Last weekend I constructed a simple composter on the cheap ($15.00). I have been thinking about buying one, but most cost $100-$200 each. So I figured I would try a simple one first to see how well it goes, and upgrade to a 'professional model' if my tests are a success and I feel the need for a better system.

I bought a simple large trashcan (40 gallon) from Home Depot. It is just plain black plastic with a locking lid. I took my drill and using the largest bit I drilled holes in the bottom and the sides. Pretty simple - took about 5 minutes total.

I've filled the bottom with a few inches of leaves and I have begun adding kitchen and plant scraps. We'll see how it goes. Here's a pic. Plus it looks like a neighborhood critter was interested in it too (note the paw prints):

While the weather was great this weekend, I was only able to get a few hours of gardening in, but I got a lot done. I'm still fighting the gout-weed in the front bed under the porch. Some of the bee balm has been a causality of this war but there is plenty of it left and I'm sure it will recover. But I'm hoping this will be the last time I need to apply the weed killer. I'm hoping to mulch the bed this week at some point and then move on to cleaning out the main front yard.

The plants I purchased from Territorial arrived this week. I bought two osteospermums (which are one of my favorite flowers next to nasturtiums) and they arrived in great shape. They quickly went into a planter on our front steps. I also planted many more nasturtium seeds and have begun hardening off the nasturtiums that I started indoors. I planted some sweet peas on the porch too.

Most of my other indoor seedlings are doing quite well. Some of the plants are getting attacked by aphids and they seem to be causing some damage. So I've applied some hot pepper wax to kill the aphids off. But it looks like they may have killed one of my tomatillo seedlings. Which really sucks, because I only had 2 sprout out of the 3 seeds I planted. You need two plants to get fruit, so I may now have 2 open squares in my veggie garden for other things. But that means no salsa verde again this year. My tomatillos only did well the first year. Last year they got some wilting disease and died, and this year the seedlings didn't even make it. Oh well.

Unfortunately the Siberian Tomato that my partner bought me didn't make it either. I was planning to put it outside this weekend (the instructions said to wait until the nighttime temps are over 36) but it is pretty much dead. I guess it didn't like being kept inside (since the Philadelphia Flower Show) for so long.

Out back I added some compost + manure to the un-planted beds to get them ready for my transplants. Meanwhile my lettuce is doing great as are my peas. My radishes, beets, and carrots are doing well but are still really tiny. But they have been taking a beating from a neighborhood cat or squirrel that apparently enjoys digging in my beds. Needless to say that's the death of many seedlings. I've lost two cabbage plants, many carrots, some beets, and peas this week due to said animal. Grrrr...

The spinach isn't doing so hot. Only about 1/2 of the seeds actually germinated, and the ones that have have only grown a second set of leaves. I was hoping they would be much further along by now. But maybe once we get some steady warm weather they'll pick up.

Due to some veggies not sprouting or getting dug up, I've planted more carrots, beets, radishes, and peas. I still have 2 living cabbage seedlings, but I don't think I'm going to plant more. I'll probably just pick a plant up or two from a garden center - maybe another cabbage or some broccoli.

Yup - same deal - long time no blog. Anyways, I've gotten a lot done in the garden over the last few weeks. First off I had a full week off from work, and I have been working a bit each weekend as well.

The strawberries have been planted (18 plants total) and all but one survived (they were shipped bare root). The spinach is starting to produce secondary leaves, and the lettuce is doing well too:

The peas, beets, radishes, cabbage, carrots, and all of my other lettuce has sprouted too. These have all been planted directly in the ground outside over the last month and they seem to be doing quite well.

I've also been working on the landscaping out in the back yard. I've added about 35 bags of 'river rock' to the paths so far this year. I'm not even near done half of the paths. I had no idea it would take this many bags of rocks to complete the paths and I'm beginning to double think my decision. I may quit once I finally get half-way and try wood chips or something for the rest.

My indoor seedlings are doing awesome. I need to take some pics, but most things have sprouted and have been transplanted into pots. One okra bit the dust (I think a cat ate it) but everything else is doing great.

I haven't neglected out front either:

I've bought a few plants over the three weeks for the pots on the porch. The front bed by the sidewalk has been cleaned and mulched. Most of the plants seem to be coming back - it's looking pretty good!

I've added more pics in the image gallery from March and the first from April. I'm trying to beat my record of number of pics from last year. We'll see...

