Category Archives: Garden Baby

Here’s the Dirt

28 Saturday Mar 2020

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A friend of mine asked me to help her plan a new vegetable garden in Texas, something I clearly have an interest in. Said friend asked questions like, what do I need, what do I buy, what tools do I get, what do I plant? All good questions.

Here is the thing. I feel like I have some kind of garden credentials. I have a garden, I’ve been successful, I carry a Master Gardener badge. All this adds up, but so often I think…do I really know what I am talking about? What, really, have I done other than try something and fail a lot? Maybe failure is the key to unlocking expertise?

This past week I have been doing some spring clean-up work around the property, and headed into the berry patch to tackle the unmanageable thornless blackberries. A prime example of what not to do: buy a bunch of plants without knowing anything about them. Boom. Blackberries. Without constant patrol (and control) we would have blackberry vines growing through our walls. I do have a lot of guilt sending transplants to my aunt and uncle in Minnesota years ago. I hope there is minimal resentment, or the plants died.

I also used glyphosate once a few years back on a mulch path when I was so overwhelmed with weed frustration. I hope this is a safe place to admit this. It has haunted me ever since.

My point here is, I do not know all the answers and I mess up a lot. I guess that makes me human, so they say?

There are a handful of decisions that I know were solid choices, and I’ve been thinking about one in particular: compost. High quality, local compost has been a life saver in so many ways. One of the questions my friend asked was “what soil do I use?” seemingly after she bought a single bag of potting soil for a raised bed.

To fill my beds initially, I purchased a 50-50 mix of top soil and compost. This is important, the compost should be good quality. Each year, I order 1-2 yards more to top each growing area to replenish organics in the soil (which does deplete each year). That’s it! That’s all! Rarely have I had to use any additional fertilizer on the garden (only the year I did not top dress the beds). Well-rotted compost is a perfectly balanced fertilizer, chemical free, and cost effective. It is very important to purchase HOT composted materials. While I am a big advocate of home composting/lazy composting, cold composting will not kill any pathogens or jumping worm eggs (yes those are a real scary thing…go to the internets!), so you do need some caution with use.

Black Gold

Fresh compost delivery with a rain blanket.

This one, friends, you can take to the bank.

In other news, four years ago I was duped into buying those fancy mushroom spawn-filled logs that you just toss in the back woods and 3 months later you have a veritable mushroom farm. Guess what? Blue Oyster mushroom popped up this spring out of NOWHERE. What a fun surprise! (Note: I’m going to assume from a safe distance these are blue oysters. I’m no mushroom expert.)

Blue Oyster Log

Surprise mushrooms!

 

What are you doing this early spring to ready the garden?

Quarantine Garden (aka I’m bAAaaack!)

22 Sunday Mar 2020

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What a time to be alive! Amiright?? Seriously, though, who would have guessed we would be trying to make it through a real life PANDEMIC? Pandemic is also a fan-favorite party game, great for isolation. Full disclosure: CFO, myself and the family ALWAYS LOST when we played up at the lake. I try not to dwell on that too much.

In these social distancing times, I am turning towards the garden. I realize my social media presence has been choppy, so I will do my best to stay on top of things. But please don’t put too much faith in that. After all, Monkey is 2 years old now, which is prime time for him to jump off a ledge into a pile of leaves or something. All eyes on the wild child.

I do have a very ambitious garden planned this year, with a priority on preserving the harvest. We invested in a CSA box through Village Farmstead, located just down the street from us, in an effort to ensure fresh, local produce in the trying times of raising a child, and we will continue that this summer.

We begin the year with seeding three varieties of onions (Flat of Italy red, Yellow of Parma, Minnesota Winter bunching), Blue Solaise leeks and Zebrune shallots. I started these little ones in January under grow lights. As they grew, I maintained their manes at ~4 inches, continuously clipping them back. This caused them to produce thicker stems from what I could tell. They are out in the greenhouse now (as long as we stay above freezing), and I will plant out in early April after we top the beds with compost. Additionally, I’ve been feeding these guys fish fertilizer once a month, which is the smelliest, most vile concoction that permeates the whole house with dead fish for about 3 days. Lovely.

Onion seedlings in trays

A New Plan

03 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by in Garden Baby, Garden Inspiration, Garden Plan

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Well well well old friend, its been a while. Since we last spoke, I grew a small human. In fact, he is still growing and growing…and growing. I, meanwhile, have shrunk considerably since last summer, which is good news considering its Girl Scout cookie season. It’s hard to fathom that it is already March, and today is the first day I have even begun thinking about the garden. Don’t misunderstand, I think constantly about what an utter MESS the garden was left in because I was too slow and tired to waddle around and do any yard work last July, and I don’t even remember what happened between August and December (apart from childbirth), but I have not thought about the fun stuff, like plant varieties, organization, list making, and getting dirty. True to form, I have decide to grow a full vegetable garden once again even though I literally have no time not even seconds to spare in any given day. What can I say? I wouldn’t be me without ridiculous unobtainable goals. CFO reminds me of this constantly.

