Garden 2012

We were with out internet for 3 days.. and I realized just how much we could get done when the internet was off... 

Even though it's March I feel a huge Garden Pressure.. why? Because it's already been 80 degrees for a week straight! Highly unsual. After the year we had last year where it was 90 degrees in June and it killed all of our started plants.. I feel like we need to rush this year.. and pray tht April rains don't drown everything!

Over the weekend we managed to not only clean the house, but clear out and plant all but 1 of the raised beds. The only reason why the 1 was not planted is we need to put dirt in it first :)  Granted 2 boxes were already planted and growing Garlic. ;) 

As of right now we have these things seeded.

• Lettuce
• Carrots
• Kolrabi
• Asian Cabbage
• Radish
• Garlic
• Onions
• Basil
• Oregano
• Dill (1 whole bed for Pickling)
• Ginger
• Horseradish
• Mint (came back from last year)
• Lemon Balm (came back from last year)
• Strawberries (came back from the last few year's)
  

Inside in flats I have these Seedlings Growing

• 4 Diffrent Tomato's 
• Mini Bell Pepper's
• Green Bell Pepper's
• Golden Bell Pepper's
• Red Bell Pepper's
• Peppercinie's
• Tomatillios
• Asian Cabbage
• Onions
• Sage
• Basil
• Dill
• Parsley     
  

Seed's Waiting to be planted

• Spinach
• Pea's
• Harcord Vert Green Beans 
• Luffa
• Cuecumbers
• Mini Cuecumbers
• Strawberry Pop Corn

There are also a few flower seeds started and waiting to be planted

I am trying to grow Sweet Potato slips in my windowsill but I may have started to late.
I still need to buy some more Onion Bulbs and potato's... but this sums up my list for this year.


New this year

• Sweet Potato's
• Mini Cuecumber's
• Mini Green pepper's
• Ginger
• Horse Radish
• Asian Cabbage
• Radish
• Hardcord Vert Green Beans
• Kolrabi

Back after an absence

• Spinach

We realized how much we missed this veggie in our salads!

We still have the Rose bushes and Iris's in our flower beds and a few misc flowers that were planted here before we bought the house. 


This sums up this years Garden excited and can't wait! I love watching things grow!

Yea! Seeds are here!!

I can honestly say this time of year makes me so excited. I'm like a little kid  I look at seed Catalogs and start seeing Seeds out at my favorite stores :) I'm like a kid in a candy store.  We buys seeds in a different way. We can't afford to buy them all at one time so we do it in sections. (I tried some seed saving last year and am doing research on it for Tomato's and Peppers this year )

The first section is Tomato's and Pepper's. These are one's that have to be started in the house any where from 10 to 6 weeks before the last frost. This year I found a website with decent prices that had a variety of Seeds that I couldn't find any where else. One is for a Tomato that will produce fruit until it's 38 degrees outside... This could be a real winner for winter sustained Tomato's under a hoop house :) Yummy!

Our second round is normally must have crops. Onions, Carrots, Peas, Squash, Corn and Pop Corn. These are have to haves in our book.

Third is our new upstarts. Like eggplant, loofah, cabbage ect.

Last year I did a bit of seed scrounging and one of the local retailers had all their seed packets for 20 for a dollar... Oh yeah I was all over that sale. 38 packages of Green onions (A must in our diet) 12 packages of Carrots, my squash and zucchini, and even pumpkins. It was pretty much picked over but I was really happy with my seed haul!

Then our very last is if we have a failure and have to buy plants. I hate doing this, but last year when all of my seeds failed (I used peat pellets and nothing grew bigger then a tiny blade of grass) we had to buy plants and move around some very welcomed volunteer plants.

Last year one of my Aunt's had a big success with homemade Newspaper Pots.. Wow what an idea! So this year that's what Corey and I are doing. Nope we don't subscribe to any newspapers. We get our local for free, but it's tiny. So I'm thankful my Parents and Grandparents get the big paper and have been saving them for me.

I found a few videos on You Tube, bought a few Foil pans (instead of black trays. This way I can use them on the grill when it's time to can and cook my tomato sauce and won't ruin my other pans. it was only a few cents more for them and double usage :) and I did spend 84 cents on a hard plastic cup. (We have no glass cups and all our $1.00 for 4 cups from wall mart are weird shaped and squishy)

So after some playing around working on the pots I have found  I can get between 12 and 15 pots on a tray :) so for the 100 to 150 seeds I need to start it won't be to bad and we've seriously cut our growing budget from the $50 for pot's and dirt and all down to $10.00 or so :) What a way to start out the growing season! So the extra $2.00 I spent on loofah seeds didn't make me cringe :)

Good luck to all my seed starting friends and if you know of any good ways to save seeds or a great blog with info please let me know! It would be wonderful not to have to buy seeds anymore!

I have been so blessed with all the ideas and things given to help us in our gardening efforts.