The lilac in the front yard is blooming!!! Yay! Will get pics in a little while.

Updated the left side bar again to reflect what I ended up doing. Ok, here's what I did... Only one of the potato boxes ended up with a third "stack" so I took that off (hadn't filled it up all the way as the potato didn't grow up tall enough anyway) and put it in line with the others. I finally managed to fill it with enough dirt from a different part of the backyard and I squished 2 zucs and a cauliflower in there and one more caul. will go in in a few days (it's still smallish unfortunately). That's what I'm calling Box #1. The rest of the boxes are numbered and you can see how I divided everything over there on the side. I have 2 more caul. that are smallish also that I will squeeze into one of these boxes eventually also. I have two more zucs that are really small and I think I'll just give up on them and add them to the compost. I hate to kill plants on purpose though...that's why I like the "square foot method". You only plant the number of seeds of the number of plants you want...maybe a few extra just in case of old seeds, etc....no thinning/culling is necessary.

Anyway, some people have "kitchen" gardens or herb gardens...this is our "snack" garden. There will only be enough here or there for a snack or perhaps a side dish or two with a meal but certainly nothing to store up for the winter. Well, except for the rhubarb and raspberries and mint.

Hopefully one of these days all the boxes we need and the permanent greenhouse, etc. will be all done and we won't have to create it and grow it as we go. Oh how nice that will be! To be able to plan and actually have things to "put up". This is not complaining really though as I love to garden period...love to dig and sow and water and see the new life...so I'm having a grand time despite grand unfulfilled expectations! ;-)

Guess that about wraps up my planting for this year...except for a handful of stranglers. Now, to "maintain" the status quo and wait for things to ripen! :-)

I'll be back with maintenance updates I'm sure...

Updated left sidebar.

I'm actually still working on getting a few more (4 or 5) of the squash and cauliflower transplanted into the boxes (hauling dirt at the same time as planting really slows things down! LOL) Also, the long box is mostly filled...still some room for some small things...but I need another big box for the squash and cauliflower. The new chicks (see main journal) are using our big square box from last year as a "corral" until my dh can get their portable pen done. So, if I use that the chicks don't have anywhere to run...unless they run free...*not* a good idea! =8-0 I think since he's so busy that I'll try to hammer out one today myself (he was using power tools and I'd be using hand tools...so I don't know...) or maybe I'll chance it and dig some holes, ammend the soil a little and put them directly into the ground. They'll die anyway if I leave them in their smaller containers...if they don't do well directly in the ground...well, oh well, at least I did all I could. It'll probably be a couple of days before I get back here to say what I ended up doing...

Also, I want to put up current pics. So, much to do... ;-)

May you and your gardens be blessed 'til next time!

Monday was spent with morning chores, going to the doc, doing a few errands in town and, in the afternoon, getting the children caught up with the chores they neglected while I was gone plus a bit of school work. It was kind of cloudy off and on too and we didn't feel like facing the mosquitoes so we didn't go out to play or garden or do yard work.

Tuesday some rather annoying things were happening (that I won't discuss) that kept me occupied all day and by late afternoon/evening I was too beat (mostly mentally/emotionally) to think of anything except my bed.

Wednesday (yesterday) I finally got outside to spend some time with the garden and raspberry patch. I "stole" some dirt from the raspberry patch in an area that's pretty shaded and the canes aren't growing real well. I also took some from around the well. All topsoil we had brought in a couple of years ago so it's good dirt if a little weedy now. I was using the smaller wheelbarrow as I didn't want to break canes if I could help it plus I wouldn't have been able to fill the larger on and get up and down the path and rocks well anyway. As it was I need my older daughter to lift a little to help me in a couple of places. Anyway, managed to get enough to finish filling the first section in the long box (dh put a divider board in the middle just to make it more stable). I was able to finish transplanting all of the radishes, turnips and bush beans. The squash really, really, really need to go in the ground today as they are tipping over in the small containers. So, I'll be hauling dirt again today trying to get enough to fill in the other secion of the long box. I don't want to put the squash in there as it is rather narrow and would rather have them in the big square deep box from last year but that would take more dirt than I have I think even taking it from the areas I am. At any rate, the rest of the hollyhocks and peas (especially) need to go in the ground today if possible (although it's not critical) and I do want them in the long box. Plus, I almost forgot about the cauliflower, that really needs to get into the ground and the long box is where I want them too. Before I started hauling the dirt though I cut back some bushes that were causing the raspberry patch to be such a jungle (at the entrance anyway). They were also blocking light to the lilac...which will bloom soon! Yay! I have to get in there and do more but the garden box has to be first!!! Many of the canes are doing well though and I look forward to a bigger harvest of berries this year than last.

