Garden Journal 1/14 - 2/4

1/14
Today's weather: bitterly cold and clear. 45 degrees.

Picked up seed start potting mix and started: broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, Anaheim, jalapeno, habanero and bell peppers, and Roma tomatoes.

1/22
Today's weather: a bit warmer and nicely cloudy.

All of the cole crops have sprouted and today I noticed the tomatoes have sprouted as well. Still waiting on the peppers. Need to start other seeds. Spinach in garden never sprouted... again.

1/24
Started spinach in a cut up milk jug! Seeing if starting it inside makes any difference. A walk around the garden showed the cherry tree and blueberries have buds on them!

1/28
Today's weather: sunny! And warmer!

Started strawberries and herbs. Cut the top off a coffee can to start lettuce in.

1/29
Today's weather: sunny and warmer, with a bit of clouds this afternoon.

Ripped out the wisteria from the pergola this afternoon. Next comes digging out the stumps and moving the grapes from the garden to the wisteria's spot. Noticed the boysenberries have buds on them. The kids are finding ladybugs all over the place.

1/30
Today's weather: sunny, mid-50s, smells like spring outside!

The milk jug spinach has sprouted! We'll see how far it gets.

1/31
Today's weather: sunny! And warm! Sweet, glorious outdoors. Fresh air! It smells wonderful outside.

Reading a book called "Weedless Gardening". Very interesting, hoping to try it out this year.

Weeded the blueberries and mulched them with sawdust from dad's shop. Read that they like sawdust due to it's acidity. Who knew?

Also weeded the back corner by shed and mulched with leftover compost from spring to ready it for green beans.

Having a hard time figuring out where to put everything I want to grow...

2/2
Today's weather: warm, but really hazy and not very spring like at all.

Today was birthday garden shopping! Bought things for staking, and trellising, and planting, and potting, and fertilizing... and a pitchfork! Picked up more grow lights. And new boots, which make me a real farm girl now, right? I love them.

Ran a ph and nitrogen test on the north raised bed. Completely deficient in nitrogen, but the ph is in the mid range. Nitrogen test on the compost from green waste shows very high nitrogen. Will be getting more for mulching.

Peppers have sprouted. Started potting up tomatoes. 

2/3 
Today's weather: foggy at first, and then sunny for the afternoon.

Weeded the back corner raised bed and put a board at the halfway point to mark the compost pile. Got to play with my pitchfork!

2/4
Today's weather: still hazy, but very warm! Thought about putting on shorts, and opened up both sliding doors for fresh air.

Got the area around the lime tree weeded, fertilized (Miracle Grow Organic fertilizer) and planted with first batch of lettuce. Will plant next batch in two weeks for continual harvest. Fertilized back corner bed and planted beets. Hoping they do well even with lack of direct sun package calls for. Planted more radishes. Pruned the grapes to ready for move to pergola. Started Ancho/Poblano chili seeds.

Noticed the two spinach seeds in garden finally sprouted.

Potted up more tomatoes.


Happy gardening!
Meg

Hello, Anybody Out There?

Just nod if you can hear me...

We don't have blossoms yet, but everything is budding!

Hey y'all! Did ya miss me? Are you even still here? It's been nearly a month since my last post! I'm so exciting, eh?

Well, I keep trying to find time to blog, and when I finally get a chance to sit down without kiddos climbing all over me, I tell myself I can't blog without pictures, so then I tell myself I should wait until I have pictures, which then means I missed my chance and I need to wait til I can sit down again without kiddos climbing all over me and... It's a vicious cycle.

So here I am and you get to have pictures from the Ghost of Blog Past.

We've had deliciously warm weather this past week - mid 50's to 60's, and looking at 70's for the coming week. The kids and I have been outside at every possible moment, soaking up as much sun as possible. I wish I could tell you spring was here, but the weather is a fake out and we always get another cold snap before Easter. But I'll take it while I can get it.

Looky, his clothes don't even fit!

This precious little thing will be a year old at the end of the month. Can someone explain to me how that happened? How is he already 11 months? I just had him. Heck, I just had his bubbas, who will be 6 this year.

Basil seedlings from summer past

I have spring fever so painfully bad that I have been devouring seed catalogs, starting seedlings, ordering more seeds, going over planting charts and dates, ordering more seeds, weeding the flower beds, mulching the flower beds, ordering more seeds, trying to figure out a succession planting schedule, and wanting to plant anything I can get my hands on.

I WANT TO PLANT ALL THE THINGS!!

I realized today I only have about 100 square feet of bed space, with a wee bit extra if I squeeze stuff into the flower beds.

