Every year I ask for 20 bags of composted manure for Valentine's Day.
I'm not a jewelry every year kinda girl! I'm not saying there is
anything wrong with that, it's just that it's not what works for me! So
the hubs got me my 20 bags x 40lbs = happy wife, a new chicken feed, onion sets (red &
white), 2 shop lights w/bulbs, 2 seedling mats, organic seed starting
mats, and organic all purpose vegetable fertilizer. Oh and two fig trees! Super STOKED about these! Happy Valentines Day
to ME! But first things first, the girls are dropping eggs like hot
cakes again. Those sneak peaks of spring are in there sights and pearl
seems like her molt is over, so she's back open for business too!
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| Got my grow lights up and running! Since I didn't want to purchase another shelving unit this weekend, I do have 6 inches of wasted light space that hangs outside of the shelving unit on each side! But I just used what I had for the moment! And also need a timer, so it will automatically shut off after 12 hours. Even seedlings need sleep. |
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| Got my seedling mats down: spinach is waking up on the left, ripbor curley leaf kale is on the right |
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| I started more broccoli, dinosaur kale, redina red lettuce and stuck them right under those lights. I need 4 more grow mats and 4 more grow lights and then I'm SET going forward! |
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| My leeks & onions are straightening back up to a stand up position now under the lights. |
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| A bunch of Romain lettuces. I didn't know they'd ALL germinate since they were older seed! Who knew? Hopefully they're not too leggy since they literally just popped up in the last 24 hours! |
For Valentine's Day this year my husband is being super sweet and getting me grow lights and seed starting mats. It's like the BEST Valentine's Day ever! Will post pics next week after it all arrives and gets set up! But in the meanwhile I'll just give a quickie update on what's growin:  |
| Rosemary seems to still be growing, but I can tell it's time to fertilize them with some organic fertilizer. |
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| I can't believe how this cheap little greenhouse has restored life to a completely dead pot of Italian flat leaf parsley from last season! |
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| This is a multiplier onion. Also known as a potato onion. |
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| According to a friend of mine "Margo" who is a certified organic farmer. A real farmer. I only farm in my fantasies/dreams! She said, "peel off all the brown, outer skins. You should find several "cloves" that can be carefully separated and each one planted". So if that's what Margo says, "you can pretty much bank on it". I'm thankful she knew what to do because I could hardly find anything on the internet about these suckers! So happy planting potato onions ya'll! |
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| What THYME is it? I could begin using Thyme if I chose to, it's pretty much ready to go back into the garden beds, but will wait until it's much warmer. So glad I've got them growing again ahead of time. Definitely a jump start! |
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| On my way back in from church I checked my greenhouse and I just can't say enough about how much it makes my day to see fresh new seedlings emerging everyday!!!!! |
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| Super excited for this new rearranged/repurposed set of raised beds! More pictures to follow in coming weeks. I've got the chicken coop moving to the end of these two beds so that the chickens will work these beds in between season changes to clean out the buggies/fertilize/and turn my soil! Love my chickens, they're really hard workers! |
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| I think the most exciting sprouts I have right now are leek, glad stone onions, & ever bunching green onions. I've never grown any of these from seed. I've never grown leeks or glad stone onions before. It's a whole new journey that I pray ends bountiful! |
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| Well my little portable greenhouse must be working? I'm seeing new chives popping up every where. I just LOVE seeing that fresh lively green emerging through all of the dead chives from last season. |
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| Again in my little portable greenhouse I've got "brand new" Italian flat leaf parsley" begging to emerge from last years barely living remnants. Again just THRILLS me and tickles me PINK or well green! LOL I'll be trimming all of those dead leaves/stems away this weekend. |
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| Well this propagated rosemary has now made it 2 weeks transplanted back into soil. I'm going to deem this successful! Also transplanted 3 more this evening. Those 3 transplants will be photo'd below. |
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| Before I put in my little "until then" greenhouse this thyme was basically way past crash cart recovery until spring came. BUT the stems are no longer brittle and the fragrant smell of thyme is coming back. Stems are softer and bendable. Bright green color is starting to emerge! YAY! |
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| By the way this clear spray bottle with just water in it now stays in my greenhouse. It's handy dandy to spritz the seedlings as needed. Plus the water temp is going to be much closer to what the plant/soil temps are like this I believe? If not I like to think so, so shhhh no one tell me other wise ;) |
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| We cut up 3 more clear milk jugs we've been saving up and rinsing out to use as hot caps when we need to do so in several weeks. |
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| Don't toss the bottoms. They make good scoopers in the chicken feed, I've seen people use them taped back up to the top part as a green house. And many more uses out of them. |
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| So today, we grabbed our box of seeds (mostly partial packages) that really need to be used soon and decided we were in the seed starting mood again. HA! Like that mood ever goes away? NOT! Sharpie, wooden chop stick (used to poke holes in the soil), vegetable marker labels, seeds (OF COURSE), and a clear lid to hold the seeds while we're planting (we don't have to chase seeds across table the lip of lid contains the seeds). |
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| We've got our seed tray filled with ORGANIC potting mix. Got our water bottle. Got the BEST garden helper, hands DOWN. And we're ready to plant! |
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| Look how "quick" she is on that water bottle. Not a dry seed in the house today, LOL! |
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| Tah Dah! She helped hold the front flap open, so mommy could load the seed tray in her greenhouse! |
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| Loving my low tunnels! I've got chives waking up all down the right hand side in there! More mesclun mix is sprouting and so is more spinach. |
