Dana's Garden

Hello everyone!

Just got back from San Diego this weekend after a long business trip out there.  Was beautiful for sure, but was getting home sick after awhile.  It’s good to be back in this wonderful city of Charlottesville!

So I do have some progress to report.  Plants inside are shooting up and getting taller!  I have lots of parsley coming up, and the broccoli, lettuce, tomato, and bell pepper plants are getting taller in the mini-greenhouse.  A little disappointing though – the eggplant and jalapeno seeds haven’t germinated yet.  It’s been over a week, so I figured I’d see something come up by now, but oh well – maybe they just need more time.

Went out to the garden tonight to do some watering.  I’m a little concerned because the ground is very dry right now (kind of rocky with cracks on the surface), but I do have some things coming up!  The radishes and zucchini are doing fine…there are some little plants with their first leaves.  Corn is questionable – I might have seen a little something but it’s hard to tell right now if it’s a weed or not.  Sunflowers are non-existent…maybe they need some more time too?  Carrots also unseen.  I did have some water left in the barrel and gave everything a good dousing.  It’s nice to have some progress!  And Kurt’s great for watering everything while I was out.  Awesome man I have!

I’ll post pictures later on.  Just a little tired at the moment.  Still recovering from all the travel and such.

Cheers,

Dana

There it is.

In case you’re sitting there saying to yourself, “WTF is that supposed to be,” that is my collapsible rain barrel sitting underneath a tarp held up by wiring to two tree branches I found in the woods.  Ingenious.  We’ll see what happens next time it rains.

I do have some water sitting in there…probably about 7-8 gallons since I used some tonight to water the seeds I just planted.  Gotta have some weight in there so it doesn’t blow away.  I got the water there by filling up a lot of those milk jugs I found from the spigot at my place.

We got two raised beds built yesterday!  We decided to go with the 8′ long beds after all, as planned, and somehow miraculously fit them in my Civic.  The boards went all the way up to the steering wheel and were poking out the trunk a couple inches, so we had to get some bungee cords too.  It was slightly terrifying driving down the road with that stuff, but we got there without killing anybody (or each other). Ended up spending about $30 on corner brackets and screws that ended up not working out for us, so I returned those today and got some galvanized nails instead.  We just nailed the boards together at the corners.  The drill I bought was too wimpy for those screws, but Kurt wanted me to keep the drill anyway so I did.  Maybe I can use it for other stuff later on.  But then I’m thinking, it would be nice to have the $40 back.  Oh well.

Anyway, some pics of picking up the lumber and getting the beds put together:

And here are the seeds we planted over the weekend:

• Carrots (raised beds)
• Spinach (raised beds)
• Zucchini (raised beds)
• Sunflowers (at end of the garden near the fence…will be at the very end of the path going up the middle of the garden)
• Marigolds (along one side of each bed, I was too tired/ran out of time to do any more)
• Sweet Corn
• Radishes (apparently Kurt’s sister-in-law Michelle really likes these )
• Jalepenos (at home in the greenhouse)
• Eggplant (at home in the greenhouse)

We’ve bought a LOT of seeds the past couple of days.  But the one thing I want to grow probably most of all and I keep forgetting to pick up – green beans!  They’re my fav because they’re easy to pick and freeze, and they are sooo much more delicious than any you can buy at the store.  Plus, green beans were my first plant I ever grew.  I remember being in elementary school (2nd-3rd grade most likely) and everyone in class got a green bean plant to take home.  Somehow, I broke the stem on mine, and my mom, being the awesome mom/gardener/care-taker she is, put it back together for me and made it grow again.  It ended up producing a lot of beans.  I don’t know how she did it, but it was definitely an inspiring moment for me.

I’m glad I can spread the inspiration around.  Kurt is becoming more and more excited about the project and has taken some ownership in it, which I’m proud of him for.  He even started up a competition for us to see who can grow the biggest pumpkin.   It’s pretty sweet to have someone helping me and believing in it as much as I do.

And I hope I inspire you too!  Because everyone should know how to grow their own food.  And it’s fun too.

