The Praying Mantis & Your Garden

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

If you thought the title was the name of the new Nora Roberts book, you'll be disappointed. Nonetheless, the story of how praying mantids benefit your garden is certainly a story worth making the Bestseller List.

But before I tell you the tale, let's just first get a few cards on the table. Some of us have fond memories of playing with "stick" bugs and "leaf" bugs, and letting them crawl up on our arms as we laughed with the joy of being a kid. I was not one of those kids. So, when my brother called me up and said a friend has a bunch of baby mantids for your garden, the last thing I wanted was more bugs, let alone bugs that are super big.

Admittedly, at first I declined, but upon doing some research I found that the praying mantis has some really good qualities that made me second guess my initial response.

Mantids, despite getting as big as they do; two to three inches long, thankfully don't bite nor harm humans. And here's the real kicker: they eat spiders. Last year I had kind of an issue with big spiders, and I noticed this year I had a lot more than last year. A lot more. And to be honest, if getting a praying mantis or two allows me to not have to carry a jug of soap water wherever I go, I'm all for it. In fact, I will take a dozen.

And that's just what I did.

Controlling the Pest Population

For those of you who are big into natural and organic fertilizers, this is the perfect solution to a bug problem in your garden. Mantids eat nearly anything, including wasps, aphids, grasshoppers, moths, worms that eat your seedlings, and can help reduce the impact of the impending cicada apocalypse. Full sized mantids can consume even two bees in one sitting, and are continually looking for their next morsel. In fact, should you purchase mantids from your local gardening or agricultural store, make sure to remove them from their container rather quickly as going too long without food they will begin to eat each other.

Lastly, should you have a problem with cucumber beetles, cabbage beetles, or any such beetle, mantids are excellent predators to cut down some of the issue.

Do They Bite/Sting/Harm?

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Absolutely not. They are gentle creatures that just look scary! Despite their sci-fi look, mantids are generally at peace with humans. If you dislike bugs, this is definitely the bug that you want in your garden. If threatened, though, the mantis may swat you with their forearms, however this will not hurt you. They do have excellent camouflage skills, so if you go to grab a "stick" and find it's just a mantis, the worst that can happen is you have a gasp.

*Where To Buy

I was fortunate to have mine given to me by a friend, but a one time purchase at one of the following featured sites can give you the opportunity to breed them in your own garden. Although, keep in mind that if you do plan to breed them you should keep them indoors depending on your climate through the winter.

Gardener's - Sells both Ladybugs and Mantis Eggs
Grow Organic - Mantis Eggs and other beneficial bugs
Amazon - For a host of sellers and to check their feedback
Arbico Organics - Has great instructions on how to release and keep your mantids


*This list is for reference only. In no way has any of these companies paid me nor do I have any relationship or tie with them to advertise on this blog. I have not tried out any of these companies and cannot vouch for your satisfaction with any of these sites or the products they sell. This list is for reference only.

The Importance of Pruning Your Tomato Plants

Image adapted from freedigitalphotos.net

Introduction | Determinate or Indeterminate?

Tomato plants are broken down into two categories, determinate and indeterminate. Determinate tomatoes bloom all at once and usually do not continue to fruit after the bloom. These types of tomatoes require no pruning above the first set of clusters, so any of the information in this post is generally not adequate for determinate tomatoes. Sources suggest to not prune determinate tomatoes, as pruning will stop potential fruit from blooming. 

Indeterminate tomato plants are plants that grow many vines and bloom pretty consistently until frost. I have found in my experience that these are the best kind of tomatoes for what I am looking to plant, and so I predominantly use indeterminate tomato seeds. If you prefer determinate, go for it, no one is stopping you! I have also read, and I am not sure if this goes for determinate or not, but it is possible to keep indeterminate plants indoors during the cold season in a planter and keep them outside during the warm months for continuous fruiting. I have successfully kept cherry tomato plants in our hydroponics garden this way for about 1 year now and it is still fruiting. 

Why Prune Indeterminates?

Since last year was my first year with a garden, and since certain social media sites were not as established as they are today, I had a hard time finding adequate information on how to care for a garden. One of the things I learned very, very late in the season was about pruning tomato plants. I had one plant in the garden that was about 10 feet tall and 4 feet wide; it was bushy and monstrous. The vines were so long and wild that it was useless to have the cage around it, and the tomatoes that were coming off this supposedly large tomato plant were far from large. What should have been a 1lb fruit was no more than a large cherry tomato, and there were about 50-85 of them on the plant at any given time.

The remedy for this is something called pruning; a technique of trimming unnecessary stalks from the plant in order for it to produce more energy into the fruits than into growing the plant. One of the most beneficial points of the pruning is to allow all of the leaves of the plant to gain sun exposure and to prevent disease that is rampant in damp, dark spaces.

Since a plant that isn't pruned gets to be wild and huge, pruning also gives the plant good shape to well support itself during the growing season, and wont be destroyed by bending stems and by caving in on itself due to its massive size.

Sucker Plants

When pruning a plant, the first stems to go are any that are touching or very close to the soil, as well as something called a sucker plant. Sucker plants are the stems that grow in between the main stem and the first off-shoot of the main stem. A good way to remember this is to hold up your thumb, index, and middle finger. The thumb is the off-shoot, the middle finger is the main cane, and the index finger is the stem you would chop.

Sucker plants often do provide some buds for fruit, however the energy used to create the cane saps the energy necessary to produce large fruits. Overall, it is not worth the effort to keep them on the plant.

How And What To Prune

As mentioned before, any leaves close to the base of the stalk that are touching the soil need to be pruned. Sucker plants can be picked off when they are small, and do not necessarily need pruning shears unless they are larger than 3" to avoid splitting down the spine. Some sources suggest pruning any leaves below the lowest cluster or tomatoes, and always prune any yellow leaves.

