Dealing with Frost

I was discussing winter veggies with a friend on FB and thought it would be a good topic for here too!
As I posted earlier, we had great success with the garlic and onions we planted last December to over-winter in the garden. We got a much better harvest than ever before, and still have a bowl of each that we're working on using up! This year I'm going to try to plant the garlic from the bulbs I grew this year, and only buy new onion sets. The onions haven't arrived yet, but I hope to get the garlic in the ground over this long-weekend, and a wonderful delivery of leaves from a co-worker today should be the last needed ingredient! Last year I planted both in garden boxes and covered with a thick layer of leaves for mulch. Then when the last frost warning passed this spring I removed the mulch and "voila!"
This year I'm planting the garlic in another box (I track all my plantings every season to ensure that all the crops are rotated each year) and the onions in the strawberry bed. I've heard great things about the benefits of companion planting strawberries and onions, and since the strawberries thinned out a bit this year, there's plenty of room there!
We've had several nights of frost already out here in East TN, so last weekend we attached the frost cover to the large garden box to cover the lettuces and carrots I just planted.

 I know there are easy instructions online to create a cold box or greenhouse, but I don't want anything permanent that might be in the way of larger plants in the spring, so we use cinder blocks and buckets to keep the frost blanket propped up above the plants. We attached it on the back side using some scrap wood and screws, so the edge is flat and secure, and weigh down the front with logs and bricks, so I can easily get into it to tend and pick.

On warmer, sunny days I prop the blanket up to allow the plants some fresh air and sunshine, but the Agribon AG-30 frost blanket we use allows sun and water through, so it's not necessary daily.

I recently planted leaf, bibb, gourmet leaf, and four season lettuces in there, and all appear to be sprouting. The carrots are beginning to poke their heads out, so we'll see how everything does!

I still have to put the mini-greenhouses on the citrus trees, and do some more cleaning up, so I'll post new pictures again soon :)

New plants this year

So I seem to be awful at keeping this updated, it's November and my last post was July! Just to catch everyone up, here are some photos of new plants we put in this year:

This is the arrowwood bush that we planted in the back yard. It's still only a twig, but hopefully it'll grow more next year. 

We planted the bird circle with a tulip tree and iris, the tree is already over 4 feet tall, and the iris are starting to spread out. 

We got this butterfly bush from Nanie on our visit to NC. It's doing great next to the patio, and already attracting butterflies!

We bought this Carolina Jasmine to grow up the arbor next to the patio.

This is a Gray Dogwood tree we planted this spring.

Some new mints next to the porch, Chocolate, Peppermint, and Lemon. 

The Rose of Sharon bushes around the bird circle. 

A Trumpet vine we planted to grow up the door out front. 

Summer Veggies to Plant

So the cabin fever is really staring to get to me. It has rained every day this week, to the point that we can't go outside, can't take the dogs outside, and can't do anything more outside than plan yard projects on paper and dream of sunshine!
But, with all that free time I managed to log on here and notice I haven't posted since May! Time for an update on the garden and yard projects :)
In June we harvested the onions, potatoes, and garlic from the garden, and planted new plants for summer.

The onions and garlic turned out great! We planted them last fall to overwinter in the box, and they did better than expected! We got over a pound of garlic and three pounds of onions! I've never gotten so much out of the onions before, I highly recommend the products at Grow Organic, where I purchased the purple Italian garlic cloves and white onion sets http://www.groworganic.com/ Both have grown fabulously and have an amazing flavor!

We also tried a new system (or new to us) for growing the potatoes this year, and we harvested over two pounds this June! Yukon Gold potatoes are what we planted, and I think they're our new favorite. They hold up great for frying and baking, and still make a rich mashed potato with just a little more boiling time than russet potatoes. This year we cleaned all of the dirt out of the box we designated for potatoes and planted the seed potatoes in small hills of dirt in the bottom of the box. As the sprouts grew tall enough, we layered in compost and mulched leaves, with very little dirt to try to keep from compacting the roots. Seems to have worked, we'll try it again this August and see if it works more than once!

All that harvesting left us with plenty of open space for new plants! In the back row of the box we added bell peppers, banana peppers, yellow sweet cherry tomatoes, red cherry tomatoes, and a German basil. We replaced the cold lettuces with some bibb and other leaf lettuces in the center box, and I'm hoping to replant the carrots soon. We also added watermelons and pumpkins to the corn patch, to help keep down the grass down, and they're really starting to spread already!