After everything is in the ground, I'll update the left sidebar with amounts and delete what was grown from seed and possible replace that with a "harvest report". It is definitely going to be a small one...this garden is really only going to provide "snacks" for this large family...maybe a side dish or two at a couple of meals. But, we have been doing more and more, little by little, every year we've been here. Time and money. Time and money. Perhaps next year, we can do larger scale all at once... That would be so nice and such a blessing! :-)

Off to get to it! Happy Gardening to all!

Scraped together a bit more dirt (sounds pathetic huh?! :-P) from where the garden box was last year. Enough to add a few more plants to the long box. The diagram looks like this now:

H P H P H
R
B B B
R
R R R R R

with the two radishes shown in the middle column actually way over in the far left column and closer together but couldn't do here typing it and because of the way I have my html set up. :-P

Dh did come home with another small bag of potting soil and three small bags of peat moss. Guess I'll have to mix that with whatever else I can find out in the yard. It'll mean a lot of "pick'n rocks"...but oh well. The plants have to go into the "ground". Man, you can't hold still for a second out there or the mosquitoes practically carry you away (hence the joke that they are our State bird ;-))...

Well, I really just came in to do another load of laundry and take some blankets out to the line. Better get back to it...

This is the day the lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it!
A blessed Lord's Day to all! :-)

I picked our first batch of Rhubarb this afternoon. It was already starting to bolt. 2 armloads full. I managed to find 5 jars that had lids and rings so I made a quick little batch of jam with some of it. Mmmm! :-) The rest is in the frig 'til tomorrow. The children want Rhubarb Crisp AND Rhubarb Pie! :-) I'll see what I can do... ;-)

I also planted 2 more Radish, 1 Bush bean and 1 Pea into the long garden box. Managed to scrape together a bit more dirt. So, now it looks like this:

H P H P
B B
R R R R R

Dh has been working away from home for a few days looong hours so he hasn't been able to bring home dirt for me. (Our ground is too rocky to just dig some up in the yard...it would have to be amended anyway) He said he'd try to take a little time this weekend to do it for me...but not to hold my breath. Hmm, tell that to the plants!!! :-P

As I said in my main blog, I'm beat so I need to get to bed. It's actually about 1:15am on the 5th but I adjusted the time so it would show up "today" and not as "tomorrow" since I haven't bed to bed yet, etc., etc.

Night-night! :-)

I haven't been blogging here much since the miscarriage started...

I've been taking it easy and trying to recover as fast as possible. The plants have mostly just been needing to grow anyway so that's what they've been doing. ;-) I visit them every day of course and water them if they need it. For a week, I pretty much didn't do anything except watch and water...if that as it had been raining off and on and they were staying pretty moist. Last weekend, I did start to transplant a plant or two here or there into bigger pots. As I did so, I moved them out of the greenhouse onto the deck next to it to start hardening them off.

The garden box from last year also got moved closer to the others so that dh can rearranged some logs in the backyard. This box is approx. 4' x 4' x 2'(deep). The other garden box is approx. 2' x 12' x 1'(deep). Then, the 4 potato boxes. That's a start. Hopefully, dh can get some time this weekend to build me another and that should do it for this year.

I started filling the long box this afternoon...a small section anyway. I'm waiting for dh to bring home a load of soil to fill the rest of it. The dirt that's in there now was the stuff I hauled over from the original box so he could move it. I scraped it all to one end and I have a section that's about 2' x 2' that has soil reaching the top of the box. I put a board on the open side to keep the soil from sluffing away. In that section I planted 2 Hollyhocks, 1 Pea, 1 Bush bean and 3 Radishes in an arrangement like this:

H P H
BB
R R R

Definitely my modification of "Square Foot Gardening". Works for me...I hope. ;-) Now, to fill the rest with soil...

I have Mint still...yay! I thought it had all died back this winter but it's still out there. I think I'll transfer the few plants I found into one of the garden boxes...

The Rhubarb is huge and I think I'll be harvesting our first stalks in a couple of days.

The Raspberry patch is turning into a jungle!!! The mosquitoes are just horrid so the little bit of gardening I've been doing has been tolerable...buuuut, to get out into that patch would be torture right now... Ugh. I remember this being part of the problem last year (why we didn't take better care of it).

The Crabapple is blooming like crazy now! So beautiful!!! And, fragrant!!! Love it. :-)

Ok, I think that's it for now... If I do or think of anything else today, I'll be back later in the evening! :-)

Until then...or whenever I do eventually get back here...

Happy Gardening!