Even though I am cheap, and prefer the DIY rugged toddler craft look, this year even I acknowledge that I will have to make some exceptions to my garden plan. No matter how I manipulate my time, seed starting is just not going to be in the cards. Instead, we will give our money to my favorite locally owned and operated garden store (Plant Land!) and buy some beautifully grown heirloom vegetable starts. Because I cannot be reasoned with, I am looking into making seed tapes for some of the veggies that may prove a bit more challenging to sow with an infant in tow (I’m looking at you tiny carrot seeds!). Making seed tapes will probably be a complete failure, because of said infant who insists on crawling towards danger every change he gets. But if I can pull it off, it will make planting a breeze. More to come on that.

I have to say, I am really looking forward to including my little AG (apprentice gardener) in the work this year. I don’t know what skills he will have (eating dirt?) but I do want him to grow up knowing what an eggplant is, and that a tomato comes from a vine in the ground, not a box in the store. True story, my sister-in-law told me just the other day that she cut up a fresh pineapple for the first time in her 40+ year life, and asked if I had ever done that. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was a few weeks shy of the peak season, because I mean GET ON THAT GIRL, and while you’re at it go get yourself a watermelon.

AG has already shown a substantial interest in his plant foods and has tried all your standard baby purees as well as some fun ones like lemony kale, carrots and coconut, and curried peas. Making his food is probably more fun for me, but I figure the most exposure he has, the better eater he will be someday because there is nothing on earth or heaven or hell that will get me to make chicken nuggets every day for the next 16 years…at best once a week.

So, my plan for this year is simple: we will have our standard perennials (asparagus, blueberries (maybe?), strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, pears and sour cherries), four boxes of your standard spring/summer vegetables from May through October, winter squash and radishes come late summer, potatoes, and lots of herbs through the end of the growing season.

Wish me luck!

Gestating and Germinating

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Garden Baby, Garden Concepts, Garden Inspiration, Garden Plan

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I am very excited to start the official planting season this month, along with the fun and exciting challenge of also preparing for a new family member (this time the human variety). CFO and I are busy making preparations for our little sprout to arrive early August, which means all my other preparations have to be done in less time and with significantly less energy. Pregnancy and preparing for a baby are two things of which I have no knowledge, and no matter what anyone tells, you there is no amount of book learning that can get you there. I know because I have read ALL the books. I am still confounded as to what I really need to do. And yes I have had every man, woman and child TELL me what I need to do and every single one of them has contradicted the other. The only thing I know about having a baby is how to accumulate things. Somewhere in this picture is a crib, I swear.

Where my skill set lies is in how to ready a garden and grow some food. At least, I have had relative success in the past. My garden planning is fairly immaculate, if I do say so myself. I have charts, and more charts, and schedules, and timers. Planning is one of my top attributes; I once planned a seven-day trip to Paris all in 15-minute increments. It was a phenomenal experience. The problem is, I can’t plan the unknown, and everything has been an unknown since Thanksgiving. Here is how my schedule is working out so far:

  • February 18 – Start celery and leek seeds indoors. ON TIME.
  • March 4 – Start kale and cabbage indoors. DELAYED.
  • March 25 – Seed outdoors arugula, fava beans, colish greens, peas and spinach. DELAYED. Start tomatoes and peppers indoors. ON TIME!!…DIED…DELAYED.
  • April 1 – Seed outdoors lettuces, endive and radicchio and harden kale and cabbage transplants. DELAYED.
  • April 8 – Seed outdoors beets, carrots, parsley, chard; transplant cabbage and kale; start eggplant and celery root indoors. DELAYED.

My list is starting to resemble a United Airlines departure board at O’Hare International Airport. The new plan is, April 15 do all of the tasks above. I am about halfway there. I finished seeding the spring raised bed this morning, and will hopefully sneak an hour to do the rest tomorrow, followed by the transplants this weekend and finally get those eggplants going.

On top of my own garden chores, I have the community to think about. In the fall, I started the Master Gardener program here in SE Wisconsin, which requires me to complete 24 hours of educational outreach in the county by September. This amount of time, 24 hours, seems reasonable, but considering that its garden outreach and most of the work is…well, WORK, and done during the growing season, AKA 7 and 8 months preggo season, this has proved to be a bit more challenging. I’m trying to volunteer at every home show, garden show, and potting event I can while my shoes still fit and I can see my own feet.

How is your garden growing?