Category Archives: Square Food Garden

Saving on Saturday- Garden post

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I am actually going to do a series of post about gardening this week.  One of my goals for this year was that I started all the plants from seeds this year!  So far with a little help from volunteers I have been successful.  This has amounted to a HUGE savings.  Plant starts in my area are averaging around $5 each.  I started some seeds back on February 16th, I was amazed at what actually I was able to grow. In the greenhouse, until today we had around 160 plants. The total before taxes is $800!  I paid less than $5 a pack for seeds so even at worst we saved $775! 

These pictures were taken just before pulling them out for planting. Next are the pictures after we planted. I will not be including these in the update tomorrow just for ease and space.

Tomato beds are BEAUTIFUL!

I also have a huge section of California wonder bell peppers.  Planting took a long time probably close to 6 hours but I am so excited to have everything in the ground.

Tomorow will include pictures of the things we got planted out last Sunday as well!

 

Sunday Garden Update

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Today is one of the most important days of the garden season….. We moved the squash and cucumbers to the outside garden beds! Cucumbers are small but…

Yellow Squash is next

Zucchini is behind the garlic

Finally, these Loofa’s just were attaching themselves to the old sprinkler system.

Sugar snap peas are out front

The cosmos are growing and in the very back we have SUNFLOWERS!

The tomatoes and green peppers are still in the greenhouse for another week at the least.

Another 36 marigold plants are ready to plant as well. Along with another 6 loofas. I gave 6 to the neighbor today as well.

I transplanted some volunteers to the Greenstock on Friday night which is a good thing because a frost killed the others in the beds on Sunday morning.

And last but not least we added soil to all three of the potato containers

I am hopefully that we can finish planting out the garden next weekend or at least the following week. Then it will be time to take a break while we watch things grow before harvesting and preserving!  I am hopeful that our hard work will pay off with lots of fresh produce and veggies!

Sunday Garden Update

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Spring has sprung!  The temperature were above 80 for several days and we still have at least one spring frost left. But things are growing!

Tomatoes and peppers- maybe 2 weeks left before we plant but maybe one and half.

Marigolds are the smaller plants and more peppers!

These are cucumbers and squash that were planted last week!  I hope to get these plant at the end of next week. I am worried they may not last that long…..

I have an abundance of loofa plants…. not sure where they will end up but I have plenty!

Excited to see the potato plants are grow!

first planting of sugar snap peas

garlic

Asparagus bed

Radishes with a few carrots mixed it. My attempt to thin was not successful so I stopped!

See all the volunteers… I am thinking they are basil (actually crossing my fingers)

Volunteer cucumbers?

These are cosmos and Borge  all volunteer!

These actually came with the house 33 years ago.  Now I know I need to work on this bed! .

 

Sunday Garden Update

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It is definitely Spring, we have lots of things growing.

These are Raspberry plants, I have purchased 9 so far and may have two that are actually growing.

We added two apple trees, replaced a pear tree a second time and attempted a peach tree a third time. All of the new trees have buds and these established trees are starting to bloom.

We actually have eaten a couple of Asparagus stalks, and the rest will grow and go to seed as this is our second-year growth.  The picture really does not show how tall they are. Interestingly we have something growing in the bed in the front of this picture. I tried to thin out the radishes yesterday, but I may have just killed half of them if they don’t perk up I will

I tried to identify, and it said a butterfly bush, but I am thinking either loofas or cucumbers.

I may have overplanted the loofa as I have 15 growing in the greenhouse!  This should at least provide a years supply of sponges.

Snap peas from the first planting have started to shine, 3 broccoli plants that have survived begin transplanted and some very small spinach is also starting to sprout.

Tomatoes and peppers are really enjoying the greenhouse!   I am watering every other day or every third day depending on my schedule. The current plan is to plant these our the week of Spring Break which is three weeks away!

This year is the first time I have attempted to start Marigolds from seeds. I currently have 36 small, tiny plants less than 7 days after planting!

No potatoes yet!

I am probably most excited for this tray. I started cucumbers, squash, zucchini and basil all from seed yesterday!  This is also the last tray that I will be starting inside as we start planting outside in 3 weeks!

 

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1. I did not post a garden update last week. On Sunday, we went to the movies with friends and so I was not home most of the day. I did have pictures, but this week has shown a lot of growth and change so I will just share an update this Sunday.  I did start 42 ish marigold last weekend and have been amazed that we have over 50% germination even before the 7 days.
2. The weather continues to be on the improving side. We had a frost on Wednesday night/ Thursday morning. And the high today is supposed to be 78*
3.  My chicken math! Over the last 6 months, we gave away a rooster, lost one chicken to a predator and lost another to natural causes. That leaves us with 5 total hens. We are getting 3 eggs a day but honestly, I would like to be getting at least 6 a day with more in order to store. So we need at least 4 if not 6 additional chickens this spring/summer to keep us happy with eggs! I also think this is the best time to get chicks as our older 3 chickens are 3 years old, the younger 2 are 2 years old so this should be a good time to add so that our egg production stays steady. So yeap we need 6 chicks!
4.. Zach is currently taking an Agriculture Class in which they are incubating and raising chickens.  They keep the chicks at school until they are ready to be outside without heat lamps!  This is the perfect time for us to get these as we can work on integrating into our flock. We are picking up 2 chicks today and likely another 2 in a month!  We made a run to Tractor Supply to purchase some chick starter and a new watering container as we can’t seem to locate ours!
5.Last Fall we lost a chicken due to a failure in the wire cage.  I decided last night that we would go ahead and add a layer of poultry netting around the bottom of our existing chicken run. In the past when we have had smaller chicks, we have added cardboard because the current wire has a large enough opening that smaller chicks could escape.  By adding the poultry netting this will eliminate the need to add cardboard when we get additional chicks as well as a layer of protection!   We are planning on installing the netting as well as finishing up the deck this weekend!

