Getting Dirty!

My favorite part of spring is when I get to go out to the garden and start working the soil. I don't wear gloves unless I'm pulling weeds, but for just mixing soil and getting it ready to plant, I enjoy feeling the dirt. I notice one benefit of this is that my fingernails seem to really thrive on soil. It's true. After a few days of glove free digging in the dirt, my nails look amazing! They grow quickly and they're healthier than they are in the winter when I'm stuck inside so much with no dirt to play in.

Gardening in raised beds requires some attention to soil health and composition. Here in Kentucky we have very thick heavy clay soil that gets very hard when it's dry or very slick when it's wet. I don't like either of those and most garden plants don't either. So, over the last few years we've been amending the soil with top soil and compost. We purchased a compost tumbler a couple years ago and it works great as long as we pay attention to it and keep it tumbled regularly. Production slows down in the winter because it gets so cold but we still turn out a couple of loads even at that.

The top soil we used has a lot of sand in it and that has helped break up the clay a bit to make it more workable. I like to leave some clay in because it retains a lot of moisture but it still needs to be workable. We also get tons of earth worms up in the tires and they do a great job of keeping things 'tilled' up.

So, the way we do it is to dig out  a couple shovels full of soil in each tire and dump in a couple shovels full of compost and mix it all together with the remaining soil in the tires. The plants seem to do very well when we make sure to keep the soil fresh for them. If they ever look like they need an extra boost or for the heavy feeders, I apply liquid fish emulsion a couple of times over the season and they really love that stuff.

What is your spring time routine to get your garden ready to plant? What kind of fertilizer do you use? What benefits do you see in yourself that come as a result of gardening? What's your favorite part about having a garden?

That which you sow, you shall also reap...

When you sow corn seeds, you harvest corn. When you plant green bean seeds, you get to harvest green beans...lots of them! (that is, as long as the Japanese beetles don't destroy the plants before they can produce.)

There has only been one time when I planted something- pattypan squash- and harvested something else- not sure what it was but it was NOT pattypan squash. I think I got some contaminated seeds or mislabeled at the very least.

There have also been times when I planted something and nothing grew- okra last year- and times when I planted and the seeds germinated but the result produced nothing- kajari melons two years ago.

But the point of this post is planting, growing, and harvesting things that are unfamiliar to you, new, completely different than you've ever grown before. Did you like what you grew? Was it as hard/easy as you thought it would be? Did it end up being something you'd grow again?

For me it was Jelly Melons and purple tomatillos. I'd never grown either and I learned a great deal by growing both. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these plants, let me explain a little.

Jelly melons are an African cucumber breed. They grow about the size of a baking potato and have vicious thorns covering them. You must be very careful when handling them because they will make you bleed. The inside is the consistency of jello and looks very much like lime jello with white seeds in it. The flavor is cucumber in nature but sweeter and a little bit tangy.

My youngest daughter loved them and ate several. She wanted to grow them again but she's off at college now and the way those things grew- took over about a quarter of my garden area and I only planted 3 seeds. They were crazy invasive and I was pulling up volunteers the next spring that tried coming back on their own. That was one thing I learned- be careful what you plant and do your best to pick up any dead fall so it doesn't come back the next year.

The tomatillos were slow to take off but once they did, they produced like crazy! We had buckets of them off of 3 plants and the sad thing is, none of us liked them. We gave some away to a neighbor who asked for them but no one else wanted them and they ended up in the compost pile. I still find volunteers of those growing around here. My guess is birds dropped some of the seeds they picked out of the compost.

So, have you planted anything odd or out of your experience? How'd it go? Share with me!

Seeds, Seeds Everywhere!

My very favorite seed supplier is Baker Creek. They sell mainly heirloom seeds which have always done very well for me here. They have a huge farm in Missouri where they grow out their crops, test new seeds they've found, and have fun events a couple times a year. They also have a Seed Bank in California and another on the east coast, Massachusetts I think, but don't quote me on that.

Their seed catalog is one of the most beautiful I've seen- full of gorgeous color pictures and wonderful descriptions of the fruits and vegetables. They describe taste, texture, ease of growth, etc. Some have little histories about where the seeds were first acquired, what country they came from and who they got them from. There are quotes from famous people about life in general. It's fun to search through and find those little morsels. Many of the pictures feature the owner's beautiful little girls as well as employees and their kids. They sell helpful resources, books, gardening tools, etc. The seeds are priced well and the best thing about them is that you can save seeds from what you grow and use them the next year and the next and the next! What a treat...it's the gift that keeps on giving for a lifetime!

Seed Saver Exchange also has a nice catalog. Tons of pictures and a HUGE selection of plant variety to choose from. They, too, are mainly heirloom seeds.