I have also read in some sources that suggest keeping 4-6 stems of fruit, which allows a small number to grow, but larger fruits. Nearly all sources suggest keeping stems closest to the fruits to prevent burning while capturing energy from the sun to grow the plant.

Pruning stems require the use of shears and should be on a slant to avoid disease. Always prune dry plants, never prune when the plant is wet or right after a rainstorm. Also, pruning should be done before the plant gets overrun and wild; last year I pruned late in the season and over-pruned my wild plant. It withered and died shortly after due to the shock from pruning so much so quickly.

Conclusion

Pruning is beneficial for indeterminate tomatoes to keep fruits large and the plant healthy. Use shears to cut large suckers off and any branches below the first cluster of fruit, but make sure it's done while the plant is dry and do it early. 

Garden Update 5/21/13 Part II [Photos]

As of this week, I do believe the garden has been up and running for a good 8 weeks now. I'm sure it should be doing a lot better than it is, but we have had a lot of crazy weather patterns. The garden does look a lot better than this time last year. Some progress is still good progress, right?

If you've read one of my previous posts about 8 Things I Never Do In My Garden (Again) then you are aware of the fact that I am implementing some pest control this year, as well as weeding the garden a lot more. I'm not 100% with the weeds, especially since it seems the more I pick, the more pop up, but this time last year it was difficult to distinguish what was a seedling and what was a weedling. Part of the problem was that I had no idea what the seedlings were supposed to look like.

Here's how things are looking this week, week 8 of the growing season:

Broccoli  crown starting to form; yellow stuff is cornmeal to ward off worms.

Baby Black Krim Seedling

Grape Plant growing nicely; bean plants

Red Grape Plant, back from the dead!

Tomato Beds

Onion sets and carrot plants

Lines of Cucumbers, celery, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower

Onions, parsley, eggplants, mint, and other seedlings.

Garden Update 5/20/13

I've been a little bit M.I.A. the past 2 weeks in the garden, and was able to get back into the swing of things with a little surprise. And not necessarily a good one, either. I watered my plants a couple days ago and while walking around to just check on things to see how they were doing and noticed a rather large hole in the middle of the green beans. I peaked inside to find something with a large body crawling in, and after running out shrieking like a little school girl in a panic I grabbed my computer to figure out what on earth it could have been.

Much to my dismay, it appeared to be a nesting wasp that feeds on cicadas and buries a hole in the ground. While there is a lot of talk about an impending cicada overload, there's not a chance I'm allowing a wasp in my garden. When I was 9 years old I stepped on a yellow jacket nest in the middle of the summer and needless to say bees (or the like) are not my favorite of God's creatures. Not even close.

A day or two later I grabbed my dad, also not a fan of bees, and he grabbed himself a little smoke contraption and we planned to take care of business when I peaked in and found it was definitely not a wasp or anything with wings at all... It was the mother-load of millipede-like creatures cramped into a small hole in the middle of my bean bed. We packed up our smoke set and a little research said that millipedes were great for the garden; the bugs were spared to live another day.

That is, until today.

I went back in to check on things and to give the garden another water and found that not only was the hole still full of worms, but now the worms were taking over the beds. And, as if that wasn't enough, the last straw was finding some bite marks and a lost brand-new bean sprout. I checked on the other plants and noticed bite marks on several of the pepper plants, too, which happened to be very near to the ground.

In anger, I marched back into the house, pulled out my computer and read on another site that said they can be destructive to seedlings, especially if the garden is over-crowded. I also read that baking soda is a way to kill most any bug, including ants, which was great because the cornmeal I dusted over by the onion plants made them move to another box across the garden. After a cup of soda dusted across the problem areas and a mix of cornmeal and soda sprinkled on the ants' nest, I took another good look around to see what else needed tending to.

I did a little weeding today, pulled out most of the sprouts that had popped up almost overnight and planted a bunch of seedlings my mom bought over the weekend. Our local grocer had a super cheap sale on plants, and while I was out she went on a spree and bought cauliflower, red cabbage, 12 seedlings of eggplant, brussels sprouts and celery plants... pretty much all of which happen to be cold-season crops, aside from the eggplant. It ought to be interesting to see how they fare in the heat of the tent.

Ok, so here's a quick recap of the past two weeks:

• Found a thieves hideout of millipedes and dumped a cup of baking soda in it
• Found some of my pepper plants and bean plants were chewed
• Looking like 1-2 of the heirloom tomato plants didn't make it through the transplant (mostly due to me not allowing it to sprout large enough before planting
• Planted a ton of cold-season veggies in a hot tent
• The green grape plant is looking pretty good, and I'm pleased to think I'm getting grapes this year. Win!
• The red grape plant kind of exploded with new foliage. Last year nothing really happened. it was just pretty pathetic all season long and sprouted a half of leaf. Today I walked in and it has 4 nice canes growing, so while I can expect no grapes from it this year, I know it's still alive.
• Broccoli has a floret! Not sure how that works or how to pick it, but there's one there!
• Bean plants are growing so well. Pretty excited about this since they bombed last year.
• Cucumbers finally sprouted. Actually, the organic ones I bought online sprouted, the big-box chain home improvement store ones did not. Not-a-one of them.
• Onions are getting pretty tall, at least a foot on them so far. They're actually starting to stink up the tent, so I guess it's a good sign that they're fragrant. 
• Carrots are growing! I had a hard time growing them last year. Lots of greens and no carrot, so hopefully we have some roots growing in there this time. 
• Tomatoes have grown a lot. Eggplants, not so much. they haven't gotten worse, they just haven't done much.
• Tomatillos I've been having a heck of a time with. One of the cups was eaten by something, and the other two cups sprouted like 5 sprouts each. I managed to plant 3 total holes, so we shall see how this works with them.
• Jalepenos are showing progress, they've about doubled since their planting. 
• Zinnias have sprouted, so that's exciting. I hope that's a zinnia sprout.
• Really have to plant my cantaloup plants and my squash, however I found that our local stores do not carry chicken wire anymore, and I am currently trying to find another solution to how I'm going to trellis them without an actual trellis. Also something that doesn't cost a million dollars.

