Last week of August

Well its been a while since I updated this so here goes.

The salad pictured above is all from the garden.

I was away for two weeks in August and the garden didn't get very well taken care of. So there are lots of weeds and a bunch of the cucumber plants didn't make it. And now with it being September things are slowing down even more. There are a couple cucumber plants still trying to produce. The tomotoes did and are mostly doing well. Every couple of days I get a sandwich bag full so that is pretty good. The beans are fading as well now. The echanacea, carrots and broccoli are still going pretty strong. The peppers are very slow and about half of them never survived. I have one watermelon plant that is still trying so we will see what happens with it. The strawberry plants are still going and I am getting a few strawberries still. The hot pepper plants that are on the balcony are still going strong. The weather last week was very hot and now over the weekend the temperature has dropped. I will see how things progress as the weather changes.

Love

Candy

Produce

Well finally I am getting a variety of vegetables to harvest. We have canned some cucumbers already and we plan to do some more this weekend. We are going to can cucumbers and hot peppers seperately and we are going to try some together to see how they turn out. I have been freezing the beans we have been picking as there are too many ready at once. I am also drying some onions as we have about 5 ready now and won't use them all right away. I have also been able to enjoy a handful of strawberries. They are quite tasty and thankfully I haven't had an issue with bird or other animals going for them. I think I will plant more next year and perhaps be able to make some jam. The tomatoes are doing well and I have been able to pick a lot of those. They have been getting eaten as they are picked. If I do end up with more then get eaten I am going to try either tomatoe sauce or maybe relish. But we will see.

The herbs that I had planted in the shoe pockets have unfortunately not done well. While a great idea if you have little room. The don't get enough sun where we had hung them. So next year I think I will either plant some in pots on the balcony or I will plant some out in the garden. The one basil plant that I have planted in the earth-tainer did well. I am freezing the leaves as they are ready.

It is nice to finally have some produce from the garden.

Love

Candy

July Week 3

Well this week has been a busy week for the plants. My romaine lettuce is soon going to seed. I am going to save some seeds and see how they do next year. "Cut off the stalks once they flower and then form a fuzzy head similar to a dandelion. Take the stalks indoors or into an outdoor area that is protected from wind and breezes" They will soon be ready for me to save.

I also had to trim one of my basil plants. When the plant has secondary leaves over the first leaves then you cut the first leaves so the second leaves have room to grow. I am freezing them for storage as I have read that that is the best way to save them.

My strawberry plants are now producing small green berries so that is a great sign of berries to come.

The hot peppers are finally starting to go red and the green hot peppers are almost ready to pick.

The Echinacea is getting ready to bloom you can see where it is about to come out. I also have my first cucumber out and there are more on their way. Which means we should be able to make pickles this year. I also had a nice bag of green beans that we harvested. I plan to freeze them for future use. I am going to blanch them and then spread them out on a baking sheet put them in the freezer and then once they are frozen I will put them in a baggie. I am blanching them to preserve the nutrients and by laying them flat before putting them in a baggie they won't stick together. It was great to be able to pick a green bean and eat it without having to worry about washing it first. I read to harvest the beans every 2-3 days so they keep producing so hopefully I will get a good amount of beans. I am sure harvesting them will keep me busy and you can't help but smile as you pick them and they taste even better then usual because you know you grew them.

Love,

Candy

July Week 2

Here are some of the plants in the second week of July. The cucumbers and beans are flowering. And the peppers and tomatoes are green and growing. Some of the herbs and the onions are growing nicely.

Love

Candy

Vegetable garden July

Well it is now July. The garden is doing pretty well. The seeds that did come up are getting bigger and I even have some tomotoes starting on one of the plants. The pepper plants that I started from seed seem to be lagging behind the ones that I was given as seedlings. I think I either need to start them sooner at home or maybe just do seedlings. The tomatoes that I started from seeds are doing well as are the beans and cucumbers which were direct seed. The onions and lettuce look to be doing the best right now. They are the biggest of the plants. I was also able to pick some nice size radishes they are quick and easy growers.

The hot pepper plants and strawberries that we have on the balcony are quite big. The herbs are growing fairly well, but I am not sure that they get enough sun where we have put them. Some of the lettuce from the containers on the balcony are done so I pulled them up and have planted some dill seeds in those spots.

Love

Candy

Sprouts and fertilizer

Well the one day this week that I went out to the garden there was a lot of weeds. The sight of all the weeds made me discourged until I saw some seeds had sprouted. Then suddenly things looked brighter. The radishes are getting bigger, carrots,onions,beans,broccoli and cucumbers have all sprouted. So I think its a pretty good start. Some things haven't sprouted yet so I am going to wait till we get back from a few days away and if there are still no sprouts then I will weed those sections and replant. The lots of weeds are not a surprise as this plot hasn't been used for years so the roots run deep so it is to be expected. Some days I go twice a day to garden, with having to take my 2 year old son with me an hour is about all the time he lasts. We bought a hose and a sprayer so that makes watering a lot easier and quicker. Which leaves me more time to weed. I also got some starters from a woman in my building who knows someone who has to many so she has been giving them to her and she has passed a bunch on to me. So that has been quite helpful.

