What a season...

Well, I didn't post much this summer because it was one disaster after another in my garden. :(
1st: The cucumber beetles ate my first set of cucumber plants in about 2 days. 
So I went out and bought more and some pesticides (which took care of the beetles). 

2nd: It rained like crazy and stunted the growth of my plants and drowned others. 

3rd: They got some relief from rain, but it was too late, the tomatoes caught late blight, the pumpkins had a cutter bug infestation, the peppers were way too small and the garlic had some mold growing on some of the bulbs. 

4th: Now the cucumber bugs were replaced by squash bugs, which ate holes into all the leaves of the new plants. 

I did however get 4 nice carrots, a bunch of radishes, a lot of lettuce, scallions, garlic and 5 cucumbers, and 2 peppers.  I've decided it's just too cold here for peppers.  They start producing fruit in Aug, but then it cools off too fast, so they only get through 1/2  the fruit growth.  Sad. I love peppers!

So that's pretty much what happened this year.  The hay was a failure.  I think it made more weeds and attracted a lot more bugs this year.  I think I would try news paper next year. 

I'm going to start some herbs for the winter: basil, thyme, rosemary, and parsley.  We'll see how they do!

Cheers!

Books/Sun!

I love to read outside! It's one of my favorite things.  Especially reading up on gardening techniques (I am totally a nerd). 
Today, I visited my college library and picked up a few books on Hydroponics:
1. Hydroponic Food Production-by Howard M. Resh, Ph.D.
2. Grow More Nutritious Vegetables without Soil-by James Taylor
3. Beginning Hydroponics (on order since they think it might have been lost) -Richard E. Nicholls
and on Pruning:
4. Sunset Pruning handbook-Roy L. Hudson

I'll let you know how helpful they prove to be!

Cheers!
Katie

Drowning and Pests

Well.  I was so excited that I had got my garden in so early and quickly this year, unlike last year.  But, this has not proved to be a good thing.  We have gotten SO MUCH RAIN!  There are puddles and pools in my garden, which has increased the amount of slugs and other bugs that eat my plants.  So not only are they drowning, but they have to fight off the chompers as well.  And I can't get in the garden to get the bugs b/c they are so soft.  I did notice a lot more spiders in the garden this year, so hopefully they will fight for me and eat the bugs! :)
The blueberries are looking good though!

The new ones I planted last fall look great despite all the plowing that knocked some of them down.

I used Straw this year to keep the weeds down, and it's helping a lot!  But I think it may be attracting some bugs.

The zucchini and cukes are looked really bad due to the rain and the squash bugs.

The tomato plant that Jay's coworker gave me is looking pretty pitiful.  A bunch of the leaves got bent off from high winds. 

But there are a few flowers on it already!

My tomatoes and peppers are starting to look good with the little bit of sun we've gotten today!

My peas are loving the weather.  But no beans yet.

Onyx wants me to pay attention to him, but I'm busy. 

My radishes also love the rain.  Some of them ended up 1 foot away due to the hard rain, but it's ok.

And a few of the marigolds are starting to form flowers which will hopefully keep away some of these pest bugs.

Not many of  my mom's flowers popped up this year, but these globe ones look really nice. 

The weather is looking up for the rest of the week!

Have a Good Memorial Day!  Thank you to ALL our troops!

Keeping an Eye on the Weather

It's almost April 15th and I'm getting really antsy about getting outside.  Depending on the weather today, I may rake rather than go to the gym!

The weather is looking good until Saturday night/Sunday.  The maple festival is this weekend!  That means CRAFT FAIR and lots of ideas and good food!  We attend every year.
I always look for jewelry and food at these things. 

Well, my seedlings are looking stunted since they exploded the other day.  I have 2 cucumbers growing in one pod but there are plenty of pods that didn't grow anything.  I am really struggling with my herbs!  I think that's what I'll study this summer. 
Things to Do this Spring:
1. Find out when to mulch my blueberry bushes and what type to get. (Will cut grass/leaves suffice?)
2. Get the rota til guy from my church to come and do the garden.
3. Get fertilizer from Jay's parents (they own horses).
4. Rake the stones off the yard before the flowers start popping up.
5. Plant the garden at the end of April.


OOOO!!! I'm so excited!!!  :)

Seedling Explosion

My seedlings worked really hard this weekend!  The zucchinis and pumpkin got HUGE and the cucumbers are right behind.  Those mushrooms are still causing trouble, but I've been keeping them under control and I've contacted UVM extension to see what their suggestions are for treatment.  I have almost all my peppers popping up and the tomatoes are coming along slowly as they did last year.  Maybe I will look into fertilzer or some sort of stimulant for them.  I have a book that my Gpa gave me called:  The Ten Week Garden by Cary Scher.  It has beautiful sketches of veggies and a very pretty notebook feel to it.  It's like reading the author's note book! Very fun and chalked full of information about gardening in Vermont.  The author is from VT, which is great because he knows the variability of VT weather.  It seems to be hard to find this book because it is from the 70's but it's an excellent resource!  :) 

I'm getting so excited!!!!   ha ha ha!  Spring is here! The crocuses are up, the birds are out, and mud season has come! I love spring!  :)

Grow, Grow, Snow???

