Bluegrass Garden Girl

Well, it is March 14th, my plants are not even in the ground, and already the battle with the bugs begin!  Argh!  Yesterday I went out to check on my seedlings that I am hardening off and waiting to plant when the weather dries up and lo and behold there was a nasty creepy crawly having a nice snack on one of my cabbages!  I found three total and they all met a swift demise.  I didn’t get any pics that first day.  Today I checked on them before church and didn’t see any culprits.  As I was cooking supper I looked out the window and saw several on the top of the kids play yard (this is where I’ve hidden my seedlings from the birds and bunnies)  So out I go with camera in hand!  I found about 10 of these buggers (hmm 2 to 10…eek!)  Here you go, my arch nemesis of the moment.  Anyone know what this bugger is?

Here’s a comparison for size, I’d say the largest was 1.5 inches long

This guy got interupted on the way to dinner...

All right I guess I’m done with my rant.  I moved these where the bunnies and birds will have access but hopefully they wont find them right away.  I plan on planting these out as soon as it dries up some, that should be about Tuesday or Wednesday.  I will also be planting peas and carrots and radishes that day

On a side note, I started a few tomatoes, peppers, and tomatillos in my hillbilly heating rig.  I will get a picture of that and let you know if it is a success or failure.  I’ve already had some problems with it.

I just haven’t had a lot to post about.  My seedlings are going well.  Hopefully I will be able to start hardening them off come Friday if we get the predicted “warm” snap with temp in the 40’s.  Yep, that’s right I said warm….    Any way here’s a few pics of the seedling progress.  They are all looking fantastic except the cauliflower, not sure what it’s problem is but I’ve got at least one of the three that looks promising.

They need a good long drink in this pic. The are usually more perky, you can see the water in the bottom

All of my cabbage looks fantastic!

Well that’s it for now.  I’ll be updating when I start transitioning these babies outside.  Take care, I hope your weather has been better than mine!

Purchased seeds

Finally!  We have seeds in the local stores!  I was getting worried.  Here’s my purchased seed in all their glory.  I will try to find a place for all these, the shouldn’t be hard for some since I only want one or two of them and those include the broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and cauliflower.  I also have various seeds that I recieved from trades and such that will be planted.

I also started my cabbage, broccoli, sprouts, cauliflower, endive, and some kale (I believe I should have held off on the endive and kale)  and all have sprouted well.  I went heavy on the seeds because I’m a fraidy cat and wanted something to sprout lol.  I will be cutting some out as soon as I think all the seeds have sprouted.  The kale is showing poorly, oh well, I won’t cry if it doesn’t sprout! lol.

No, I don’t have any ripe ones.  I don’t even have any seedlings yet.  But yesterday we had a warm snap so I got out and played in the dirt.  I winter sowed some more tomato seeds, I had recieved them last week from wintersown.org.  I’ve added 10 more varieties bringing the total up to 12.  They are

1. Cherokee Purple
2. Vinson Watts
3. Black Krim
4. Isis Candy
5. Chocolate Cherry
6. Amish Paste
7. Dolly Parton
8. Pink Brandywine
9. Hillbilly
10. Green Zebra
11. Berkley Tie Die
12. Ramapo

Hopefully between the winter  sown seeds and the ones I plan on starting indoors I’ll get some of all of them.  I’m really excited about the Cherokee purple and the Dolly Parton varieties.  I can just taste them now!  I used some milk jugs and juice jugs for containers I LOVED the juice jugs.  They were harder to cut but they snapped together great without any need to tape or tie them.  I will post pictures in my next post so you can see what I mean,  it’s raining right now and I’m not going back out in it

Well lookee here!  This gal can do something!  I decided today was a good day to get my lights set up.  Snow was flying outside and I was getting cabin fever.  So I started out by organizing and cleaning the laundry room…no easy feat let me tell ya!  Then I spent 15 minutes cursing and looking for the hooks and chains that were supposed to be in the box with the light.  I was about to give up and take the stupid thing  back when I noticed the bulge where the plug was.  I then climbed atop the washer and attempted to screw the hooks into the silly paneling ceiling, only to give up and spend another 15 minutes cursing and looking for a way to start a pilot hole.  I settled on a small nail I found in “the drawer”  and a crow bar that was hanging in the attached shed.  Because dang it I was not going out in the snow to look for a drill bit!  After getting the hooks in I discovered the “chains”  were more like bracelets so I went out in the snow to the garage and grabbed the next best thing to duct tape….bailing twine!  After a little rigging I finally was satisfied with them.  So here they are!  Now all I need are more seeds besides cauliflower and lettuce!

My little shop light setup! Now if only Lowes would put out their seed displays!

Oh you may be wondering why on earth I didn’t set it up in that window…Well that’s not where the shelf was and can you see the tree?  There’s another one right out of sight so that part of the house doesn’t get any light anyway .  Ack speaking of going out in the snow…the mail just ran!

Ok people, enough is enough.  I know this is nothing to you northerners out there but here in the hills of eastern Kentucky this is a good amount of snow.  We have probably 3-4 inches of the light fluffy snow.  It’s not even good enough to build a snowman with!   The kiddos have been driving me crazy to get out and play in it so today we bundled up and ventured out for about 30 minutes.  While I was out I snapped a few pics of my wintersown containers and the garlic bed.

