Garden Progress

It has been really tough to resist planting the rest of the garden early and it looks as if it is finally time to get the rest of the plants in the ground.  There is just a sliver of snow left on the peak of Shafer Butte, and the days are getting warmer.  We might hit 90 this weekend.  I probably could have planted a couple of weeks ago and covered them when we had that one night of frost, but I wanted to be safe.  My early season seeds that I planted back in April are really taking off.  The snow peas did not all germinate so I am going to replant some after soaking them.

Yesterday I picked up the tomatoes and peppers.  I still need to buy cucumbers and a zucchini plant, plant my dill and basil seeds and we will be set.  I was able to plant the tomatoes and the green beans yesterday afternoon but it got hot out there fast so I will plant the peppers today.  Here is how the garden is faring so far.

The potato planter

Radishes and carrots, lettuce and scallions

Tomatoes

I have been slowly taking out all of the grass from around the garden beds.  They were a real pain to mow around last year and I thought it would look nice if we landscaped it a little by putting in some edging and mulch so it is more like a designated garden area.  It is a s...l...o...w process but I think it is starting to look great.  You can see in the tomato picture where I have taken the sod out from that area.  I looked all over for a sod cutter and couldn't find one, so I went to Lowe's and found this knife.  Its used for linoleum, but it works perfectly for cutting sod.

So bit by bit, I have been clearing it all out.  It's a decent workout also!  I am thrilled that the potatoes are growing.  Its always a little intimidating when trying to grow anything new.  It will be a while before we add the next level of boards but all three planters have leaves growing and they seem to double in size daily.  I have realized that I love gardening! I had to give the tomatoes more space this year because last year they overtook the beds and were too close together.  It limited how many things I can grow this year and I was pretty upset that I couldn't grow everything I wanted to.  I would love to have a huge garden to plant things.  Even if I just gave some of the veggies away, I just enjoy gardening.  I think it can be therapeutic in a way.

Tomorrow is the Race for the Cure and we decided not to do it.  Instead I am going to take the older girls out for a hike Sunday to somewhere new.  It should be a good time.

Spring Planting

We had some rain roll in over the weekend so I decided to get some planting done.  Things are getting busy around here so I wanted to get this early planting out of the way.  We are not out of danger of frost yet, but there are some things that can tolerate the early spring cold.  I planted some of the same things last year but am trying a few new things also.

Last year I mentioned I wanted to try growing potatoes, but we never got around to getting the planters built.  Since we have the beds for the rest of the garden ready to go, I put Brent to work on the potato beds.

 Cutting the boards

The idea behind the potato towers, is that you can grow a large amount of potatoes in a small space.  Since a potato is a tuber, it will shoot off potatoes where there is dirt and room to grow.  We found these plans and used them as a base for building them.  Potatoes can be grown just about anywhere.  Some people use tires, others garbage cans or buckets.  They can be grown in the ground and in towers like ours.

Three potato towers

We had enough lumber for three towers so I decided to experiment and plant three varieties and see which grew the best in this environment.  Many websites say that you can grow 100 lbs of potatoes in this type of set-up.  I plan on weighing them at harvest and see what yield we actually get.  I planted Little Reds in the first tower, Idaho Russets in the second, and Yukon Golds in the last one.  It will be interesting to see which variety does the best.

Idaho Russett potatoes

After I placed the 12 pieces of potato with eyes that were sprouting into the tower, I covered them with dirt.  Once they are about 6-12 inches tall, I will fill in dirt until there is 3-6 inches of leaves above ground and we will add another board.  This will be repeated until there are 6 layers.  Some people wait and do a harvest at the end of the season, or you can harvest throughout the season as well by removing the bottom board and harvesting some potatoes and then putting the dirt back in.  I have had little luck storing the big bags of potatoes we get in the fall so I think I will do the harvest as you go method.

Along with the potatoes, I planted some sugar pod peas this year.  I only planted one row because I will probably be the only one eating them, but I wanted to try something different.  I planted a different variety of carrots and radishes than I did last year.  The carrots from last year failed to grow very big.  I think they were a different variety than what was supposed to be in the package.  Then, like last year, I planted lettuce and scallions.  I will have to wait until May to plant anything else.  We still will get frost and there is still snow on Schafer Butte so I cant plant anything that will not tolerate the cold.