Saving on Saturday

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We have been spending quite a bit of time working on getting the yard and garden ready for the Spring and Summer.

This old jeep wheel makes a perfect hose holder!

When we finally got the deck replaced last year the construction cause us to lose our compost box as well as one of the side flower beds.  Since the weather has turned a bit nice, I have been working to get these spaces back to use this year for either flowers or vegetables.

All the wood has been reclaimed from the “waste of the deck” I have been adding shredded paper in order to make a weed barrier.  We also “salvaged” some lumber screws in order to connect the pieces to make it more stable.  This actually has taken several weeks to get together. Finally,

this weekend, I was able to purchase dirt on sale. I am really loving it’s new look. We will be adding cattle panel across the bottom to help give it more of a separation and hopefully keep animals from under the deck.

Next I ended up paying Zach to level the area where the old compost bins sat and He used brick edging that had been removed from our front yard. I am thinking that I will plant either watermelon or Sunflowers in this area.

I think that it is small details like these that always improve the look of our house!

Sunday Garden Update

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I am so EXCITED to share this update with you!  On Saturday, I spent over an hour up potting a bunch of tomatoes and peppers!  They have been moved out to the Greenhouse where we have a heater that comes on when the temperature is below 50 and a solar fan comes on after 95* Hopefully

these will thrive for the next 5 weeks till we can plant them out!

We still have more peppers, broccoli and loofa in our bedroom!

Outside we have garlic We plan to add squash and a couple of tomatoes.

We have radishes starting out strong.

The biggest and best surprise is the asparagus

Finally, we have some spinach starting

Sunday Garden Update

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We are approximately 5 weeks out from our expected last frost date!

Matt and I spent all day yesterday working to get a watering system in place for the garden beds beside the house.  Our ultimate goal is to have all the beds on a watering system except for the vertical planters.  This will be a huge time saver and hopefully also encourage more production.  We are having some initial cost to get everything set up but because we use rainwater for watering it also saves and works itself out in about 2 years in cost.  It will likely take another full Saturday to finish the installation of the watering system and I will provide a cost breakdown when it actually works.

Zach helped me plant a new pear tree. This gives us a total of 2 pear trees, 4 apple trees, 1 peach tree and 2 pecan trees. We have finished the line I had originally envisioned and hope to have produce this summer.

We have tomato and pepper plants inside! I have also planted 8 total loofa plants that I hope will start growing and be ready to plant outside the first of May.  The tomato plants have the best germination rate which is above 95%. I do have some peppers growing but still no wax man peppers or Anaheim peppers. I do not see any sprouts outside which is disappointing, but we are expecting 70* this week which might speed up the process a bit.

Sunday Garden Update

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I like a schedule and routine. So I am going to start attempting to post a garden update on Sunday for the gardening year. I have really enjoyed looking back and figuring out when we did certain things and being able to document and decide if I am right on track or ahead of schedule. For example, I have been doing some reading and realized that the years I have had the best harvest, I started my tomatoes this early!  Last weekend, we ended up doing some major renovations to the gardens. First, we needed to replace the front board on the tomato bed.

After much thought and discussions, we decided to add cattle panel trellises to out beds in the back. This really doubled our growing space!

In total we spent a total of $96 for the upgrades.  I also purchased a 1000 worms to place in the front beds to hopefully prompt and encourage soil. The current plan is to add chicken manure at the end of the session in order to allow it time to age.

We currently have over a dozen pepper plants that have sprouted along with radishes outside and 7 broccoli plants inside.

I think we are off to a good gardening season!

Saving on Saturday

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The weather today has been absolutely beautiful!  So we spent a good amount of time outside prepping for the garden.  I had purchased these metal signs you see below at Dollar Tree at 25 to 50 cent each. We have label most of the beds where we plan to plant. This was also a good way for me to plan out my space.

I did plant out some sugar snap peas yesterday and some spinach. Matt and Zach were able to trim all three of rose bush. They also were able to prune out trees. This is the first time we have attempted to prune the trees.  We planted these trees in November 2016, with the pecan trees planted in April 2017. So most of the trees are beyond the time we need to prune. I am hopefully that this will also increase our production as well.

We are about 6 weeks away from our last frost. So it was definitely time to get the tomato plants started.

We started peppers and broccoli about 2 weeks ago.

I am trying to get back to making our bread products. Today I started loaf bread, biscuits and English muffins.  The biscuits turned out beautifully!

I did spend some time, making sure we used up leftovers and vegetables so I did a fair amount of food prep.