It's REALLY Spring Now!

Even if it won't last at least it really feels like spring today :)

I love that my father-in-law came over today and added a 3 and a half inch wood perimeter around my garden beds and filled it in with wood chips. It looks amazing and it's begging for me to plant!!

Pressure treated Douglas Fir with 12 inch lags to secure them into the ground. 

He also brought over half wine barrels for more plants! They still need to be soaked, drilled, and lined... hopefully Patrick will help with that ;)

Looking more like it's ready for wine than dirt!

Ha ha I tried taking the picture so that you CAN'T see how badly we need to paint our house!!!

Also, it's exciting to see that the cucumber seedlings now have a third leaf. It is very different from the other leaves and I'm excited to see how these progress. I think cucumber is a vine plant that likes to climb... we'll see.

The Transplant

Cucumber, cauliflower, and broccoli hit the height potential in the Burpee grow house, so I knew it was time for a transplant. However, I have never done something like this before. I watched a brief YouTube Video of an old guy doing it in Texas, but I'm not so sure I'm even at the right stage or if they're the same type of plant! Seriously, the seedlings were planted 10 days prior to when I repotted the them.

The Transplants!

Check out the roots on the cucumber... such a fast growing seed!

It is so cool because I remember seeing the onion seed, which looked like a small black chip of charcoal and thinking - that will never grow! Check it out now...

It's hard to see, but if you look closely you can see the black seed at the end of one of the green sprouts.

Oops accidentally uprooted an onion while taking off the clear dome.

I planted all of the cucumber seedlings alone because they already seemed SO BIG! Check out one of my first transplants below:

I just removed the duo from the seedling tray.

oops one that hadn't seen sunlight or max potential yet

Check out that root structure... so impressive for 10 days in dirt!

The cucumber seedling is going into the soil.

Honestly, I don't know if the seedlings are supposed to be alone or in groups. I have never grown vegetables on my own and never even seen broc/cauli or cucumber grow before. Anyhow, I was getting sick of planting so many and I thought Patrick might get upset if I covered the entire kitchen table with vegetable and herb seedlings. It's a bit of an experiment but with the broc/cauli I planted groups of 1, 3, and 5-9 (I didn't plant broccoli and cauliflower together, but remember I think I may have gotten them switched). Ha, ha check it out as it is without planting single seedlings!!

before

after

The same day as the seedling transplant I had started out planting some Redwood trees in the backyard, but then it started to pour rain so I started in on the seedlings. 

When you plant trees and tend to an acre- you need WOLVERINE BOOTS!

I'm standing right where I dug the hole and planted the next Redwood.

I am still seeing new bulbs pop up in the front garden beds. It's so exciting! I love the vibrant colors of the tulips and the large daffodils with the dark orange centers.

A beautiful tulip popped up on the far end of the garden bed next to a maroon pansy.

Daffodil a plenty!

My favorites are the large white and yellow daffodils with the orange centers :)

Seedling Update

Wow!! I can't believe how fast most of the seedlings have grown! It hasn't even been one full week! This week I started doing a little more research by reading forums on a gardening website. http://idigmygarden.com/forums/

I found out a bit about companion planting. Companion planting is when different plants are planted next to each other to help ward of pests and encourage growth. I also discovered that some plants can cause harm or stunt growth when planted near one another. Now I have the big task of doing some garden planning with the seeds I bought to see how I will plant/design the garden beds and spaces around them. I'm super annoyed with myself because I can't be sure if I mixed up the labels for the broccoli and cauliflower!!!! Grr! And now I found out that radish near broccoli is a great companion, but cauliflower is NOT!

Is it cauliflower or broccoli? only time will tell :(

I'm thinking some day soon that I'll need to plant the seedlings in larger cups to encourage a longer root structure... maybe tomorrow?! Not all of them need to be replanted yet, but look how BIG the cucumbers have gotten! They almost all have large double leaf structures.

In the meantime, (more like when it finally QUITS raining!) Posting pictures of the yard helps to excite me about the edible part of my garden that will get started soon. Hopefully my next post will explain the amazing plans I have for the garden.

Rosemary plants

A lil Irish cheer on the front gate for the month of March

Lots of Daffodils!! (Grass grew back though... pulled it awhile back)

A beautiful squatty tulip amongst the other pretties!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Love this sign that my in-laws gave us at our engagement party :)

P.S. I hope I didn't start these seedlings too soon!!! It's so wet, cold, and gloomy outside that I honestly can't imagine the next time I'll be able to go out and enjoy tending to the beds and implementing plans for the soil.

