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!

Sick Days

I'm home sick (everyone in my department is sick now that the stress of school is over). So what do I do? Sleep, drink water, and buy a book ALL about CHILIES!
I'm super excited (how dorky)!  It gives the history, cultivation, processing, preservation and cooking with chilies-so literally everything. 
Here's a link:  
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ean=9781604691399

The book is by Dave DeWitt who is an expert on capsicums.  So far, I am really enjoying this book and suggest it if you really like cooking with chilies; I did a fair bit of research into finding a comprehensive guide on peppers.  I bought it because my boyfriend and I like to cook, and make most things from scratch.  We recently started making our own grilling rubs and wanted to know more about it.  You can download a preview of the book from Barnes and Noble to check it out and see if it's right for you too.  I bought the nook version and read it on my computer because I don't have the color nook.  Plus I use my computer to store all my recipes, so it's convenient for me.  But they also sell it in hardcover.  

Going to get better now!

Katie

Catch Up!

So I've been slacking on my blog, but now I have 10 min to play catch up! 

In the past month, I've cleaned up the garden, pruned the trees, and planted my garlic!  It takes me a while to do all this because of my back, but if I do little bits at a time, then it gets done.  :)  This is the first year I've planted garlic.  I decided to get a hard-neck variety since it grows better in colder climates.  It doesn't keep as long, but it will survive, which is the important part!  They were pretty big cloves, so I imagine I'll have some good sized bulbs come next August! 

I also found this website on pumpkin care! 
http://www.pumpkinnook.com/howto/vines.htm
And another!
http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/pumpkins/how-to-grow-huge-pumpkins-article10276.html

I was looking up how to prune the pumpkins so they don't take over my garden next year. 
So that's about it.  You're all caught up.  I'm getting through my semester.  I've survived this long, what's another 3 years for a phD?

Toodles!