One Lovely Saturday!

Hello all! What a beautiful Saturday we had this week! We started the day with a quick trip to the Friends of the Library Used Book Sale where I found a set of gardening encyclopedias from 1964. I bought the whole set and some other wonderful gardening and home books for $10. What a find! We then went to Lowe's to get the materials to make two more 4' x 4' square foot garden boxes. Seems like we will never get done building these things, but the end result will be worth it.

Here are the two boxes we built, but haven't placed yet.

If you aren't familiar with the square foot gardening method, I recommend reading Mel Bartholomew's book All New Square Foot Gardening (affiliate link). He details a very easy method of building the boxes like those picture above. We just used two 2" x 6" x 8' board cut in half to make the box itself. You don't have to worry about your existing soil being poor either. He recommends Mel's Mix which is a blend of compost, peat moss, and vermiculite. However, I have found that the organic garden soil from Lowe's works just as well for growing and is a blend of compost, peat moss, and perlite.

We spread out a healthy layer of that garden soil in the "flower" beds across the front of the house to get it ready for planting this year. We plan to put potatoes in the largest section of the bed. Last year we had put in a blackberry and raspberry. I also had some extra strawberry plants last year that we just sort of tossed in the mix. They seem to have mostly survived the winter and that awfully cold polar vortex. Sadly, my lovely rosemary may have bitten the dust. I am just hoping the roots are still alive and might come back.

The neighborhood kids also brought us some wonderful bamboo to use as a pea trellis. We went with a teepee style. Just have to add some circular supports to the teepee during the next week.

You can also see that we have the grid in place for the beds that are in place now. I thought the hot pink was fun and super visible!

I am in the process of making some large planters with a variety of strawberries for the front porch. So far I have the Alpine Strawberry seeds planted in one pot and a variety called Tennessee Beauty (pictured below) in another pot. We should have two more varieties soon.

We seem to have mastered the heater to maintain proper temperatures in the greenhouse now. Pretty excited about that!

Hoping to have some good weather this coming week as the carrots and a few other things should be ready to plant! Join me next week for another update!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Anyone else ever wonder why weekends are so short? Seems like I just can't get everything on my list done. Ever!

The good news is that I did manage to get a few things done though. First thing on Saturday was a trip to a giant rummage sale hosted by the Junior League of Knoxville. I was primarily looking for garden stuff when I found this lovely stack of pots!

They gave me a great deal on them when I finally made it to the cashier. Only $1.00 for the whole stack! I was super excited. Who doesn't love extra pots?!

After I left the sale, I made my way to the Winter Farmers Market hosted by Nourish Knoxville. I bought some lovely eggs from my favorite farmers at JEM Farm, then found some wonderful mint plants that just had to come home with me. Unfortunately, the Polar Vortex killed all my other mint plants and a lovely rosemary too. This time I am planting the mint in pots to allow me to take them with us when we move next year. Here they are in their new homes. We have Spearmint, Peppermint, Chocolate Mint, Apple Mint, Variegated Pineapple Mint, and Orange Mint. This was the Sunday evening project. I had a baby shower to attend for most of the afternoon for a lovely young lady.

I also found a few more strawberry plants to add to my collection. This is Tennessee Beauty Strawberries.

My wonderful husband also got two more 4' x 4' squares built for me this weekend too. Soon I will get to plant in them!

To round out today's post, here are a few more pictures from around the house and garden. The garlic seems to be thriving now. I can't wait to harvest it! We also have corn sprouting and soon to be ready for transplant. This is an experiment to see if it is possible to start it indoors to make an early harvest. And lastly, we were able to maintain a pretty decent temperature in the new greenhouse after we put an actual heater inside.

 I look forward to next weekend when we can really get some work done in the garden. See you next week!

Best Laid Plans

I had high hopes for this weekend. I really did. However, I did not get nearly what I wanted done on my list. Saturday ended up being a shopping day instead of a working day. We did manage to get some great deals on some unexpected purchases though!

It all started with an email from Big Lots for 20% off purchases on Saturday with their Buzz Club rewards card.  I had wanted to get a cheap hose nozzle like the one I got there last year that was left under pressure in freezing temps. Totally looking at you Mr. Howell. Then we decided we might need a few other things. We ended up coming home with the hose nozzle, a new hose, kitty litter, duck tape, a walk in greenhouse, three large planting pots, and 40 square feet of interlocking wood tile to make a little patio area.  Whoops! The rest of the day was tied up with a community event.

Today was far more productive! My son and I had an early lunch with my mother. By the time we came home, darling husband had built the fire pit we purchased a few weeks ago from Lowe's. Next, he and the kiddo (plus a neighbor kid) put the patio tiles together.

This was half way through the project, and I love it!

While they were concentrating on building the patio area, I worked on building the greenhouse. The kids then helped move all the plants from inside the house to their new home in the greenhouse. Everyone got a good drink of water! We placed some buckets of water in the greenhouse to act as heat batteries for the cold nights ahead too.

After that we relaxed with a small fire in the fire pit!

Thankfully, I checked the weather and became concerned about the incoming storms and cold temperatures. We decided to add a small heat lamp to the greenhouse to protect the plants from any potential frost. We included a temperature and humidity monitor that we can check from inside the house to be sure that it doesn't get too hot or too cold for the plants with the new setup. Here is hoping we don't have to move everyone back inside!

No new seeds planted this week. Join me next Sunday for more updates!