So. Not. Enough. I keep trying to convince Ben to let me rip up the lawn. He just stares at me. :)

Not at all what I'm working on.

I've been working on, and nearly finished with, an order for a customer. A week with the flu two weeks ago kind of screwed up my schedule but I'm back at it now.

I'm also working on a shawl design. Have I told you about this? I am creating the shawl for a fund-raising auction. I'm pretty excited about this design and hope I can get the pattern out for spring. If not, I'll have to wait til fall. Anyone care to test knit for me?

I have lots of garden journal to post, and I think I've decided on a new name for the blog. More on those both soon. You know, when I don't have kids climbing all over me. :)

Happy Weekend!
Meg

Gardening Journal

I think one of my biggest problems with gardening is I just forget to do it. Granted, I was a bit busy this last year with baby, but once I get the seeds in the ground I don't do much afterward because it's kind of out of sight out of mind back in the corner of the yard. I read somewhere about Carla Emery's 365 days to independence idea in her book ( Encyclopedia to Country Living, which is on it's way to me. I've got it from the library three times, figured it was time to buy it), and thought maybe that would be a good way for me to keep up on growing our own food. I'll try to journal as much as possible about what I'm doing in/for the garden to grow our food.

Here's some catch up.


Jan 1st: Today's weather - High of 57.

Weeded a bit, planted three spinach seeds to try again after applying Sluggo the other day. Bound and determined to grow spinach. Harvested radishes, harvested and refrigerator pickled the last of the jalapenos.

Jan 2nd: Today's weather - High of 54.

Ordered heirloom seeds from Bountiful Gardens - Butter (lima) beans, Onion seeds, Poblano peppers, bell peppers, pumpkin, butternut squash, strawberry, watermelon and oats. Curious about the oats!

Jan 3rd: Today's weather - High of 59.

Working on a planting chart/schedule for this year, using the UC Ag recommendations and other sources. Need to get seedlings started.

2013 Goals

Welp, another year is upon us and I will keep in my tradition of posting my goals for the new year. I'm not naming anything a "resolution" because I think goals are better. It's something to shoot for, always striving.

First, my personal goals:

1. Try new things. I got a new cookbook for Christmas, and there are some knitting techniques that I would like to try, like double knitting. I'd also like to pick up the calligraphy books I keep seeing at the library and get myself a pen set. I really enjoyed my 2012 goal of "Learn & Create", so this will just continue on that theme.

2. Grow as much of our food as possible. I think after this year I have better learned the seasons and when things like to grow, so I will try to be a better gardener this year. Obviously I can't grow wheat or meat/dairy products, but I would like to try growing and cooking most of our veg and learning new ways to cook them.

3. Put out the patterns I've had sitting on my computer for too long. I have a few patterns that I scratched out awhile ago but I haven't gotten around to publishing them. I'm hoping to do that this year.

4. Be more intentional and thoughtful.  Like writing birthday and Christmas cards, spending more time with people, living in the moment as it's happening, and focusing on the high points in life.

And now, our home goals:

1. Redo the living room, hall and kitchen floors. Carpet for the living room, tile for the others. We'll be getting them done professionally, because we don't feel like screwing up Ben's back. So it's just a matter of saving up.

2. Redo our kitchen. New cabinets! New paint! And the new floors from #1.

3. New doors for the front, the kitchen, and our bedroom. They all leak like a sieve and really need to be replaced.


I really wish I could put "get chickens" on this list... But I can't. Heh. Although their might be a rabbit in our future!

What are your goals for the year?

~Meg

Christmas Week Recap

I think I've totally lost my blogging mojo. My brain isn't giving me many words.

The pictures are blurry because children, especially excited ones, never sit still, haha. We had a very nice Christmas and I think everyone enjoyed their presents. It's been off and on drizzly, which made it even nicer. But now Christmas is over, so I'm ready for spring!

Ben was able to finagle the week off from work, and it was blissfully wonderful. We spent the whole week finishing the garage (ok, he did most of it, but I helped paint), and it looks so nice now. He installed four more lights, so now I have tons of light to do laundry by!

I really didn't want to give him up. But life has to return to normal. Unfortunately, he started overtime again today, and it is supposed to last until at least April. Bleh.

Over the holiday we found out that my mother has a very large tumor/cyst/mass in her stomach. She'll be having surgery to remove it on the 9th. They aren't sure what it is exactly, where it originates from, or if it's cancerous, but they'll find that out with the surgery. Thoughts and prayers would be appreciated.

Happy Monday all, I'll be sharing my goals for 2013 later in the week!
~Meg