Put up strawberry bags yesterday. It will take a while to find the right place. Also tomato seeds starting to sprout

BioDome Post - The Reason For The Season

Here it is the long awaited post.  (Notice the two rows in the back without popsicle sticks - the kids were still working on those).  Anyway, I got pumped when my garden planner told me it was time to start sowing some tomato seeds.  We are doing 7 different varieties (listed in earlier post).  There are 60 spaces in this thing so I filled it up with tomoatos - 6 of everthing - 18 of better boys and 12 of early girls.  In hindsite I wish I would have done 12 better boys and then 12 sweet 100s.    Anyway this is the best part of the garden and its getting started. 

Alright - I lied the biodome post is coming next not this one. I was two popsicle sticks short for the labels.  The kids were bouncing in the trampoline and it was pretty cold but I did convince them to eat a couple fruit bars so I could get the sticks.  It didn't seem to spoil their dinner.  Mia ate like a bird as always, cole had two bowls of fried rice and a bowl of miso soup that I made. 

First in the ground.

First in the ground are the green onions.  They grew for 3 weeks in the greenhouse and were ready to be planted in the shaded garden.  14 of them went in.  The candy onions are not quite ready to go in - I did transplant them into some growing pots to make room in the biodome (next post on that).

I also put lettice (and it looks like Park Seed didn't send one of the seeds I ordered) and spinich into growing pots.  The greenhouse mom gave me is starting to fill up.    Boxwoods are doing well in there.

Blooms Gone

I was right.  One little cold snap and the pomegranate blooms went right back into hiding - sort of like the ground hog.

Trouble with Post Hole Diggers

Was doing work in the garden this weekend and noticed that I got lucky.  In the spot where I was going ot anchor the compost bin I found some orange marks - cable lines.  Don't think Suzanne would have been very happy if I cut it again.  Glad I sent the post hole digger back to dad. 

Buds

The pomegranite bushes in the front are already starting to show some new growth.  With the weather being so eratic this winter - I don't know if this is too early or not - but both plants look healthy.

Getting ready for the season. Thanks to a good friend Mike VanHouten who lent me his tiller.  Got most of the main garden tilled up and got the shade garden ready.  Had the soil tested with Clemson Extension service and it needed lime. There were "extreme" levels of nitrogen (probably the truck load of compost I put in there this winter.  Onions are still moving up and doing well.  Will plant spinich and lettuce this week in the greenhouse. 

Grow Light

Added a grow light.  After the onions took a dive - felt like I needed to invest in a little more - we'll see if this helps. 

Square one

Not so good on the initial onion seeds.  Gotta go back to square one on these.  They just kind of withered up and dissapeared.  Oh well we got started early so plenty of time to catch up - in the back of photo are the green onions - doing well so far. 

The onion seeds are going crazy - the empty pods are green onions that I planted last week.  When you lift the lid off the greenhouse it is a very strong odor of onions - but so far all candy onion seeds are growing.

The first seeds of the season

We are going to do everything from seed this season.  The first seeds went in last week - the onions.  I planted 40 seeds and so far all are up and growing. 

The seeds come in because I want to focus on costs this year.  So far I have spent $115 on seeds and some seed growing supplies (I order from Park Seed http://www.parkseed.com/ - its located in South Carolina and do a pretty good job).  I spent $14 on the lattice for the now defunct compost bin and I spent $30 on compost.  Running total right now is $159 - we'll see if the garden pays for itself after the season is over. 

Here is a picture of the onion seeds coming out.  Mom gave me a greenhouse - I put it up and put a couple of boxwoods in there already.  The seeds will go from here to jiffy pots in the greenhouse when the time is right.  Oh and the boxwoods - the traffic to the new trampoline was not kind to them - I pulled them up and potted them to get them started. 

Next to get planted will be the green onions in mid January - a couple of things in February and then most all of the seeds starting inside should be in started by March.

Will start Carrott, dill, beans right into the ground to start from seed. 

Compost Bin

I started to build a compost bin in the back, right corner of the garden.  Very simple plan using 2x4s, lattice and some hooks.

Here is the start.  I was going to have to give up some corn and ditch the okra all together to do this - so I looked up some other ideas on compost and one guy reminded me that it is pretty simple - just do what dad has always done - dig a whole and put your goods in there.  Cover it up and let the earth compost it right in the garden.  The bin came down. Then I had a great idea to put the lattice in front of the HVAC unit and the trash can - the post hole digger went right through the cable line.

No one in the house was very happy - but Time Warner was out in a few hours and had us back up.  Needless to say Dad's post hole digger was put in the back of the truck and returned to prevent further issues. 

Getting Ready

The City of Columbia sells compost by the truckload.  I borrowed Melanie's truck and bought a load - $20 if you load it yourself $30 to have them load it. I wasn't about to load knowing I had to go home and unload it.  They pulled up with a big front end loader and just dropped it in the truck.  I spread all of the compost out in the garden and then spread it out.  I started to put compost on some gardens I have planned inside the back yard - but Kit loves it too much and if she kept walking into the house with compost all over her feet from digging - Suzanne would be using me for compost. 

Here is a picture of the truck load - about halfway empty.

Side Garden

We are also doing a smaller garden on the side of the house for those plants that don't mind a little shade.

We are doing lettice, spinich, green onions, Italian parsley and green beans.  I went with a Tenderette seed for the beans and we are planting 30 plants.  An image of that garden is attached. 

Introduction

I thought it might be fun to share a little bit about the garden this year and this could be a good format.

First off - I am expanding the existing garden - total space is now 864 square feet over two gardens.

We are doing 7 different kinds of tomatos - Better Boy, Cherokee Purple, Early Girl, Iidi (a yellow tomato), Juliet, Margherita and Super Sweet 100s. For a total of 20 plants.

We are doing 3 types of cucumbers (after our visit to my parents) I expanded the cucumber section of the garden because Cole ate 3 very large cucumbers whole.  We are planting 12 cucumber plants

We are also growing carrots (48), corn (52) , okra (7) , onion (24), peppers (4), pumpkin (3), and squash (4).

We are also growing basil, cilantro, dill, lavender, oregano and strawberry spinich herbs as well as merigolds and a lot of sun flowers - those are going to be planted along the left side of the garden and continue up the little strip on the garden side of the fence to the garage. 

Here is a picture of the plan - without the little strip - but you can see the start of the sun flowers to the left. 

And of course we have our blackberry bush along that strip as well.