There is a reason why in Vermont they say you shouldn't take your snow tires off until April 15th; it snowed today.  Luckily, it doesn't seem to have stuck!
Some things I have been thinking about are:
1. Testing the soil this year to see if I should add more horse manuer this year or if that would make it too acidic;
2. Fertilizing my garlic;
3. How to get rid of the mushrooms that have appeared in my poo pods!  Apparently the soil had some sort of agent in it and now I have mushrooms-Orange Peel Fungi (I think?)-they aren't poisonous, but I didn't want them.

 

But here are some of the pictures so far:

 

Some onions in the front and zucchini and pumpkins on the side are coming up fast!

My zucchini are looking really good! I think they look so pretty when they are seedlings.

 

The snow from a few weeks ago and my original set up, which had to change due to the dog chewing on my poo pods!  Some evidence of that is shown below:

 

And finally the start of the nasturtiums and marigolds to ward off predators this year!

And that's about it!

Cheers!

Check This!

I think gardeners must be some of the most creative people on the planet! I love this idea! It's so simple, beautiful and functional.  I think it would be great for a small kitchen to brighten it up with flowers or fresh herbs.  If I had enough money, I would totally get this!

Kickstarter Urbio

Right now, it seems to be in the starter stages of life; they need funding or something.  I've never heard of this kickstarter website but I really like this idea!

Cheers! I will post images of my seedlings soon!

How to make moss shakes-not for eating :)

I read about moss shakes and making living art with it in the Studio G blog (love this blog by the way, I highly suggest following it).
Here's the link:
Studio G

Seeds Started

I started my seeds last Tues! So hopefully I will actually get some peppers and red tomatoes this year!
This year, I'm trying some new plants; the garden has this year:
tomatoes (regular)
tiny tim tomatoes
Blushing Beauty bell peppers
Banana peppers
jalapeno peppers
onions
scallions
radish
pumpkins
zucchini
cucumbers
garlic
basil
carrots
spinach
lettuce

This is a lot.  Some of it, the lettuce and spinach and scallions, will be in containers (since it worked so well last year) and will help with weeding. 
I'm also going to plant the plants closer than last year to help cut down on weeding. I think that black paper REALLY helped last year, so I'm going to definitely buy that again.  It's worth the money to save my back and time. 

I also started sprouts successfully, so those will be ready in a few days!

Cucumber Support

Here is the trellis I want to buy/make for my garden! I think I can make it, so I'm going to try that first.  Using fallen branches from the woods, twine, and wooden stakes, I think I can create a much cheaper version of the design below.  I'll let you know how it goes  :)  The image is from Gardener's Supply website.  I think this design will be better than the vertical support I had last year because it will put less stress on the plant.  We'll see if it's more productive this year.

In Honor of the Presidents (Past, Present, and Future)

So basically this is a re-post from Studio G's blog.  I do love this blog because they post so many beautiful gardens!  The Thomas Jefferson historic gardens are so beautiful and well organized and cared for, I thought it was re-post worthy.

So then I started wondering about other historic gardens in America and decided to post some of the links I found:

1. George Washington's Mount Vernon: here is a quote from the website for people who enjoy a bit of history too: "George Washington built and arranged the Upper Garden in 1763. In 1775, he expanded and redesigned much of his estate – including the Upper Garden."

2. Michelle Obama's vegetable garden:  This is such a great way to spread knowledge to adults and kids about where their food comes from, and I think she sets a great example for what schools could do in health class.  In elementary school, I vaguely remember having a garden that we got to help build and it was very exciting!  But most of my knowledge comes from helping my mom every summer. 


These were the only two I found, but I only did a quick search.  Do you know of any others?


ps.
I'm having issues with the links breaking, so below is the list of links, respectively:
1. http://www.studiogblog.com/
2. http://www.monticello.org/
3. http://www.mountvernon.org/index.cfm?
4. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/20/Spring-Gardening/

Seed Starting Time Approaches

I was debating with myself on when to start my seeds this year since last season I kind of blew it with my peppers and tomatoes because they got started so late.  This year I am prepared though!  I already have the seeds that I bought from last year (seeds last up to 3 years if stored in a dark, cool space) and I just need to get carrot seeds.  Well the problem was solved on when to start through the Gardener's Supply website "How-To" pages:
http://www.gardeners.com/When-to-Start-Your-Seeds/5215,default,pg.html

They are very helpful people over there!

I also did some research at my college's library on companion planting and came up with this layout:

I did made this in Photoshop CS3 to make it look pretty!  :)   So it isn't to scale, but the general layout is correct.  The garlic and marigolds are key pest control players, the radish are pest control and filler plants (because they grow faster than some of the larger plants, you can use them to fill up empty space and pull them out when the bigger plant will take over).  I read in Carrots Love Tomatoes that you should plant 3 radish in with your squash and cuke hills and LEAVE them there; this way they act as a natural repellent.
I surrounded my tomatoes by garlic, basil, carrots and scallions because tomatoes grow well with all these plants.  Beans, cukes and peas also benefit from each other.  And bell peppers also love basil.
So that was the reasoning and thought process behind the layout.
You can make your own layout easily using the Gardener's Supply designer tool: 

http://www.gardeners.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Gardeners-Site/default/Page-KGPJS#clearbed

I think that's it for now! I'm going to start planting in a few weeks! yay!