The weather was excellent again this past weekend so I made sure I spent a good amount of time in the garden getting things ready for Spring. My first major task was getting a new bed dug for my strawberries, which should be arriving this week. There was a patch of weeds (no grass in our backyard!) along side of our back porch that is about 5x10 in size. I decided to dig that all out and make it ready for some strawberries. Check it:

Overall it took be several hours to do. About 3 hours on Saturday to dig it out and add some organic matter to the soil. On Sunday I then put a little retaining wall type thing on the edge closest to the alley. I wanted to do it on the cheap, so I found a large wooden plank in the basement (leftover from the previous owners) and cut it to size. I dug a trench and stuck it in there and hammered it in with a rubber mallet. I also added some bamboo sticks on one side to give it a little extra support. It seems pretty stable and should last until I figure out something a little more permanent (maybe in a year or two).

So now I just need my strawberries and the bed will be ready!

I also continued sowing seeds in the rear-most beds. I planted a second batch of spinach seeds and I started my radishes and beets. Most of the first batch of spinach and lettuce has sprouted and my peas are just starting to break the soil. I also planted some lettuce seeds in the planters that I keep on the back porch.

Don't think that I spent all of my time in the back yard. I did just a little bit of work in the front. I applied a second round of weed killer to the gout weed, and took some pictures of all of the crocuses in the front yard. I also snapped a few pictures of the sprouting veggies in my back yard. As always, check out the galleries for more...

As of today all I have planted all of my vegetable seeds for the garden, other than what will be going directly into the ground. I planted about half of the seeds on Sunday, and I finished up the rest today. Looking back I planted the seeds on March 18th and 21st last year. So I'm pretty much on the same schedule (if not a little bit earlier). I guess that shows that this blog is also useful to myself - great for past reference! Anyways, here's what I planted:

Herbs:
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Dill
Cilantro
Fennel
Siam Queen Basil
Lettuce Leaf Basil

Tomatoes:
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Tumbler
WayAhead
Taxi
Striped Roma
San Marzano
Japanese Trifele Black

Peppers:
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Red Peter
Autopick
Healthy
Tangerine Dream

Other:
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Okra
Tomatillo Gigante

And taking a close look one of the WayAhead tomatoes is already sprouting!

The nice weather was back this weekend so I made sure to get some solid gardening time in on Saturday. I started the day out by starting my attack on the gout weed in the front bed. I carefully applied the weed killer to the gout weed using a paint brush to avoid getting it on the other plants. I'm not sure if that got enough on the gout weed though. It should have started limping by now but it hasn't. I'm thinking I'll need to try again next weekend, but perhaps with an eye-dropper or the like.

I also started to clean out the sidewalk bed. Not too much - just cleared out some trash and cut back some of the dead growth. It still needs lots of cleaning but it is a good start.

Then I ventured out back. I cleaned out the other rear-most bed and planted my super-sugar snap peas. I also found some germinating snow-pea seeds that must have fallen last year. So I gathered them all up, coated them with some inoculant (I did the same with the new sugar-snap peas) and had enough snow-pea seeds to plant an entire square. This is the first time I've used inoculant on the peas - hopefully the plants will like it and produce more heavily.

The shallots also appear to have survived the winter. They are in the same bed as the peas. I ended up splitting a few of them to spread them out more evenly in the row (a 4x1 foot row). Hopefully they'll produce lots of great shallots this year. I just overwintered them on a whim - I hope it works out as planned.

I also took my first photos of the garden. Check them out in the image galleries. Here's a shot of my shallots:

The weather was excellent this past weekend in Philly. It was about 65 degrees on both Saturday and Sunday. So I took the opportunity to start getting the garden ready for spring. I didn't get any pictures (the memory card was MIA...) but I'll start taking some soon.

My first task was to start cleaning out the flower/plant bed that is at the foot of our front porch. The broom bush had fallen over during the winter and was blocking our pathway, so I picked up some sturdy plant steaks and got it back into a vertical position. I also cleaned out the bed removing old leaves and trash. Most of the plants seem to be coming back. The butterfly bush, rose, hyacinths, bee balm, lilys, and juniper are all starting to come back nicely. Unfortunately so is the gout weed.

I have made it my goal to get rid of the gout weed in this bed this year. Last year I mostly conquered the gout weed that was growing in the front yard. I am noticing a little bit of that coming back but not too much yet. Anyway, I'll need to carefully use the weed killer in this bed because the gout weed is all over in between the other plants. I'll probably end up using a paint brush to just get the gout weed. Again, this weed killer is the only non-organic thing I have used in my garden (sorry!), only because there is no other way to kill the gout weed. I have tried pulling it and using organic treatments past years but nothing had worked and the gout weed was winning the battle. This weed killer worked well last year, so hopefully I'll be able to get rid of the gout weed completely(?) this year.

