Wednesday in the Garden-O-Kitchen

So I haven't posted in a hot minute on here, but I've taken some new pics of my lovely plants! It's amazing to watch them grow.

My to-do list for Wednesday:

• Get the beds marked (because I'm a loser and haven't had the motivation to get out in the biting Oklahoma wind to get this done yet)


• Start hardening my babies, because it's getting close to the time I can put them outside permanently and reclaim my dining room for yes... DINING!


• Peat pot plant 3 more maters, 5 cherry maters and 5 more contender bean plants. I'm afraid the maters I've got now aren't going to make it and I managed to kill all of the kids cherry mater plants... and we LOVE LOVE LOVE grean beans, so we want more!

That shouldn't be hard to handle today... in addition to my routine cleaning, babysitting, working and of course my addiction to blogging right?

Ok... here's the update on my babies:

My first zucchini bloom! Isn't she lovely? They are leggy and look horrible, I think, but then again, who am I? Hopefully they will do much better when in the ground. I still just can't help but be proud of my bloomie!

And here's my lovely squash bloomie! She's so beautiful! Honestly, I had no idea it would be that big... and I'm concerned that I don't have bees in the house (thank God) to do their job. Another confession... when I started this project I had NO idea that I needed bees lol. I thought the stuff just grew and didn't need the help of flying stinging things. Good thing I learned that AFTER I started planting though... or I might have skipped the whole gardening thing altogether.

My most prized possession thus far is my green bean. I actually have a green bean! This is proof in the pudding baby! I'm actually doing something right!

And finally, my gigantic contender beans are just doing wondefully. It's amazing to me that I started this crap soooo long ago... planting the peat pots I mean, and these guys are almost as big as every other plant I have... and they were only started about 3 weeks ago. I hope these guys continue with their growth when I get them outside. I'm planting more of these guys today as well, since only three of the four seedlings I started are still alive and well today... and we just LOVE green beans!

Ramblings on a Monday Morning

This morning I wake up at 5 am, 5:20, 5:45, 6:05...I finally get out of bed at 7 when Andy flipped on the light. CRAP! I'm up LATE AGAIN! I hate waking up and the sun isn't up yet. It's nearly impossible to drag my butt out from the covers and get the day started. And if I didn't have kids coming at 7:30, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get up... Well, I'd get up to get Andy's coffee and lunch ready for the day, but then I'd go back to bed lol.

Today I've still got a buttload of homework to do because I decided after reading a million blogs last night that a Tyler Perry movie sounded much more fun than schoolwork. Dummy!

Nish came back from her dad's last night and I had a long talk with her about her friend who ran away earlier in the week, and also about her being a knucklehead at school and not turning in her work. Her teachers love her, and she's a bright girl... she's just not turning in a few assignments in EVERY class and her grades are showing it. So we've developed a plan with the teachers to communicate via email each week and give me a progress report. We are also going to get a signature from each of them every single day in her agenda stating what she needs to turn in and such, and if anything is late. At the end of the day she has to report to Shelley and if there is a signature missing, she gets after school detention. If there are 3 or more signatures missing, she gets to stay until 6pm. Sounds awful I know, but after a couple days of forgetting to get it done, she'll get the point.

My sister emailed me her itinerary too! I'm soooo very excited! To be so far apart, we really are close. She and her man are coming in May for Memorial Day. She was just going to Texas to introduce her man to our granny, but we decided being stuck in Mayberry for five days would be entirely too much for her. She's going to fly into OKC Thursday night. We'll go to the dart tournament that Friday night and Saturday morning Andy, me, my sissy and her man will all jump in the mini and head to Mayberry. I'm always excited to see my moma and granny, but it's especially fun when my sissy is there! Then Sunday night or Monday morning we'll head back to OKC, BBQ on Monday, and then I'll take her to the airport Tuesday night. This is the first time her man will see my life in Okieland too. I'm so excited.....and I just can't hide it....

Meteorologists

get big money for lying to me. I don't appreciate that. In the least. Friday night we were looking at Crotchety Ole Man Winter's last (hopefully the last) big fight with the Spring Fairy. He was supposed to come swooping in and leave me with a foot of snow Friday night and Saturday all day. Pffft!

