have a garden

Actually, I completed this goal last year, but I want a garden EVERY year! Therefore, I opened another more focused goal relating to learning square foot gardening. I will try to continue to post under this goal for other gardening related issues.

I have my garden notebook started! I purchased a heavy-duty 1.5 inch binder with a bunch of cheap dividers.

I have labeled the following sections:

Garden Plans
Inspiration
Gardening Calendar
Ornamentals Planning
Edibles Planning
Projects
Individual Plants
Weeds and Insect Pests
Season Extension
Seeds and Supplies
Journal

As I was going through the magazine purge this morning, I filled some of the sections with some good information:

Articles on Vegetables
Articles on Houseplants
Articles on Container and Miniature Gardens
Soil Improvement and Composting
References on Fragrant Plants, Butterfly and Hummingbird Plants
Companion Gardening
Plant Propagation, etc.

I might need a different organization for my tabs or sub dividers when this is completed, but for now it seems to be ok.

I also want to find some nice gardening quotes and put them on my dividers.

I plan to track each and every vegetable seed I grow this year, complete with pictures to put in my binder, and information on each plant.

German Butterball potatoes, and Red Potatoes! I also have some Ozette Fingerling potatoes. My big grow bags arrived last week, so all I need is dirt, some warmer weather, and time!

I need to buy the book Square Foot Gardening. I just checked out the squarefootgardening.com site and it is awesome! I just discovered that in a 4×4 foot bed, that you can plant 4 corn plants per square foot, so that makes 16×4 = 64 corn plants!

Park Seed….my hybrid disease resistant seeds….I’m getting garden fever and it is barely spring. Much cooler this year. I’m brainstorming raised bed and pot configurations. I also got some Ozette Potatoes from my organic gardening delivery since Seed Saver Exchange was sold out.

Ozette Potato history: “Ozette Potato
Solanum tuberosum subsp. andigena

The Ozette came from Peru by way of Spanish explorers to the Makah Indians at Neah Bay, Washington in the late 1700s. The Ozette is also known by the names, Anna Cheeka’s Ozette and Makah Ozette. It is considered a fingerling potato, as its size ranges from 3-7 inches in length and 0.75-1.5 inches in diameter. The potato has an earthy and nutty flavor that is similar to the taste sensed in cooked dry beans. The flesh is firm and the texture is very creamy. The Ozette is generally served steamed, fried, or roasted. The Ozette is grown predominantly in private gardens for specialty menus and for personal consumption.”

Ozette is considered a “Slow Food” http://www.slowfoodusa.org/ark/ozette_potato.html

History of the slow food movement:

“History of the Movement

In 1986, the founding father of the Slow Food Movement, Carlo Petrini recognized that the industrialization of food was standardizing taste and leading to the annihilation of thousands of food varieties and flavors. He wanted to reach out to consumers and demonstrate to them that they have choices over fast food and supermarket homogenization. He rallied his friends and his community, and began to speak out at every available opportunity about the effects of a fast culture. Soon after, Petrini realized that in order to keep those alternative food choices alive, it was imperative to be an eco-gastronomic movement—one that is ecologically minded and concerned with sustainability and sees the connection between the plate and the planet. With the preservation of taste at the forefront, he sought to support and protect small growers and artisanal producers, support and protect the physical environment, and promote biodiversity. Today, the organization that Petrini and his colleagues founded is active in over 100 countries and has a worldwide membership of over 80,000.”

Picture of Ozette potatoes…they are yummy!

I have decided I am going to build myself a garden notebook. In it I will keep gardening articles and tips, plans for my garden layout, notes on varieties I have tried, a calendar for crop rotation and to track seed germination to harvest, a section for houseplants, section for ornamentals,section for inspiration from other gardeners.

I will put things in it such as composting info, soil ph advice, pest control, and other things. I think this will benefit me in the long run as I try different varieties and learn techniques.

I ordered 3 potato grow bags (yield 13 lbs each)

and a PH detector device so I can make my soil just right for each and every green thing I am growing.

