Survival = Success

Well After many trials this year I feel confident that the plants that have survived to this point will bear fruit of some kind. For my First attempt at gardening I feel that any success will be very very rewarding for me. Most everything has now been in the ground for nearly 3 months, except the tomatoes that had to be replaced after a late frost.


You can see in the foreground of this first picture my raised beds which I made from 2x6 for my strawberries. But have been primarily used for compost so far.

The garden did not suffer much from the flood. I plan to plant my onions from sets next year instead of seed, or start them much earlier inside. I'm not too sure what the best course of action will be, I'm very disappointed in them this year as only a small handful seem to have made it this far. I've been away on a trip to Missouri so you wouldn't be able to find them for the weeds in a picture so I didn't snap one.

Here are some little bean plants struggling through the weeds, you can see how dry it was while I was away.


I had nothing on my tomatoes when I left but when I came back I had a few tomatoes! Four days made all the difference.



My Carrots are hopefully growing as well bellow ground as they are above ground. Refer to first picture of the whole garden as I've misplaced the one I edited to go here.

My lettuce continues to impress me. We have eaten many salads off this crop now and have given some away to friends and family

FLOOD

It's the day after we had a flash flood run through Gainesville.

I had to leave my car at work and drive a truck home the water over the street was over the headlights, on more than one occasion the water pushed the truck sideways a little bit but I was able to keep it on the road. When I got home, I live on the higher side of town and there was not but about 8-9 inches in the streets in my neighborhood. Unfortunately there is no curb in the ally that runs behind my back yard and I had 8-9 inches over my garden as well.
You can see the raised beds that I put in for the strawberries in the middle of the yard.. they are aligned with the left end of the garden. Directly above them you can see the rows of carrot tops and lettuce, but that big area to the right of them is submerged beans, onions and jalapenos! I have not mowed in two weeks so what looks like dry ground is really just where the grass sticks up above the water. My whole yard was standing or running water last night.

It was pretty dark and my camera tried to focus on the rain drops instead of the yard, but I took a couple pictures from the back door. I hope everything dries out and comes back up. The forecast has rain in it four of the next five days. I suppose I will be saving money on my water bill, I hope it's as much as the plants I'll have to replace cost me 8)

First Salad

Well here we are April 23 and I took the thinning of my lettuce crop inside today and whipped up a delicious salad for my wife and I. It's been a while sense I planted my seed, but I consider lettuce a total success it was delicious and I know it will only get better and better as the season goes on and I'm able to add more ingredients from my very own, very first garden.

Salad:

• 1. Bowl of lettuce from the garden
• 1. Can of chunk chicken breast
• 3. Slices of bacon (torn to bits)
  
• 1/2 cup. Cheddar Cheese
• 2. Hard Boiled eggs
• Small Can of Sliced Olives
• Carrots (peelings)
• 1/2 cup. steamed broccoli
• 1/4 cup. chopped onion

Topped with croutons and ranch dressing, served with garlic toasted french bread. This was a very filling meal for the two of us.

I have a tendency to believe that the reason this salad was so good to me is all the work that went into this tiny harvest, All the ups and downs and the rewarding nature of what I always thought of as a "simple hobby." If I only get one more salad this summer I feel like my efforts were well spent.

Couple of links

I just wanted to throw these links out there, because I use them all the time.

TheEasyGarden - Gardening Forum
Sister site to BackYardChickens Forum
Chickens have become my interest hobby, because study them all the time, but don't have any.

Helpful Gardener Garden Forum - A friendly place to chat about gardening.
Very helpful place, very informative people.
There is a section here dedicated entirely to tomatoes!

Late Frost! but I know an easy fix

Well I've lost every single one of my tomatoes that I planted from seeds due to a late frost. I think if I had allowed them to spend more time inside before plunking them into the garden they would have had a much better chance of success. I also did not harden them at all, so there was a bit of shock for the plants anyway.

Never the less I managed to save about 60% of my Bell and Jalapeno peppers and I'm thrilled about that. Yesterday while driving home from work I couldn't resist stopping at the nursery to see if they had some tomatoes, and price some Paving stones for a patio project that's in the back of our minds.

Jalapeno ^











Bell >



I bought six Big Boy tomato plants and three strawberry plants, Camille helped me put the tomatoes in the ground this morning (we are expecting rain tonight) but the strawberries are still on the table. I'm not too sure how or where we are going to plant them, because we plan to completely redesign the garden area before next year and we don't want to just have them coming up where ever they want in the yard.

You can see I put twigs around my Tomatoes to help shelter these little plants from the rain and wind of the upcoming storms.