That's all folks. More next time. 

DIY Bowling Ball Lady Bug Tutorial [With Templates]

I saw this online, so I'm not taking credit for it, but there were no plans or print outs to help make it. So, while it took me quite a bit of cutting and planning, I've taken it upon myself to make some plans to help you on your mission of creating your own lady bug bowling ball!

Here's what you need:
1 Bowling Ball (I'm not sure what size mine was, I'm pretty sure it was a 10# ball, so if you have larger ones, you can increase the size of the templates to fit.)
2 Cans Spray Paint (I used outdoor gloss in pink and black)
White Paint
Black Paint for touch-ups
Paintbrush
Pencil
Masking tape
Something to balance your bowling ball on while you spray paint it (I used a metal rod that was a 2" cube
Scissors
Plans (Below)


Step 1: Sand the bowling ball just to get the surface rough. My bowling ball was pretty shiny, and I wanted to make sure the paint would stick to the ball and have as less of a chance of chipping as possible. I also sanded the finger holes, too, since they were even more smooth and wanted to ensure the paint would stick.

Step 2: Spray paint the entire globe black in a thin, even coat. Make sure that you really mix the paint and don't worry about a couple drips here and there. Also make sure to spray inside the finger slots at this point. Once painted, it's important to let the globe completely dry for a full 24 hours before spray painting again. I had originally let it only set for about 3 hours before painting it over and it was still a bit tacky. When I sprayed the pink coat, the wet black paint bled through and it looked like a mess. So just to be safe, let it sit for a full day, preferably on a day that is not very humid. 

Step 3: Print out the pieces below and cut them out. The back piece is not long enough to be printed out on one sheet of paper. It says "12 Inches" on it, but just do it the length of your standard printer paper. You may need to adjust it to fit within the margins. I used about a 15 inch piece, but you can use however long of a backstrip you like. I included an extender to print, just tape the extender to the main backstrip and cut as needed. 

Step 4: Once everything is cut out and your bowling ball is completely dry (and really has sat for 24 hours) you can now stick all the pieces except for the eyes to your bowling ball with masking tape. Try and tape it so that there are no cracks in between the ball and the template. You're going to have some of the colored paint seep through, but taping it as much as possible helps avoid heavy spot touch-up later on.

Step 5: When all of your templates except for the eyes are taped, spray paint the entire bowling ball that is exposed the color of your choice. Again, let sit for a full 24 hours. This sounds like an excessive amount of time, but there's nothing worse than spending all this time on a project and then smudging it with your fingers. So just sit tight and forget about it until it's dry!

Step 6: Carefully peel back all the templates. The masking tape did not chip my paint, but just in case you have some heavy spots of the top coat on the tape, you don't want to peel it off.

Step 7: Put the eye template evenly between the finger slots, and set it where you think it will look best. Make sure to center it! Using the pencil, outline the template. When you take the paper off, you should see a faint pencil line to paint. Using the white paint, paint the eye balls, but leave the finger slots black. 

Step 8: Do any touch-ups with the black that are necessary and let dry. Then you're done! Enjoy this little guy in your garden! 

Download these to your computer and pop them in your word processing software, or software with a ruler guideline to measure.

 

 

8 Things I Will Never Do In My Garden (Again)

Let's face it, I'm still pretty new to gardening. A "noob", so to speak. While I admittedly do not have all the answers (to gardening, that is) I do know a couple things I will not be doing ever again. Some are a "duh" response, and some just come with experience, but hopefully this will help any other fellow "noobs" in their gardening journey. This list is kind of one of those lists where you should hold your left hand up and have your right hand on a Bible and speak the words written. If you're not one of those people, just read on and skip the solemnly swear bit--but at least keep it in the back of your thinking when your out among the beds.

1. I will not avoid weeding the garden. This is number one, and I thought to myself last year these exact words: "The beds are deep, there's no way a bunch of tiny weeds and grasses can suck that much life out of my plants." Lies, people. Lies. What am I doing to combat this? Taking things in stride. I'm not out there every day 24/7 picking weeds, but I do break it up into sections. I weed one section a day so I'm not feeling like a slave to weeds and it gets the job done in between my busy schedule. Also, You might see on my tomato plant picture below that I laid paper bags down on the beds to cover up unused space. My irrigation system is underneath the bags so I don't have to worry about the soil getting too dry. 
2. I will not underestimate beetles (and bugs). I thought they were ok last year really only because I hate bugs and didn't want to touch them. The repercussions? ruined corn, beans, squash, watermelons, and potentially the cause of why my eggplant didn't boom. The solution? You got it, simple soap and water mixture, and maybe even a dash of vinegar in a spray bottle to ward off vicious beasts. It's worked amazingly with the giant nasty spider I encountered on my strawberry plants. In addition to the soap mix, I've dusted the beds with cornmeal to take care of the insane numbers of ants and to ward off broccoli worms. Crushed up egg shells alongside tomato plants were also another way of me taking down any potential hazards.
3. I will not "turn a blind eye" to the soil. While I still need some more research on the pH levels of soil and what to do if it's too alkali or base, I'm definitely taking a look into it this year. In addition to this, using natural fertilizers and compost is another must, which leads me to number 4...
4. I will not go another year without compost. This is kind of one of those things that shouldn't ever have happened in the first place. I knew better than to not compost. Rich nutrients in broken down plants and scraps is the best thing for growing veggies. It's an age old nugget of common sense to compost. For some newbies, it's become a sort of taboo. But this year, things will be different. I'm getting back in touch with my "roots" and doing it the old way. Now if only rain barrels didn't attract a serious amount of mosquitos...
5. I will never ever ever EVER plant any vegetable upside down. If you have ever seen those sneaky Seen on TV growing containers that promise your tomatoes will grow heavy yields upside down, steer clear. Trust me. All the plants were confused when growing, as they all tried to grow right-side-up. Watering them was difficult since most of the water ended up on the leaves, and out of the 13 plants I planted, only 4 produced fruit. The crops were very tiny, perhaps giving me only 20 cherry tomatoes the entire season and one poorly sized "large" tomato. 
6. I will never automatically assume plants need to be spaced a full 2 feet from one another. And by that, I'm talking the tomato/pepper/eggplant family. I recently read that the suggestion was so that you could have space to work around the plant. But what I found last year, was that even though i planted my tomato plants about 1 foot apart, they did great and produced a ton of fruit. With adequate pruning and long arms, 6 plants could easily have grown in each of my 4'x3' sections. There is actually a blog that I have followed who plants easily 15 tomato plants in a 15' row and gets heavy yields of tomatoes. 
7. I will never use the compostable seed starting containers again. We all love being green, and no one wants to disturb the roots, but it is very difficult to plant something in these pots and expect them to keep their shape when watering. In my experience with this, the pots would soften, mold, fall over, and cause more harm than anything else. Not to mention it sucks the water out of the soil and requires a lot more watering than necessary. My solution: using plastic cups with holes punched in the bottom and letting them sit in a shallow bath of warm water and a bit of epsom salt solution.They grow like crazy, and the constant access to water and non-competitiveness of the plastic cup allows the seedlings to have the perfect environment for germination. As for it's recyclability, plastic is very much recyclable if you don't find other uses for it. 
8. I will never go the route of watering my plants by hand again. For a garden the size of mine, it would take about an hour to an hour and a half to water it, and doing so nearly every single day in the heat of the summer. I honestly began to resent it and would avoid doing it if I could. But, neglecting to water your garden is detrimental. In addition to its nuisance factor, the leaves of all my low-growing herbs began to sprout disease and were eventually unusable. This year I have opted for an irrigation system that sits on the soil and waters the plants right at the roots to avoid any splash up. And the best part? I can water my garden in the privacy of my own lawn chair without lifting a finger. Well, once I flipped the switch, that is.