Take care,

Dana

PS – Will be out of town all week for a business trip to San Diego!  So Kurt will be taking care of watering things both indoors and out.  I won’t be posting again till next weekend, but might find time in the evenings to post some interesting gardening-related articles to my Facebook page (which you should become a fan of if you haven’t yet!).

This morning marked the first Charlottesville City Market of the year, and so I went looking around with Kurt.  This was Kurt’s first farmer’s market and I’m proud of him for getting out of bed before 7 am to go! Not sure if he’ll do it again, but that’s okay – getting up that early on a Saturday morning is not for everyone.

In addition to getting some great grass-fed beef for our burgers tonight (thank you, Davis Creek Farm), we picked up nine packets of organic seeds from the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (Mineral, VA):

• Pumpkin (Big Max)
• Jalepeno Pepper
• Eggplant (Black Beauty)
• Basil (Sweet Genovese)
• Dill (Long Island Mammoth)
• Cilantro
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Zucchini
• Carrot (Chantenay Red Core)

These were $2/ea. so $18 total – not bad considering the price of produce and herbs from the grocery store.

We’ll be heading to the garden today to do some more digging around and hopefully make the raised beds!  We still need to go to Lowe’s and get the lumber.  I’d made the assumption that the back window of Kurt’s Murano opens and…it does not.  So, I don’t think 8′ long beds are going to be in our future…so we’ll double up and just make them 4′ x 4′ instead.  Gotta fit in the car!  We also need to buy brackets, galvanized screws, a drill (have been putting off purchasing one for years now), some garden soil, some chicken wire and stakes for the compost bin.

The water roof thing is also something we need to do soon.  We’re in for hot weather, and it looks like if we plant any seeds today, we’ll have to haul some water from the house to the site in the plastic jugs I found abandoned in the woods many moons ago.  No rain for some time now.

So let’s see, I think we’ll try to plant carrots, peas, and zucchini today, if all goes well.

TTFN,

Dana

High in Charlottesville today was 72.  And they’re calling for 80’s this weekend too.  Hooray!

As for this past weekend, we didn’t build the lean-to to catch the rain water with.  Kurt and I decided to take a look around and come up with a plan for building it before we delve into getting all the materials, which is a good idea.  So, we spent a few hours Saturday morning hoeing the ground up.  We’re almost done!  We used your standard garden hoe, garden rake, and cultivator. (Opted against a roto-tiller in order to cut down costs, practice sustainability, and force us to exercise )  We left a lot of the muddy parts around the drainage trenches intact just because it’s not really good to till muddy soil.  Plus, we’ll probably put the raised beds in that area anyway.

So on our punch list we still have:

• Lean-to for catching rain water
• Compost bin (should just be some chicken wire and some posts)
• Raised beds (2 at least, hopefully 3)

Raised beds, I plan to put together this weekend.  I already know what size lumber pieces I need (8′ long x 10″ high, 3 per bed (1 will be cut in half)) and I need brackets/corner pieces and galvanized screws to put them together.  Then we’ll put in some gardening soil and, voila.  Well, at least I’d like to think it’d be that simple, but who knows with the way things have been going thus far!

Seedlings are doing pretty well so far indoors.  Tomatoes, broccoli, peppers, lettuce.  I started another crop (1 seedling of each) a couple days ago and so far a pepper and a broccoli have already sprouted up.  Also, I have a parsley plant from IKEA I started up about a week ago and things are starting to sprout there too.  (IKEA sells the pots that come with the seed started and peat.)  As for how I’m caring for these guys, I’m just watering them about every other day (using the sprayer from the kitchen sink on low pressure) and making sure to dab the water off the leaves afterwards so they don’t rot.  I’ve read that you want to get the soil wet but keep the plants themselves as dry as you can.  I also have a large desk lamp I’ve set up over the greenhouse so the plants are getting nice overhead light.  I typically leave it on all day and night.

PS – Note to self:  Don’t leave greenhouse door open.  One of my cats got curious and ate the little leaves off one of my broccoli plants.

Can’t really complain at the moment – it really was a good thing not to start anything outside just yet as we just had a few pretty cold days.  But the time is coming near!  And I’ll already have some nice little plants to put in the ground.