This is what we got:



Don't get me wrong. I'm not bitching. I'm actually excited that it didn't come in near as hard as it was supposed to, especially since we were at the bar throwing darts Friday night.

So Saturday was a "hung over day" and Sunday I took some pics of my babies by the slider door to make note of some progress.

Snow on the ground and my bush beans decide today is the day to give a first bloomie. I couldn't be more proud! My very first real bloomie!



Then we have the contender beans that seem to be exploding out of their tiny pellet apartments. These guys seriously are HUGE, especially considering their seeds were only planted on March 15!




I didn't really take many pics this weekend, considering most everything looks just like it did a few days ago when I posted. I did notice that my maters have gotten a smidge bigger, and I'm excited about that. The one's I've been on craigslist for sale are HUGE and I thought my babies were just short bus riders or something, but they might pick up and actually grow like normal soon (fingers crossed).

While Andy and I were out and about on Saturday we went to this little Mexican restaurant that just opened. He swore by the name of it and I am always game to try out some new burritos lol. Well, they had one of those games in there where you insert an outrageous amount of coins for an enormous claw to come down and you aim it at whatever stuffed animal you think you can grab. I suck at this game and never end up with a toy. This machine pissed me off. Well, Andy put in his pocket full of coins and on the FIRST grab he wins me a PRIZE! Go baby go!

One problem... he picks up the one thing I am terrified of! A flippin flying, stinging thing!

Thursday Shmursday!

Mother Nature isn't my friend right now. This broad has allowed a snow storm to hit! What kind of crap is that??? We are supposed to get 6" to a foot tomorrow and Saturday! Blah!

So... why am I here again? Oh yeah, to talk about my gardening experience right? Pffft! This is a tad overwhelming today. I'm not sure if things in my personal life are getting to me, I'm just so excited to get this stuff out of my diningroom and into the beds, or if I'm even doing this right... but something is off kilter today.

I did take some pics this morning of my babies... let's see if I can get in a better mood by writing about my beauties!



Here are some corn surrounded by my zucchini. He seems to be thriving well and looks pretty happy to me.



I think this bad boy is getting ready to bloom. Several of the squash in this container are just growing like crazy, and I think I read somewhere that I should move them to a darker room to stunt them a bit until I can get them outside if they continue to grow like this.





There are two of the contender bush beans that I planted after I lost most of my other variety of bush beans with the "food" catastrophe. They look funny to me. That one is busting through the soil like he's King Kong! I certainly don't remember the others being that big and fiesty looking! LOL But on a positive note, they seem to be doing just fine... whatever I'm doing is working lol.



My po po maters. They are big beef, but they don't look very big and beefy. I added that stupid food to them, but scraped it out the best I could, hoping to save them after I figured out they were going to shrivel and DIE! They don't seem to be dying, but they aren't growing either. I'm trying to keep the soil not too wet, b/c I've read that they don't like to be overwatered. Maybe if I cut my temp-houses down so that the sun reaches the soil better they will have a better chance of survival. These are the only maters I have left... since I managed to kill all of the cherry maters :(


I'm thinking I'm going to have to find some friends on this blogspot dealy-whopper to help me out here. I need help... advise... or maybe just reassurance...

Tuesday Blues...

So I did a big boo-boo. I'm chanting "I'm just a beginner, this is just an experiment" over and over today so I don't feel like a murderer.

Andy and I went to Wally World Sunday evening so I could get more peat pellets, and our youngest is turning 3 this week so we needed to get some stuff for his party. Well, we stumble across the "Make It Grow" section. We couldn't pass it up. We've managed to steer clear of these horrible chemicals since the beginning, knowing that whatever we are doing at home appears to be working b/c all of our babies are healthy and growing like they should (except the flippin leggy ones, but I fixed that lol). Anyway... we see some Pennington Tomato & Vegetable plant food and decide it's ok to buy it. The big reason was that it was only $2.72 and we figured if it didn't work, we'd only wasted a few bucks. What we didn't figure into the equation is what if this kills my babies! GRRRRRRRRR!