Now you've seen my list of 8 things I will never do in my garden again. What about you? What have you taken oath to never do again?

I will never let my beds become "weed tolerant" again.

Update On The Garden 5.6.13

It has been a few weeks since my last post, but here is a quick recap:

• Since it's been quite cold so late this season, I have put off planting the tomatoes until last week. My plants are all snuggled in a greenhouse, so one night of frost isn't going to bother them, but I have waited until the average temp has been about 60 degrees inside. I've planted 6 black Krims, 6 big boys, and 2 san marzanos in the beds, and am waiting until the tomatillos are a little bigger before I transplant them.
• I had read online that it is best to plant the tomato plant stems deep in soil, so this year, since the stems were already nearly 2 feet tall, I planted them about a foot deep, leaving just enough room to let the bottom set of leaves droop without touching soil. In each pot I planted 1 egg shell, 1/2 cup used coffee grounds, and about 1 inch from the top of the soil I planted a banana peel. I had made a really great Dominican Banana Bread that week and had plenty of peels to plant. 
• With any extra egg shells I've had from cooking I let dry and crushed at the base of my tomato plants. I don't have enough for all of the peppers/eggplants/tomatoes yet but I'm working on it. Last year we had a heck of a time with slugs in the garden; they were not really ruining anything, they were just everywhere. Thankfully, after it rained, a hungry gardner snake would come in and have himself a buffet and leave. Unfortunately, two people in my family hate snakes and want them banned from the garden. I don't feel this way because they help out tremendously. If you can manage to let them in, you'll be surprised on how much good they can do.
• My squash is still inside for now. I'm waiting until they reach a decent height to be able to rest on chicken wire, so maybe another week and we will be fine.
• The cantaloupe plants are taking over the sunny window i n my kitchen, but it's still been a bit too cool for them to take a chance of transplanting them outside. Better safe than sorry.                  
• The cucumber seeds have not sprouted yet. I seem to remember having this problem last year, that they waited to sprout, and then when they did it was crazy with cucumbers. 
• The 100 onion sets I planted are doing great, and no one has plucked them (thank God we didn't have a repeat of last year when someone thought they were weeds. Not me, someone else.).
• Carrots are finally sprouting. It took them quite some time, but I read that they take on average 3 weeks to sprout.
• The broccoli plant has doubled in size but nothing has been produced yet.
• I planted an entire packet of green beans in one bed based on last year's growth rates. Last year about half started to grow before stopping and dying suddenly. This year, every single one is popping (75 of them so far) (wow) and they're doing great. 
• Debating whether or not to plant strawberry plants in gutter or reuseable grocery bags. 
• Decided to plant mint in the pots that the san marzanos were going to be in, however I have yet to do this yet. Yes, I am being super lazy.

Also to note, we have put in the first half of a DIY irrigation system. Last year it would take on average a good hour at least to water everyone, and then doing it nearly every day. Not only was it obnoxious and taking up way too much time, the hose was knocking everything around and nearly took out my sweet little grape plant. In a later post I'm going to show how I did it inexpensively so that you can do it, too. This one we hit a few bumps in the road, but the second half of the system will be 100% better and "kink" free. 

First Planting of the Year - Onions and Carrots

After finding the shower attachment for the hose broke from last year, I had to wait a couple of days before I could get another attachment and water the beds before doing any major planting. While it's still too cold even in the tent for tomatoes (hopefully I can plant in another week if the weather warms up a bit) I was able to start my onion sets and carrots. I purchased a couple onion sets from a local store and ended up having a ton more onions than I expected. I should have laid them all out before putting in the carrot seeds, but I managed to fill a spot in the her bed and a small row in one of the other beds with the leftover onions. I also planted kaleidoscope carrots this year. Last year I planted nantes, denvers, and minicors, but I couldn't remember where I planted the minicors and ended up having finger carrots the entire summer. This year, I kept it easy and just did the kaleidoscopes - an easy way to plant a bunch of different kinds without having to wonder when to pick them. Also a bonus, the stores and markets in my area don't sell them to this will be the first in trying Atomic Reds and Purple Passions. 