I have been looking up ways to create my own fertilizer so that I won't have to buy any. Which saves me money and is probably better for the plants. I am mixing up some dirt, coffee grounds, egg shells and banana peels. This will give the tomatoes and peppers nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous and calcium.

Love

Candy

Garden in June

Well I have got some of every plant started now. The garden is not yet completely planted because I bring my 2 year old with me so he only lasts about an hour. So there is only so much that I can get done when I do go. It is more then half done now and I at least have some of every thing seeded and started. The radishes I seeded came up very quickly and are doing well. I will plant some more in about a week so that they come up in succesion. The garden requires a lot of watering as it gets full sun so it gets pretty dry. I think I will buy a hose to make the watering easier and quicker which will leave me more time for weeding. Because the plot hasn't been used for years we get quite a few weeds. The roots from the grass run deep so its hard to get it all. And thistles sure grow quickly. I bought some started Echinacea so that is in the garden already. Slowly the garden is getting done and it will be even better once more vegetables come thru.

Love,

Candy

Long weekend away

Well we went away for the May 24th weekend. I watered the plants really well on Friday morning and was away till Tuesday evening. The plants were left with no one to water them. I was concerned that they wouldn't be alright. It was quite hot and sunny. We came back and the plants were fine. They had all grown while we were away and were looking pretty good. Some were a little wilted but the day after they were watered they looked fine. My strawberries had some nice flowers on them. Because they are everbearing and this is their first year I had to cut them off. Cutting off the flowers till the end of June is supposed to make the next berries better. It is sad to cut them off as they looked so nice and it meant strawberries would be next but alas it is best for the plant so away they had to go.

Some of the lettuce is going pretty yellow. From what I read it is looking like they are lacking nitrogen. Rather then go and buy nitrogen for them I looked into if there was something from home that I could use. I read that you can use coffee grounds. As we have coffee grounds I decided to try that. We will see how it works. I put some on this morning and watered them to help the grounds get into the dirt. Hopefully that works, if not I will see what else we can try.

Love

Candy

Tilled plot

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We finally tilled our plot on Sunday. Now its starting to look like a garden.

Today I went to the plot and measured out my paths for the beds. The garden beds are 3 feet wide and the path is 18inches. One foot paths was not enough room and 2 feet was too big so I went with one and half feet. The two beds at the one side of the plot are 2 feet instead of 3 because if I went with 3 for the one end then my path would be almost right beside the edge of the garden. So in the interest of not wasting space I went with 2, 2 feet wide beds. My paths are just started and I am sure they will look better as I get more work done on the plot. I want to start planting some seeds and the plants I have started at home but as we are going to be away for a few days it doesn't make sense to do that. I will do that when I get home.

Love

Candy

Garden Plot

Well we finally have access to our garden plot. We stopped there on May 1st and did some work on it. We dug up and hand tilled a small section. We had 3 bin outsides leftover from when we made our EarthTainers and we used those a 3 small raised beds. I plan on putting some tomato's and peppers in them once they are ready to be outside. We plan to rent a tiller for the rest of the garden. As you can see from the pictures it is in rough shape. I think its been a few years since they were used. You can only tell where the plot is because we did some work on it. Before we did anything on it you could barely tell where the plot started and the grass ended. We plan on tilling on the 15th. The garden plot looks rough now but by the time we are done it will look much better.

Love,

Candy

Starting Seeds

Well the seeds the I started indoors in the Jiffy Greenhouse have all with the exception of the Parsley have sprouted. Some of them started to sprout within 3 days after planting them. The rest of them have now sprouted. I also started some peppers and tomatoes on the 19th and they are now sprouted. The tomatoes sprouted before the peppers but now they are both up. The sprouts are growing taller and I keep them inside in the sun during the day. I am waiting for the true leaves to start and then I will start hardening them.
The strawberries outside are doing well. Some of them don't look like they will make it but I am going to give them a little more time before I give up on them. But most of them are doing well. They are everbearing and one of them has had flower buds and I have snipped them off. I am going to do that till the end of June and then after that let them be. This should produce a better strawberry crop for the end of summer/fall.
The mixed lettuces that I planted outside in the window boxes have sprouted as well. Quite a lot of them are up. They are looking well.
I am counting down the days now till we can into the allotment garden. Six more days and then the tilling will begin.

Love

Candy

Building of the EarthTainer