The directions are clear on the box. Mix 2 tablespoons per plant into the soil and water real good. I thought that was a bit much for my babies, so I did about 1/2 tablespoon, mixed it into the top soil of my paper sack condos and watered real good. Lucky for me... I didn't put that toxic "food" on all of my babies. I figured I would see how they like it first and then go hog wild with the rest of them in a week if they did well.

HOLY CRAP! The next morning I'm looking at my babies and it's like their stems are shrinking! Being the google-whore, I jump on the computer and see what the hell I did. I look up Pennington and didn't really find anything. Then I start going through gardening forums and low and behold, you aren't supposed to let this (or any) "food" (or toxic waste) touch the damn plant. Shit shit shit! Why doesn't it say that on the flippin box?!?!?! Oh boy, the website of these people is seriously going to get some feedback from THIS customer! So I get out a spoon and try to dig out as much of this stuff as I can without snapping my little tender babies right in half. All I could do from this point was wait.

So this morning I jump out of bed, eyelids still half glued together with boogers and slobber still on my face, and run to the kitchen, praying I saved some of them. I can tell you this much, if that so-called "food" hadn't killed them already, my breath would have taken care of it. Looks like the damage was done for the most part. Some of them seem like they might survive, but I'm not that hopeful. The rest of them I've moved out of my tubs and decided to just start over. Crapity crap crap!!!

This is what I killed so far... Hopefully this is all of them!



I'm just a beginner... this is just an experiment...

I'm just a beginner... this is just an experiment...

Monday Update

Ok so I'm happy to say Andy got the top-soil... we had to get 2 tons because I want one more bed, plus there is apparently a hole the size of the grand canyon near the fence that Andy wants to fill in.

So... here's what a ton of dirt looks like lol





I guess I thought it would be a lot more. Hmph!

And here's my lovely Andy with our new, way over priced wheel barrow, shoveling dirt and wheeling it back to the beds lol. Poor guy, I know that was a pain in the butt!



And the final product...



My beautiful beds where my little seedlings will think they are in a mansion! I'm so excited! I can't wait to get them out there.

The seedlings are looking good. I've moved the rest of them from their peat pellet apartments to their paper sack condos. I started another round of a few seeds last night, and I'll hopefully get some more done today.

Now my big job is to mark off the beds. I was thinking about yarn and some thumb tacks, but I think I'm just going to use the fishing wire we have here. I've been saving every friggin plastic container (especially the pepsi 2 liter bottles) so I can use them for watering too. I have no idea how the hell I'm going to get holes in the lids of these bottles, being that we have no drill, but I think I'll leave that project up to Andy lol.

And this week I've got to take a head count and see plot everything on a graph so I know everything will have a home. I think Andy is going to build another bed for me, and we have enough top-soil left to fill it... my big concern is getting all this counting done first to see if I even need it. Hell, I already know I'm going to have him build it lol.

So far this inexpensive project has turned into about $400. But... next year I won't have to buy the beds, wheel barrow, rakes, shovel, etc., etc., etc. LOL let me not get ahead of myself and see if anything actually produces fruit. That'll be the real indicator as to whether there will even BE a NEXT YEAR!

Tuesday Update!

So this weekend wasn't exactly how we planned it. We went to the top-soil place, and apparently there wasn't a foreman there so they couldn't fire up the loader... That's crap. They are open from 8a-1p on Saturday's specifically for homeowners to be able to pick up what they need... and they don't have a friggin foreman available? Whatever. So Andy worked a deal out with the owner of the facility and it taking a day off work this week to get it at a discounted price plus fishing privileges at the lake on this property lol. Nice work!

So while I was off running errands on Saturday, he put together all but one side of the raised beds and layed them out where I wanted them. They are not as wide as I thought they would be, but that's ok, it makes it easier for me to reach the middle lol. I think they are about 4' in width and still 10' in length. We have plenty of room for a couple more beds too, which is nice, because the footage that I lost in my lack-of-measuring abilities will be made up in another raised bed.



Hopefully Wednesday, with the Gardening Gods and Mother Nature willing, we will be able to get that ton of top-soil and get it in the beds - and add an additional one or two beds as well.