I'm excited for this year's growing season.  Everything did so well last year and I am hoping it will do good this year as well.

The girls enjoying the dirt from the grass we dug up

P is for....

Pears, Potatoes, Peppers and Pesto!  I have been wrangling with tons of all of this for weeks now and I cannot wait until the harvest is over.  This may happen sooner than I thought.  Today the high was only in the 60's and we are expecting our first possible frost tonight.

The store I work for ordered too many pears and decided to sell them at rock bottom price and I picked up 72 pounds of ripe Bartlett pears for a little over $7.  For three days, I turned them into canned pear slices and pear sauce.  In the end I had 18 quarts of sliced pears, and 5 pints of pear sauce.  I didn't do the math, but I am pretty sure I came out ahead!  By the last box, I was so tired of cutting and peeling pears that I threw the rest out to the chickens.  They seemed to enjoy it.

sliced pears

For the last three years, I have been buying large sacks of potatoes locally from some guys in a neighboring town.  It seems like a good price as I get 30 lbs for $5.  Right now I can get a 10 lb. bag at the store for $1, but these potatoes surpass them in quality.  They are HUGE! with very little blemishes and most still are caked with dirt they are so fresh.  Did you know when you buy a sack of potatoes from the grocery store, they are usually from the harvest the year  before?

Peppers! Where do I begin?  I do know that next year I am only planing ONE jalapeno plant.  I threw out so many peppers because I didn't get them in the freezer or eaten in time and my chickens hate peppers.  My bell pepper plants produced pretty well but they will definitely need more support next time as I lost several to broken branches.  My orange ones are just now turning.  I hope they can hang on a few more days through the frost.  As for the chilies, I looked online and learned to string them up to dry.  I will know in a few weeks if that was successful, but they do look pretty hanging in my kitchen!

ripe chilies hanging to dry

orange bell peppers

Pesto.. so delicious in its garlicky flavor.  In the middle of summer when my lettuce was all finished, I decided to throw down some basil seeds.  Those seeds really thrived in our summer heat!  I finally got around to turning some of it into pesto but it didn't make a dent in the crop.  If my plants survive the night I plan on finishing them off tomorrow.  Pesto has to be frozen and not canned unless you have a pressure canner in which I do not.  These plants are nearly 2.5 feet tall and I probably wont get to a fraction of what is on there but I am sure I will appreciate it in the dead of winter.

Basil

life interrupted

It seems I have slipped a bit again.  So much has happened since my last post and I don't really know where to begin.  On May 12th, Taylor and I ran in the Race for the Cure-Boise.  It was a gorgeous day and I felt really good.  I beat my first race time by 2 minutes and of course Taylor was waiting for me at the finish line again.  She is a speedy little thing.  It was a lot of fun and I look forward to my next one which is probably in August.

Boise Race for the Cure 2012

My friend is a nutritionist and I decided to work with her and try and get my nutrition on track and I am so glad I did.  I also took progress pictures for the first time since last September and all I can say is I was so shocked at how much my body has changed for the better since then.  I attribute it to beginning weight lifting.  Even though the scale hadn't moved much at all, I have definitely lost a lot of inches.  The first week of working on my nutrition I lost 5 pounds.  Its a 30 day program intended to help me become a "cleaner" eater and eliminate added sugar and processed foods.  It has been challenging and I will have to incorporate a lot of this for the rest of my life but I am happy with it so far.  I am officially coffee-free and have been drinking green tea instead.   For anyone that knows me... this is HUGE! I can't wait til the end of the 30 days so I can compare it again.

My garden is doing wonderful!!  I have four types of tomatoes, jalapenos, bell peppers, cucumbers, Lemon cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, summer squash, lettuce, scallions, spinach, wax beans, green beans and carrots all growing now.  I have room for two more cucumber plants and then they will all be full.

My first radish

The radishes I have picked since this are a bit bigger and the plants in the beds are a lot bigger now.