So that's the update and the lesson is; Harden your plants and make sure they are mature enough to handle the elements before you sacrifice them to ignorance.

In the foreground of this picture of my garden you can see my potato cages, I don't know how this is going to work out, but I'm hoping to grow only a few Russets and Reds. More importantly, however is my helper in the back of the picture she's making sure I get some good shots for the blog.

I took a few pictures today just to give updates on things, the front flower bed is starting to show signs of life!


The grass I sewed is coming up in all kinds of random areas, just not around the patio where we really wanted it to.
Thanks for reading along I'll be sure to update again if anything comes up.

And Finally! the garden

I borrowed a tiller from my wife's grandfather. It didn't run, I broke the pull string, and one of the weels fell off. So the garden was not tilled that day. However my skull is pretty thick so I loaded it up and took it back to him borrowing his other tiller. Haha! Success, and the following day I put some plants in the ground. I think I should have waited a while after tilling to do my actual planting..? Does it matter?

Anyway I had some plants started inside that I purchased as seeds. They were doing well inside they were about 2" tall and had two little leaves on each one. I had tomatos, bell peppers, and jalepino peppers all at this stage. I was in a hurry to put them out, because I had family coming in and needed the extra room for my guests. The weather had been nice the last couple weeks (70's) so I thought they would be safe from freeze and what not. After my little plants had been in the ground nearly a week, we had a big storm that I am sure was hard on them, and it got down to freezing! Yak! I was unable to cover them until after the damage was done because I was working that night. Also I think they may have been more likely to survive better if they were farther along in their lives. I'm pretty sure I lost about 80% of my tomatos and 60% of my peppers. I am not happy about this, but I'm crossing my fingers for the plants that survived. I planted onions, carrots, and lettuce as well. So far not seeing much, but my lettuce is coming up nicely.

Just to see what would happen I stuck a clove of garlic in the ground next to my onions. It has exploded. I only wish I new that you are supposed to plant them in the fall.

Well, it took me a couple days, but I got the pictures.

Take a look at the two pictures that I have from last year. We took these pictures when we were looking at the house, before we bought it. So the quality is no so hot and the shadows are aweful. However take a look at the front walk way. It looks a lot different now and if we can get the fower bed of death to play nice it will be really inviting.

So that was Summer 2008, and here it is now Spring 2009

With a closer look at that difficult flower bed:

Now we'll just walk right through the house and look out the back door.
Summer 2008:

And Spring 2009

It was a lot of work getting all the trees and brush out of that fence line. You can easily see the difference in these two pictures if you look closely 2008 you could barely see the neighbors and the street, now in 2009 it's quite obvious. The plan is to plant bamboo all the way around the yard to creat some privacy. We have also looked at a shrub or hedge idea. Hopefully it will all work it's self out, and look pretty.

So you can see the basic foundation of the changes that I've made. It will be interesting to see how it looks at the end of the summer if the grass will take off and grow.

Tuesday, March 26, 2009.

It's a yucky day outside so I decided to start a blog. Please don't hold it against me but this blog is really more for myself to keep track of my own progress, and maybe gain knowledge from those that are able to correct me.

I live in North Texas, about 5 minutes from Oklahoma. I believe that this puts me in the plant hardiness/whatever zone of 7b by one of the standards I can't remember which. With that being said you now know the degree that I'm willing to go to research and study on a subject before diving into a new project. This has also been my preparation tactics to begin my blog. So I will not be able to add pictures and what else for the time being, I've lost my camera.

The basic background of my garden to this point: My Wife and I purchased our home in Oct '08. It had been sitting empty for nearly a year and had the grass mowed about 3 times. So at the first signs of spring I started working on the lawn, cutting trees and brush from around the fence. (I wish I had before pictures) And I sowed some grass seed. I decided that I had enough room in the back yard to put in a small vegetable garden. {Ok so now you know my goal, grow veggies} There was also a flower bed in front of the house that seems almost toxic! I'll get to that some other time. In the backyard I borrowed a tiller from my wife's grandfather and turned a spot over. In my impatience I planted the next day the seeds that I had started inside which I don't think were ready to come outside. But we can discuss that later.

So I sorta had grass now, but mostly I have dirt, with some tiny little sprouts of various vegetables coming up, but I have no idea how to tend to any of it. I read a couple of forums often http://www.helpfulgardener.com & http://www.theeasygarden.com. I also spend a lot of time looking at BYC but my wife says absolutely NO CHICKENS!

Well Check back soon I'll get some more details on what I've done and how I've messed up, what I learned to save you some time effort and perhaps money.