I've been tending to my babies in the kitchen and I'm a little confused here. It appears a couple of my bush beans are becoming quite "leggy". I've heard the expression over and never really knew what folks meant. I'm assuming it's when these guys get too tall with few leaves. I've got that one a few of my babies, but I'm trying to limit light and water to stunt them a bit. I hope I don't screw this up. UGH!

Anyway, here's some updated pics on my little babies!



The "sweater rack" I've moved in to the kitchen with my babies in their papersack condos. They all seem to be surviving their transplants and thriving pretty good!



Close-up of my squashlings. I've noticed a few "true leaves" on a few of the plants!



Cornlings are doing great! I've got to remember to get another set of these suckers going so this whole succesion gardening thing works lol. Hell, I'll be lucky if I get an ear of corn at all and I'm already planning my next round LOL.

Andy can't get the truck to the backyard so he's going to have to get out the hand-dandy wheel barrow and go to town with it. I'll be directing traffic. I'll be the foreman.

On a side note... buying the tools necessary for this adventure of mine (that was supposed to be an inexpensive hobby) has been a true test of Andy's love lol. When we bought the wheel barrow, and believe me I looked on Craigslist for a cheapy, I couldn't believe the cost of that thing. It's a bucket on wheels for Pete's sake. Why in the world would it cost $79??? And that wasn't even the top of the line fancy schmancy one! My only requirement was that it have 2 wheels because I'm not an acrobat and I fall down a lot. I'm not exactly like one of the top heavy women who wobble and teeter. I'm more of a bottom heavy type of gal with weak ankles who constantly bumps into stuff and eventually lands on her a$$. Granted, there's plenty of cushion back there to break the fall, but it's a fall none-the-less. So I figured 2 wheels would at least help in some way.

Well, time to tend to the babies (the real ones, not the plants). More updates to come...

Half-way done...

So the paper sack condos are looking good!



Here's the tomatos... haven't done the cherry tomatoes yet. I'm thinking I'm going to only do half of what I've got on them, they are said to produce A LOT!



Here's the corn and squash. I think there might even be an okra or two in there. They all seem to be liking their new home!



Apparently another sunflower has peeked his head above ground in here. I think I should find a new place for these guys and get them out of the garlic pot lol.

I've still got a ton more to do, and there are some seedlings that aren't ready to be moved yet (according to my expert opinion yanno) so I've got some time.

I did get the sweater rack out of the garage and that's what the tomatoes are sitting on now. I put it right in front of the slider door to give them whatever light the March sun has to offer. I'm kinda concerned though, I don't want them to get too dang big before mid-April when they get to move into their mansion in the backyard. That's still more than a month away.

Mooooovin on Up!

In the process of moving my seedlings from their pellet apartments to their newspaper and paper sack condos. This is definitely a chore. We bought some gardening mix and regular soil in bags and I'm mixing them 1:2. Hopefully they will still stay healthy and continue to grow.

Every day something else has sprouted or grown beyond it's little pellet. I'll take some pics when I have everything in order and add them later. I'm getting this metal rack that I used to store my sweaters and such on in the apt and moving that to the kitchen. That should allow me some more room to keep my babies without intruding on the already over-planted greenhouse look-a-like kitchen I've got going now. We are having a hard time finding a spot at the kitchen table to eat supper lol!

Got confirmation on the poop load too. It's apparently cow manure, and from what I've read, it's best to add that to the garden in the fall because of the nitrogen. I also read that we should get the "old poop" and that if I mix it in the bed, make sure to wait at least 2-3 weeks prior to planting. If we gets the beds together this weekend, I'll have plenty of time. Can't put anything outside until after April 15 anyway (lol if I can wait that long being the nonconformist that I am) so hopefully the timing won't be an issue. I'll just have to make sure we don't go crazy with the poop.

The only thing that really hasn't sprouted yet is the second round of green beans that I've started, but they've still got a few days yet before I expect to see anything. I'll panic later lol.

This weekend is supposed to be beautiful, so hopefully we'll be able to get the beds together and I'll feel like we are really moving forward!