Besides working on the front bed I also did a little bit of work in the back yard vegetable garden. I removed a wheelbarrow's worth of dirt from the bed in the back of the yard which hosted the potatoes last year (thus the reason for the extra dirt). I then added some manure, fertilizer, and peat-moss and started to plant some seeds! I planted my spinach (spalding), lettuce (romain, mesculin, arugula), and even some carrot seeds. I have covered the whole bed with a protective cover to keep out the frost (and neighborhood cats!).

This is the earliest I have ever planted seeds outside so it will be interesting to see how it goes. The spinach says that it can be planted 2.5 months before the last frost, and lettuce likes to be chilly as well. I'm not too sure about the carrots, but I'll see. I also need to get some cabbage seeds (the one thing I forgot to order this year) and plant some cabbage soon, along with some peas.

I also started planting some seeds indoors. I only planted some basil (large lettuce leaf) seeds so far, but I'll start planting my peppers soon as well. I won't start the tomatoes for a few weeks yet - otherwise they get too large by the time I can plant them.

I can't wait for my first garden salad!

I've finally placed my order for my garden seeds for this year. I've tried to consolidate all of the seeds to a single catalog just to make life simple and to save on shipping charges. I'm ordering from Territorial Seed Company again this year. I've ordered from them for the last several years and have been very happy with their products.

Anyways, here's the list of what I ordered:

CU314/L Adam Cucumbers Organic
HR1055/S Basil-Mammoth Sweet
BN060/S Beer Friend Bean
BN037/S Bingo Bean
OK533/S Cajun Delight Okra
RD741/S Cherry Belle Radish
HR1130/S Coriander-Confetti
HR1150/S Dill-Dukat
TM952/S Japanese Trifele Black Tomato
FL2997/S Nasturtium-Alaska Apricot
FL3001/S Nasturtium-Black Velvet
FL2996/S Nasturtium-Empress Of India
BN040/S Nickel Bean
LT444/P Pot & Patio Lettuce Blend
XF112/C Seascape Strawberry
CN230/S Silver Queen Corn
SP787/S Spaulding Spinach
TM913/L Striped Roman Tomato Organic
CN216/S Sugar Dots Corn
FL3274/S Sunflower-Giant Sungold
FL3285/S Sunflower-Red Sun
PE636/S Super Sugar Snap Peas
FL3324/S Sweet Pea-King Tut
MS475/L Sylvetta Arugula Organic
TM874/S Taxi Tomato Organic

Note that there are some flowers thrown in there as well (I love nasturtiums and sunflowers). And the alert reader will notice that I'm planning on starting a strawberry bed as well (which is not yet shown on my plan below) - although I think the 25 plants will be a little much. But I'll spread around the extra plants to family and friends.

I have completed my 2009 Garden plan and have placed my seed order (next post). I've discovered this site called GrowVeg.com that has a flash tool which lets you build your garden plan. It's pretty neat. It creates a great looking plan with minimal effort. Check out my plan. It is not yet 100% complete, but it is a good start:

GrowVeg will plot your planting and harvesting times in a chart, and also assists with crop rotation (a feature I have not used as of yet). It is an impressive tool and I quickly purchased a one year subscription. I'll try to keep using it throughout the year.

The only problem is that this tool is currently limited on features. For example you cannot share your garden plan or export it. I created the graphic above by saving a screenshot of my garden plan in the tool. I would also like to be able to re-name the plants (for example, instead of just generic tomatoes, I would like to label them as 'Roma Tomatoes' etc). I would also like to be able to resize the vegetables themselves so they will fit better in my square food garden layout. But the developers are working on a new version so hopefully some of these features are on the way.

So I'm finally done my class. Wow. I posted once while I was taking it. Shows you how much that was taking out of my gardening time. :( My poor garden had to suffer for my slight progress towards my graduate degree. Sorry plants!

Anyways, I did tear down most things in the garden and got it all prepped for winter. Just some simple leaf mulch mixed in and covering the beds. Put away all rust-prone things and my planting bench in the shed. Pulled out all dead plants. Etc.

I'm already starting to get seed catalogs for next year! I finally have time to start digging through them. I know I have to grow lots of cucumbers for all of my pickle pre-orders (Hah!), but I'm still undecided about the rest. I'm thinking some okra as well. We'll see what's new and 'in' this year. How trendy.

I also need to fix the ballast on my grow light. One of the florescent bulbs won't light - and it isn't the bulb. I'm gonna have go all Radio Shack on that thing and fix it up. But I have until late February to get that fixed or to get a new one.

Other than that I've made a simple wishlist for XMas for some gardening goodies. I'm hoping to get a Mason bee house, a kitchen composter crock, and some new seed starting supplies. I was going to ask for a full composter for the yard, but now I'm toying with the idea of making one out of a trash can (since the real ones cost about 200$!).

Already looking forward to spring!