:)

Carrots Love Tomatoes

I saw "Carrots Love Tomatoes" online, and decided to borrowed it from my school library.  I finished reading it last night and I highly recommend it! 

http://www.amazon.com/Carrots-Love-Tomatoes-Companion-Successful/dp/1580170277

She lists a wide variety of vegetables, fruit and nut trees, and herbs and their companion plants.  I found it to be a quick read because it is so well laid out.  She includes a few garden plans and a glossary of gardening terms/techniques at the back.  The garden plans are pretty rough and are hard to read, but they help you kind of get an idea of how to start planning your own.  I think this book is a great companion to the square foot gardening book by Mel Bartholomew.

http://www.amazon.com/Square-Foot-Gardening-Garden-Space/dp/1579548563/ref=pd_cp_b_2

The SFG talks about how to organize your plants and all the basics you need to know about gardening, and CLT talks about which plants pair well together.  I think I may buy CLT next time I get a coupon from Barnes and Noble, but for now I took notes in my garden journal.  

As a side note, my ginger growing experiment didn't work.  I got distracted last semester and didn't pay attention to the soil dampness and it got dried out a few too many times.  May be I'll try it again next winter!

Cheers!

Katie   :)

Vertical Gardening!

Barnes and Noble had a fantastic coupon the other day, so I used it to buy "The Vertical Garden, from nature to the city" by Patrick Blanc. It is nearly 200 pages long and almost every page contains his art work.  And they really are functional ART.  "The Green Man" has been all around the world studying different types of plants and incorporating them into his designs.  This book is a well organized, all inclusive, encyclopedia of his vertical gardening thought process and designs.  I just flipped through and read a few pages, but it looks great!

Here is a link to his website:
http://www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com/

I would like to do a vertical garden for my herbs. I saw it in a blog and I thought it was a fantastic idea!  Plus it will use up less counter space.   :)

Re-Post!

http://heavypetal.ca/archives/2011/01/step-by-step-how-to-make-seed-balls/

Above is a link to a blog that I follow called Heavy Petal! She has a new book out and I just think she has a lot of creative ideas.  This one in particular is fun and an interesting gift idea!

How to make Seed Balls.  I think it's the same thing that you get when you buy herb kits that are just add water.

Cheers!

Dream Garden

I was day dreaming today, thinking about all the different things I've seen lately in other blogs and books of garden designs and I just had this image of a perfect garden for me.  I really like to read outside, so I would like to build an outdoor room.
I think I would have the same size veggie garden I have now, but instead, I would have a raised bed with a 1 foot border planter around the perimeter to grow herbs and companion plants (does this make sense??) ; I'll draw a picture to post later; almost a "permanent" section for my perennial herbs and garlic.  I would also have separate raised bed for my hot peppers, so they don't cross pollinate with the sweets.  And I'd keep bees, but that isn't for a while because I would have to study them for a while first.  My sister kept bees when we were little, but they had an unfortunate end in a huge winter storm and couldn't be saved.  It was a sad day. They were good little bees.
I would also like to have an arbor-a long one-to put a dining table under to have tea/dinner parties!  :)
I would grow (don't know yet) a plant with large leaves around it for shade and sunflowers.  And I would make a path to another room with couches and chairs and lavender planted all around.
That's about all I've got.  The bees and the arbor and the "living room".  Someday when I have money, I will build it!
As you can tell I'm getting excited for March!  I may start some plants at the end of February so they are a little bigger when I transplant them.

Spring is coming! :)

A Little Chilly

Today it is -14 in Richmond, VT and a bit cold to be thinking about gardening, but I've been looking at seeds anyway. 

This coming year I'd like to try to grow a few more pepper varieties and tomato varieties. 
I found some on Burpee.com that I thought looked nice!
They are hybrid tomatoes:
1. Kings of color-which is just a mixed seed packet
2. Golden Mama
3. Tumbler
4. Black Pearl Hybrid
5. Sweet Tangerine
6. Italian Ice
7. Red Lightning
I think I'll choose 3 types to grow and save the others for another year. 
I also want to grow Banana peppers and Cubanelle peppers this coming year too.  Both are a sweet variety and good for salads and sandwiches.  This year, I think I may plant my sweet peppers and hot peppers on opposite sides of the garden this year to prevent cross pollination.

I've been getting ready for March by getting some better grow lights.  And that's about it.  I'll be checking on  my ginger that I started to grow in the fall.  It should have a little extra bulb on it by now! So that will be exciting to see; since it's buried, I can't tell if it has been doing well or if I've been watering a dead ginger plant. I'll post pictures if it works out!
Cheers!