HOLY COW POOP!

I never, in my wildest dreams (and I've had some doozies), thought I'd be excited at the thought of Andy going to pick up a truckload of cow poop. Apparently, he works with a lady who said if he drove to her land, he could have all the poop he wanted. How thoughtful LOL!

And... my latest sprouts this morning are the zucchini, yellow squash, green beans and radishes. A couple more big beefs (next time I'll pick a different tomato) have sprouted as well too. It's like overnight they all just decide "Ok my turn!" LOL. The babies are poking their heads out of their little pellet homes as we speak. I'll get some pics when they are a little further out. Awww, my babies are coming alive! I'm so proud! I was worried about the bush beans. I think a few of the seeds rotted so I'm sure I lost a few of those. A positive note on that though is that I planted way too many for the first "session", so I'll start more of those in another week, and then again in 2 more weeks. I should have a steady flow of bush beans during harvest time.

Tuesday Update!

Well, we decided to hold off for a week on getting the beds built b/c of the freeze last weekend. Not that I thought it would have anything to do with the top-soil, b/c it's supposed to be screened and all that jazz... mostly because we didn't want to go outside and freeze our butts off. So the plan is set for this weekend to buy a ton of top-soil, get the beds on the ground and fill them!

In the meantime, my babies in the house have just been growing and growing!

The demon corn has sprouted roots out the bottom of my pellets. I'm afraid I'm going to have to replant them in something bigger prior to moving them outside. I'm thinking about doing the newspaper rolls I read about so I can keep them pretty contained until it's warm enough to get them in their permanent home.



Then we've got the brussel sprouts that I've been thinning to try and keep them in order. I don't think they are going to do very well in a spring/summer crop because of our weather here, but I'm giving it a try. If it doesn't work, I've still got the winter crop to work with.

The tomatoes are doing well still too. I've moved a few of the cherry tomatoes to another butter tub so they have a bit more room. I have no idea what to do with the rest other newspaper roll them when they get too big for their peat pellets.



Then we have the garlic with the sunflower in the middle. The sunflower is creepy looking, and I'm going to have to move him again, but I needed a place to stick him for the moment. I can smell the garlic YUM!



So far, the biggest mistake that I can see that I've made is planting too many seeds per pellet. I just didn't think that all of those little boogers were actually going to sprout! So now I've got to kill my babies and thin them. I guess it's better to have too many rather than too few... or none at all. Lesson learned!

Plans Have Changed ~

So we were putting together some costs for this weekends project of getting the beds together.

If we get the rototiller, that's $45 flat for the day. Then we have to buy top soil to mix in with the stuff that was rototilled... and that's about $6-$7 a bag. For three 5 x 10 beds, I'm thinking we are going to need a lot of bags. Or we can buy a ton of dirt for $45 that's been screened and mixed with a fertilizer, but with the rototilled dirt and a ton of dirt... that's way too much dirt for those beds... and I don't want a pile of dirt just laying around in my backyard. Out of the 4 kids, I'm sure 3 of them would try to bury the 4th one and that would just be all bad. This way I'm looking at $90 to get the beds ready.

So here's my though... why til at all? According to Bartholemew, the SFG God, we can use 6" of soil (of course, his special mix is what he recommends) in the beds and grow what we like without messing with the rototiller. So $45 for the ton of top-soil and then assemble the beds. I think one ton will do the trick and I can fill the beds 8 inches with that (if I did my gutinzas right --- goes-in-tas --- Beverly Hillbilly terminology for ya right there!) and I'll be done at half the cost and 3/4 less manual labor for Andy. I might help put the beds together, but you won't find me anywhere near the scene when he's got to wheelbarrow dirt from the truck to the backyard lol. I'll have some family emergency that I'll have to tend to, or sprain my ankle, or be in the middle of dying my hair or something... but I won't be out there!

According to my google calculations on tons to cubic feet to cubic yards... I'm going to need 0.33 ton of top-soil for each bed. Fancy that, I have 3 beds! So exactly a ton should fill my 5 x 10 beds 8" deep with top-soil. If not, I'll buy more. I still can't believe it's only $45 actually. I wonder if there's a catch in there somewhere that I don't know about.

