Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The fence is up





We built a fence with the help from family. We had never built a fence before. We borrowed a gas-powered post hole digger from a friend, which made the job much quicker. It took us most of Saturday. The weather was mild and very nice. There is even a gate into the garden. We are so lucky to have family who can pass down farm knowledge to us poor urban gardeners.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Seedlings started 10 days ago



Great White Tomato
Prickly Caterpillar
Yellow Pear Tomato


We really wanted to try some white tomatoes and discovered Baker Creek Seeds had a wide selection of them. We also had some Yellow Pear Tomato seeds and a friend of ours told us we better plant them because they are quite tasty.

We planted the Prickly Caterpillars for the son's garden.

Seedlings Today

tomatoes and peppers

Scarlet Runner Beans



About 10 days ago we planted seven scarlet runner beans and they all germinated and are growing like crazy. We will be planting them outside tonight and training them up the ti pi! It was not a joke when they said these things grow groW GROW! These roots are insane!

Monday, May 4, 2009

Ti Pi for Son


Our son has his own garden area in our backyard. We constructed a Ti Pi out of old tree branches. Folks in our neighborhood placed them near the curb to be hauled away, so we hauled them! We dug three holes about 2 feet deep, buried the largest end of the branch and then filled the holes, braced the branches against each other, and tied them with some jute twine. We plan to weave more twine along the top half of the ti pi. This is what it looks like so far.

Mini Sunflower Greenhouses


This weekend we planted some Giant Primrose Sunflower seeds along our east fence line. We have many birds in our yard who love to visit recently watered areas looking for bugs. So, we covered our sunflower seeds with plastic cups and plastic water bottles cut in half. We wanted the seeds to remain undisturbed by the birds, and we figured this might help the seeds germinate quicker. Once the seeds have germinated and are growing well, we will remove the cups.

It's been WAY too long

We have been busy cutting sod, tilling, transplanting, and running around like chickens with our heads cut off! Since our last post we cut 432 square feet of sod out of our yard, tilled that 432 square feet, made a 35 gallon rain barrel, planted 4 rows of seeds, constructed a ti pi out of old tree branches, and bought 4 bird feeders and some perennial plants for landscaping. Whew, we are sore, sunburned, and loving it. We can't keep our son out of the yard, he wants nothing to do with the inside of the house. We are very excited and anxious to put our pepper and tomato plants in the ground this next weekend.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Thirsty Bunny Tail Grass

Grow Plants Grow

Seedling Update: Morning Glory Bush

Seedling Update: Cosmos Bright Lights Blend

Seedling update: Black-Eyed Susan Vine

Sunberry Seedlings


WE ARE SO EXCITED FOR THESE. Sunberries are poisonous when they are green and not yet ripe, so these will be fenced in and away from little hands. Their flavor is said to rival blueberries!

We have 8 successful seedlings of their way!

New Tomato Seedlings



Powers Heirloom, Rose, Nebraska Wedding (since we are in Nebraska), Taxi, and Goldie Husk Cherry


So all together, including the plants that were started at the beginning of March, we have a red cherry tomato, a small husk yellow tomato which is supposed to be sweet and citrus-like, a yellow roma, a red roma, an early yellow medium sized tomato, a large orange tomato, and 2 large red slicing tomatoes, WE ARE NUTS!