More on the weather

The temperature got down to 28.6 last night and my garden had no cozy blanket :( I guess to be a successful gardener I'm going to have to do more than vaguely pay attention the days forecast. Perhaps night forecasts are important too. To show you what a dumb gardener I am, I'm wondering if frost happens by default when the temps get below freezing, or if there has to be a certain level of humidity in the air as well?

Today is the first sunny day after two solid days/nights of down pour and 40 degree days. It's supposed to be sunny and in the 60's for a few days now. Lawns everywhere are looking greener and I suspect there will be a lot of flowers out soon.

All about the lawn

I was reading my friends blog (It's spring: Time to get in the game and check out the competition) and it got me thinking about my own yard and what the neighbors must think. We bought our house about a year and a half ago (which is only a small excuse) and have two little ones (another small excuse) and have absolutely no idea what we're doing! (the truth comes out) We have managed to cultivate a lovely combination of funky purplish weeds (clover perhaps?), sprawling dirt patches, and two lush sections of lawn that border on a neighbors well tended to, watered, and fertilized (by their dog!) lawn. I don't think we can take much credit for those lush patches of lawn. Anyway, back to what the neighbors think. At the beginning of last season hubby decided that the dandelions were to be embraced and accepted... by the end of the season he was annoyed at their unwillingness to be tamed by the lawn mower and ability to multiply like mad. This afternoon he and the little guy were outside "collecting" dandelions and putting them into a bucket. I think we'll make this a game several times a week and see how long I can keep my toddler excited to pick dandelions :) The boy does love to work. The other morning he and I were outside at 8am in the breezy, chilly, rainy weather putting seeds in the garden. My neighbors must think I am insane (maybe I am, who knows!) but the fact of the matter is you take the time you can and we had a busy day and the baby was napping so I did what I could. I look around at all of my neighbors lovely lawns and hope that they will be patient with me, as I'm sure it will take many summers for me to find the time, energy, money and interest to cultivate a lawn suitable for this lovely neighborhood. Anyway, you do what you can, right?

Quick weather update

I definitely think I planted the garden a bit too soon. The packets all said to plant in late spring or early summer and I was thinking late April would be sufficient, but I think probably early to mid-May would have been better. The weather the past few days has been in the 50s and in the 30s and 40s at night. The forecast is about the same for most of the week. Lots of rain, which is good (I hope) but not much warmth. I think the fact that it's a raised bed helps, but I'm not sure how much. The good news is that we have plenty of seeds left over so if no seedlings show their little green heads in the next week or two, we will just replant! Twice the fun. The boy will love it!

Too cold?

My thermometer said it hit 32.7 degrees last night. I don't see any front on the ground, but it looks like there might be some on the cars. I wonder if I just lost my garden :(

Full garden

The planting is done, now we sit back and hope for something to actually grow :) We planted:

• Sequoia Garden Beans (purple beans)
• Stringless Green Beans
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Maestro Peas
• Cucumbers BurpFree
• Danvers Half Long Carrots
• Early Sweet Sugar Pie Pumpkins

all Burpee brand. I realized now, about 8hrs too late, that I made a few mistakes with planting locations within the garden bed. I thought the green beans needed to climb, but they don't, and I didn't realize that cukes do! I should have swapped the cukes and beans, but now I'm going to have climbers surrounding my beans. Hopefully they get enough sunlight!

I just wrote on a calendar when to expect seedlings and harvests for each. I'm feeling very optimistic :) I'm going to use this project to help teach my toddler about dates and calendars. It's amazing how many learning experiences there are in every day life for a little one.

Raised bed veggie garden

I'm so excited about our new raised bed veggie garden. I did a bunch of research and ended up doing it the lazy (or do-what-you-can-with-kids) way. I found a website that recommends six layers of buildup (compost, fertilizer, straw, etc.) in a framed border. It sounded very good. I spent all day yesterday and half of today around town trying to find the right materials and fit them in my Subaru Forester. The green bean seeds we planted a few weeks ago were 6"-9" high already, so I was pretty eager to get them in the ground. After all the effort, I was outside at 8:30pm last night finishing up the garden, buying more top soil and compost today, and completed the project this evening. Then we put the eight green bean seedlings in the ground! I have no idea if it's bad to plant seedlings at 6pm, but I guess we'll see. I ended up with just the frame (pressure treated 2"x8" boards) and lots of top soil and compost. I intended to put down cardboard and wet newspaper, but I ended up putting the garden where a stone patio sort of thing was (the stones are now the border around the garden), so there were no weeds or anything else growing. I was impatient and decided to skip the cardboard/newspaper step. We'll see if that was a good decision or not in a few weeks.

Our green bean seedlings. I'm thinking about putting some seeds directly into the ground too, in case something goes wrong with the seedlings. You can never have too many green beans, right?

The finished garden with the green beans in place. I'm going to space the reddish stones evenly around the edge and fill in the rest of the bed with seeds in the near future. Just wanted to get those beans in the ground before they outgrew their little plastic snack cups. :) There's a little tomato plant in the pot in front and flowers in the garden on the left.

The dilemmas of a new homeowner

Being fairly new to this home, I welcome spring with mixed emotions. On the bright side (literally and figuratively) I LOVE the warmer weather, the sunshine, the longer days, and the ability to get outside without bundling. I love, love, love that! However, all of my neighbors seem to be able to get out more often and more easily than I. So as my kids nap (good thing, really) I watch the neighbors working on their lovely gardens and look at mine that are still full of last years dead stuff. I can use the "new baby" excuse for one more summer, right? I was psyched to get the kids outside this week, but quickly discovered that my baby (now just turned 1) doesn't like to be on the ground. She screams every time I put her down, which puts a HUGE damper on my efforts to work in the garden while the kids play. I guess for the next few weeks I'll be focusing on getting her to enjoy the great outdoors, putting the gardens and lawn aside.

All that said, I have ambitious plans for this season. I'm going to start a compost, grow (I hope!) a larger, more successful veggie garden, and attempt to remove the 4 dead/dying shrubs along the front of our house. I think some sort of flower garden will look better than dead shrubs :)

Did I mention that the morning glories we transplanted and the tomatoes we planted all died? It was sad. I used seedling trays (from Burpee, I think) that said they could be cut apart and planted right into the ground, saving you and the tiny seedlings from another transplant. What seemed to happen though, is that the trays sucked up all the water, leaving none for my plants. I watered them every day and within hours they looked dry as a desert again. It was sad. My toddler and I planted some green bean seeds this morning in little plastic kiddie cups. Hopefully they will work better. He was playing with the seed packets for the garden and excitedly decided that we needed to plant them -- NOW. So we did.