So, that leaves me an extra $45 (from the rototiller that we aren't going to rent now) to get more garden stuff lol. Woo hoo! This next trip to Lowe's is already going to cost a fortune. We've got to buy a wheelbarrow, shovel, rake, sheers, a hose, and whatever other fancy gadgets I can find that I can't live without. Being that we just moved from an apt to a house, we don't already have this stuff. I'm probably going to get more peat pellets, but this time I'll just get the pellets b/c I already have the trays. Believe me, I've been looking on Craigslist for stuff too and I'm just not finding anything.

That reminds me... I need to call on that wheelbarrow I found yesterday!

More later...

Pics of my peats

Here's one of the 16-pellet trays that seems to be doing very well. It amazes me how much growth there is from one day to the next. That messy ole 72-pellet tray in the in the background... I hope it survives :(

There's my garlic sprout. There are 4 of them so far. I'm like a new mommy. I love this game!

Peat or Pete? That is the question...

Last night I put all three peat pellet trays on the stove, and the 72-pellet tray closest to the little fluorescent light on the back panel. No more moldly looking junk, but for Pete's sake, still no sprouting. The other little guys in the 16-pellet trays look healthy and growing right along. Their little sprouts moved toward the light overnight, like they were all raising their hands at a concert, it was cute.

So I rotated them and I'm waiting until the sun heats up the yard a little more before I move them closer to the slider door. I might even sneak them outside for a bit, especially that 72-pellet one to dry it up a little bit. I'm going to get that diluted peroxide spray bottle ready just in case...

ACK! I've Got the Peat Pellet Blues

Ok so I'm all excited this morning about my peat pellets! Growth was happening and I nearly peed my pants. I CAN grow stuff!

Well, this afternoon, I ran into my first gardening quirk and I'm only three days into this gardening thing. Not a fantastic beginning lol. Experiment I keep chanting... Experiment!

About 4ish I'm looking at the third peat pellet thingy (this one has 72 in it, but the others have much larger pellets and there are only 16 pellets to the tray) and there appears to be some white/grey mold stuff on the tops of my pellets. No growth on those, just moldy looking stuff. It's almost like a fuzz. I don't want FUZZ! I want healthy little green sprouts!

Being the google whore that I am, I searched and searched for what this could be. So far it boils down to this:

1) I've over-watered and kept the stupid dome on too long (it's only been like 3 days)

2) That white/grey stuff is actually germination

3) They were just crap to begin with and I should toss them out and start over!

I think what I'm going to do is take off the dome and put that tray in a warmer place. I don't have fluorescent lights in the house (might invest this weekend) so I'll have to stick this tray closer to the slider door to get more sunlight too.

Then if something doesn't sprout in the next day or so and that moldy looking stuff is still there, I read to spray with hydrogen peroxide diluted in water to kill it.

If that doesn't work, I'm going to toss this batch (salvage any that I can) and start over with the bigger peat pellets that I haven't had a problem with. This kind of pissed me off to say the least. The 16-pellet trays are doing wonderfully... why o why is this 72-pellet tray giving me the blues!?!?

I'll take a picture in the morning so I can monitor their progress. Hopefully I'll be able to save these little guys. Time for bed. I'll probably have nightmares about the peat pellet blues! :(

My first sprout sprout!

I'm so excited! I got up this morning and my Brussels sprout has sprouted. There are like four of them sprouting so far! I couldn't be more proud of my babies!

Andy is getting the rototiller this weekend, and we are expecting a freeze on Sunday. So that should help kill weeds before we get the garden all planted.

I talked to a friend in a chat room I visit too! She lives in Texas and gave me some good advise. Apparently she's been gardening for years and I didn't have a clue! It's great, I have a friend who gardens. All of my local friends just think I'm nutzo for doing this, but when I hand them veggies by the basket because I have too many, we'll see what they have to say then! HA!

I need to do more research on the shredded paper for mulch idea. She told me that as long as it has already decomposed that it would be okay for the garden. I'm going to see what I can find out about that with my trusty googling. (I'm such a google nerd!)

