It is the end of January and I am already thinking about my garden this year.  I had some successes and some losses last year.  I did not reach my goal of 50 pounds of food grown.  I will still keep the same goal for this year and see how close I get.  I am hoping for a better potato crop this year.  I also have some health issues that make it hard to garden at all at the moment.  It will be an interesting year.
Happy Gardening!

Weed War Part 2

     While I don't have photos to post right now I can tell you this.  Vinegar works well as a weed killer for certain weeds.  I find it has worked best with thistle when you spray it down the hole the roots came from but will not stop new growth if you just spray the leaves.  It works best on grass and small shallow rooted weeds.
     The boiling water trick is cumbersome and I have not found it to work all that well.  It could be that by the time I get my water outside, it is no longer boiling, just very hot and I do pour it from a distance to get the hard to reach plants.  Before I call it quits I will try it again and see how it does.
     When it comes to my garden I will stick with manual labor and vinegar but the rest of my yard I will do round up.  It pains me to spray it but I see results in a short amount of time and I know it is getting down to the roots.
     I will also give one last piece of advice: don't let your weeds go to seed.  If you give them that chance, you are already laying the groundwork for more weeds to clear next year, so get them while they are young or now before they all go to seed.
     Happy gardening everyone.  I hope to have garden photos up soon with my harvest totals so far.

Weed War Part 1

I have a different view when it comes to weeds, I do my best not to use anything in my garden besides pulling.  When it comes to weeds in the yard, I will use round-up and blackberry weed killer but I would prefer to use something that I consider less toxic.  So here is a list of the weeds I have and they are all considered noxious (obnoxious) weeds in Washington and Pierce county.  Here is the list with photos:

 This is a pile of canadian thistle that has grown up through a tarp and 3 feet of dirt (this is also what happens when you procrastinate to put the dirt in the garden beds).  The thistle has slowly been making its way towards the house and we are slowly loosing this war.  We are just about to bring out the big guns and see what happens.








This is a beautiful field of creeping buttercup.  Don't know what will kill this yet.

Blackberries, I like some of them so I can have fresh blackberries but I don't need them in the middle of the yard.  The leave are brown because I am trying out new weed control methods.

This is an area that I just planted but they are being hidden by the weeds.   The tough thing about this area is I don't want to spray anything that my harm the surrounding foliage.

This beautiful (sarcastic) photo has 4 plants all in one.  From left to right: Herb Robert (Geranium robertanum), bedstraw (also know as the little plants that produce the burrs that stick to everything), Canadian Thistle, creeping buttercup.










We are also at war with Tansy ragwort which is a fineable weed.  We are getting it early so it doesn't spread and doesn't come back.  It is toxic and potentially lethal if eaten by certain livestock.  The bad thing is that the seeds can remain viable for 10 to 16 years so we have a long road ahead.

If you want a better list of noxious weeds and what category they fall into (established but tolerable, less tolerable and evil like tansy) go to http://www.nwcb.wa.gov/nwcb_nox.htm the Noxious weed guide to Washington State (it is a good site).

Happy gardening and weed pulling.  Next post will be how my alternative weed control ideas seem to be working.

While I have been doing some gardening (mostly weeding) I thought I would take a few posts to talk about how I got started, my resources and lastly my war on weeds.
First I want to introduce you all to a new member of my tomato family "Audrey."  She is a super sauce tomato that is supposed to make great sauce tomatoes.  The story behind her is that there are a bunch of us at work that enjoy gardening.  There were several of us that wanted seeds for this plant, so instead of seeds, we all got plants.  I chose her because most of my tomatoes at some point get a s shape in them.

 Sorry it is tilted.  But this is her the day I brought her home.  A little droopy from the mail but otherwise looking ok.

Here she is in the garden (she went in a few days ago).  She still needs the cage for support since she had a rough transition (she was hit by my         dogs tail).

So now a little bit on how I got started. 

Growing up my Dad had a garden and I remember enjoying the fresh food.  We also had an apple tree, pear tree, a few cherry trees, raspberries, blackberries and grapes.  After I went to college, I didn't have a garden.  Once I got my own place, I started a single raised bed.  I enjoyed the garden but had trouble with time and getting some things to grow.  Then we moved to 2.3 acres that had an area that looked like it had been a garden (though it was full of grass and weeds).  

Over the last 4 years I have spent ~$250 on wood, dirt, landscape fabric (more on that later) and little items like that.  Now I have 9 beds (we will see how that goes) and a new passion for growing my own food.  I also want to learn how to preserve what I harvest as well.  I have 14 tomato plants and the super sauce is for sauce so that is something new I will be doing this year.