Wintersown Containers under a nice layer of snow. I will be adding to these with some more tomatoes soon.

My lonley little garlic bed. Come spring it will be lonley no longer!

Well I braved Lowes the other day and bought myself a shop light and bulbs to go with it.  I have hooks already to hang it but I forgot to get the chains.  I guess that just gives me another excuse to go back to Lowes to see if they have put any seeds out, they had started to put out the watering systems and such so it shouldn’t take long.  I also braved frigid temperatures (windchill was -5)  to hunt down some seed starting mix outdoors….Bet those workers thought I was insane.  I plan on hanging the lights above an existing shelf above my washer and dryer.  My furnace and hot water heater is also in this tiny room so that should give me some much needed warmth to get germination.

My new lights! How long will it take me to get them put up?

I followed through!  I have an actual second post on my blog, this is a huge accomplishment for me.  I tend to dedicate a lot of time figuring out how to do something and perfect it and then I get bored and move on.  Hopefully that will not apply to my garden!  I braved the cold today since it had stopped raining, although there were a few flurries flying while I was out there, and took a couple of pictures.  The first is of my winter sown items.

Those are ice cream buckets and a lone frozen strawberry container with my tomatillos planted in it.

A little shoot popping up from the garlic.

Well, I think that’s it for now.  I may head to Lowe’s later to pick up my light setup and seed starting supplies.  Thanks for the suggestion EG on starting my cole crops now.  As best as I can figure  my last frost date is in mid April.  I want to try to plant out around the first.   So if I give my seedlings 8 wks I’d need to start at the beginning of Feb. right?  I’m gonna give myself a head ache with this stuff!  I have cauliflower seeds but not any broccoli or cabbage seeds so I have to wait till they start putting out seeds anyway.  I can’t wait to get going!  BTW  I just put my envelope with a seed request in the mail to Wintersown so I’m gonna have  to make room for a lot more tomato varieties!

Well folks this is it!  My first official garden blog post!  I will bring you up to speed….warning this could turn out to be a long post lol.  I have built one 4×4 box and filled it with manure (aka Compost), peat, and vermiculite.  This is the recommended “Mel’s Mix.”  I’m not sure if I will fill my other beds with this mixture or not.  I’ve not been able to find a cheap source for large amounts of vermiculite.  I will try the greenhouse by my house when it opens in the spring.   I have plans to build at least 5 more one of those being 4×8 so I can plant corn in it.  I will fill it with peat, manure from my dad’s horses   and however much vermiculite my frugal nature will allow me to buy.  I will probably add a little time release fertilizer as well.

In my one bed I have planted Polish Jen Garlic, I planted it on October 6.  Hopefull I didn’t jump the gun and plant too early.  I was off work on fall break and I just couldn’t help myself.  I just broke apart the cloves and spread them evenly throughout the bed.  I would say about 4-6 inch spacing.  I would post a picture of the bed, but I didn’t take one at the time and it’s raining so there’s no way I’m taking my new camera out in that!  I will post some as soon as the weather clears up enough for me to get outside.

I also found an interesting concept called wintersowing.  You can find more info on it at wintersown.org  I decided to give that a go…what could it hurt?  So on December 22 I wintersowed some of my jalepenos, eggplants, tomatoes, and pineapple tomatillos.  I hope this method works because starting seeds indoors is a pain and I have very limited space to do so.  Again, I will post pictures later.

I plan on starting some seeds indoors starting in February…please let me know if I should hold off for zone 6!  I want to start some cole crops like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, etc.   Then in March I will be starting my backups for tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and tomatillos.  I just can’t trust wintersown yet since it’s new to me and I may have somehow fudged it up.  I plan on starting them over my washer and dryer in the laundry room on an existing shelf.  I’m going to buy a $10 florescent shop light and a cool and warm bulb for it to hang there and hopefully it with sprout some seeds, and I will have enough room to do all I want.

OK, I think that’s about it for now.  I want close with my growing list for next year

1. Corn (Anyone have any suggestions for a good pickling corn?)
2. Bill Stumbo Half Runners
3. Annies Cornfield Beans (I think that’s the name…I’ll have to double check)
4. Polish Jen Garlic
5. Variety of Lettuce
6. Daikon Radish (not big on radish but hey I have the seeds and space lol)
7. Tomatoes (Cherokee Purple, Vinson Watts, and a red variety I have yet to pick)
8. Early Jalepenos
9. Onions (only a few for salsa…we are not onion eaters)
10. Broccoli
11. Cabbage
12. Cauliflower
13. Endive (another experiment)
14. Dark Green Zucchini
15. Pineapple Tomatillos
16. Strawberries (already in place from last year)
17. Basil, parsley, and other herbs.
18. Carrots
19. Clemson Spineless Okra
20. Marigolds and other flowers

That’s all as of now..I’m sure I’ll find a few other things when seeds start appearing in stores soon.  I’d like to have some summer squash also.  OK, first post is done!  I plan on sitting down and drawing a plan for my garden lo soon so I will post that when I get it done.