The Long Lost Goals of 2011— Goal 6

 Goal 6—Hoping I’ve learned lessons from the inefficient gardening of 2010, I want to make a more successful Garden this year.

First off, I miss my SLR. I can't wait to get it back, in the mean time, enjoy the lazyness of my point and shoot

Well, this may have been the one goal I was decent about keeping updated last year. I started seeds in yogurt cups out in the sun, planted them in   pots on a timed hose over and the in-aws place.  It had it's ups and downs. 

I had cucumbers, squash, pumpkin, and watermelon all survive, unlike 2010 (where only the squash made it). However, I only got a few cucumbers, my pumpkin was small and not completely ripe, my watermelons were tiny (2), and my squash were pathetic compared to the precious year. My tomatos did okay in pots, the snap peas did fine, as always, and the swiss chard wasn't hearty enough to pick. Oh well. 

Anyhow for TAKE 3, or Garden 2012,  I made a garden at our stake plots (year one was ward plot, but they stopped doing it)

I started my seeds in yogurt cups, much later than I should of, but they did okay under my new grow lights, and I look forward to starting them EARLY this way next year. 

I then weeded our stake plot, and transplanted them.  You see  those weeds taking over my little mounds, I was weeding it several times a week but they were persistent little buggers. 

See how optimistic and covered with dirt I am?

I was really excited because the raddish were a supperfast harvest... about a month for these cute little french breakfast raddish. I ate them, then picked the rest of the row and ate those too. 

I got slightly sunburnt that day, as you can see from this disgusting photo of my arm. But I went all with crazy castor oil/glycerine/rosehip seed oil/tea tree oil on it, and IT NEVER PEELED. SO, I had a pretty sweet farmer's tan for a while. 

My first pea harvest (small, but exciting)

Now, I get something like THIS about twice  a week.

I HAVE 19 TOMATO PLANTS.  3 were donated from a nursery (Early Girl/ better boy), and all the rest were one's I started from seeds... though one of them is still only 8 inches tall with no hope of growing, so we'll say I have 18 tomato plants.  

My tomato rows a few weeks ago. 

My tomato rows yesterday

They are basically falling on each other and the tomato cages are all bent. 

These Early Girls have something like 30 tomatos each. This is my 5th red tomato from them. 2 I picked, and 2 someone blatantly stole. BLATANTLY, as in I decided to give the  maters one more day, came back and someone had clearly broken them off the vine, not eaten like a bug, but cut the vine. JERK 

above- Early girls, donated starter from a nursery

bellow- My Purple Cherokees in all their glory.  I hope they ripen before the frost. 

Then, I planted sweet 100's in the same row as some plum tomatoes, but I can't tell them apart, so these (below) are one of those. 

Here I am standing next to Brandywine. Only 2 of those made it to maturity, and so far, these are THE ONLY TOMATO PLANTS (besides the 8 inch one we are pretending doesn't exist) THAT DON'T HAVE ANY GREEN FRUITS ON THEM YET.  So sad. they have flowers, but I doubt we'll harvest from these .

My tomatos are So exciting. Imagine how excited I would be if I actually liked tomatos!

This is the ripest of my sugar pumpkins. I'm guessing it's about 8" in diameter. I've been picking off all the baby pumpkins to make sure it has enough strenght to finish, but a few snuck by me and I didn't have the heart to kill them, so now I have 3 pumpkins. The others are just a little smaller. 

Here you can see two of my 3 bean plants, that I put in when the other squash died. You'll notice the weed wall to the right. I spent so much time trying to keep the tomatoes and squash area weed free, that I'm afraid the other half of my garden got a little lost. 

The Bean plants are so small, that it surprised me that one of them was hanging in fruit. Say hello to my dragon beans. 

I had some broccoli seeds for sprouting and eating as sprouts so I planted some and got super excited.  Turns out, they are pretty sad as plants very sparse little wispy things, so I let the weeds take them over.

Then the nursery donated some broccoli plants, so I put two of those in.  They are no where near as tall as my seedlings and have no buds, but they are much stronger in stature. 

Say hello to the other half of my "Garden"

If all you see are weeds, you're not looking hard enough (but let's be frank, it's mostlty 4 foot tall weeds)

See, my bolted lettuce? I ate a good 3 of those before I let them be.

I'm not sure if this (below) is swiss chard or spinach I had both before the weeds conspired against me. Wasn't as waxy as my swiss chard though, so I think it is spinach.

And look carefully for my carrot leaves

I just ate these for lunch. The Horses ate the leaves for lunch a few days ago. This variety of carrot, I learned, gets pithy if you don't cook them soon, but cooking them firmed them right back up.

I'll keep picking my snap peas, carrots, get some more  tomatos hopefully by the end of august/september. 

AND NEXT YEAR I will definitely PUT DOWN WEED BLOCKER FABRIC.  This stake plot is just out of control with weeds. 

Garden 2012

Year 1 we did a garden in the ward plot right next to our complex. Year 2 I learned the advantage of starting seeds in larger starting pots, and because they didn't do a ward plot, we planted in pots on Mary and Craigs back porch.

Well, it's year 3, and with Mary and Craig moved out of their place, we don't visit the house as often as last year. Thus, this year we are going to brave the Stake Garden plots. It will be nice to have a lot of land again, but a bit of an ick to have to have it close enough to walk to, but far enough that it won't be a quick walk for daily checking and weeding.

So, because we live in Utah, and nice weather is typically speckled with occasional frost and windy weather through May, the time has come for me to start many a plant indoors. Since we ignorantly chose the condo with two balconies for gardening that gets NO direct sunlight, I had Brett help me with a special project that would make all my wildest gardening dreams come true. 

