Week 6

I had big plans for Week 6, plans that were foiled by Mother Nature and her evil accomplice, Snow.

Weird March Snowfall

So, we're all ready to put seeds and plants into the garden, and on Friday, I get home early and take a good look at the weather, and the forecast is calling for "wintry mix" and an overnight weekend low of 28 degrees!  There's no way we're moving plants out of the greenhouse in that kind of weather.  Saturday is chilly, and Sunday morning we woke up to sleet.  Snow flurries came later.

Garden Gnome

There was one addition to the garden this week...Angel picked up a sweet orange garden gnome at Target.  I'm definitely not into yard statuary, but this little guy just seems right in the corner of the garden. 

Strawberry plants with snowcover

I did cover some hyacinths that were blooming, but everything else should withstand a little cold snap just fine.  The forecast for the upcoming weekend looks dreary, but it shouldn't dip below freezing.  Seeds will go in the ground, but maybe not greenhouse plants quite yet.

Givler Composting System

Composting

Yeah, we compost.  We hear your snickers, your sneer that rates us home composters one step from midwestern militiamen building bomb shelters in their backyard.  Whatever.

Ok, so last year I built the ugliest compost pile known to man.  4 wood stakes and chicken wire.  I figured that if we dumped garden waste, leaves, and kitchen scraps into a pile, we'd magically have rich compost to use. 
Well, it didn't work out that way.  Over the winter I did some research and learned that compost is a little more complicated than that.  No much more, but a little.  Compost piles should have about 50% brown stuff like leaves and 50% green stuff like grass clippings, kitchen scraps, etc.  These things should be layered, watered, and stirred up weekly.  It also needs something to kick-start the process like manure.  Once you start getting days where it gets above 55 degrees, microbes start going to town on your compost.  In fact, they eventually can raise the internal temperature of the compost to 150 degrees!  They decompose all that organic matter and turn it into this rich, crumbly, nice-smelling stuff that you can use as potting soil, or add to the garden like fertilizer.
There's also 2 ways to compost...The way we were doing it is called the "add as you go method."  Basically, it's the lazy man's way.  As you get organic matter, you put it on the pile and hope for the best.  The other way is the "batch method."  It's where you layer your greens and browns, add some poop as accellerant, and let that batch cook, turning it and watering weekly.
Well, my parents had purchased a commercially made compost bin last year but had never set it up.  It sat in pieces in their backyard.  I asked them about it and Dad said that Mom wanted it and Mom said that Dad wanted it.  They eventually got into the same room and realized they'd miscommunicated.  Neither wanted it and their solution was to offer it to us.  So we set it up next to our existing compost pile, read up about how compost works, and mixed up a batch.  We're still doing add-as-you-go in the old pile, and the batch method in the new commercial bin, sort of...we put kitchen scraps into that bin.  I figure that in about 3 weeks my first batch will be ready to use.  The warmer it gets, the faster the composting.
Last year's compost pile did produce some compost.  It's nice, rich stuff, but it still has undecomposed plant roots in it.  Besides producing this rich organic soil, composting has one other benefit for us.  It reduces our outgoing amount of trash.  When you have a garden, you have waste...rotten vegetables, plants to uproot and toss, weeds, etc.  We also actually cook a good bit, and there's plenty of vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, and other waste from the kitchen.  Composting allows us to reduce the amount of trips we have to take to the dump.  The only real negative is the unattractive plastic milk jug on the counter with stinky scraps in it.  Angel doesn't complain about it, but I need to find a better container for inside the house.

Week 5

Seeds a-poppin'

The week ending with March 19 & 20 was all about growth.  There were a bunch of sunny days and the greenhouse stayed warm.  Everything has popped out of the soil except for some of last potted seeds, cayenne peppers and spearmint. 

Park Early Hybrid 'Maters

Lettuces and some of these tomatoes are really ready to go in the ground, but the almanac says that April 6 is the last possible frost date.  We're not going to wait until then, but it's still a bit too early to move these guys out of the greenhouse.  We do plan to put some of the seeds that can stand a little cold direct into the ground this week...broccolli, radishes, lettuce, turnips, green onion, and more.

Romaine above, leaf lettuce below.

It was a busy weekend.  I took the tiller on a road trip to Aunt Sharon's and tilled her a garden plot about 3 times the size of her old garden.  She gave us moonflower seeds, which Angel potted today.  They are huge seeds, the size of a kernel of corn but more rounded.  Sharon's instructions were to soak them in water overnight and then keep them moist in potting soil.  The flowers bloom in the moonlight, close during the day.  Pretty cool.

Angel and I went to Wal-Mart on Sunday and picked out flowering plants, Blue Lithodora to be a ground cover in the bed next to the greenhouse, and Hyacinths to go in another bed.  That afternoon, while I tilled, Angel and Jacob planted and weeded in those flowerbeds.

After second tilling, ready to rock and roll

I took the wheels off the tiller and did a second, final, and very deep till.  And I mean deep.  Afterwards, I raked and evened it out, and everywhere I stepped my feet sank in 2 or 3 inches.  It rained that night and the next morning.  Soil prep is over.  It's time to get seed in the ground.

Week 4

Week 4 view of the garden...gotta stop taking these pics early in the morning.

The weekend ending with March 12/13 was pretty productive.  With the new tiller, and good weather, a whole bunch of stuff got done.  It rained a lot leading up to the weekend, but the garden soil dried out enough that we could till on Sunday.  Saturday the strawberry patch was cleaned and weeded.  Dad gave me a couple weird plants over the weekend, two "Dollar" plants that I planted in a shady spot under our dogwoods.  The other plants are very odd...maybe I'll put up a post about greenhouse additions later.

The Heart

Angel has been working for a while on this heart-shaped flowerbed in the middle of the backyard.  Mr. C, the previous owner, built it, and put 2 swan-shaped concrete planters in it.  He also planted 3 crepe myrtles in the heart.  Mr. C and his wife raised 3 daughters in this home.  The symbolism of this flowerbed is heart-warming.  (that was not intended as a pun)  Angel planted Lily of the Valley in the flowerbed, Tiny Tot Gladiolas, and Freesia in there over the past 2 weeks.  It's gonna be beautiful.

Kick-Ass Soil, with manure, composted leaves, and lime tilled in.

Angel also potted sunflower seeds over the weekend.  There are a lot of things happening with the seeds in the greenhouse.  Reclaimed Kung Pao Hybrid Pepper seeds germinated, along with Cherokee Purple, Big Beef, and Super Sweet 'maters.  Small and Large Thai Peppers, the ones I got from Dee and Scott in South Carlina, have also started to pop.  Eggplant and Cilantro are up as well.  More to come!