6/16/2009 - 3 More Beds Built, Filled and Planted
So, I've been busy in the garden since last time I wrote. I think last time I posted anything I had two beds planted with potatoes, onions, lettuce and carrots. Since then I built three more: a 4x6, a 4x4 and a 4x8. It was a lot of work! It was not so much the cutting and nailing together of the boards but the setting and leveling of the bed, the transporting of the composted horse manure from the front of the house to the back one wheelbarrow at a time, the digging out, separating from the grass and breaking up of the clay to mix with it, and the filling of the beds with the mixture. It was a lot of hard work, but very rewarding when I saw the finished product and was able to start planting!
So, for the record, here is what I planted or transplanted in what beds and when.
- Wednesday, June 3rd - Transplanted four of the tomato plants into the 4x8 foot bed: 2 Japanese Black Trifele, 1 Manitoba and 1 Blondkopfchen.
- Saturday, June 6th - Transplanted two more tomatoes into the 4x8 foot bed: 1 Manitoba and 1 Blondkopfchen. Transplanted 9 Lacinato Kale, 12 Di Cicco Broccoli, and 6 more lettuce plants into the new 4x6 foot bed. Hilled up the potatoes.
- Tuesday, June 9th - Transplanted peppers and eggplants: 4 Jalapeņos, 3 Thai Hot Peppers, 4 Napoleon Sweet Peppers and 3 Lao Green Stripe Eggplants in the 4x4 foot bed, and 1 Napoleon Sweet and 1 Eggplant in the 4x8 foot bed (to give them a little extra spacing to see what difference that might make).
- Saturday, June 13th - Thinned Danver's Half Long Carrots and moved some into the new 4x6 foot bed. Planted some cilantro, 9 Empress Beans, 8 Fin de Bagnol Beans, some French Breakfast Radishes and 4 Early Blood Turnips (Beets) in the new 4x6 foot bed in between the kale/broccoli and the lettuce that were on each end.
In you're a beginner gardener reading this, note that I am a beginner too (or at least I am at the time I'm writing this) and that a lot of these things I probably got in the ground way later than I should have. The kale and broccoli in particular should have been in the ground a month or more ago, I think. I just didn't have a place to put them until a week or two ago, so I got them transplanted when I could. We'll see how everything does, and I can always improve the timing and the process next year. I'll definitely be keeping y'all updated. :)
Anyway, beside the joy of getting most of the beds built and most everything planted (I still have Early Fortune Cucumbers and Amish Snap Peas to put in), I got to see everything I had already planted grow! Since I've never done this before and don't know what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised for example to see that the potato plants develop flowers on them. And so far, the colors of the flowers correspond to the colors of the potatoes, more/less. I've got blueish-purple flowers coming up from the All Blue Potatoes and white flowers coming up from a whiter variety (can't remember the name...some other ones that Hillary gave me). The red potatoes still haven't developed flowers, so we'll see what those look like when they come. Anyway, I love going out every day and looking at their progress. It's pretty amazing. I took some photos after I got all these main beds planted and put them in a mini-slideshow. Take a look!
5/21/2009 - Weekend in Central Oregon + 2 More Starts
Last night my friend Phil and I got back from a long weekend over in Central Oregon. It was a really nice relaxing trip. Usually we plan a hike or backpacking trip for these types of weekends, but this was a little last minute. So, we spent most of the time just hanging out at his family's cabin in La Pine, with the exception of a trip to Bend on Saturday to get a few things for repairs on the cabin, to eat some tasty Chinese food at Chan's and to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine in the Old Mill District. At the cabin we continued our quest on Skies of Arcadia for the Game Cube, juggled the soccer ball, watched Howl's Moving Castle, made and ate our traditional tacos with somewhat non-traditional ingredients and fairly severely broke our recent resolutions to cut down on our soda consumption.
So, even though it would've been great to go on a hike, it was nice to just relax and get away. Simply being outside at the cabin or driving around with the windows down on a sunny, mid 80s day in Central Oregon is wonderful. Phil and his family are heading over there next weekend and he's really looking forward to it. My family and I are going camping next weekend ourselves at Taylor Park, where my Grandparents have had a spot for many years now. Should be good and relaxing once again--sitting around the campfire and around the table playing games. Fun stuff.
Anyway, tonight Phil came over 'cause I was giving him a ride to his parents' house to pick up the car he would be driving over to the cabin this weekend. This was the first time he had seen any of my gardening efforts (at least in person). I was hoping to get another bed built or set, but since I didn't get started on things until about 8, I decided just to do what I could. So, I transplanted my Thyme into larger pots and started a couple more plants inside.
- Basil, Thai - 8 seeds
- Cucumber, Early Fortune - 4 seeds
The rest of the seeds I have are ones that ought to be sown directly into the beds outdoors, so I will have to get those beds built before I can do much more. Being out of town on the weekends makes that tough, but it's worth it to relax and hang out with friends and family.
5/4/2009 - Potato Leaves Coming Up
I planted my potatoes, what, about two weeks ago. I didn't really have any idea when to expect any green things to pop up from beneath the soil or what they would look like when they did. A couple of days ago I was looking at the bed and noticed a few little tiny leaves. I wasn't sure if they were weeds or if they were coming from the potatoes, so I left them alone. This morning I went out again to check them out and they had gotten much bigger and more like real leaves. I was pretty excited. Here are a few pictures I took of them. I think the darker colored ones are from the all-blue variety that Hillary gave me, and the others are either from a yellow potato she also gave me, or from the red ones that I got from People's. Woohoo! I really enjoy this gardening stuff.
