Dirt, Worms, and Boys

Week 7

2010-07-28T19:30:00.003-04:00

Week 6

2010-07-21T19:46:00.001-04:00

I believe someone forgot to water our cucumber plants!

Week 5

2010-07-14T17:12:00.001-04:00

Week 4

2010-07-06T11:42:00.001-04:00

The tomato plants are taller than the boys. They have gone wild! (Both boys and tomatoes are wild!)

Can you tell that Nikolai was not impressed with our plants?

Deniska is pointing out the baby bell peppers. Notice the Silly Bandz on his arm. They are all the rage here.

The cucumber plants are growing and looking good.

Week 3

2010-06-30T07:55:00.001-04:00

Today’s pictures were taken by Deniska. He is keeping a book with all the data gathered on each plant. I think he is keeping a chart of how much fruit they produce, when we fertilize them, etc…. He is my little gardener.

Week 2

2010-06-22T09:44:00.002-04:00

Our container garden is doing very well. For the past 2 years, we had square foot gardens. I believe I like the container garden better. It certainly is more convenient and less trouble.

Our cucumber plants are growing but no sign of any baby cucumbers yet.

Deniska was very excited to find a tiny baby bell pepper growing. It’s the size of a pea.

Let’s inspect these plants to see how many tomatoes we have. Each plant had at least 1 tomato growing with lots of flowers blooming.

TEN on this one!! He was beside himself!

Week 1 – garden update

2010-06-15T17:01:00.001-04:00

First baby tomato! I am very proud. It is on Numbers.

Cucumber plants (Mary and Martha) – hmmm, they may not make it. But, they have grown.

Bell pepper plants, Peter and Paul. I don’t know why these turned out so hazy. Could be I could use a new camera?! I know, you are tired of hearing that…..

Our tom tom tomatoes, you know those little tomatoes that are on salad bars. It looks like a good crop so far! Genesis, you are doing a good job!!

A new season has started

2010-06-08T18:59:00.001-04:00

We are really late in planting our garden this year. I decided to go with container gardening this year and that seemed to be OK with everyone else. The boys and I planted our tomato plants, bell peppers, and cucumber plants today. I hope they make it!

Rest for the weary!

We named our tomato plants Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The pepper plants are Peter and Paul. The cucumber plants are Mary and Martha.

July 13th

2009-07-13T15:09:00.003-04:00

OK, so this is not a picture of the tomato plants, but a picture of my sweet Sam who walks with me everywhere.

Tomatoes are doing well this year. Bigger than last year, but still small. Everyone else said theirs was small too so maybe it's the lack of rain.

Steaks and tomatoes...

2009-07-08T13:14:00.004-04:00

Not real steaks, but stakes! I had to stake my tomato plants yesterday evening. The flimsy wire cages could not hold the plants with all the fruit on the vines. I sacrificed a brand new pair of pantyhose to tie them (since I had read that was the best thing to do!) Bought a bag of bamboo stakes from Lowe's and I was in business. I staked them in less than an hour.

July 6th Update

2009-07-06T19:33:00.003-04:00

Green peppers and lots of tomatoes!! Deniska is my official garden tester and picker.

June 29th update

2009-06-29T14:33:00.003-04:00

Looking good! We have gotten 2 small tomatoes so far. I can't wait until the bigger ones start getting ripe!

2009-06-25T11:00:00.002-04:00

I pruned my tomato plants today. I hope I did not prune too much off. Who knew you were supposed to prune tomato plants while they were growing. I don't remember my parents doing that but I suppose they did. Anyway, according to the experts, you are to prune back all the leaves that are not fruit bearing leaves. We'll see how it turns out. I have some really pretty tomatoes this year.

June 23rd update

2009-06-23T13:35:00.003-04:00

What's this I see? A red tomato!!!

My little bell pepper is growing. I am so proud of it!

I fertilized the plants yesterday. I am anxious to see if that makes any difference at all.

June 16th Garden Update

2009-06-16T09:28:00.003-04:00

Our garden is growing nicely. The tomatoes are plentiful but still little. I bought some Miracle Grow fertilizer that I will put on them today. I have one bell pepper, I am really proud of that!

Tomato plants

2009-06-06T20:27:00.003-04:00

The tomatoes are coming along nicely. We have lots of little tomatoes on the vines.

Snappy

2009-05-25T13:08:00.005-04:00

The boys have a new box turtle, Snappy. They marked him with a blue marker to make sure it's Snappy (in case he made a run for it!) He's been here a few days and they are determined to keep him. They have fed him grub worms, earth worms, mushrooms, grass, and anything else they can think of. I wonder how long it will take him to escape! Run, Snappy, RUN!!!!

2009 garden

2009-05-24T19:42:00.003-04:00

This is 2009 garden. We just started it within the past few weeks. I have 8 tomato plants and 2 bell pepper plants. I have lots left to do. I would like to do at least a monthly picture update.

Almost over

2008-10-28T18:46:00.002-04:00

Our gardening season is almost over as frost will surely get what is left.

