Garden 2009: State of the Yard/Garden

Well, today was a very busy day for the fam. Hubs hauled through the garage and set up our new workbench while I built 4x4 raised bed boxes for the garden.

* We're going to proceed with some Square Foot Gardening this season and hope it will be successful for us, with less fuss and muss and more yield in the end. After poring through Mel Bartholomew's book, I decided to do some advance work on locating vermiculite, which I had been unable to find at our Menards/Home Depot over the past few weeks, at least not in large bags. Thankfully, I found out that Wannemakers (Downers Grove) carries it in large bags, so when I'm ready, I'll be heading there to pick it up for my "Mel's Mix" for the beds.

* I'm definitely not a crafts(wo)man by any stretch. Considering the "horses" I used to cut the wood are actually, um, two patio chairs, I'm impressed anything got done at all. So I've made four 4x4 boxes so far. I think I'm going to try to make two or three more this week and then configure the garden space. I've also made a couple of 3.5x3.5 boxes that I plan to use for potatoes. I was going to give the garbage can method a whirl, but had some random wood lying about, so made some boxes that I can stack and fill with dirt as they grow.


* Some pleasant discoveries...While clearing out the fall/winter debris, I discovered that the strawberries are already starting to green up and look like they're as excited for spring and warm weather as I am! We yielded about three last year (Yeah, like 3 strawberries. Total.) so I have high hopes for some tasty fruit this year. There were some errant runners that seem to be coming up outside of the allotted strawberry patch, so I think I'll extend it a bit this year.

* And in a very happy surprise, I went to move a pot, and in all the dead, dry foliage from last year, tons of fresh green chives were already coming up!! What a thrill! We pulled a couple pieces off and chewed on 'em. Tastes like spring and yumminess. I transferred them from that pot into a cute little mini-barrel planter I picked up at Tuesday Morning for under $10.

* The "ghetto greenhouses" are coming along... I think. Of everything I planted in them, I think broccoli raab, swiss chard, spinach, and lettuce are the only things really starting to come up. Reserving hope for them as the weather warms up, though two were subject to some abuse by the hound from hell, Millie.

* OH, and since we got new windows, I made a cold frame. Kind of. I didn't do it properly with angling it and so on. I basically made a box to match the window size and then attached a window with the hinge. And my measurements were off a tad, so it looks a little askew. Hmm... Tossed in some peat pots with seeds planted and I'm crossing my fingers. I liked seeing some condensation in it today, and popped it open as it was about 65 or so outside. We have a bunch of windows left, so I plan to make one or two more. If anyone in the area wants a couple, let me know! We're right by Brookfield Zoo.



Soooo....That's about it for where things are so far. Slowly but surely marching into growing season, and hoping it is the best year yet!

Way behind on posting, but catching up elsewhere!

OK, OK, OK...I've been incredibly errant in keeping up with my blog here, but with good reason! I've been taking advantage of the lovely weather that has been shining down on us here and there and getting a lot done outside!!

I went to the Flower & Garden Show and have to say it was amazing. Separate post forthcoming on that shebang. Needless to say, saw an awful lot of ideas that made me think I should just demolish the garage and half the driveway to make more room for garden space. Alas, I'm stuck with my little backyard garden and a yard overrun by a dog and two kids. Sigh. A girl can dream, though. Right?

Been reading up on Square Foot Gardening and decided that I'm going to give it a whirl this season. Worth a shot, and seems like it may be easier to tend and easier to protect than rows if I want to try to extend the growing season well into the fall.

Otherwise just puttering about, enjoying the green smell in the air, and time outside with the family!!!

Chicagoland Flower & Garden Show

Hi folks!

Mr. Brown Thumb (a great local gardening blog, if you haven't checked it out yet) was able to score some great passes for some of us garden bloggers for the Chicagoland Flower & Garden Show. I'm scoping out the seminars to determine what days I should get someone to watch the girls so I can head down there unfettered.

I'll be posting about my adventures there. I recommend checking out Mr. Brown Thumb's blog to check out some of the great stuff he's already posted from the show.

More to follow...

Wowee!

I just looked at my list of what I've started already and the things I want to start, and I think I should knock down the garage to make room. Eek! Going to work on some square foot gardening principles, companion planting, and succession planting to get it all in there!