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| Proud of myself, never grown pac choy. It's a pretty little baby plant! Hope to grow a BUNCH of it! |
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| Got another bed ready to plant this weekend! I've got it covered with chicken wire, so kitties can get into it and make me MAD! A whole other blog about kitties and gardening, but not today! Love my new light weight rake even though the handle snapped on me today. Still totally usable though! Being SO light weight it is PERFECT to rake across a raised bed, doesn't hurt your back at ALL! The dirt pile past this bed at the top of picture is where I'm erecting another 8x4x20 bed. Just gonna build them until I run out of room! |
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| Pulled 3 more thyme plants that I want to bring out of last years dormancy! So I've re-potted them into fresh ORGANIC potting soil. And also transplanted 3 of my successfully propagated rosemary plants into fresh ORGANIC soil. So my next round I'll be mailing to friends in other states to share my propagation. Just wanted to make sure that I had successfully propagated first! I think I DID for sure! I'm SO proud of myself! |
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| Other than your choice of bendable fencing and the mil. plastic you desire. I used 4 mil because I'm in Zone 7 and it's mid winter at this point, but use what you have or need for your zone. |
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| The wire snips on the top helped cute the fencing and the pliers on the bottom helped grab the wire to bed the edges or twist sharp pieces around other pieces of fencing, so I didn't cut myself or poke through my plastic. |
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| Here I am sitting in the floor just watching some news and covering my low tunnel. It seemed easier to work with it upside down. Much easier. I did it all myself, just awkward at first because it was so easy. Maybe took 35 minutes. |
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| TAH DAH, then you just weight down the ends or open them to vent! How simple is that? I take no credit for the design as I watched a video from Mother Earth News I posted in the prior blog I noted above. |
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| I'm just so freaking excited these are this cheap and this easy. I won't need a greenhouse at all after I built my custom cold frame. But that's another project and another blog! |
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| Here's the view the growing vegetables will have from below the low tunnel. Don't laugh you know you were as curious as I was! LOL |
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| I only grew a few Mesclun seeds this time, because I have failed every time I've tried to grow. Well I never read the back of the package. Most lettuce seeds that I have including this one needs light to germinate. Well I've always covered with soil and even just a dusting at that; however, for Mesclun any soil delays germaination for me. I don't know why, but I just left them uncovered and they actually germinated, so I've ordered 2oz from High Mowing Seeds this morning and I'm going to try and fill a bed with Mesclun mix now that I know I CAN grow it! Growing your own is faster than a drive thru window folks! |
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| Um, someone please tell my chives it's still middle of winter? These are completely uncovered and growing with new growth even in 20 degree temps at night? |
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| I've never grown spinach before either. Again never really bothered reading the package. And the great thing now is you can find a bazillion FREE youtube videos learning how to do ALL of this, so don't be afraid to try and fail a few times. Something WILL grow, you just have to try! |
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| The surprise of the century is this little momma! This is an Egyptian walking onion. I planted about 25. I had ordered 50 and shared with a sweet gardening friend back in the Fall. The directions CLEARLY state don't wait long to plant, well I just didn't get around to it until about 2 weeks ago and it came up! Those things were so dry and crumbly that they basically fell apart in my hand. I had very LITTLE hope that any sign of life would emerge, but I planted them and just left it to God! HE is SO amazing! It's really a great lesson! If I let MORE to GOD the same thing would happen and I wouldn't have worried a bit! He's always in control, but I just get in the way! |
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| Our 2 -36 cell greenhouse kits came today |
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| She picked out her spinach, lettuce, and dinosaur kale seeds. Mommy grabbed a bowl of water and a measuring cup for her to scoop out water. What 3 yr old turns down an opportunity to play in the water. |
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| She's wetting down the peat pots and waiting for them to grow, so she can begin planting her seeds. Galations 6:7 -Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. |
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| It constantly amazes me how a tiny dried up seed becomes something so beautiful! A 3yr old finger next to a spinach seed. God is SO amazing! |
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| Okay, lettuce seeds are so tiny you can hardly pick them up, but yet with water, soil, and sun they grow into beautiful living things. God is SO amazing! |
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| Planting all of the spinach herself. She only dropped one seed out of 36! She's awesome! |
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| Well done my grasshopper! Mommy loves you and am so proud of you! She planted all 36 spinach seeds herself with quite precision. She's been planting seeds with her own hands and little fingers since she was 18 months old. I'm so proud of her excitement to learn and be apart of learning to grow her own healthy food. God gives us the ability to do more things than we would ever imagine that we're capable of, gardening and growing your own food is one of them. And it also gives you the ability to feed a friend, family, or the unknown that are in need of food. |
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| 72 seedlings begin there germination and life will start to emerge in about 7-10 days. We'll watch every day for the first sign of life peaking through. We got to discuss the "greenhouse effect" today. Although Ms. Amanda would have done a much better job I'm sure <3 |
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| Okay now there's just a flat out "root party" in the propagated rosemary bowl! Going to definitely transplant this weekend, so I can propagate more and develop these current prolongations into good future healthy transplants. |
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| Egyptian Walking onion sprouting! First time ever planting. I'm excited! |
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| Next omlet day it's fresh healthy organic spinach harvest day! Can't wait until we plant our 36 more spinach plants that Savannah and I started today! We'll be eating lots of fresh spinach, dehydrating, and freezing ahead for the next 5 months!!! |
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| Our egg harvest for today |
