Fall bulb planting surprise revealed
Well turns out the bulbs I planted last fall were tulips which came up this week, hopefully the snow we got yesterday/today (not supposed to happen here) does not kill them off.
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Planting seeds outside
I always enjoy any seeds I required to start outdoors since they normally thrive with little effort from myself other than the occasional watering and given I live in the rainy Seattle area that does start until mid-June. Even if you have started many of your seeds indoors to extend your growing season some seeds should always start outdoors since they are sensitive to transplant shock. If you have…
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How to grow garlic in your garden
My experiment of planting organic garlic which I bought from my local produce section of my grocery store seems to be working well. If you want to try this yourself here are some hopefully easy to follow steps: Buy some good looking garlic at your grocery store (I chose organic since I made an assumption there was a decreased chance that it was treated to prevent growth) When you…
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Oh the carnage…
I am sorry to inform you that we have had a death in the garden. By entering this world a just a little sprout started from a packet of seeds just a couple of months ago. They spent most of their life being nurtured in the comfortable surroundings of the PC grow box our poor tomoto plants did not survive the harshness freakish winter storm we which occurred weeks…
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Average last frost dates are only right half of the time
Our last frost date in my area should have been March 24th but given the frosty mornings this past week and the fact we had snow coming down most of today it looks like this year our last frost date will fall on the other side of the bell curve. Unfortunately, I was optimistic with some of the great weather we were having earlier and planted my tomato seeds…
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Planting our butterfly garden
Yesterday with the weather almost getting to 60 seemed like a good day to try sow some of our vegetable seeds outside for our butterfly garden. I tried to make things organized by grouping the Black-eyed Susan, purple coneflowers, zinnias, and nasturtiums, but my daughter decided to distribute the seeds a little more random. I am sure the butterflies won’t mind and guess it should look a little closer…
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Spring Rainbow
Happy first day of spring, well this picture was not taken this spring but still a good reminder of days to come.
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Speed Composting
Unfortunately I have a small yard so my space to compost is limited so my goal is to make sure the most use out of the limited space I have. I am also impatient and don’t want to wait a couple years to finally get some compost. Here are some of my suggestions on how to be a speed composter. Make stuff smaller: The small the you break up…
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Planning a butterfly garden
I got the word this weekend we had enough vegetables and not enough flowers in our garden beds so got the idea to start a butterfly garden. Upon telling my 6 year old daughter she got very excited and started talking how we can charge admission for people to see our butterfly garden. There are two ways to get butterflies in your gardens, provide nectar to eat and/or give…
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Tomato seedlings in the PC Grow Box
The strawberry plant got too big for the PC grow box so I planted it back outside where it is doing great. Now my tomato plants have more room to grow and have to compete less for the limited light. I have been impressed with my tomato plants in the grow box. I think this is the first year I have grown tomatoes that were not all white and…
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Vermicomposting – How to harvest your worm poop (castings)
Now your worms have been working hard eating, pooping, and reproducing so now it is time to harvest the fruits of their labor (worm castings) There are a few methods to harvest worm castings so I will briefly describe a few: Dump and Sort Much like it sounds you simply dump out your worms and castings onto a plastic sheet. Sort through and catch as many worms as you…
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Vermicomposting – How to take care of your worms
Your worms need 6 things to stay healthy: temperature, food, moisture, airflow, bedding, and darkness. Temperature: Your worms need to be stored between 55 and 77 degree. During the hot days of summer you should keep your worm bin in the shade and during winter you should keep it indoors or in your garage. Food: Worms are vegetarians so any garden waste you normally would add to your compost…