immediately. It was really good. I replanted two more in its place. Yeah I love this!
Lol, well sort of. So here is a little update of everything that's been going on in the garden front. My petunias are blooming, my snapdragons are about too and everything else is doing great.
Now for the veggie garden, I didn't have any luck with my own kohlrabi or lettuce (starting them indoors) however once I just planted the lettuce seeds outside they came right up. I ended up buying a couple of packs of kohlrabi from my local nursery, and they just exploded once I put them in the garden boxes. I did make a boo boo in one of my boxes, actually I'm sure I've made several ;) but live and learn. I planted my peppers with my kohlrabi thinking they would grow with them and since they were bigger I figured it would be alright. Not.. Like I said the kohlrabi exploded and my poor little peppers are now not getting any light. So I may be moving them very shortly, I just don't know where too. I think I'm alright the the other box. I tried to make sure I planted taller things in the back and smaller things in the front. We will see. We have been getting a lot of rain showers daily so I haven't had to water much, which is awesome. But we do need a few good days of sun.
I have to say I love my garden boxes, my father in-law made them for me and they rock. No bending over of any sort.
Well I will keep you posted on my progress. Oh I have been finding ladybugs and putting them in my boxes, I have aphids on my peppers. So far they have been sticking around, but if they can't get a handle on them I may try a couple of the natural remedies I have found on Pinterest :)
Happy gardening!!
Wow time flies when your having fun, I planted my garden (in raised beds) I will take some pictures when everything is up. Everything is now outside, my cucumbers and 2 of my squash are a little sad, I'm hoping that they will recover. Hopefully next year I will have a green house and they will stay inside. My tomatoes that I started from seed are very happy to be outside and I planted them with basil, I read it helps deterr pests and makes the tomatoes taste better.
I also put all my petunias and snapdragons outside (the seeds that I started and collect from my plants last year). They are doing great. I will continue to collect seeds, the germination rate for my own seeds was 95% vs the store bought seeds at about 65%. However that was flowers only, my store bought veggie seeds were fine.
On another note my brother in-law made me a bird house and I painted it today. Now just have to put it outside and it will be ready from some occupants :)
I've been very busy and loving every minute of it. Hopefully I will have some time to write again soon.