The good things about my garden:
1. I loved growing our own tomatoes and everyone enjoyed eating them!
2. I enjoyed the boys going out and pulling onions and tomatoes.
3. We really gave it a try.

Things that didn't go well.
1. My tomatoes did not get very big. That seemed to be a problem with everyone.
2. My cantaloupe died before we got to eat it. It also was not big.
3. The peppers did not make well at all.
4. The onions did not get very big.

Will we do this again next year? Absolutely. Surely we will learn as we go. I already have plans on what to plant!

Harvest time

2008-06-30T17:35:00.007-04:00

4 fresh tomatoes

4 onions

LOTS of plums

ALL organically grown and nurtured!

Dead bush

2008-06-09T16:05:00.002-04:00

I noticed that my mother's favorite rose bush is dead. Matter of fact, ALL of her rose bushes have died. Interesting, since she died herself this past December. It's as if her entire flower garden died with her. It's sad not to see all of the rose bushes when I look at her year. It's like a part of me died too.

Ah-ha! Got ya!

2008-05-30T18:47:00.000-04:00

I picked out first hot pepper this morning from the garden. It was met with lots of ooohs and aaahs from the family! We are all so proud!

The garden's growing

2008-05-25T19:24:00.008-04:00

See this beautiful squash bloom? If you look carefully, you can see a pepper growing. I also have some baby tomatoes. I don't know why I forgot to take pictures of them. My onions are growing nicely.

I'm so proud!

A new beginning

2008-05-22T18:41:00.003-04:00

I planted my new little garden this past week. I have 5 tomato plants, 5 pepper plants, 2 blocks of valdalia onions, and 2 squash (I think!) I am worried about my tomato plants. I hope they perk up some. They looked a little sad when I planted them.

The death of a garden

2008-04-17T16:50:00.001-04:00

Well, my little garden plants all died on April 15, 2008 due to extreme cold. They simply froze to death; it was just too cold for them to survive even with being covered up. This was a lesson learned. As Deniska and I were pulling up the little dead plants, Deniska was saying, "Aww, little plant - I'm sorry that you died. You are with Grandma now." How sweet was that? He now thinks that everything that dies goes to heaven to be with Grandma! He repeated this to every little plant he pulled up from the soil.

Not to be discouraged, I went back to school today and bought more plants for my garden. They are only 50 cents each and that is not a bad deal. I bought tomato plants, pepper, cantaloupe, and cucumbers. They will go home with me tonight and taken care of until time to plant. For the time being, they will be inside/outside plants!

Now, let's talk about planting. My daddy lived by the Farmer's Almanac. I decided perhaps he had had a good idea with that. So, off to the Internet I went to find out the best time to plant my garden. This is what I found:

*radishes - April 19

potatoes - May 3

*cucumbers - May 10
beans - May 10

*pepper plants - May 17
*tomatoes - May 17
*cantaloupe - May 17
sweet potatoes - May 17
watermelon - May 17

Hmm, looks like I need another square garden form. I could plant potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, and watermelon in the other one. The plants with the asterisk, I have already bought. I will start the radishes from seed this weekend. (Nikolai loves radishes; eats them like candy!) I am shameless in my desire to have fresh vegetables - even if it only enough for 1 meal!

Frost last night

2008-04-16T13:00:00.000-04:00

We had a heavy frost last night. I covered the little plants up but apparently, they froze anyway. I am waiting to see how they look this afternoon. I covered them with plastic bags thinking that would be enough protection; but, it wasn't. We may have to replant the whole garden! Fortunately, it will not involve a lot of money. Still, this was a very discouraging set-back.

Plants in garden

2008-04-12T08:25:00.000-04:00

Joanne asked what plants were planted in the garden. We have 5 tomato plants, 1 summer squash, 2 cucumber plants, and 5 bell pepper plants. I wanted lots of bell pepper to freeze. We will eat all the tomatoes because we all love tomatoes. None of us particularly like summer squash so I don't know why I bought one of these. Perhaps it was because my parents always had summer squash. We love cucumbers. I don't know how they will do in a square foot garden. I suppose I will have to stake them?

Wild Onion Crop

2008-04-11T15:10:00.001-04:00

Deniska and Nikolai gathered the wild onion crop from our yard. So far, this is the only thing we seem to be able to grow successfully!

Plants in the ground!

2008-04-11T14:56:00.000-04:00

This is a picture of the initial planting. As you can see, we have space for 3 more lucky plants! I have some plants to start from seed, so maybe we will do that. I will post again on April 19th.

Plants for garden

2008-04-11T14:54:00.000-04:00

I bought these plants at our school's green house. The plants were cheap. So far, we have spent about $60 on all the materials (including the plants).

Square Foot Gardening

2008-04-11T14:50:00.001-04:00

This blog will be devoted to just our square foot garden. I will post weekly throughout the growing season to keep track of our process. This is when we started on April 6, 2008. Dennis and I built this 4x4 foot square using 2x6 boards and 7 (1-cubic) bags of Miracle Grow soil.