Only thing I'm not having success with is broccoli, I can't seem to keep the bugs off of it! I think I'm going to pull it out and toss it, that seems to be the only thing the worms are eating, I want to keep it that way!

Hopefully the rain stops soon and I can get some new pictures! I'll update soon!

Rain Rain Rain

I know I know, rain is good for the plants, free water! All that positive jazz, but I want it to stop raining so I can go outside and play in the garden! It rained last weekend, and raining again this weekend, so I really don't have much to report on the garden front. Instead, here's some pictures I managed to take during the week when we had a few dry hours..... the plants sure are looking better after all the water!

The rain garden after the 2.5 inches of rain last weekend

A volunteer flower that is growing up in the rain garden, I think it's a Cone flower but we'll have to wait and see!

The Daylilies box, they're finally spreading out, maybe they'll flower this year...

The strawberries bed, hopefully they'll fill back out again this year

The new tomato box, added bird netting to keep Harry out after he killed off two of the plants!

The Lettuce in the garden box

Greek Oregano - Awesome perennial that will spread and overflow this planter, so fragrant every year

The Veggie Garden! All the boxes are full of great veggies and I'm really looking forward to  harvesting this year!

The Weigela bushes are finally blooming! Planted them 4 years ago! But the flowers are so pretty!

The blackberry bushes are really filling out, seems they like all the extra rain!

And the raspberry canes are starting to grow, expecting plenty of jams and fresh fruit this year :) 

New plants!

We visited Earthfest 2013 today and found an awesome variety of veggie plants from local farms that were too good of a deal to pass up. Only problem with this type of shopping..... I don't have any space in the garden to plant them! The onion and garlic we planted in the box to overwinter is not ready to harvest yet, and its taking up the last bit of space that I was going to turnover and plant tomatoes in. "No worries," says the hubby, "we'll just make another box" ;) lol
So, a few hours of planning, drilling, and dirt later, we have a new box for the tomatoes!

We added posts to the front that are the same height as the fence to give us support for the bird netting that we found last year is a mandatory protection from our flying visitors. This will allow me to drape the netting across the posts and fence so it doesn't hang too close to the tomato plants.

We got 12 tomato plants, 2 basil plants, and a thyme plant for just $20! I learned last year how much Basil really does, and plan to keep it with my tomatoes from now on! I planted it in between the tomatoes last year, the plants all grew huge and we had far fewer bugs and pests than previous years. This year I'm trying to get into more perennial herbs as well, so the thyme will be a great addition to the variety of herbs I've already got going this year. Here's hoping I can keep up! Going to be a great year for gardening!

Spring veggie garden!

Talking to my family back home in Idaho reminds me of how lucky we are here in East Tennessee to have such warm weather. Sure, I won't be feeling that way when July hits, but right now I've got most of my garden already planted, and my cousin reported Idaho Falls had snow this weekend!
This year we're trying to maximize space and get more out of our garden. Sure, we plan to add a few things, I want to put in blueberries and some more rain barrels and he wants a garden shed so he doesn't have to see all my tools ;) but I also wanted to see how much we could get out of the boxes we already have. So I did some reading this winter on square foot gardening, and laid out a grid in the big box to try it out. We planted arugula, mesclun, romaine, iceburg, spinach, dill, cilantro, broccoli, and carrots in the middle of the box. The onions and garlic that we planted to overwinter are still growing in the other levels, but as soon as they're ready to pull we'll add tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers!

I know, it looks like dirt right now, but with a little sunshine and water, a few weeks from now we'll have a backyard produce section! :)

Composting Experiment - Small Sucesses

Wow how time flies! One minute you're fighting cabin fever while you wait for spring, the next you log on and realize you haven't posted anything since February! So much to catch up with!
For this post lets talk about dirt. Or compost really, but eventually it becomes dirt and anyone that knows me knows how much I love to play in the dirt :)
So I'm calling my composting experiment a success! The freestanding barrel that rotates didn't do as well as I hoped, but with all the freak cold weather we've had and my lack of care, it still made some usable compost, so yippie! It's been refilled and I've renewed my vow to take better care of it (now that its warm and I want to be outside more...).
The wood compost bin did great, it decreased in size by about 1/3 and had some really rich compost that I've dug out and used to plant the garden. Used all of it to be exact, so I'll have to hunt for some more materials to fill it, but that shouldn't be too hard to find.

