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!

Some days are good! Some days are not!

Phew! This week did not start out that great. I came home Tuesday to discover that the greenhouse does not have very good air circulation and that mold loves the lack of air movement. Sorry for the lack of pictures of the mold. I saw it and promptly had a mini heart attack. Our solution was to apply a mist of common hydrogen peroxide mixed with water to the surface of the soil. This did kill the mold with a satisfying sizzle! Unfortunately, the mold had already caused damage to the zinnias and wiped out about half of them.

There were 18 planted. I have 10 left. May try to replant some more seeds this coming week.

There is also an apparent lack of lettuce plants germinating. If you look carefully past the beets, you will notice a significant absence of green sprouts where the lettuce should have been.

My solution has been to replant them with a different variety called Simpson (aka Black Seeded Simpson). Should know by next week if this works.

Saturday was a rather productive day. I organized my gardening corner on the porch after finding a small white shelf on the side of the road a week or two ago. It wasn't in the greatest of condition, but will suit my needs for a bit of extra storage. My husband also made a trash can compost bin for me as well. I am pretty excited about having a compost bin. Since we rent, I didn't want to make too permanent of a structure or dig a pit. Since we plan to move in 18 months, I didn't want to invest in a lot of work and expense that would have to be removed later.  Later in the day, I also repotted all of the tomato seedlings into larger pots. They all seem pretty happy to have some extra root room now.

Today has been fairly productive as well. My husband and son built the first of our raised garden beds, got it into place with landscape fabric after a bit of hatchet work with a small stump, and filled it with soil. They also built a trash can rain barrel for me. We hope to snag some concrete blocks from the trash pile at a construction site down the road (with permission, of course) to elevate it and provide some gravity assistance when we use it for watering later. We borrowed a post hole digger from my mother to dig the holes to place the strawberry tower in the final location for this season. We plan to take the garden beds and strawberry tower with us when we move unless the landlord just loves them and wants to keep them. If that happens, I would like to do the next raised beds in cedar or another naturally rot resistant material. It was just too far out of the budget this go around.

While getting the strawberry tower in place, we measured and marked the edges of a few of the other raised beds. One is going to be a 14' x 2' L-shaped bed. Even our neighbors are excited to see the end result. The city we live in does not prohibit gardens in the front yard as long as the vegetation is not rank or uncultivated. Our landlord loves the fact that we take care of the yard and the previously existing flower beds. In one of the original flower beds, I planted garlic last October. To protect the plants from the snows and frost, we have layered straw that we salvaged from our neighbor's fall decorations. I just love FREE! You can see a few of the garlic plants peeking through still. We also used some of the straw to cover a muddy area created by some utility work being completed this week at the edge of our walkway to the house. Pretty handy stuff!

Finally, here are a few more pics of our seedlings. Peas, broccoli, and onions all seem to be doing pretty well so far.

Planted 02/23/14:
Simpson Lettuce
Habanero Peppers
Lemon Drop Marigold
Carolina Black Peanut
Anasazi Sweet Corn

Let's get planting!

First, we have some catching up to do. The gardening season officially began last Sunday for us. My Smart Gardener To Do list said it was time to get planting! I had been planning what seeds and plants to buy all winter and all the orders had finally reached my green thumbs. I have spent countless hours planning my garden layout on Smart Gardener only to redo it a few days later. If you haven't tried out that site, I highly recommend it. It makes selecting plant varieties, planning the layout, and knowing when to plant super easy. Perfect for busy gardens and gardeners!

This year, I decided to attempt starting seeds indoors and bought a greenhouse (affiliate link) too. It is currently sitting in my living room in front of the window. Yes, my husband thinks I am crazy. However, given the winter snow storms we have endured this year, I wasn't ready to try this outside yet.

On the 9th, I filled my seed starting trays (affiliate link) with some fabulous organic soil and started planting.

Here is the list that was planted on the 9th:

Detroit Dark Red Beets
German Chamomile
Tango Lettuce
Granax Onion
Cal Wonder Peppers
White Sage
Crimson Sprinter Tomato
Red Brandywine Tomato
Red Cherry Tomato
Roma Tomato
Stupice Tomato

 On the 12th I planted:

Feverfew
Peruvian Yellow Zinnia
Yellow Coneflower/Echinacea
Lemon Balm

Overnight on the 12th, we received 6 inches of snow. For us, that is town paralyzing totals!

Imagine my surprise when I woke up to seedlings sprouting on the morning of the 13th!

Then just 12 hours later, I discovered this:

My seedlings seem to be pretty happy there so far. So, who is crazy now?!

Rounding out the plantings for the rest of the week:

02/13/14
Boysenberry (bare root)
Triple Crown Thornless Blackberry (bare root)
Catnip
Bergamot
Ground Cherry
Lavendar
Sweet Marjoram
Horehound
Valerian
French Thyme

02/14/14
Green Arrow Peas
Bouquet Dill


Sadly, I did have some casualties too. I discovered that I had planted the White Half Runner Beans a full month too early. Since the plan is to have them use the corn as a trellis, allowing them to sprout now was not going to work. I made the decision to pull the bean seeds out and seed the peas in those spots instead. I will plant the beans at the appropriate time later in March.

That rounds out the first week!

Who I Am

Hi all! My name is Mrs. Howell. No, I have never been stranded on an island. No, I am not married to The Millionaire. If you are too young to get that reference, go look up Gilligan's Island.

The aim of this blog is to document my journey of novice urban gardening. My family currently rents a house in a nice neighborhood in a decently sized city. Our USDA Plant Hardiness Zone is 7a with hot summers and (usually) mild winters. In 2013, we did manage to grow some cherry tomatoes, a few strawberries, and a rather large and out of control watermelon patch. This year, we are going to attempt intensive gardening and a greater number of plants and varieties. I want to document all the ups, downs, trials, and tribulations for the 2014 gardening season here for anyone to read, be inspired, and maybe realize it can be done even in less than ideal locations! Wish us luck!