The green beans were planted, and i ended up getting the Kentucky beans, only because all of the tri-colored beans I planned on planting were bush beans. I had found in my research that bush beans grow and produce usually one crop, whereas the pole beans produce much longer. For the amount of space i have for them to grow, I wanted to make sure I had a prolonged crop as opposed to one big crop. It certainly wasn't what I had planned on, but I hadn't planned out my seed purchasing well enough and purchased some seeds on the impulse instead of waiting for them to arrive via snail mail. I ended up getting three rows of them along the trellis, and last year not every bean sprouted, so while it may be pretty compact to grow them like that, I wanted to be safe to make sure I had a heavy growth. Worst case scenario, I thin them later on.

Also to report: planted the cucumber plants. I'm growing a super crunch variety that says on the package prolific crops. Prolific sounds like a good key term. Honestly I bought that package because of the word prolific. We'll see how that goes.

The squash plants are growing like crazy in my hydroponics room and I'm wondering if I bought Jack and the Beanstalk magic beans. Black Krims bloomed and so did the tomatillos, and not to mention the near 2ft high beefsteaks I now have that I planted a few blog posts ago. 

I was disappointed to find out today that lavender takes 2 years before getting a big crop. A couple sources online suggested winter sowing to get a good crop in the spring. Sounds interesting, I'll have to see what exactly winter sowing is. 

Lastly, I ended up planting a broccoli plant someone bought me. I've never tried growing broccoli because it just seems the way we eat it and how cheap it is in my local mart, it doesn't pay to take up the space in my garden. Since it's a cool weather plant, I'm assuming I will only get a main crop and maybe a secondary crop if I'm lucky before it will get plucked. In place of the broccoli I will be planting a tomato plant, which, technically you're not supposed to grow the two together, but after some research there's been several reports of broccoli and tomatoes living in harmony. One plant won't hurt, right? 

Coming up:

Working on getting a home-made composter set up | Prepping the garden with cotton twine | Getting the strawberry gutter up and running | lots more fun stuff

Things Are Starting To Come Together

I started a couple more seeds this week; basil, parsley, and other herbs, including lavender, which I've never tried before. I went to one of the big box stores and managed to find a small yellow tomatillo seed, which I'm hoping is the pineapple tomatillo I was planning on buying online. This one happened to be heirloom and half the price of the one online. I also found a black krim tomato seed, which I've seen online that many people recommend. I haven't tried planting heirloom yet, so this will be a first.

There was a great sale at my local store on started plants, and I got a couple strawberry plant seeds to start, as well as a couple bunches of onion plants. I had really good success starting them from seed, but the problem was someone thinking they were weeds and plucking them just as they were forming their globes. No, it wasn't me that plucked them!

I also started my squash seeds, and since I only have one pot of cantaloupe started, I really need to get going on the cantaloupe. The watermelon seeds did not germinate, with the exception of one seed, so I will have to re-try them again. I had a hard time starting them last year from seed, too, especially since when I direct-sowed them bugs got to them before they had a chance. I want to make sure the vines are at least 12" before they are planted, so starting them as early as possible is ideal.

Most of the herbs have bloomed already which is quite exciting, especially since I had a hard time last year starting them. The plastic cups really made a difference, as I can just stick them in a tray of water and let them do their thing - no worrying about falling over and breaking in newspaper pots. I am all for green gardening, but sometimes I would rather use the plastic cups than throw money away from worthless seeds and not being able to tell what's what. Much less frustrating.

It's been raining for most of the week, so I haven't been inclined to do anything outside, especially since it was 39 degrees this afternoon. It is supposed to clear up this weekend, so I will be able to get more of a jump on things. I still have a lot of setting up and a lot of twine to tie before the warm weather comes.

The flower pots were started today, and since it's been rainy I planted the seeds in dry soil and left them out to get water in the rain. This weekend I will finish hanging them and get started sowing the onions, carrots and lettuces. I skipped on doing peas this year, only because they are just so cheap at my local grocer and I would rather use the space for something more beneficial.

Anyway, that's all for today, I'll post again this weekend after I've gotten some work done.

7 Home Remedies For Itchy Mosquito Bites

One thing I never took into consideration when I started gardening was the amount of disgusting bugs that inhabit nature. It's one thing to spend some time outside, because we all do it and it's great... but once you start flipping dirt around and messing with plants, it's like a siren goes off and hoards of insects come racing out to question you on why you are on their turf. My family and I have all spent a great deal of time outside the past couple of days prepping the yard for spring and summer, but for some reason I'm the only one that has gotten bit. And then it hit me. Bananas. Yes, bananas.

Bananas are a great source of potassium, which is both excellent in our diets as well as mosquitos' diets. Women tend to carry a bit more potassium than men, so we tend to be most favored of the sexes, but things get a little crazy when bananas enter the scene. I am a vegetarian, so I do eat a lot of fruits and veggies, but I love bananas. They're one of my favorite fruits, and I usually have at least one a day  (except in the summer, now you know why). It is kind of a commonly known fact in my family that I love banana fruit, and have often been called names because of it. (Specifically names of certain Jungle Book characters. Ahem.)

So what to do about all that itchiness?

Of course you could use an ointment or salve from the drug store, but what about a quick fix? I did a little research on home remedies because anything to immediately stop the itch would have been great... and here's what I found (and tested):

Baking Soda
Taking you back to chemistry, the irritant that causes the itch is acidic, and baking soda is an alkali chemical. In Laymans terms? It stops the itch. Since most of my forearm was itchy, I dampened a paper towel and put a light layer of baking soda on it before wrapping it around my arm. Don't laugh, but I did use plastic wrap around my arm to keep it secure. It was tingly for awhile (the 4 minutes I kept it on), but it did work for quite some time.