Anyway, just had to show off my sprout sprout! I've got seeds left over from almost everything I started indoors, so if my experiment fails and they don't do well this way, I'm still planning on planting a lot of things straight from seed into the garden.

Shredded paper for mulch

Wowza! Talk about a great idea... and cheap! Andy said he might be able to get us a couple big ole bags of shredded paper from his job so we can mulch the garden. I was worried about that, b/c everything I've read says in Oklahoma it's crucial to mulch and mulch good! I'll read up a little more and see if paper is really a good idea, but so far it's a GREAT one according to me. It's FREE!

Scarecrow!

Andy came up with a fun idea for the kids to enjoy as well. He wants to put a scarecrow in the garden. I think it's a great idea. We are going to hit the thrift stores this weekend and see if we can get him some clothes and all the essentials for creating him.

I've never really made a scarecrow, so I googled, lol. I'm a google fanatic! I have my list of supplies ready! We'll get all the stuff this weekend and next weekend when we have all the kids here, we'll put him together. I'm even thinking about sewing his face on instead of just using a marker. And I think I can get leaves from Nikki's flowerbed that I saw piled in there yesterday for the stuffing. Woo hoo! I'm excited. The kids will have a blast. I'll put up pictures when he's done.

Andy is supposed to get the rototiller on Friday evening and plow away Saturday. Then we'll put together the beds in the yard, put up the scarecrow and see what it looks like. I even mentioned to Andy about painting the beds before we put them in the garden. He was all gung-ho about it and told me to just get the paint and he'd do it! What a handyman he's turned out to be! I'm lovin' this! I just plan things and he puts it all together for me! What a fun game LOL!

Well here goes nothing!

Let's begin with some history. I was raised primarily in California, but when I was 13, I was transplanted to Oklahoma. We moved from the city to 4 acres in the middle of no where... Seminole, Oklahoma. Talk about culture shock! After a month or so in the sticks, I learned to embrace the idea of being in the country.

My most fond memories are of the garden my mom worked so hard on. I hated having to go out there and water the dang thing, but she sure did put a lot of work into it. She even got some brick from the brick plant in the next town and made walkways and aisles. It was very pretty and I sure did love all the fresh veggies. We even had a peach tree up closer to my aunts house on the same property. Man o man, there is nothing better than fresh peach cobbler. At 14 I was picking peaches and whipping up a cobbler for the family. I've always had a thing for cooking, and there was something so rewarding about cooking from your own garden.




Anyway, since my high school days, we've all moved away from Seminole and gone our separate ways. In fact, I'm the only one in my family left in Oklahoma. This is home to me and I love it here. You get to experience all four seasons and their beauty.




So fast forward about 20 years and here I am in Yukon, Oklahoma (just west of Oklahoma City) with my own family. I met a wonderful man almost a year ago and we are building our life together. I've moved out of the apt I was in for about 5 years and we rented a house. Between the two of us we have four kids... and I'm not sure we are stopping there! We are a big family and we love to cook... and we LOVE to eat! LOL




The house is just the perfect size for us (until we complete our 5-year plan lol) and move back to the sticks! The back yard is really big for a city yard and I was thinking about what I could do with all that space. Now of course, we've got kids from 2 to 15, so yard toys and swingsets are a must! But that doesn't nearly fill up my yard. A garden! That would be beautiful, a penny saver at the grocery store and something the whole family could enjoy. Done deal! I'm sold! Now what?!?!




Ok, so over the past couple of weeks I've been playing with garden plans and doing a lot of research on the internet about gardening in Oklahoma. Boy howdy there is a lot of things to know about such a simple idea! I've spent countless hours looking at gardening sites. My love comes out of the room in the middle of the night to check on me from time to time to make sure I haven't fried my brain. I think he's actually jealous of the computer at this point lol.




In my research, I've run across the SFG (square foot gardening) sites and recommendations everywhere. Everything that I've found says it's less work, more fruitful and nice to look at. I decided that would be the way for us to go. Andy is gone to work all day and I work from home and take care of two small children during the day. I also go to school one night a week as well. So it's not like we are a retired couple who can devote an inordinate amount of time to gardening.




