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We’re planting our winter veggies right now, in waves, so we’ll be able to harvest at different times. We bought a cute little greenhouse from Lowe’s ($40) to make it easier to grow seeds outside. We’re considering putting some small warmer weather vegetables in there and seeing how they do.
Cute little greenhouse!
This weekend, we planted lettuces, mustard greens, and bok choy.
Ready to go into the ground...
Our new garden beds are working out really well. They get more sun than our side yard.
YUM! We've got leeks, mustard greens, lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, and cabbage =)
Here's our second garden bed. Green beans and spaghetti squash on the right.
We're getting quite a lot of green beans. They're super-tasty.
We also started pulling up the summer plants from our side yard. They had a bit of measly production left, as we harvested a tiny butternut squash and itty bitty eggplants, but overall, they’re done.
Pulling up cucumber plants.
A couple of weeks ago, we had a big storm here. Our big, beautiful eucalyptus tree fell over. Thankfully it didn’t land on our house, but did damage our spa cover slightly. We found out later, from our neighbors, that the tree had already fallen over once before! The people that lived in our home before us propped it back up. Clearly, a poor idea. When my hubby was digging out the roots, we saw that the largest root had been broken off from the trunk long ago. Once a tree falls over, it’s pretty much said “Goodbye, world”.
So we bought a loquat tree and put it in the spot where the old eucalyptus tree was.
We bought it from our neighbors. At a garage sale. Score!
Loquat trees grow very quickly, are evergreen, and produce tasty fruit. Three wonderful things that both the hubby and I desired. My mother actually grew her loquat tree from seed. These trees are very expensive in the hardware store or at the nursery (~$60-$75), so this may be the way to go for those looking to guard the pocketbook.
Things have progressed quickly over this past month. I’ve got seven new quail babies, the 4-week-olds have been moved into their outdoor enclosure, and we’ve planted our seedlings in the garden. I’m very satisfied with what we’ve accomplished.
GARDEN
We grew all of these plants from seeds. MUCH cheaper than buying a seedling at the store. And you can get that wonderful smug feeling that you did it from start to finish =D
Green Zebra tomato plant
Bok Choy plant. I already want to eat them.
Butternut squash
Zucchini and Cucumber
Strawberries, so yum!
Our garden (I'm standing at the gate)
QUAILS
We moved them outside when they were 3 weeks old. They’re doing really well and are getting bigger every day!
The hutch - we put them all in the upper section.
Quails venturing out of the shelter.
Quails snacking on some weeds! They're great little garbage disposals =)
I’ll post another update in a month or so. Thanks for reading!
Ok, so going out and plucking slugs off the plants every night didn’t work. Mainly because we didn’t go out there every night. Who has the time?
Our poor, poor seedlings.
So we tried a couple other methods.
STALE BEER METHOD:
Get a container. A bottle works well, as does a pan or a cup. In this case, we used a dog bowl. Bury the container next to the affected plants, up to the rim. Fill the container with stale beer. If the beer isn’t stale, don’t worry, it soon will be if you leave it out.
Leave it out overnight. Here’s what ours looked like the next morning:
YES! Dead slugs! The slugs are attracted to the smell of the beer, they go up close to it, fall in, and die. Beer method works!
EGG SHELL METHOD:
Just in case some of those slugs were wise to our plan, or some just weren’t into booze, we also tried out this method.
Take some eggshells, crush them up, and place them around the base of your seedlings. The slugs can’t cross the jagged edges, so they can’t go climb your plants and have a meal.
Ah-like so!
INITIAL TIME INVESTMENT: 10 minutes
DAILY TIME INVESTMENT: 2 minutes – refill that beer when it runs dry, until your plants are big enough!
In quick quail news, the quails are growing like weeds. Every morning I wake up and look at them, they’re bigger! There are 17 of them and they’re going through their scruffy adolescent phase.
I can sort of fly already too!
I have 39 more eggs in the incubator – soonest expected hatch date of 4/24.
My fiance and I transplanted our tomatoes a couple of days ago, or rather “moved” them. They’re not going in the ground quite yet, but they’ve outgrown their seedling pots. Tomatoes have rather deep roots.
I bought some party cups because they’re cheap ($3.69 for 50), and about the same size as a small pot. We’re giving away most of the seedlings.
If you use party cups, cut four holes in the bottom for drainage.
Makeshift pot
As I mentioned in my planting seeds post, we couldn’t just pop the seedlings out of the plastic containers, as they so claim. We had to cut them (carefully!) down the side to remove the seedlings.
This should slide right out
Get some potting soil, put it in the cups and make a big ‘ole hole in it – more than large enough for your newly displaced seedling. Put it in the hole, and bury the seedling deep.