Until this weekend, I’m taking a break from the garden.  I technically could have gone out tonight after work, but seasonal allergies are friggin’ KILLING me right now.  Nose hurts pretty bad.  Can’t stop sneezing.  I see some generic Benadryl in my future.

TTFN,

Dana

So I’ve been out of town for most of the week, so things have been a little slow with the gardening.  However, there is one thing I can finally brag about – my little seedlings!  I can’t believe these guys shot up less than a week after I planted them.  Two broccoli, two lettuce, and one bell pepper.  Still waiting on the tomatoes and the second pepper, but they make take a little longer to germinate anyway.

The rain barrel I ordered also came in.  It holds 52 gallons, which is great.  The only conundrum at the moment is channeling enough water into it when it rains, because if I just sit it out as-is, it’s only going to catch as many inches as the ground gets.  To get around that, Kurt and I are going to build a little mini-roof, lean-to of sorts.  I saw one in a neighbor’s garden.  It consists of 4 posts (or legs), a slanted roof top (I think they used a metal piece of some sort), a baby gutter and a downspout.  It only has to stand about 4′ high or less (the rain barrel is a little over 2′ high).  We’ll put the rain barrel under the down spout and then that will speed up the water accumulation tremendously.

I have this all in my head – now just to see if it’ll be successful!  We’ll go to Lowe’s tomorrow and see.

Also thinking about composting.  Because why waste if you can use it?  Besides, my soil could really use a face lift.  It’d be nice to have some compost for the fall and start amending the soil then in prep for next spring.  I’ve started to collect some veggie scraps, coffee grounds, in a big coffee can under the kitchen sink.

Hopefully I’ll have some more progress to post tomorrow!

Until then,
Dana

Did the title of the post grab your attention?    Good.

I headed to the garden yesterday evening to see how dry it was going to be.  I had guessed that at least the back row (the least muddy part) could be dried out by now, and I was right.  The soil was still just a tad wet, but did crumble between my fingers and was nice and loamy.

So, I got to work tilling it up.  There were a lot of weeds (mostly clover) covering the ground, so the hoe ripped them up.  The previous renter of the plot also had some bulbs growing there that had shot up thanks to the heavy rain.  No flowers though, so I still couldn’t tell what they were.  Some of them, I dug up, and some near the fence I kept — just to see what they might look like later.  Digging deep to get the roots out, I also found an old carrot!  It was kind of crazy pulling a carrot out of the ground, even if it was just an old, bad one.  I’ve never grown carrots before, but somehow doing that made me all the more excited to.

I hoed an entire 5′ wide (30′ long) row last night.  Took nearly an hour and a half to do on my own, which isn’t too bad I suppose.   I went back with the tiller (kind of like this one) to break up the soil a bit more, and then grabbed all the big chunks of weed roots and piled them up off to the side.

And here are the results!  It feels really good to have finally broken down.  The “real” gardening work is beginning!

Wish I could do some more work, but my plans are taking me to Virginia Beach this weekend for the Shamrock Half-Marathon which I’ll be running in very early tomorrow morning.  Travel plans are kind of crazy right now, because on Monday I am flying out to Tulsa for a work trip and won’t be back until Thursday night.  I kind of wish I had more time to work while it’s still nice out, but Kurt told me he would hoe the rest of the garden for me while I’m gone.

On a different note, I’m starting to sow some seeds indoors.  I picked up some certified organic veggie seeds (Burpee brand) yesterday, along with some Jiffy cells and organic seed starter.

Here are the seed varieties I got:

• Broccoli (DiCiccio)
• Lettuce (Gourmet blend – Grand Rapids, Salad Bowl, Red Salad Bowl, Oakleaf, Prizeleaf)
• Tomato (Beefsteak)
• Sweet Pepper (California Wonder – red and green)

The broccoli is the new one for me.  I’ve had a (much smaller) garden before when I lived in NC and tomatoes and bell peppers were the backbone.  I have planted some lettuce before but have never had room for as much as I really need, until now.  The broccoli, I’ll admit, could be iffy.  I have a lot of naysayers at work (cough cough, John & George, cough cough) telling me it’s never going to grow, it’ll become infested with broccoli worms, yada yada.  But it’s not going to kill me to try, right?  Seed packets cost $1.88. Broccoli costs $3-4 a bunch (expensive!), so I may as well try.  If it turns out bad, I’ll just plant some kale or something.