Green Tea Compress
A tea bag that has been warmed and then cooled and put on a bite can help reduce inflammation and irritation. I didn't have that much green tea in my house, but one bag on one of the bites provided some relief. I'm not sure about caffeinated teas, but I know green tea is good for helping with inflammation. After all, an inflamed bite means an itchy bite.

Cold/Hot Water
If the bite is really red from scratching, putting a little cold water or an ice cube on it will help reduce inflammation. If you've been good and haven't been itching it, sometimes the hot water will do the trick and provide temporary relief without causing it to swell again.

Vinegar/Rubbing Alcohol
This one I have not tried, although I would see why it would help. Vinegar and alcohol are excellent ways to sanitize a wound, so helping to cleanse and extract the irritant while the bite is still fresh may help.

Aloe Vera Gel
Pull out some of that gel in the medicine cabinet you've been keeping for a long day at the beach. That same gel that cools burns and soothes the skin does wonders with the bites. I only had a little bit left, but oh. my. that helped.

Tea Tree Oil
Lets be honest.. what can't tea tree oil cure? Similar to the tea bag routine on why it works. Dab a bit of this and some lavendar oil on it. Lavendar oil is great for calming effects on the mind and body.

Banana Peel
Wait a second... Didn't I say that bananas were part of the problem? Indeed. But the enzymes in the banana peel help draw out the toxins and dry up a bite or rash. This did work for awhile, but having sticky banana on my arm wasn't pleasant. On the other hand, I got to eat a banana. And that's always a good thing. Banana peel stops the itch, the banana fruit stops the craving. It's a win-win in my book.

So that's what I've tried, what about you? What do you use to cure bug bites?

Garden Plot Guide 2013

Here is my proposed plan for this year. The hanging baskets, although not mentioned in this guide, are going to be for flowers only, since I've always wanted to venture out in flowers but never have tried it. I bought cosmos and zinnias to start, which seem pretty easy and relatively safe, although I might end up buying a couple other varieties later on for cutting.

Before any critics freak about planting watermelon and cucumber in the same bed, I was planning on putting up a block in the bed so the two soils don't collide. As proposed, everything will be tightly planted, and may include more plants than mentioned. We'll see how things go.

Last year I had a really tough time finding decent information on gardening. I've read a couple books, but all I wanted was a "Do this, don't do that" guide. Simple, concise, and to the point. Of course, that doesn't exist.

I did want to venture into trying something different; strawberries in gutters. Only one rain gutter, just to try it. Also only one because I don't have any more space. Here's the link from the original site.

So this is my plan for this year, and hopefully with all the exciting things I plan to do to my garden (organic fertilization boosts, composting, weed prevention, etc.) we will be able to harvest a great amount of crops. I'm pumped for this year for sure, especially since I have a little bit of experience under my belt and I know which bugs to squash and which ones to let in. 

Prepping The Garden For 2013 And Other Chores

I'm going to be brutally honest with you, our yard looks like crap.

Yup, I said it. We're pretty busy people, and after owning a bakery for a couple of years and working nearly open to close every single day really does a number on a yard. This year, I am planning to get everything back in working order and making the yard look like it did back when it was in its prime pristine state. Ok, so maybe not every pricker and every tree is going to come down, but I'm going to tackle as much as I can!

I've already cleaned out the garden beds of roots and dried stems and anything that found itself in there over the winter. I've pruned the grapes and raked all the leaves out of the greenhouse space; and this year instead of using organic fertilizer, I kind of committed an organic gardening sin and bought miracle grow. I know, I know, organic gardening but not really. But listen, I'm working on making my own modernized compost bin and don't forget I bought cheapskate soil last year!

I dug half the moat around the greenhouse and will probably finish it tomorrow so I can put the tarp on and start my planting, since it's still high season for carrots and lettuces. Also, there is a space in front of the secondary house that needed quite a bit of cleaning. I did not take a "before" picture, but the boxwoods were so overgrown they covered the entire area, and whatever space they didn't cover, thick prickers filled it. A good pair of sharp hedge clippers, some elbow grease, and an hour or so later I have a nice pile of firewood and some bare stumps. I'm sure they would regrow into a manageable size if left alone, but I really wanted to put some Pinterest ideas to use and do a lovely cottage garden.

Besides, boxwoods are great just as long as they are maintained. If something goes awry with flowers, a good lawn-mowing will solve the problem.

Heres today's escapades:

Cleared beds and added fertilizer, also raked most of the leaves out

What's left of those mangy boxwoods and pricker patches.

A side note of the white border on that last picture, we had some tiles leftover from when we put a stone backsplash in the kitchen that I thought would be interesting to mark out a border. I don't intend to keep them there, by any means, I just wanted to see how a border would look in that space, and both my brother and my father asked me where I got the tombstones. Not funny.

I would like to do something like a small 12" iron fence on the border with some flowers and things behind it, but it may be a bit adventurous for right now. Ideally, it would be nice to have a small stone wall with an iron fence, but that's getting way to detailed and adding way to much work to someone else's to-do list. Because after all, there's no way I'm building something like that myself.

I have some great ideas of my own, but I love seeing what others come up with too. If you'd like to follow me on Pinterest, you can view my page here.

Starting Your Plants From Seed

This year I started my plants a little late in the season, however the method that I managed to use this time made the seeds germinate super fast and the plants are growing amazingly.

Here's something I learned from the first year of starting seeds early; don't use the compostable natural planters. I'm talking about those tan colored cups that you can just plant into the ground. I was smart enough to mark them with sharpies, and while the sharpies didn't fade or run with the water, the mold that grew on the cups molded over the sharpie writing and I ended up planting a bunch of tomato plants and none of the pepper plants I planted and tossed because I thought they were tomatoes. Also, they were extremely difficult to keep. Because the outside cup was compostable, it ended up getting soggy and breaking or tipping over when I watered them. I thought maybe it was because of overwatering, but again, since they were natural material they sucked up more water than the potting soil!