Should be much wider and a bit deeper
If you have more than one seedling in a pot (it’s a good idea to plant more than one seed, just in case one or more don’t come up), you’ll have to take them apart carefully. Loosen up the root ball a bit. Start at the top, where the stems are, and pry the plants apart very gently. Once the soil is loose enough, and you pull gently enough, the rest will untangle itself. Try not to break too many roots (if any). This will hinder the growth of your plant.
GENTLY!
See all the hairs on the tomato plant’s stem? Those grow into roots if you bury them. When you bury more of the stem, you allow the tomato plant to form a more stable root system. What you want to avoid is a real “leggy” tomato plant.
Should be buried deeper, but you can see all the little hairs on this one!
Tomatoes like a lot of sun, so put them in a place where they get plenty of that. If you’ve still got them indoors, put them on a tray so the water doesn’t leak all over your belongings. Planning on putting them outside? Start hardening them by putting them outside a little bit at a time, increasing time until they are acclimated to the weather. Just remember, tomatoes like it warm.
It’s been a couple days since we moved them to the cups, and they’ve definitely gotten bigger!
LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE: It’s a good idea to plant more than one seed per pot, but don’t be a dummy like me and plant them right next to one another, and in the same hole. Just my luck, nearly every single seed sprouted (may I recommend Victory Seed Company?). They sprouted right next to one another – nay almost on top of one another! This made getting the seedlings apart when moving them very very difficult.
INITIAL TIME INVESTMENT: About 3-5 minutes per plant.
DAILY TIME INVESTMENT: Same as with seedlings, 2 minutes – keep ‘em watered and in the sunlight!
I think the first thing a lot of people think of when they think of self-sufficiency is…vegetables! Anyone can grow veggies, even people who live in apartments.
I’m trying something new this year – growing vegetables from seed instead of buying the young plants from the nursery. I find you can get more variety this way, and it’s $2.50 tops for a whole packet of seeds as opposed to $2.50 for 1-6 plants.
I planted some seeds back in early February, but I think I transplanted them outside too early (unusually late frost killed a few) and apparently we have a slug problem.
OH, the carnage! Alas!
We’ve started to go out and pick the slugs off at 10:30PM at night, but this takes time and effort, and that is what we here at Suburban Sustainability are seeking to avoid. I’ll address ways to combat slugs and snails in a later post.
Starting seeds indoors is a great way to get a head-start on the growing season. It’s >70 degrees F outside right now here, and judging from the size of the plants at the local hardware store, I could have started my seeds in December or January for a super-early start.
I bought some of these Ferry-Morse mini-greenhouse plant trays ($9.00 for three with plastic covers, drainage trays, and 72 little pots per tray) and some seed-starting mix ($5.00). I will attest that they are brown-thumb-proof, as a chronic brown-thumber myself.
Note the "Quick 'n Easyᵀᴹ" in the upper left corner...YES!
This stuff is super-fluffy, so I like to wet it down a couple times before planting the seeds in it. Just a note: this can be done indoors, but I’m the kind of person that ends up throwing dirt everywhere despite my best intentions. Do it outdoors or in the garage if you’re this type of person. Your spouse/significant other/cat will thank you for it.
My Selection
Cucumber died of frost, corn and zucchini were eaten, and spinach died of reasons unknown. I’m doing a take 2 on that one. Still trying to earn that green thumb…
P.S. Next time I’m going to avoid buying the plastic receptacles. They say that the plant easily “pops out” and that the receptacles are reusable. I found this to be the case only a fraction of the time. I ended up cutting a bunch of them up and tossing them. I’m going to go for the biodegradable receptacles next time ($2.00 for 50).
LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE:
Butternut Squash
All of these Butternut Squash seedlings were planted at the same time. Look at those two new nubs of green! I think that’s about 2 weeks from the time the first ones came out. When I transplanted outdoors, I threw away what looked to be empty receptacles with non-growing seeds. They probably would have sprouted. So be patient, and give it some time. You may be pleasantly surprised.
In several weeks, you’ll have something that looks like this!
Mostly Tomatoes - will be transplanting to cups soon...
Keep them next to the window, and try to rotate the trays 180 degrees once in a while so the seedlings don’t lean permanently in one direction. Watering is minimal with the plastic covers – the soil should feel moist to the touch. I leave the cover on until the seedlings get too tall, then I take it off and water every 1-2 days.
I prefer to keep mine in the guest bedroom with the incubator, since it warms the air a bit…but that’s another post =)
INITIAL TIME INVESTMENT: 15-30 min trip to the hardware store or nursery, 10-20 min to plant the seeds = 25-50 minutes
DAILY TIME INVESTMENT: 2 minutes