Are any of you Chicago gardeners growing grapes? We'd like to give it a try, but space is at a premium and I'm wondering if it is feasible to train them on our back fence or if that is a poor idea?

Hmm...

Jump starting the garden season (hopefully!!)

From one of the gardening blogs I follow (see sidebar), I linked through to a site about Winter Sowing seeds in plain plastic containers. Mr. BrownThumb also had a great post about starting plants from seed in 2 liter soda bottles. As one of my issues EVERY season is starting too late or letting seedlings dwindle away because I don't have things ready for transplanting, I thought maybe I'll give this a whirl. Plus I like to make my backyard and garden look as completely white trash as possible.


Mission accomplished.


For the record, I LOVE that Mr. BrownThumb calls these "ghetto greenhouses"

Anyway, it was simple as pie, and I'm hopeful for great results. My husband was, I think, a bit put out that I put a "2 liter bottles ONLY" rule into effect for soda consumption the past month or so, so tons of healthy transplants would be the only way to compensate for that.

Check out the links above for details on how to do this, but I had 14 bottles (2 liter soda bottles, translucent milk gallons, and juice bottles) to work with today, and had to fish around for seeds that I wanted to start. See, unprepared! Plus it was really odd to have my hands in soil since we just had about 3 inches of snow dropped on the Chicago metro area over the past day or so.

But I digress. Here are the seeds I went with for round one. I put them all out today, February 21st, and plan to do more once I get my orders in at the seed shops. I've got so many pages dog-eared in all the catalogs I have, it is ridiculous, and at this rate I will need to demolish the house to make room for more garden space!


Basil, Broccoli Raab, Lavender, Swiss Chard, Bush Bean, Broccoli, Leaf Lettuce (2 varieties), Spinach, Carrots, Garden Peas, Zinnias (I told you I had to scrape for seeds to fill up the bottles I had on hand), Sweet Pepper, and Cauliflower
ADDED 2/24: Chives and Onions

So hopefully that'll be a good jump start. I'm going to try to get the rest of my seed orders in tomorrow or Monday and maybe start some more seeds next week. My only real fear, is that the nemesis of my garden, the hound from hell, will leave my bottles of goodness alone! Because, you know, she looks a lot less evil than she is, and I just hope that she'll behave herself, resist the temptation, and not force me to pen her up outside so she can't get into it. If I sound bitter, it is because I busted her several times last year eating cucumbers from the vine, running around the yard with a raspberry cane in her mouth like a bone, and digging through more beds than I care to recall.


Fingers crossed!!!

2009 Green Goals

OK, I've been thinking of some things that I want to accomplish this year in the garden and yard. As usual, I'm going to put it on a blog, because then I feel more accountable, and more apt to actually do something.

- Get a composter and start composting
- Get rain barrels and put them to good use
- Put together a solid plan for the garden, including succession plantings so I have good stuff coming up all through the season with no empty/dead zones
- Keep close track of how much produce I'm yielding through the season
- I'd like to go without purchasing ANY produce this summer - grow what we'll use, and use what we grow
- Set up a seed-starting table inside, and use it
- Build my cold frame (we have lots of old, lead-free windows)by late February/early March
- Build my garden boxes/beds well in advance of planting outside
- Get a decent canning system and book, and use throughout the season

So that's it for now. I hope to be able to check most of these items off my list! Anything I should add?

2008 Garden: A Year in Review

So since I'm just starting this blog and the idea didn't really occur to me until recently, I didn't purposely take great pictures of the garden through the season, and a lot of the pictures I took were on my camera-phone and thus deleted and un-findable (Sorry, sunflowers!).

However, I was able to locate a lot of them, and put together a flickr slideshow of different spots of the garden through the 2008 season:



Our primary garden areas are as follows:
(Pictures are by group/area, with progression through the season, first pictures are from mid-April, last ones are from early November)

* 2 4x10 raised bed boxes for vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, lettuce, cucumbers, beans, peas) and bushels with herbs
* Back fence with muskmelon and watermelon vines
* Along the side of the garage - honeysuckle, violets, and mini-roses
* Fence by the garage - in the yard - raspberries and mint
* Side fence - Sunflowers, strawberry patch, butterfly garden, cherry tree
* Fence - outside of the yard - Miscellaneous flowers

Soon, I'm going to post our goals and what we'd like to do with the garden for 2009.

Thanks for reading!