Both of these companies have made huge accomplishments in helping to save our seed diversity. Many of the seeds they now sell were, at one time, very near extinction. Some of the seeds were found in remote locations around the globe and nowhere else. But thanks to their efforts, endangered plants are now on the rebound and plants grown in tiny Amazon villages are now being grown around the world. It's a beautiful heritage they've created and are leaving for future generations.

You can order your own free catalogs from both places here:
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Seed Savers Exchange



What companies put out your favorite seed/garden catalogs?

My Little Tire Garden

When my husband and our 4 kids and I moved into our little brick house 7 years ago, we opened up a mechanic's shop in the little shop that shared our 5 acres. After a year we built a new shop because we ran out of room in the old one. Our business was growing in leaps and bound and so was the tire pile out back from the old tires we were taking off people's cars. We never intended to get into the tire business- and still don't- it's a courtesy we offer our customers. We don't stock tires, but we can order them in and since we live out in the boonies, it's very convenient for people to come here for new tires on their trucks and cars.

So, back to the stack of tires. What on earth were we going to do with them all? The local recycler charges quite a bit to take them off our hands so we wanted to figure out some way of utilizing at least some of them. And then it came to me....Raised garden beds!!

We put up a fence- to keep the bigger critters out of the garden- and set the tires inside, cut the sidewalls out of them, filled them with amended native soil, and planted.

It worked pretty well except for the darned grass! I've never seen grass like this stuff before. It gets into everything! It sends out runners and just invades everywhere. After a few years of mowing inside the garden perimeter 2-3 times a week, we finally decided that a major garden renovation was in order. 

                                      

We emptied all the soil from the tires and pulled the tires up. After scraping up as much of the grass as we could, we laid down some commercial grade landscape fabric. We replaced the tires and cut an X in the fabric under each tires so the plants would be able to have enough room for root growth. We refilled the tires with the soil and compost, then spread clean drain rock on top of the fabric. We've had 2 years worth of gardening in it since the remodel and we love it! No grass!! Weeding in the tires is easy and quick, keeping things tidy is so much easier and I love being out in my garden without getting chiggers from the grass. 

Generally I plant one plant per tire- tomatoes, peppers, squash. However, cucumbers, okra, green beans, and onions, we plant several per tire and they do great. The big tractor tires outside the garden fence- you can see them in a couple of the pictures- are for the watermelon and cantaloupe plants as well as the asparagus bed. 

P.S. if you're concerned about chemicals leaching from the tires into the soil- we've had our soil tested every year since we started using the tires- 6 years now- and have had no evidence of breakdown or leaching. It's a great way to recycle tires and it's not too difficult to get them free if you don't have any of your own to use. 

Do you use anything unusual to plant in? One of my favorite flower planters is a 1932 Kenmore washing machine with the wringers still attached! 

Is It Spring Yet?

Okay, A little bit about me. I'm originally from the West Coast of the United States of America, but 7 years ago we packed up our family and headed east...way east....to Kentucky. What brought us here, you might ask...go ahead, lots of people do. Well, we visited here once, way back in 2002, and really, really loved it so we saved our pennies and finally were able to move here...that's how much we loved it.

So imagine, if you will, the culture shock from the Seattle area to Western Kentucky. Yep...major. But we settled right in and made it our home and have never regretted it for a moment. We love it here and one of the best things about it is that instead of a huge house on a postage stamp lot, we have a modest house on 5 acres and you know what that means....room to grow!!

Yes, we grow a garden and it's my favorite thing in the world. But it's winter now, quite cold outside. In fact, it's about 29* right now. It was 17* when we got up this morning. Definitely too cold to be growing things outside. So instead of growing things, I sign up for every seed catalog available and wait while they trickle in, then I devour them like a starving woman. Yes, seed catalogs get me through the winter.

So, the purpose of this blog is to share gardening ideas, tips and tricks, and help each other get through the winter until we can have our hands, once again, in the soil outside. Please, feel free to comment on my posts, share a link to my blog, post questions or answer mine. There are still things about gardening in the clay soil of the south that I'm unsure of or not succeeding at so I am by no means an expert gardener.

I try always to use heirloom seeds- mostly so I can save seeds and not have to buy them next year. I try never to use pesticides or other chemicals on my edibles but sometimes it can't be helped (squash vine borers are the bane of my existence and must be eliminated!!)

So please, feel free to follow me- or not- your choice. :) I'll be sharing pictures of my garden in various stages of growth. I'll share pictures of my harvest as well as what we do with it- canning and freezing mostly but this next year I'm hoping to add a dehydrator to my collection of kitchen gadgets. I'll also probably share pictures of any pests I need help identifying or helpful pollinators I come across and I encourage you to do the same!! Let's garden together!!