Work Days- March 31

Every day has seen a little work: crops planted, paths mulched, construction done.
Mentally slapping my hand whenever I consider putting my hot crops into the ground before Easter Monday. The wait is my response to climate change.
So:
Construction:
All trellises are up.
Back fence corner is weeded and had its landscape timber moved in.
V. braced the stairstep planter and we cleared out beneath it, laid down weedblock and mulch.
He put up my wrought-iron hanger by the shrine, and another smaller one on the long post of the stair-step.
Added more items to the passive heap and more leaves to the leafmold holder.
We tied back the althea with nylon rope to make space. If they break, look out!
Filled the kid's sand box. Great success with Bubs- he played in it alone for over tweny minutes.
More path areas mulched. Using grass, rather than leaves. It is so windy here that leaves move around too much, blowing into the beds on top of sprouting seeds,onto the porch and so on.

Crops:
Planted nasturtiums, finally. May have planted other vines too early, may replant.
Annuals are up in S-S planter.
All crops are sprouting in kids' gardens. Will plant hot crops for them with mine.
Fed all T/Ps with fish tea. We will see.
Tomatoes: Container T tooking very poor. Bed T not much better. T-bag T looks GREAT! So far, at least. Will continue to observe.

To Do:
Plant hot crops
Finalize charts of plantings.
Re-plant MGs?
Make up watering schedule and print out.
Turn compost heap, and set up schedule for that.
Start lettuce t/p's

Harvested: romaine, lettuce.

March 16, 2010

Week in review:
Made beds for side yard and filled with purchased topsoil and humus.
T/P strawberry plants
Collected 10 bags of leaves and 3 bags of grass this morning and used some of them and the old side yard open-ended bed to frame and fill a new passive compost heap.
Taped up the top of the green bin and will use it for kitchen scrap compost.
Turned active pile today.
Filled planters for the stair step: purple zinnias, big marigolds and Liliput zinnias. Fourth planter is chives, a golden thyme and a herb to be chosen.
Constructed and planted a Tomato Bag with a Sweet 100.
Weeded paths, put down newspaper, garden bags and the last of the weed block in bare areas and covered with new leaves. What I found when weeding is that the leaves/grass on the paths get trodden into great leaf mold. The new plan: rake cover off paths twice a year and sift for leaf mold. NB: BUILD OR BUY SIFTER.
Lost the weeder somewhere in the new leaf cover, but it will turn up.
Put in nails for twine trellises. Cut boards for green mesh trellises for driveway fence.
De-cluttered porch, swept and sprayed.
NB: DO NOT START T/P's IN POTTING SOIL WITH FOOD. The seedlings are VERY spindly.
Use Jiffy, not Miracle Grow. It was like feeding steroids to Morgan Jane.
Bought a load of dirt at Strong's and will use it to fill in yard and top off beds.

Hot weather vegs are supposed to go in on the 23 rd, but may wait a week. It is still quite cool and damp. Global warming, my foot. It was like this last year, too.
Peas are up.

To-Do:
Plant corn, radishes, lettuce, mesclun, morning glory, moonflower, sweet peas, nasturtiums and other annual flowers.
Finish and hang mesh trellises.
String twine trellises.
Have Ves figure out a yields chart on MSWorks.

Progress So Far...

Baby vegetables-

I haz dem.

Various garden views

The Garden Shrine
yes, that's a recycled squirrel feeder.

Inspired by the urban gardeners in the last post, I decided to make an experimental container garden area, using deck stair stringers from the Bob Store (Lowe's) and left-over and/or scavenged lumber. The shortest shelf is 24", the longer ones are 30". They're cut to fit the length of the planters, also recycled/scavenged.

The stringers with 2x2" braces in placed. I did not want to attach this to the fence, so we added some 2x4" uprights. A better view of the shelves in place. The three narrow shelves are placed in the middle of the steps to give the planters more room on the back. The shelves were attached with a single screw on each side. I'd like to put in a plug for the ratchet screwdriver, my new best friend. The kids got to help put the screws in. We drilled the holes before they arrived, b/c while I do allow them to mess around in Sedona Sunset deck stain, I do not allow them to actually use power tools.One of the purposes of this project is to play around with different types of DIY underground watering systems. I have ollas in one of the garden beds and am trying to find a less expensive substitute. This is an unglazed terra-cotta rose pot. Notice that it has no drainage hole in the base. I'm using one of these in both the pumpkin tub and the tomato container, sinking them so that their tops are a little above the soil level. They'll be covered with a terra-cotta saucer of the proper size.

Other candidates are plastic water bottles and large plastic drink cups from the BBQ.

The shelf unit in place:

And with some planters:

I'm wondering if the space underneath could be used for a small-scale composting bin, if you added ran some boards along the sides of the stringers. I think that with a wood frame and some plastic sheeting, this could also make a little greenhouse for seed starting.

The top shelf is herbs. The middle two will be salad greens, radishes, possibly carrots. The bottom shelf will have a tomato, a pepper and an eggplant in single containers.