Gabe, the six year old, has just discovered the peas are sprouting. He's been checking, hourly, for the last week since we put the shriveled wizened peas into a plastic container with a damp paper towel and stuck them beneath the kitchen sink.
We'll have them in the ground this coming weekend, by which time I promise I will finish the next 3.5x20 foot plot. We did start it today, but were rained out by some lovely blustery spring weather.
I can't wait to see his face when the first potatoes push through the ground.
I am now making plans to accomodate 3 kiwi vines which I removed from a friends landscape (they hadn't produced a single fuzzy fruit in 5 years). Their temporary home will be 3 20gallon buckets until I can create an arbor. I'm considering sending them up a young Scotch pine growing nearby, but must first get the approval of my wife. This was her birthday present, and I'd hate to be held responsible for its untimely demise.
In other edible news, the Bigleaf maples (Acer macrophyllum) are blooming, beautiful long chartreuse colored panicles. The young blooms are said to be sweet and tasty. Tomorrow, I plan to eat my tree.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The Veggie Garden - Weekend Project #1
This is the year we finally make a garden.
There was the abortive attempt last year. The kids and I dutifully scraped away the sod in the backyard of our Marrowstone Island home. We made a scratch four feet wide by twenty-five feet long.
We learned that the glaciers were not kind to our neck of the north-west woods.
The soil consists of gravel, sand, and rocks, lots and lots of rocks.
We amended one section with bagged compost, planted peas, and waited.
We did get plants, but they quickly turned yellow and refused to grow after 12" or so.
The plot was abandoned after a few more weeks, and is still there today, too infertile to even grow weeds, a long bare scratch looking like the grave of a killer whale in our backyard.
This time we will succeed.
I began with a phone call to the Shorts, a local dairy family in Center Valley. This family has been supplying cow poo to desperate gardeners for at least two generations, and they never fail. Sure, they used to sometimes come with buttercups (seems cows cannot resist eating an occasional buttercup, and no number of stomachs can thwart the seed. Seeds nearly a century old have happily germinated), but it was a small price to pay for luscious tomatoes and broccoli.
I was assured by the latest generation that buttercups were no longer an issue, and this was confirmed by other gardener acquaintances. I am a trusting soul.
So, my early birthday present consisted of approximately 15 cubic yards of 45% composted poo, 45% peat soil, and 10% sand. It hit the ground steaming, and I can't remember when I last felt so hopeful.
I do have a soil test kit to measure pH and nutrients, but haven't dug it out of the shed yet. Tomorrow, always tomorrow.
The cost was just a bit under $400 for the compost, but that still seems a small price to pay for a year, or years, of bounty.
Next we built a bed with scrap material that's been cluttering up my shed for several years now; some cedar 4x4 posts, lots of old cedar 1x6 fence boards and a few 2x6s. There was also a roll of canvas I "found" beside the road.
First I laid out the roll of fabric on the ground, then the kids and I cobbled together a 3.5x20' long x 1 foot high box.
We filled this with compost.
Then shopping for seed potatoes, onions, and bare-root strawberries. That put us back about $30.00.
So, all that has filled our first bed, and I have $430.00 invested in the project.
We are so proud, and our cats and dog are showing an unhealthy interest in the garden as well.
There was the abortive attempt last year. The kids and I dutifully scraped away the sod in the backyard of our Marrowstone Island home. We made a scratch four feet wide by twenty-five feet long.
We learned that the glaciers were not kind to our neck of the north-west woods.
The soil consists of gravel, sand, and rocks, lots and lots of rocks.
We amended one section with bagged compost, planted peas, and waited.
We did get plants, but they quickly turned yellow and refused to grow after 12" or so.
The plot was abandoned after a few more weeks, and is still there today, too infertile to even grow weeds, a long bare scratch looking like the grave of a killer whale in our backyard.
This time we will succeed.
I began with a phone call to the Shorts, a local dairy family in Center Valley. This family has been supplying cow poo to desperate gardeners for at least two generations, and they never fail. Sure, they used to sometimes come with buttercups (seems cows cannot resist eating an occasional buttercup, and no number of stomachs can thwart the seed. Seeds nearly a century old have happily germinated), but it was a small price to pay for luscious tomatoes and broccoli.
I was assured by the latest generation that buttercups were no longer an issue, and this was confirmed by other gardener acquaintances. I am a trusting soul.
So, my early birthday present consisted of approximately 15 cubic yards of 45% composted poo, 45% peat soil, and 10% sand. It hit the ground steaming, and I can't remember when I last felt so hopeful.
I do have a soil test kit to measure pH and nutrients, but haven't dug it out of the shed yet. Tomorrow, always tomorrow.
The cost was just a bit under $400 for the compost, but that still seems a small price to pay for a year, or years, of bounty.
Next we built a bed with scrap material that's been cluttering up my shed for several years now; some cedar 4x4 posts, lots of old cedar 1x6 fence boards and a few 2x6s. There was also a roll of canvas I "found" beside the road.
First I laid out the roll of fabric on the ground, then the kids and I cobbled together a 3.5x20' long x 1 foot high box.
We filled this with compost.
Then shopping for seed potatoes, onions, and bare-root strawberries. That put us back about $30.00.
So, all that has filled our first bed, and I have $430.00 invested in the project.
We are so proud, and our cats and dog are showing an unhealthy interest in the garden as well.
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