P.P.S. My dad gave me two more bags of bulbs today! Man, I'm going to be seriously busy!!!

Seedlings

Today (before it started raining) I decided to start some seedlings. I used a Burpee 72 cell tray and two egg cartons to germinate my seeds. I'm not sure which seeds should be started indoors, but I found a chart at the Seed Bank and decided to go off of it!

not sure if Cotati is consider coastal or inland, so I tried find the common ground between both sides of the chart

Today I planted Marigolds - petite and regular, cucumber, onion, cauliflower, broccoli, parsley, thyme, basil, and oregano. It was crazy to see the difference in seed size, shape, and color. Thyme, basil, and oregano were so small I think I put about 20-40 seeds in each cell. I was surprised to see that onion seeds look like small black pebbles.

seed packets used for indoor germination

germinating on the kitchen table

96 individual cells

Now I'm going to watch and wait. Hopefully these seeds turn into little seedlings over the next several weeks. I think I'll do most of my planting end of April/beginning of May.

Even though it is raining today... it is beginning to look like SPRING!!!

Box Elder tree in blossom - tiny leaves are beginning to form!

plum tree in white blossoms (hard to see against the white, rain cloud back drop)

March Madness over SEEDS!!!!

My first bulbs produced flowers today (March 1st)! I can seriously stare out my front window for hours - day dreaming of how beautiful the beds will be when they're in full bloom. I even picture text messaged some of my friends to show them my first blooms :). Looking out my window right now I can see a hint of yellow at the tips of many of my daffodil sprouts. It's very exciting! Even though it seems I have already had a lot of success in my garden, I want more!! My husband and I have almost an acre of flat land and I've said before it is like a blank canvas. The previous homeowner had llamas and so the land was used mainly as a pasture. Well, we're not really farm-animal people, so I want to make our yard a fabulous retreat.

view in front off of porch

I watched a video today that I bought at a local store in Petaluma and it is called nourish and it's about food + community. My sister is big into the slow food movement and I too would like to become a locavore (a person that eats mainly locally grown food). This school year I taught a unit about the food pyramid and food production, we touch on transportation, processing and distribution. It's amazing how little young children know about what they're actually eating. Even adults often don't know about their own food! Anyhow, I can open a whole can of worms going in that direction, so I'll try to focus on my next topic... this video. In the end of the video they talk about what the word NOURISH and what it actually means to them and I started thinking about what it means to me (of course I cheated a bit and looked up synonyms and the definition). The synonyms my computer came up with are - FEED, ENCOURAGE, and CHERISH. I decided that these were going to be the words to paint the picture of my garden. I want to grow fruit and vegetables. I want to encourage my students to grow something. I want to cherish nature and the serenity it brings to my everyday life. More to come on the word nourish in other posts.

And now for the seeds... Oh boy, do I have a lot of work ahead of me! Today I went to the Seed Bank in Petaluma (http://rareseeds.com/petaluma-seed-bank/). I've been dying to go there ever since I heard about it, but today when there was an article in the Press Democrat about it, I decided there was no better day than today. First let me say that my in-laws know I want to garden and got me some seed packets for Christmas. They got me: summer squash (zucchini), beans, lettuce, cucumber, and radish seeds. For some gardeners that might be enough, but not for me! Today I went BIG at the Seed Bank which is known for their heirloom varieties. I bought: Oregano Vulgare (herb), Basil Lime (herb), Parsley- Giant of Italy (herb), Common Thyme (herb), Garden Bird Seed hot peppers, Pepper Tam Jalapeno, Golden California Wonder Sweet Peppers, Pepper Sweet Yellow Stuffing, Beet Bull's Blood, Cauliflower Purple of Sicily, Broccoli Romanesco Italia, Parsnip hollow crown, Carrot Berlicum 2, European Mesclun Salad mixed variety seed, onion red of Florence, Corn True Gold, Sweet Corn country gentleman, Artichoke purple of Romagna, Asparagus Mary Washington, Pumpkin Big Max, Melon Sleeping Beauty, Golden Honeymoon American Melon, Tomato Royal Hillbilly, Orange ET Green Zebra Striped Tomato, Tomato Yellow Pear, and Tomatillo Verde.

some of the seed packets

Well, as if that wasn't enough I also got two packets of California poppies, two packets of Marigolds, and one packet of wild flowers.

