2011 Garden launched

Have the tomatoes, peppers, herbs, squash, and cucumbers in the ground.

Made the illogical choice of surrounding the current raised beds with pressure treated 2x8's to make the garden look nicer and to eventually have brick pathways. While it does look nice it wasn't cheap and it took forever trying to do by myself. Oh, and it's not even done. But regardless, it will look nice in the end I'm sure.

Many variety of tomatoes though. Red Zebra, Sun Gold, Black Pearl, Red Lightning, Italian Ice, Sweet Snack, Roma, Amish Paste, Jubilee, Beefsteak, Better Boy, Marglobe, and Brandywine.

Going to try growing the cucumbers on tomato cages this year to see how that works. Cages will be about 7.5' tall so it should allow for some growth. Two-three plants per cage and seven cages in all.

Getting my grass clipping mulch down in the very near future will be critical in the battle against weeds. The beds of squash I did a few weeks back have zero weeds and that makes life so much easier. The squash by the way should be producing very shortly, already nice looking blossoms on all of those plants.

The remainder of the drip irrigation will also hopefully be in this weekend so I don't have to try to individually water 100+ plants.

Still want to try to get some corn and beans in the ground but if I don't do that shortly I don't think it will be worth it. We'll see.

Dill Pickles

Picked up this old hand written recipe for Dill Pickles that was given to my grandfather back in '64 by a guy who had gotten it from his grandmother. Needless to say it's old.


I'm doing my best to read the old cursive script on old faded paper.

If the pickles actually come out half-way decent I'll post it. It it's awesome then I'll keep it secret and live off the sale of pickles.

Odds are I'll be posting it but it will be a pain to transcribe so I'm not gonna do it now.

Early May

Picked up a few plants from the Southeast School plant sale (early edition) Got a few lettuce, peas, etc.. Already had these planted so it was most just to donate. I did however get some Green Globe Artichokes which I planted. Have never done those before.

Got the beginnings of the drip irrigation system setup. Looks to be working well so far.

Temps are getting warmer and hopefully we've passed the point of frost now. Some cucumbers I planted about 10 days ago got hit with some cold weather judging by their leaves which are now all burnt. But I had many extra seedlings I had started as part of the massive seedling project so I'll replace those in the next couple days.

Spring Planting

Garden is in better shape this year. Going to try keeping it the same size for a season instead of redoing the fence again. It's roughly 65'x18' with a 12'x20' "L" section added in.

Have the following 20' rows of seeds/plants in the ground so far in the lower portion of the garden.
4 rows Sugar Snap Peas
2 rows each of Red Oniond, White Onion, and Brown(?) Onion. Got these from Home Depot to try out, have never grown onions before.
2 rows of carrots.

The other beds in the garden have already been turned with the fork and I've covered them with black plastic to help prevent weed growth and to help warm the soil up.

Currently have about 260+ seedlings growing in the basement in my new grow house unit.

Most were started about three weeks ago. Pulled 20 tomato plants from the seed start unit last night and have them in 3.5" pots.

3 - Better Boy Hybrid
12 - Roma (Hoping to can a lot of tomato sauce this year)
5 - Sweet Snack Hybrid (Cherry sized)

After pulling those seedlings and potting I reused the seed starting unit for another 24 tomatoes. All Cherry varieties.

4 - Italian Ice Hybrid
4 - Red Lightning Hybrid
4 - Black Pearl Hybrid
4 - Tumbling Tom Yellow Hybrid (Apparently for hanging basket)
4 - Sun Gold Hybrid
4 - Red Zebra

Too many tomatoes? Perhaps. Figured I may try to set up a rudimentary road side stand to peddle the excess.

I have 2 seed starting units that I received for Christmas. They are the APS 24 unit from http://www.gardeners.com/ Fill the bottom of unit with water and a cloth sheet wicks the water up to the base of the seedlings to keep them moist. Works very well. I also have two small seedling heater mats that I quickly outgrew. I've since upgraded to a single 24"x48" mat that I have pluged into a thermostat to keep the soil temp at about 79.

I also picked up 3 Burpee 72 cell Greenhouse kits from Home Depot. These aren't as advanced as the APS units but they seem to be working fine right now. My only concern is when I have to try to get the seedlings out of them without destroying the thing. The APS units are nice because there is a hole at the bottom that I can push the seedling right out from.

In unit #1 I have all peppers. I got a couple of mixes with five different varieties in each. In an attempt to make sure I grew at least some of each I try to sort the seeds by visible characteristics into five groups for each packet. Then I planted six sets from each group. Once they actually bear fruit I'll be able to tell if I was successfull. So that will mean five different varieties of hot peppers: Anaheim TMR 23, Ancho, Long Slim Red Cayenne, Jalapeno M, and Hungarian Wax. Also five varieties of Bell Peppers: Big Red, Chardonnay, Purple Beauty, Orange Sun, and Diamond. Then I think there are six California Wonder bell peppers, and six standard Coyame hot peppers.

In unit #2 I have all herbs. Basil (Sweet), Rosemary, Dill (Fernleaf), Oregano, Chives, and Cilantro. I think about 24 basil and the rest is spread evenly after that. We seem to go through basil like crazy so this should help as we only had eight plants last year.

In unit #3 there is a mish mash of other stuff. Squash, Cukes, tomatoes, egg plant, broccoli. Probably to early to have planted the squash and cukes (2 weeks ago) as they are getting huge in just two weeks and its way to cold to plant outside now. I'll definitely need to get them planted into bigger pots this weekend.

The new grow unit is working well. Kind of a simple self designed thing made from 1" insulation board and PVC pipes. Lights mounted in each section as well. Lights in the middle section can be raised or lowered to keep them close to seedlings. Each compartment is basically 2'x4' foot print with about 24" of height for growth. The front has three individual pieces of foam board that can be removed to access the plants inside. All the foam board is reflective to hopefully help with lighting. The entire unit is on a simple base with casters so that I can move it around when necessary.