This year, I used some planter cups I found at the dollar store, but ended up having the light bulb go off when I realized I could use plastic cups, too, and we had a whole bag from a party we had last summer and never used them. I also found a tray that we had left over from our hydroponics garden (yep, we got one of them, too, and that one is doing fantastic!) and I used that to keep the cups in and keep them moist. I also found that putting some epsom salts into the water solution helps plants to grow nicely. Once they germinated I put them under the solar lamp that my dad made. I will have to do a tutorial on how to create your own solar light since the one we made cost a mere $20 instead of the pricey grow lamps you find in stores and online. 

Here's a picture of the beauties after 2 weeks:

The clump in the center of the picture are all the extra seedlings that I had to thin out. Putting them directly into the epsom salt and water solution has kept them pretty nice for now. I don't have any more trays to keep them in with water, nor do I have any room underneath the grow lamp (below), so they will have to stay there until ready to plant. 

Also, a really good tip that I thought of this year is writing labels on each of the cups of not only what the plant is, but all the specs of that specific plant. For example, how many days till germination, how much sunlight, etc. Also, I stuck it on with packing tape to avoid any seepage of the sharpie marker. See that? Always thinking ahead.

Above is the grow light that we fabricated out of some metal tubing and a light bulb. The tubing acts as an excellent reflector and also a heating element. Notice the fan alongside the table, to keep both the plants and air moving.

I will post pictures before transplanting.

Bonus! I read online that apparently Home Depot recycles the plastic planters their trees and plants come in. Several sources have said that just by going in and asking to take them off HD's hands, they can score free plastic planters such as the one in my picture. Mine, however did not come from HD, but it is a recycled one we had gotten last year. 

Do's And Don'ts And Other Tips

I teetered with naming this post "Common Sense" but I figured there are other people out there who have not started out in their own gardening adventure and therefore some of these tips are not, in fact, common sense. I'm a city girl, hence the blog name, but I like to get my hands dirty and I like knowing where my food comes from. With all the food recalls and GMO's and pesticides, it's reassuring to know that I grew something safe and having the satisfaction of growing something from the ground up.

Here are some of the things I did last year and some tips I learned; below are the results and conclusions.

• I bought the cheapest soil I could find because, let's face it, 5 huge beds are a lot of space to fill. I ended up spending about $100 just on soil, and that didn't even fill all the beds. I took some soil from the back of the back yard that had 10 years worth of composted leaves.
• Since I bought the junkiest soil ever, I bought some organic fertilizer. I used two full bags of it mixed into the dirt, but I really didn't see much effect from it.
• I started my seeds early, as directed, but I started them in the basement. Here's the thing about starting your plants in the basement: unless your basement has some good airflow and isn't too humid, you should be good. Also, it helps if you don't get a huge flood in your basement from an unexpectedly wild rainstorm.
• Know you are getting good seeds. I bought my seeds from a discount store, and while the prices were really great, the green onions I planted were not, in fact green onions. They were a weed that looked exactly like green onions, however, smelled like lemongrass. No, it wasn't lemongrass, either.
• I tried hanging tomato plants upside down, as seen on TV. Had 11 of them babies. See results for, well, the results.
• I bought 2 grape plants from one of the home improvement stores (don't remember which one, really) and while I was pretty confident one of them was a 2 year, I'm pretty sure after careful research it wasn't. It was way too small to be a 2 year plant. I did end up with a 2-3 year plant, the Niagara grape, so it ought to be interesting to see if it will fruit this year in it's 3rd (or fourth?) year of life.
• Growing your own cut-and-come-again lettuce was great, except it only made enough lettuce to feed two people at any given cutting.
• Starting a garden costs a lot more money than I had expected. I got a great deal on the greenhouse, it was only about $399 (and don't laugh if that was a rip-off, I couldn't find anything cheaper), but the costs of the lumber, soil, seeds, tools, etc. really added up. So if you're looking to start a garden, save some money or look for ways to be thrifty. 

Here are the results and conclusions:

• As stated in a previous post, I did really well with the tomatoes.... but only the ones that were planted in the ground, not in the baskets. I read half and half reviews of people doing well and doing poor with the tomatoes in hanging baskets. I won't be doing that again this year. The ones that did produce well, I didn't know about pulling sucker plants. For those of you who are unfamiliar with suckers, check out my post on suckers.
• Cucumbers also produced a lot. I had about 8 really super healthy plants, and between the 8 of them we had constant cucumbers all season long. I had some to play with pickling, but they were so good they never made it to the can.
• Herbs grew really well in my garden, but because I planted them so close together, watering them without getting water on the plants was impossible. What do wet plants do? They attract mildew and mold and other unlovely things. While I had a lot of great oregano plants, most of them fell short to disease. 
• Eggplants grew well, although the flower would form and then die. What I mean is, the flower would die, not the plant. While I had super healthy plants, they never produced one eggplant. I later found that there were beetles that were chilling on the plants, it was more than a beetle killing the flowers. 
• Corn sucks in greenhouses. It just does. I had poor success with it, and while it grew 3 nice corns, the plant ended up shriveling and dying due to corn worms that snuck in before I could catch them.
• I didn't realize that in order to grow really nice green beans, don't let them flower until the plant vine has grown a little bit. I got about 12 beans the whole season.
• Squash should be trellised and kept away from squash bugs.
• The carrots did not grow very well in the soil, mostly because the top of the ground dried out from lack of covering. 
• Super Important: Watch who goes into the garden! If you are vacationing or leaving your garden up to someone else for a couple days, make sure they don't go in and pluck out all the parsley and onions because they looked like "weeds". Thanks, dad.
• Which leads me to say this, I didn't do a whole lot of weeding, mostly because I couldn't tell what was a weed and what was onions. Weeding is important, however, this I learned.
• Spinach grew well, although I didn't realize you had to pick them to keep them growing. Seems like an oxymoron to pluck them to make them grow... but apparently that is what you should do. Still, though, will not be planting them again. They're just too cheap to buy.
• The peas did not grow that well, but I've chalked it up to poor seeds. Some of them grew fantastic, and others didn't make it out of the ground. I ended up with 3 plants in a 12 foot space. This year, though, I won't plant them only because It's a little too late in the season for me to plant them.
• I didn't have good success with the brussels sprouts, only because I couldn't tell what was a brussels sprout and what was a weed. This year, though, I won't plant them only because I want to use the space for something else. I just eat way to many of them to grow them, and there's a great farmer's market nearby that sells organic ones cheap, so it's better for me just to outsource.