So I’ll leave you with a couple pictures of the seed cells.  I have a mini-greenhouse from IKEA that I keep inside to start my seeds in, and I used a plastic box (used to have salad in it) to put the cells in.  This keeps me from having to buy the Jiffy tray or greenhouse.  I’ll keep the greenhouse on the kitchen table with the blinds up on the window, so it’ll get sunlight for most of the day.

I’ve planted two of each seed just to start.  I am trying to spread the plantings out over time so that my range is wider for harvesting (because who wants to pick 12 heads of lettuce all at the same time?).

I should see little sprouts in a couple weeks, so let’s see how they turn out!

…for coming out this week and making C’Ville HOT!  (Well relatively speaking, that is.)  Experiencing temps in the 60’s and 70’s this week, thus the reason why I’m so happy.

Kurt and I went out to the garden yesterday evening to dig.  The crazy lake that you saw in previous photos was pretty much dried up, at least on the surface.  If you stepped on the ground, it was still a sinking, sticky mud.  What we basically have is this plot that had tons of snow piled on it, a heavy rain last Friday, and nowhere for this water to go.  Now, a lot of the water is gone (rain out under the fence over the weekend), but a lot of it also still got absorbed and needs to be let out.

Two ways we are doing this:  a more immediate solution was to dig.  We (well, mostly Kurt) dug two big holes to let the water out of the ground and give it a place to go.  This will hopefully speed up the drying process.  We have a trench leading up to one of the holes, too, which is letting water out from the upper part of the garden.  With the other hole, you could see the water seeping out from the sides and into the hole.

The second way is more obvious, but will take a little longer.  We have this sunny, warm week, so we’ll let the ground dry naturally, on its own.  The holes are just a temporary solution.  If anything, they will just help the ground dry up a little quicker.

Other than last night’s excavation, I’ve had a lot of time away from the garden, so it’s given me an opportunity to do some planning.  I picked up a great magazine at the grocery store called “Grow Veggies For Less” by Birds and Blooms magazine.  It has everything you’d ever want to know about planting veggies and lots of cheap ideas (ways to reuse milk jugs for all kinds of gardening purposes, natural ways to keep critters away, etc.).  It helped me not only pick the veggies I want to grow, but also helped me design the whole plot, including some raised beds that I can put in the muddier parts of the garden.

So here’s my plan…it could change at some point, and with the surprises I’ve had so far, I totally expect it to!

Enjoy,

Dana

If you remember from my last post, I was in a muddy pit of despair.  But Kurt isn’t letting me give up that easily.  He took me out on a nice date Saturday night, which boosted my spirits.  And then he told me he was fully supporting me on this project and that he wasn’t going to let me quit.

“But you haven’t seen how bad it is,” I said.

“No, but we are doing this.  I think it’s a great thing you’re doing and we’re going to make it work.”

So, I took him by the site yesterday so he could get a glimpse of the mess.  I do think he underestimated just how bad it really was, but he’s still gonna help me get things straightened out.

Our plan is to let things dry out until Wednesday, and then try to dig a big drainage hole (Kurt’s new idea) Wednesday night.

Wish us luck!

Dana

I think the worst possible thing that could have happened to the garden, did.  And sadly,  it’s making me reconsider this whole project.

As I was eating breakfast with Kurt this morning, he noticed that, after a steady downfall of rain last night, the sky had cleared up a little.

“You could try to go out to your garden and do some hoeing today,” he suggested.

I thought that was a great idea, so while he went to go work on some of his freelance projects, I put on my gardening clothes and drove to the site.

I wanted to cry at what I saw when I pulled up.

There was a huge lake – not a puddle, a LAKE – taking up a whole half of the plot.  I have the pictures to prove it.

At this point, I didn’t know what to do.  I’ve been lucky enough in a previous life to have good drainage and raised beds, so solving this problem just seemed to be way out of my reach.