Then, I purchased from Seed Saver Exchange the following:

German Butterball Potato
Red Gold Potato
Borettana Yellow Onion
Ireland Creek Annie’s Bean (Eating/Soup Bean)
Calypso Bean (Eating/Soup Bean)
Waltham Butternut Squash
Black Beauty Zucchini Squash
Empress Bean (Green Bean)
Autumn Beauty Sunflower

From Park Seed I purchased the following:

Lettuce Little Gem (to go with my miniature garden and the tom thumb peas I saved from last year)

Swiss Chard Bright Lights

Corn Early Sunglow Hybrid (for fast, early germination in cold weather)

Cucumber Bush Pickle Hybrid

Cucumber Eureka Hybrid

Lettuce Buttercrunch

Lettuce Red Sails

Pea Green Arrow (powdery mildew resistant! Last year’s seed saver variety failed because of powdery mildew)

Carrot Scarlet Nantes (problems last year with seed savers)

Arugula

Dill

Kale Winter Hybrid

Then, I plan on planting 4 tomatoes again this year from my local nursery, and getting some peppers, basil, oregano, chives, and nasturtiums

Continuing from last year are all my strawberries.

Most of what I am doing is growing in containers, and I just found out a way to grow corn in containers…will attempt it this year! Still debating on ripping up part of the lawn for raised beds. We are determining whether or not to move. If we move, my garden will temporarily move to my grandma’s home where she has a large amount of garden property. I just can’t stand not having a garden!

Doing research into soil improvement, and high yield biointensive gardening.

I just looked at two more houses for sale today with yardage, and I am just not impressed. In fact, I was downright frustrated. Either they have the best yard with the worst house, or vice versa. Eyeballing my own home again and considering ripping out lawn and putting in deep dug biointensive organic raised beds. I’ve been scared to do it, as right now the back yard looks so clean and pristine and easy to care for….but I am dying without yardage for growing mega stuff.

I have figured if I get 3-6 big potato grow bags I can produce 39 to 78 lbs of potatoes in one shot. Or I could even try rotating the crop if I can get them planted early enough.

I am going to do the 4 large buckets of tomatoes again on my patio. They grew so well there last year. I will also add more pepper plants and start earlier with them in the same general location, as well as basil and oregano, chives and parsley.

Pondering hanging my strawberries this year in hanging baskets. My house is very long, so I’ve got a lot of places where I could hang stuff. That way slugs won’t get them, but I might have to net them to keep the birdies away.

I’ve been researching corn, and found someone who grew organic corn successfully in nine 5-gallon buckets. Apparently corn has shallow roots, and does great in containers…but if you want a lot of it you might need lots of containers. I have two huge half wine barrels I might try corn and maybe squash in this year..not sure. Any ideas? I was doing the math, and it looks like I need about 95 corn plants to produce enough corn to feed my family. The spacing says 8 inches apart, but to get the corn that produces multiple ears per plant for highest yield. Don’t know if I’ll make the full 95 or not…that sounds like turning my small piece of land into a corn field!

My other desirable this year is beans beans beans! Last year, my beans didn’t do much exciting. They produced, but they were small bush green beans. I want to try giant climbing beans with a heavy tall cage and see if I can grow more in one space. For this I may rip up the lawn….we’ll see what hubby says. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind less lawn to mow…ha ha!

I’ve decided that I’m good at growing all lettuces, arugulas and spinach…so I can even put them in containers if I want. Undecided with the peas. Powdery mildew is a rotten thing!

Onions and carrots I need to do more research on…I have yet to grow either successfully, and this year I also would like to try cucumbers, maybe against the house where it gets really warm.

My other wish list for the seeds is kale, swiss chard, zucchini, garlic, beets and some assorted herbs.

I am also undecided about just randomly putting in a blueberry bush and putting in 3 dwarf fruit trees in the front of our home….we have a mature landscape, and it would change it quite a bit….but then again its our house!

and it felt sooo good! I made a mini weeding project out of my front entrance flower bed. I got out the clippers and trimmed the dead perennial foliage away, got out the gloves and cleared all dead leaves, twigs, and sticks away, weeded out all the baby dandelions that are coming up there, and planted 4 additional primroses to add to my existing ones that have been thriving and surviving there. I also was able to plant half of my poor mega daffodil bag that hubby got me before I hurt my knee in November. Poor things are sprouting. I need to finish planting the rest somewhere this coming week. Rainstorm on its way in, so will have to wait!

This week I need to order seeds. Here is what I want:

arugula
peas
green beans
soup beans (maybe)
buttercrunch lettuce
assorted deep red and green lettuces
swiss chard
cucumbers
zucchini
carrots (maybe..didn’t do well last year)
chives
oregano
dill
mint
sunflowers

I will buy tomatoes and peppers a little later this spring….

I am looking to find a good way to grow potatoes, onions, and garlic in containers but I am struggling with finding the right setup.