I do realize a lot of this is a little bit of me not using common sense, (ahem, obviously you should not water the plant itself) but I did learn from it. This year I won't buy from the discount store, I'm ordering my seeds offline and buying some at a more reliable store. But before I ramble another long list... I'll save my plan for a future post. Until then, I'm signing off on this post. Cheers!

Garden Plot Guide 2012

So this is the plot plan that I worked with last year. It seemed well thought out at the time, considering I poured over pages and pages of wikipedia companion plant guides, carefully puzzling and piecing veggies and fruits together to see what fit. One thing that is not mentioned in this plan is that I had 11 hanging baskets hung from the top bars of the greenhouse. In those, I planted 11 more tomato plants (9 were cherry tomatoes that did okay and 2 were big tomato plants that did not do okay) with basil planted on top of the tomato plant roots. Those did well.

Now just bear with me, because I know a lot of what you'll find that I learned from year 1 seems a bit brainless and common-sense, especially if you're a good gardener... but just remember that I had no experience with the exception of watching my great-grandfather when I was 4 years old. And of course, this was back before Pinterest (which was an answer to one of my prayers), and back when I had no idea how to search the internet for adequate gardening tips.

Also, did I mention I don't like to read that much? If I see tons of text, goodbye.

Here's what I learned from this plot guide:

• Squash should be trellised. By time I realized this, beetles had eaten the heck out of my plants and it was too late.
• Watermelon really should be started indoors a long time before planting them in this plot. Bugs found them fast.
• Corn sucks to grow in greenhouses.
• Be prepared to have cucumber grow everywhere.
• Planting things in hanging baskets, for example upside-down tomato plants, is a bad idea. It's made worse when the water that overflows falls directly onto the plant and everything else around it. Including me.
• Planting things in hanging baskets is especially hard to water when you are short and they are hung so high up you rely on a ladder.
• Planting things in hanging baskets are VERY hard to harvest when you are very short and rely on a ladder.
• Planting basil in hanging baskets, on the contrary, seemed to be a good idea. It worked well!
• Cucumbers are ridiculously easy to grow. I had very good success with them, which is amazing since I seemed to be killing everything else.
• Beans should be trellised. Even though I read in a book that in the old times Native Americans would plant beans with corn so the beans would grow up on the corn plants... my beans ended up growing much quicker than the corn.
• Don't plant brussels sprouts. Just don't. 

There's a lot I learned from just the actual puzzle of planting, which makes me 100% more confident about how I plant this year's garden. Experience is the best form of learning, so we will see just how much I learned from last year. 

Also, I'm excited that I was able to find a couple photos of my first year garden. It's not much, since I still can't seem to recover the really good ones where it looks like a jungle, but hopefully I will be able to post them later for your viewing enjoyment. 

This is how it started before I added the other two beds.

After adding the hanging baskets and the other two beds.

Tomato plants!

What Was I Thinking?!

Last year, after three years of research and poor planning, I went out on a limb and decided to start a garden. A full fledged, monstrous plot of land filled with every vegetable known to man, hoping and believing that it would be as lush and fruitful as the garden of Eden. Well, at least it started out that way.

When I was young, like under 10 years old, my great grandfather had this awesome garden in our backyard. He grew a ton of vegetables; tomatoes, squash, beans, and my favorite, fava beans. I always wanted to play in it, and once or twice he allowed me to go running through before kicking me out after a few minutes and several pokes and prods at fragile plants. I was hooked. 

Now, many years later, I don't have my great grandfather with us anymore but we still have the plot of land in the back that's now overrun with prickers and a strangely bent tree growing out of the once lush garden. I often looked out at that plot of land, remembering the rows and mounds of vines heavy laden with veggies and wondering whether or not I should venture out and start it myself. After all, what's so hard about growing some vegetables? You plant them, water them and boom, your grocery bill is cut in half. 

I finally was able to convince my family to venture out and buy a greenhouse; a large plastic 12 foot by 24 foot sauna sitting in the backyard holding 5 little plots of happiness. I read a lot of sources that said you should start small, but anyone who knows me knows that I don't do small. I go all the way all the time, and starting a garden was certainly not going to be a small 4x4 plot! 

We made our own raised beds from some cheap wood at Home Depot, spun our own lattice out of cotton twine, started some seeds in the basement and bought a couple of grape plants. And that, my friend, is where the adventure started. 

I'll be honest with you, some people start gardens and they take off, and you hear these lovely stories about how they had baskets of veggies and bunches of herbs. And that kind of sort of did not happen in this case. There were a couple of things I overlooked--ok, a lot of things I overlooked--and while I did get a good crop of tomatoes, basil, and cucumbers, I struggled a good deal with everything else. 

I was smart enough to take pictures (mostly for bragging rights to show everyone all the plants I grew that didn't die), but the computer I uploaded them on recently crashed and now I am stuck with no pictures. Just imagine a garden overflowing with plants that produced next to nothing and you'll have a pretty good idea of what we were working with.

Somewhere I read that it's good to journal your gardening as to not make the same mistakes twice, and while I didn't journal last year's garden, I am going to blog this years garden so not only do I not make the same mistake twice, YOU don't make the same mistakes! So here's to a new year, a new chance, and a new garden!