 The black plastic composter seemed to have some success too! The pile has decreased in size, it's about a foot lower than it started out, but I haven't needed it yet so no word on how the contents turned out ;)

So I seemed to have the most compost in the shortest time from the wood composter that was open to the weather all winter long. Interesting. But probably more a factor of my inclination to forget it when its cold outside and less the type of bin. The others probably would have done better with some turning and water....
So that give me my next experiment! Now if I can just remember to turn it every few days....I'll keep you posted!

Composting Experiment - Update

So as I'm sure everyone else is experiencing, we've had an unnaturally cold winter this year, which took a dip south on the temperature gauge shortly after the beginning of my experiment.....

I'll admit that I haven't done much with my compost since I posted the beginning on Jan 7th. I have rotated the standing one every time I've added to it, but I'm ashamed to report that I've only braved the cold about once a week to add to it, only to find after the second week of additions that the whole thing had frozen solid!
As far as progress goes, you can't see much out there. The freestanding composter has finally thawed out, so I'm trying to mix the contents every other day. But other than that there's really nothing happening in any of the three locations.
Here's hoping the weather warms up soon as we start making some progress! I CAN'T WAIT FOR SPRING!

Composting Experiment - the beginning

I know, I know, everybody's sick of all the comments and conversations about New Year's resolutions.... But I think anything "new" is another chance to look at yourself and something you do, and try to make it better! I've been doing a lot of reading lately, mainly gardening books by Gayla Trail (check out her AWESOME blog here: http://www.yougrowgirl.com/) and the inspiring blog of Cannywomen.com, and both have inspired me to DO more with the great things I already have this coming year. So, with all that in mind, I've decided to spend more time upgrading the garden this year. Of course, we also have goals not related to my garden addictions, but what fun is that on a gardening blog? ;)
So, today I started an experiment in composting. Now, I need to backtrack a little here and give you the pre-story. We've been composting since we started the garden in 2009, with a recycled plastic composter I found for cheap at Home Depot. But despite multiple attempts my yields have been small to say the least, and with all that we've added to the garden over the years, the need for great compost has only increased. After much research into the world of composting and some additions to the equipment over the years, I still wasn't having much success. This year for Christmas the hubby bought me a beautiful standing composter, and it's given me new motivation to make my own plant food, so thus the experiment.

I'm starting this year with three composters, all with the same materials in them, to see which ones yield compost and when. Now of course, I expect the best results from the new one:

This one stands about waist high, with two chambers in it, a sliding door or lid, and the ability to spin it to aerate the contents. This baby states it'll make usable compost in as little as 14 days with the right conditions! But the unusual cold we've been having here will defiantly slow that down, so we'll see.

This one we made last year from 2X4s, with three chambers in it. We actually made it to store excess yard materials that I was using in my compost, but I decided to fill one chamber with composting layers and see how it does out in the open uncovered and all.

And of course, I refilled the older one, this time all the way to the top with layers to see how it does cold composting with the cover on it (vs. the uncovered pile in the wood bin.)
All are filled with layers of straw, leaves, pine needles, grass, and the kitchen scraps and little bit of compost that the bin had finally created.
I've already started the garden plans for spring, with possible new boxes for the hubby to build, so hopefully one or more of these produces some great compost for us to plant in! I'll keep you updated! Here's hoping!

New growth for the New Year!

Amid the weeks of rain and chaos going on in our house as we try to finish the concrete floor in the great room, I found a wonderful surprise in the garden: the onions and garlic we planted to over-winter in the garden are sprouting! They range up to maybe three inches, and I can't believe how many are growing already! So excited to see things growing in this cold weather. Just goes to show you, mother nature is always working, even when it looks dead and bare out there :)

The hubby got me a great new camera for xmas, with a zoom lens like I wanted so I can take many more pictures of the garden plants and wildlife that show up in our yard ;) expect plenty of colorful posts in 2013! Hope everyone had a great holiday season, we're looking forward to all the things we can grow this next year, the garden plans are already started............