Planning the garden

Even though we got more snow last night (BLECH), my thoughts are turning to spring.  I have been planning the summer garden.  With the economy like it is, I want to make sure that what I plan this year will grow and produce the most crop possible in my small little space. And unlike previous years, I am limiting what I grow to things I know we will eat. So beans, peas, carrots, zuchinni,swiss chard, kale, peppers and tomatoes.  For some reason, onions dont do well in my small garden space.  I love cabbage, but they take a lot of room and only produce one head, so we may skip that this year. Same for broccoli and cauliflower. Not enough produce for my limited space.

I ordered some climbing peas, which will be new for us, but I figured if we can go up we get more space.  I have always grown climbing beans for that reason as well. I dont have enough space really to produce enough peas to can or freeze, but I just love fresh peas and even one meals worth makes them worth growing. Beans, well by the end of summer we are usually sick of them, but they are inexpensive and prolific.  Same with the zuchinni. This year I ordered a package of mixed zuchinni seeds, so hopefully we will wind up with several varieties. 

Now I just need to find a way to get some good compost and refresh the soil at my little garden space.

Lazy trainer, busy crafter, garden plans

OK, so it was a beautiful weekend, and other than one short walk with the dogs, I basically did nothing dog related.  The dogs spent the weekend working on venison leg bones and trying to break into them enough to get to the marrow. Diligent hard working dogs that I have, they were very successfull, and my livingroom floor is littered with split leg bones.

I on the other hand, spent large chunks of the weekend sewing.  I have a 9 month mystery quilt project that we are on month 6 in receiving the instructions.  I, on the other hand had not completed month one, prior to the weekend.  I am now almost done with month 3, have about half of month 4 done, and a bit of month 5.  The nice thing about being behind, you can combine some work on the cutting and piecing to what makes sense, rather than smaller portions at a time.  The bad part is that I have 27 blocks to complete. But my goal is to get them done this week. As of last night I had 3 blocks totally completed from month 4 I think.

I think with spring around the corner, more daylight and actual sun instead of clouds, spring is on the way.  I am getting some tomato seeds from a fellow blogger, Danni at On the Way to Critter Farm.   That, and a walk past the garden, has me thinking about garden planning, although here in Minnesota it will be a bit longer before I can get too much going.  But, I do plan this week to test the bean seeds I kept from last years garden, so see if they sprout for me.  I have always bought seeds so this was a first.  I will limit my beans this year though- they sort of took over the garden last year, and we wasted wquite a bit as we didnt get them all picked timely.  I dont have a pressure canner and have not had much luck with frozen green beans so we only ate them fresh. Well, except for the few I pickled.

Garden Update

The garden this year is doing better than ever. We have had an abundance of green beans, ample zuchinni and quite a bunch of tomatoes. We have pickled 4 jars of green beans, canned 4 quarts of tomatoes and dehydrated chard, kale, tomatoes and some of the last peas. It doesnt sound like much compared to a country garden, but remember this is in the middle of the city in a community garden and the spot we have is really not that big!

We had our last meal from the broccoli and cauliflower, so those came out today, along with the pea plants. Parts of the peas were still green, but with the heat they were not looking so good anymore. We replaced the peas with four more pepper plants. There may not be time for too many peppers from them, but heck, they were really cheap and if we get anything from them it will be great. Our cucumber plant never really got going, where it was planted it just got overwhelmed by the beans and got no sun, so we moved that.

This sunflower is growing in the bean trellis and is about 10 feet tall, with beans growing up to the top, where I can't reach them. There are still flowers on the beans, so more coming there, we have lots of tomatoes still ripening and the nicest cabbage I have ever grown still to come. We will probably harvest at least one of those soon, and will start some millet in the vacant spots. If we get enough growing time yet this year, the wildlife will eat that up. Heck, they usually get the millet before the snow flies, but this year I will try to cover it and keep it until late fall if I can. Hopefully I will be able to protect a couple of the sunflower heads until winter for the wildlife too, although David is determined that he will get to eat the seeds of at least one of them. Enough rambling. Enjoy summer!

Weekend

A nice peaceful weekend at home. Wishes apparently feels no pain from her foot, so is really wanting to play. Peace will be getting her stitches out tomorrow, so no more cone. We had the dehydrator going all weekend, drying vegies for the winter. And some knitting. I knit a washcloth, dish scrubbie pair as a thank you gift for a friend.

Thanks for the thoughts on the whiskers. I will see how they look after her appointment tomorrow and as the rest of the scabs heal.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

The Garden

This is the tomato side of the garden. We have gotten about a dozen so far. Some big, some small. Yum.

I am really happy with our garden this year. Last year it was fallow for the year. The pups came in the beginning of May and then my father in law became ill and passed away, so we just did not get it planted in time. I did go down occasionally and add compost. I am thinking that the year off was a really good thing. We are getting so many beans that we

can't eat them all. I may research canning some, as the ones a I froze the year before we didn' t much like after freezing. Maybe I will try dehydrating some?

Garden

Well the garden is growing. the bean runners are as tall as the trellis we built. I knew they were not going to be tall enough. We may have to add something. Not sure what yet, but the beans are also growing up the sunflowers in the corners too. We have peas, some went into the pasta salad for tomorrow. We have bunches of small green tomatos, and some small peppers. the zucchini will flower in the next week. It looks really good, although somewhat jungle-ish!

flowers

Garden Update

The garden is looking lovely. The seeds are all coming up, along with all the weeds. Finally some of the smaller seed plants are large enough to actually tell apart from the weeds so we gave it a good weeding tonight. Not all are gone, but its looking pretty nice. We put up a fence because of the neighborhood bunnies.

David's garden mascot is also doing well, resting in the shade of some brussell sprouts.

Today we put in our garden. Since we live in the middle of Minneapolis, and we have a tiny yard, we have a spot down at our community garden. I think it looks great, I hope it stays that way.

Dave's Garden Mascot- Mr Potato Head Rock

Sorry for the odd angle photos!

We have tomatos, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, beans, peas, some herbs, chard, zucchini, kale, cucumber, onions, carrots, radishes, leaf lettuce and some flowers. We have found that we can really plant quite heavily and as long as we add compost and peat for mulching our garden can produce quite a bit. And tonight we had Rhubarb Custard Cake for dinner. Yum!!!

But oh am I sore!