And if that wasn't enough, I forgot to mention the other bulbs I bought! I love dahlias and so I bought 26 bulbs ranging in color from red to orange to yellow to pink and purple. I also picked up 18 Gladiolus bulbs in a bright green color, 6 Day Lily plants - mainly yellow some have maroon on them too, 24 mixed color Freesia plants, and 5 Peony plants ranging in color from dark pink to light pink, red and white.

bulbs - ready to plant after last frost

I've never started a garden on my own. I've never started anything from seed. I have a big adventure ahead of me!

In the next month I will be planning when to start growing the seedlings indoors, guessing as to which should be started indoors and which have a fighting chance starting outdoors in the garden beds. I looked up the last frost dates from years past and it seems the early May is the safest time to start. Here goes nothing...

February break

Since I am a teacher, I fortunately get breaks and time off work to recharge my battery. I usually try to find a fun project to work on... it gives me something fun to talk about when I return to second grade and I feel I've accomplished something if I don't take a trip. Over my February break I decided it was time for trees. Wow! My husband and I spent a mini fortune on trees. This is what we bought: pomegrante, Japanese plum, brown turkey fig, golden delicious apple, fuji apple, asian pear, a magnolia tree, a camelia (bush really), 13 redwoods, and a blue spruce (actually our Christmas tree, but we finally just planted it!)

We have planted most of the trees, except a few of the redwoods and our yard is starting to come to life!

Over the break I also went with my father-in-law and his friend to pick up some used garden beds. They have a friend who used to grow mushrooms, but is now out of business and still has thousands of unused wood beds. We picked up four of them and I began the task of gopher wiring the bottoms. Even though these garden beds have wood on the bottom, apparently gophers will still try to sneak their way up to get to the roots and feast. (We also used gopher baskets, wire nets, around the base of all of our trees so that the gophers won't be able to eat them.) We ordered 8 yards of premium dirt with a mushroom compost and my husband and I began shoveling!

Pat with the garden bed frames (and our junk yard in the background)

my lovely husband did most of the dirt transfer

ready for mulch around the beds

beds are full and ready for seedlings/spring (soon to be compost pile in the back left)

 

December 2010 - still alive! January...

Can you believe it! My flowers and shrubs are still alive. Yippee!!!

Then in January my husband and father-in-law rented an aerial lift to cut some large mature Box Elder trees in our yard.

Pat and Patrick up in the lift - it goes 40 ft. in the air!

We used a chipper to turn the large branches we removed from the trees into usable bark. I added this to my flower beds and POP! That was the finishing touch they needed. I also noticed that small green sprouts were beginning to emerge from the space between the already existing plants. My bulbs had survived!!!!

November - doing something to beautify the front yard

My husband and I moved into our house in September. We had to completely redo the kitchen (cold water wasn't even flowing from the faucet when we moved in!), replace carpets, paint and more! 

old kitchen (with previous homeowners stuff)

old dining area

nasty linoleum

after we tore out the linoleum

new kitchen

new kitchen looking toward dining area

 

old mud room with outside exposure

new mud room

new mud room (ceiling)

By November we were pretty close to finished making our house a home, so I knew it was time to begin making the front more appealing. My mom has always planted bulbs and I have always enjoyed the exciting surprise that this type of plant brings to a garden. When will they emerge? Where again did I plant them? Will a gopher get to them before spring time? I knew that if I planted bulbs, I would also have to plant other plants. Even though I wasn't quite ready to "landscape" I knew that I would want to eventually and would unintentionally dig up the bulbs. So I went to Lowe's and purchased pansies, snapdragons, primroses and several other small flowering shrub-like bushes (most of which I forget the names of now). After two days of diligent work... I had planted: 4 primrose plants, about 2 dozen pansy plants, about 2 dozen snap dragon plants, 14 shrubs, and about 200 bulbs! The bulbs consist of different varieties of tulip, daffodil, and a small iris species. Even though the fruits of my labor could be seen a bit, most of my hard work was still buried in the ground.

a rainy day, but a good picture of bulbs and other  plants (photo 3/13/11)

Daphne and other bulbs to the left of the front steps/porch (photo 3/13/11)

November became a stormy, windy, cold month. I continuously had to remove fallen leaves from the flower bed as we have a large sycamore that drops leaves by the bucket load. To my surprise my flowers and shrubs are still alive!