In Bloom

New Toys

Mini green house.  This is a four shelf jobbie, as my Nana would say, that I picked up from Big Lots with my birthday money.  So far, I have put in one flat of seeds.


And this fancy barrel is a composter.  I am thinking I will also declare this as a birthday gift!  I plan on putting all of the dead vegges in here that can't necessarily be out in the open air for fear of raccoons.  I am also going to put egg shells and coffee grinds in there to add to the complexity.  We shall see how this goes. 

Potatoes

I will never give up the quest to easily grow potatoes and so...here we go again.  Here is another attempt. Last time, I got overzealous.  I planted them in the silver garbage can thinking, 'hey this is great!' and then thought 'what if they don't have enough room?'  And hence...I planted them in the ground...dug up about two of them and that was the end of the story.  Alas, I saw this pot at Walmart and I figured, why the hell not? So, let's see how it goes!

Peas

 Note to self...despite your desire to produce more sugar snap peas than you heart could ever desire, do not, I repeat DO NOT use these fabulous little pods for them .  Sugar snap peas HATE this.  They keep it simple, they like it when you shove them directly into the soil.

I had figured, in a way, I was doing just that and then I would put the pod into the ground.  Nope, the peas revolted.  I still refuse to give up.  I will still try to get them to live but for now,  I will just be happy with the growth that is happening from me shoving them directly into pots.

The larger plants, a few of them, that are climbing are from Garden of Eve http://www.gardenofevefarm.com/  that I purchased when I picked up our CSA share.  Other than that, simple, simple, simple.  Shove the seeds in deck boxes...and walk away.

Prepping the land

So I started to prepare my garden for veggies to realize that chickweed had overtaken the place.  I read up and decided to solarize the beds aka place contractor bags over them to bake the weeds out. I added a layer of newspaper to the mix in the hopes on enhancing the soil.

I also started to pull weeds from my walking paths but I am doing it right this year. Pull, place newspapers, lay mulch, repeat. Since I have about a month  before the garden goes in full swing, I figured I would do it slow and steady in the hopes of not pulling out weeds every two seconds this year.

This is before most of the weed pulling.  I had prepped the one bed and laid  newspaper down  and,  as you can see, I had never fully cleaned up from last season.  But hey, that is a good workout waiting to happen right?

Chickweed, chickweed, chickweed...oh and some marsh marigolds too.

OK...so the bed have newspaper underneath and a blanket, contractor bag, on top .  I also started pulling weeds from the back and down the right side. I am hesitant to pull the left because the marsh marigolds will soon leave and I like viewing them.  And so, the debate goes on, to rip before or after the marigolds go down.