Andy and I decided to make a trip to Lowe's to see what we could see. I just wanted to get some seeds and look at the wood so we could get some plans together for the raised beds. HA! We ended up buying everything we needed that day. We decided on 5 x 10 foot beds and we will start out with three of them. We decided to place them in the back of the backyard, and then if we want to put another bed or two back there in the future, we'd still have the space for it. We got all the seeds and peat pellet starter kits, wood, brackets and a bag of soil so I could start my strawberry crowns in buckets too.




Now... it appears we have jumped in with both feet and have no clue what we are doing. Gardening can't be that hard right? LOL. I look at it this way... I've read up on a lot of how to do this and I'm going to take the bull by the horns and run with it. Trial and error. Of all the things we bought to grow, we are bound to get something out of the garden.




The only real drawback for me is that I'm not a rule follower. I can't even follow a recipe without changing the ingredients and altering everything until I'm happy. I've read all the plans and how-to's and the best way for maters according to Jim, and Tim's rules on brussel sprouts, and what fertilizer works best for Martha... but I'm never going to find out how I want to do this until I try it.




So here's what we are going to do...we are going to take this backyard





and we are going to take this wood...

and we are going to build some raised beds. Andy will til up the land back there in 5 x 10 plots and then we'll put the beds down. Then he's going to get me some good soil and we'll mix it with the tilled up ground to make some good dirt for growin' some goodies. I'm not going to test the soil, and I'm not going to freak out about the pH balance and such. I'm just going to wing it and see what happens.

Here's another alteration I'm making to gardening. I'm starting everything from seed in the house with peat pellets and then I'm going to transplant it. I know a lot of things don't transplant well, and if I lose some veggies in the process, I'll know for sure that I shouldn't do that. Trial and error I tell ya! This is as much an experiment as it is a project I seems lol.

So I've got everything started in my peat pellet casings... we are trying corn, bush beans, spinach, tomaters, cukes, squash, zucchini, okra, sunflowers, garlic, onions, bell peppers, hot peppers, radish, carrots and even some brussel sprouts. We opted for bush beans instead of pole beans mostly because I didn't want to mess with trellises. I know I'm going to have to design something for my brussel sprouts and tomaters, but I'll deal with that when I get there. I'll definitely get something in ground before I transplant my goodies, but for today... it's not on my to-do list. I'm still decided if I want to paint my raised beds or not. I've seen some really pretty pictures of ones with plain white on them and I like that. I might do a sunshine yellow or something. My house is white and yellow and I think it might look purty. We'll see if I get that hair or not lol.

Right now, I'm just playing the waiting game. Waiting on Andy to get my raised beds together and waiting for my peat pots to sprout. I may have started too early for some of the stuff... but it's an experiment I tell ya! I'll learn the hard way what NOT to do.

My biggest concern right now is how many of the little boogers to transplant per sq foot. I'm in the middle of designing my bed layout as we speak. I think I'll put the corn, bush beans and squash in one bed... read something about companion gardening and it makes sense. If it worked for the Native Americans for all these years, surely I can do something similar.

From what I've read there is a lot of controversy on how many stalks of corn can grow in a sq foot. I'm thinking I'll put 2 in there and see what happens. I've read about 1 per sq foot up to 4 in that tiny space. I'm thinking I'll put the corn right in the middle and then surround them with the beans and squash. I'm not a tall lady, but I'm sure I'll be able to reach the corn lol. Ok maybe not completely sure, but Andy can get to it if I can't LOL.

The maters I'm thinking need their own squares, and I've got a lot of maters! That might swallow up a whole bed by itself. Ugh! Maybe I'll do half in one bed and half in the last bed. That might be better.

Man, now that I'm trying to put my layout on paper, it seems I might need one more bed lol. I'll talk to Andy about that one. He's my bed putter togetherer. Lucky for me he likes to put on the hard hat and tool belt! I think it's more of the male macho drive and building something than anything else... As long as I have the beds I need I'm good lol.

So... back to the waiting game (and planning the layout). We'll see what happens!