My resources are:

a blog I follow onehundreddollarsamonth.com, and books:

The Backyard Homestead, Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre! Edited by Carleen Madigan

Let it Rot, The gardner's guide to composting By Stu Campbell

Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza

 My list of seeds.  I will sometimes write a w for warm weather crops so I can remember when to plant them and not get too excited about planting things too early

 This is new for me this year, companion planting.  Though I am not doing this well, it is helping to figure out what to plant where.

This is my garden plant for this year.  What I do is take the plan I had from last year and look at crop rotation in The Backyard Homestead and the companion planting guide to figure out what should go what and what not to plant next to each other.  Due to the fact that I have more tomatoes than fit in my designated tomato spot and areas that I had planned for flowers are now changed since I planted melons and they are doing well indoors (though they need to go out ASAP).  So it is a fluid chart but it helps me keep things straight.

That is it for now, next edition will be by war on weeds.

Happy gardening!
Kristi

Well it has been a little longer than I had hoped to update my blog but here it is now.  My potatoes are starting to come back which makes me happy.  My greens are a little slow to grow but this is the first year I have grown them so I am learning as I go.  A few days ago I transferred my tomatoes and basil to my little green house.  As you will see in the photo, I put a strand of standard Christmas lights (not LED) and plug them in at night keeping them about 5 degrees warmer than outside.  Tonight there is threat of frost so it will be interesting to see what I wake up to.  Here is my photo update.  Soon I will be trying some DIY weed killer methods to see what works.

 My mustard greens and a red rock cabbage in the top right, still small but growing.

One of my kale plants. 

My green beans are now ready for their support.

One of the fuchsia's looking happy.

My greenhouse set up.  It is a small 2 tier set up that works great for me.  On top of the second shelf I have a thermometer that I can read from inside to check temperature and humidity.











That is it for now.  Happy gardening everyone!

It has been a while since I have posted last but here is my update.  My starts are doing very well except for the herbs.  None of the herbs have grown and it has been long enough that I believe they won't start.  So that will be some plants that I buy instead of start from seed.  There is something satisfying to me to start my garden from seed and not starts (though there are certain plants like herbs and cucumber that I will only do starts due to bad luck).
I bought a flower pack from Costco and hope to get that planted soon.  It is for the shade garden and has hosta's, columbine (red and white), and astilbe (red).  I want to wait a few more days to see how many of my hosta's from last year come back.
Now the photo update:

I want people to know that everything I do with my garden is trail and error.  Here is one of my beds.  Being that I don't use round-up in the garden I need to be on top of weeding, this is what happens when you get behind.  There is buttercup, dandelions, thistle and grass.  Nothing easy to get rid of.  This coming fall/winter I may try covering the beds to see if I can deprive the weeds light, it will be worth a try.

                               

This is my strawberry, another plant that I don't have good success in when I try to grow it from plain crowns, this is mine I got a few years ago, the new crowns I planted this year have done nothing.
To the right is my raspberry.  I didn't cut any of the canes back and I have grass growing in the pot so I need to figure out what to do to make sure it doesn't get overrun.

 A photo looking towards the house.  My lettuce, cabbage, kale and mustard are in the bed on the right.

  

My potatoes just started to pop.  A side note, these photos were taken on Monday, since we have had 2 frost and the potatoes didn't fare so well.  We will see how they do.

         
A photo of my maybe future gardner and my dog Smokey walking off to see the neighbor cows.








Lastly for today, my "salad garden" both tucked in and untucked their floating row cover (they did great with the frost).  There are even bigger now.

Good night everyone.  More posts next week.

Well, it has been a few day since I have posted last but I got some work done this weekend getting my little starts into bigger pots.  I went to Home Depot and they were having a sale on fuchsia starts only 50 cents, and they are having a sale on early blooming plants (half off!)  I got my starts from a coworker and got them all potted up as well.

Fuchsia starts, the three varieties I have are rough silk, red shadows and deep purple.  As they start to bloom, I will post more photos.

This is the front shade garden with a new Hellebore Jacob to the left, I don't remember the plant I planted on the right, there are Hosta's in there too, I hope they come back.

My peas!

These are some of my melons (I have watermelon, cantelope and honeydew this year).  I have yet to successfully grow any of these so each year I try something new to see if it works.

One of my rhodies.

This is what I have for now, more updates later!