Ikea Shelves + adjustable hanging florescent bulb holders (technical term) + plant and aquarium wide spectrum florescent bulbs + timer + garage where we don't have to pay for electricity =

CHARLO'S MAGICAL INDOOR GREENHOUSE

No starter plants on the second shelf yet ( I had to buy more soil)

True story: One of our newer neighbors started giving us tips when we were putting it together... then he stopped short and said "oh, wait... your growing vegetables."

This my fancy little timer. (one light is unplugged, since no plants yet)

The hanging lights are adjustable, so when the plants start getting tall, I can raise it up to give more room for the plants. 

I'm really hoping this set up works. If it does, I will be so happy that I can start planting seeds next year when I get the itch in early March (oddly, it seams to happen pretty consistently the week before St. Patrick's Day... even when I was in Wymount). If it doesn't work,  I've wasted a lot of saved up fun money on this stupid contraction. 

Fun Money: noun (1) Like unto allowance for adults, but it's not allowance, because adults are not babies. (2) A stipend one gives ones self every paycheck to use on things one doesn't really need, so as to allow for frivolity and spontaneity in purchasing while requiring some amount of financial responsibility and constraint.  Origin: Wymount. First known usage by Charlotte. Examples:

"90% of Brett's fun money went towards Guns and ammo"

End of Garden 2011

Well, once again, we got a cold spell before my garden fully peaked, but hey, this year was still good.

 We got a bunch of cherry tomatoes this time,
 5 not fully ripened Purple Cheroke tomatos (before a frost killed the plant),
 5 or so cucumbers, several herbs (cilantro, parsley, basil, sage, tiny oregeno) that I didn't get to use because it was all the way in SLC,
 a few watermelons that (although they didn't get to full size, still tasted good— and I got to try making pickled watermelon rhine from them),
 and a small green pumpkin that has been turning orange on my counter.

 That is many successes that I didn't get last year. Plus we did well again on snap peas, and got a few squash (though not as many). Chard was a huge disappointment though. Boo. Anyhow, here are my pretty Georgia Ratlesnakes.

Garden 2011

This year, our Bishop never cleared our garden plot, and I didn't feel like driving a mile to weed the stake garden, So Brett talked me into container gardening in his dad's back yard. It's sad because I don't get to walk out and see it every day, and when I do go to see it, I forget my camera.. so I finally borrowed an Iphone

My little crowded corner:


My swiss chard isn't very happy with this new arrangement, but everything else is:

• I'm getting a pumpkin that might actually get bigger than a ping pong ball before the frost(last year I got a 2 inch one just before it froze)
  
• I'm getting 3 watermelons that are already a few inches long( They kept dying last year)
  
• I've gotten about 6 Pickling Cucumbers( last year those died repetedly too) and they grow so fast that I can't pick em while they are picklin' sizes.
  
• I've gotten only 3 squash (less than last year, but that one is about 7 inches long instead of 4... so probably not as prolific because that one got too big)
  
• Before I could get a good look at them, Brett harvested8 cherry tomatos (I only got one last year before they froze.) I'd show you, but Brett made haste to eat them...though he did let Carissa have one, and gave me a bite (I don't like tomato's in their fresh form, but I did actually not hate this one... would have preferred it dried on a pizza, but I can see the potential in it)
  
• There are a handful of( large but still green) Black Cheroke tomatoes that are full of promise
  
• I've gotten a good ziplock baggie ful of snap peas
  
• and my hot peppers actually made int into a cute little bush that is flowering.

Ohhhhhhhhhh!!!! AND THE HERBS ARE ACTUALLY GROWING.

• The Basil is healthy, prolific, and very motivated and is very persistent in its endeavors to bolt.
  
• I have leeks.... though I don't know when to harvest them
  
• Cilantro!
  
• Parsley!
  
• Chives are there, but not really growing
  
• Sage is small, but usable and smells lovelier than any sage I've ever bought

It's kind of a hollow victory though, because what is the fun of having fresh homegrown herbs if you have to drive 30 minutes to get them... kind of takes the spontaneity out of cooking.

Biggest disappointment of the gardening year is that someone stole my yogurt cup of my growing green beans and i never got to transplant them (I put all my seeds in yogurt cups that were aranged in a shallow box. I kept this box in an empty dumpster cage at our condo's so that it would get sun and be protected from the violent local wind. It was within brick walls and had no feet to sneek over the gate on it's own).

Brett assembled a timed drip system that keeps my roots moist and happy. Not sure if we will get it's money's worth of veggies out of it this year (plus, even though we re-located pots from our balcony, we still had to buy several more AND a lot of potting soil to fill it), but hopefully we will be able to use it again for several years, even if it moves to a different location.

And this is where I stop boring you with my garden info.

Squash, squash, Squash!

less than a week ago, I found these on my squash plant, and I was very excited. This was the same plant Brett wanted to kill, once upon a time, because it was nearly dead.

Also last week, I discovered this surprise in the garden.



Basil! In the midst of the weeds in the neglected herb area, a basil was born!

Last week, I also picked my first Radish. It was LARGE and purple. I don't think it is supposed to be purple.



Today, I harvested my first 2 squash and my second (much smaller and red instead of purple) radish.



Here is a fork for scale

I grew a witch's thumb.

I got curious and pulled up one carrot yesterday. it was a little fresher looking then, but oh well. I still think it is cute. not including the little curly whisp, it is about as long as my thumb.

Wordless Wednesday: Micro Harvest