My poor little water jugs (that are supposed to COLLECT water) were on their sides, floating along like little boats on Lake Dana.

More water seemed to be coming in and floating down into the lake from a neighbor’s plot (under the fence) and from the road on the other side.  I did what I could to patch up those holes but it was tough.  I was pretty much standing ankle-deep in sinking mud.  Imagine being at the beach and you’re wearing tennis shoes and you got near the water and your feet just sunk underneath the sand and you were trying to get them out.  This was about 10 times worse.

So what happened?  Basically, whoever had this plot before left the wet part of the plot as a huge crater.  There’s a gradual drop from the dry half, the crater, and then dirt piled up all along the sides of the fence.  So, no way for the water to get out.

I did everything I could.  I flung mud on myself as I took my shovel and tried (sometimes in vain) to dig trenches that would let the water out.  On the road closest to the disaster was a natural stream running off into the woods, so I tried to direct the new trenches towards that.  I was taking my shovel like an oar and trying to push the water out to help it along.  It was  like being one of those people in the movies who is sitting in a boat with a hole in the bottom and trying to pour the water out with a bucket.  Muddy water just kept coming in from all over the place.

Trying to be smart about things, I called Kurt and asked him to get me a plastic drainage pipe from Lowe’s.  I felt really bad getting him out of the house when he had a ton of work to do, but there was no way I was going into Lowe’s as at this point my shoes were covered in mud and the rest of me was pretty caked in it too, even my face (I looked like a football player!).  He was nice enough to comply with my request and get me the pipe…which I ended up not even using (I tried, but just couldn’t seem to get the angle right to make the water drain properly).

I was out there for about four hours trying to correct the mess.  At some point, I decided to take a break and walk across the gardens to some neighbors doing some planting.  They were a friendly couple who were nice enough to listen to my woeful story.  They already had their trenches dug in their garden (have been there for three years, so they had a nice setup going) and suggested I do the same.  I don’t think they realized just how bad my site was.  It’s definitely the worst looking site in the gardens.  Everyone else seems to have their drainage problems figured out.

I also saw Man in the Black Prius and he slowly drove up to my site.  From his car, he looked at my plot and said, “Looks like you have a drainage problem!”

“Yeah, this is my first year here, this is the plot I got, and I have no idea what to do.”  I was holding back tears at this point.

“Well it looks like you’re doing the right thing, with digging the ditches to let the water out.  Give it a few days.  It’ll dry up.”

“I don’t know,” I replied, doubtfully.  “The water is about this high.”  I held out my thumb and finger about 3 inches apart.

“It’ll dry up.  Give it some time.  Good luck to you,” he said reassuringly as he drove slowly away.

As I was leaving, I took one last look to see if the water was still draining onto the road.  It looked like it was, slowly but surely.  But the scary thing is, it’s supposed to rain again tonight, tomorrow, and Monday. 

So what do I do in this situation?  Even if the water does dry up, I still have all this wet mud on my hands.  I can try raised beds, I suppose.  But I don’t know…I’m really starting to have my doubts about this whole thing.  Is it a lost cause, or can it be saved?  Do I throw in the towel (and the $60 I paid for the plot)?

Can anyone convince me otherwise?  Anybody?

-Dana

As the rain started to fall today (a rain that will probably last through Sunday), I started to really regret not getting started on the project sooner.  I know you can still plant seeds through April and May, but how great would it have been to already have them planted, and then have them soak up all this rain?  Nothing I can do about it now, so I may as well just do what I can.

I’ll start to plan out the beds tomorrow – how I’ll split up the plot and what I’ll plant.  Then on Sunday, I’ll be prepared for seed shopping and know exactly what I need.  Thanks to my friends on Facebook, I have lots of ideas for veggies!  And I’ll definitely be incorporating most, if not all, of those.

I’m not a big flower gardener (love flowers, just don’t really know anything about them), but I do plan on incorporating in some marigolds (I heard they keep rabbits and pests away) around the perimeter of the garden and maybe some other pretty flowers in the corners.

I guess I’m also getting some work done without even working:  the water jugs I left out the other day should be filling up nicely now.

Bye for now,

Dana