Mother's day this year was great.  My husband (and children of course) thought of the perfect gift.  When we bought this house, the front landscaping was a MESS.  There were three huge nasty rose bushes and I wasted no time digging those up immediately and I pulled out all of the myrtle that had taken over.  I uncovered a truckload of river rock and listed it on craigslist for free so it would get hauled away.  The bed has sat empty for over a year now.  On Mother's day I woke up to this beautiful sight-

Mother's day 2012

This wasn't enough to fill the area so the next week I went and bought some more to fill the space.  I am so happy with how it looks.  It is different than most people have around here with their bushes and daylilies.  I wanted lots of color so I have it now.  Now all we need is some mulch and it will be complete.

Summer has officially started and we are going to have a busy one.  My son graduated from kindergarten, my oldest is officially a middle schooler, we have two kids in tee-ball and games or practices 4 of the 5 days a week.  I have decided to cut back on work so I can be more available at home.  It was a hard decision to make but one that was needed and I think it will really help on many levels.  As it was before, I would have missed every single game of theirs and that was just not acceptable.

I am sorry I was neglectful and I hope I have been able to play a little catch-up with this post.  Thanks for visiting!  

40/40 : Part 1

I have had a little lapse in content so I decided to post the first half of an idea I picked up over at Sara's Organized Chaos.  She made a 30/30 list and did really well at accomplishing a lot of them before she turned 30 this past March.  I really enjoyed reading about all her adventures.  It inspired me as I am 4 years into my 30's to make a 40/40 list and am hoping it will encourage me to accomplish some of the things I have been wanting to do.  I will be honest in saying it is hard coming up with 40 things I want to accomplish in the next 6 years but I really think if I try I can do most of them.  Today I will give you the first half of my list and a brief explanation of why I chose that item.  My whole list is not complete but when it is, I will be sure to post Part 2.

1. Graduate college- When I returned to school in 2009, I planned on graduating in 2 years.  I am now 2 classes away from being finished.
2.  Go on a week-long backpacking trip- I have a LOT of preparing to do before this will happen.
3.  Own another Great Dane- 

my beloved Kadokah

4.  See the Ocean

5.  Stay in a yurt

6.  Go snowshoeing

7.  Quit Wal-Mart- I have worked there since 1994, half of my life.  I began when I was 16.  While it has been flexible during all my moves, having 5 kids, and going to school.. I hope achieving #1 will help me complete this one.

8.  Have a healthy BMI- I hesitate to put a specific weight here yet.. in all actuality.. I just want to be healthy.

9.  Go to Seattle

10. Go to Canada

11.  Take a kickboxing class

12.  Finish all my cross stitched stockings- back story: When my second child was one, I began these stockings.  I made mine first out of pure selfishness.  And then I started Taylors'. I will start working on them again and then my hands hurt but this is something I really want to finish.

13.  Make a Quilt for my bedroom

14.  Visit Monterey, CA- I lived there when I was really little and my dad was in the military.  I remember it being a spectacular place and I want to visit it again and see where I lived for a few years.  I also want to see their superb aquarium.

15.  Go whale-watching- ok ok, so a lot of these things I can meld together during different trips.

16.  Ride in a hot air balloon- This is probably #1 on my bucket list.  I have wanted to do this for sooo long

17.  Become a Master Gardener- This is a course a person pays to take that will teach them all they want to know about gardening.  I was in the Idaho Master Naturalist class and really enjoyed it.  It was a spin off of the Master Gardener program.

18.  Go to my 20 year high school reunion-  I have NO idea why.. but I missed my 10 year one so I want to go to my 20 in 2015.

19.  Go to Disneyland-  Hopefully in 6 years we will be ale to do this with all 5 kids!

20.  Soak in a hot springs

OK folks, I know it seems like there is a lot of travelling in our future.  A least the places I want to go aren't too far away.  I feel like all these things are attainable and hopefully putting it down on "paper"  will help me stay focused.  I will keep this blog updated as I complete any of these tasks and as soon as I come up with 15 more, I will deliver part 2!

Preparing for Spring

It seems weather all over the country is pretty bizarre.  Here in Idaho we are no exception. Spring is trying to show up but if you are a local resident, it is well known that you do not plant outside before the snow is off Bogus Basin, our little ski hill. Then, and only then is it safe from frost.  When I worked in the garden center, many customers would come back to buy new plant starts because they jumped the gun and planted too early in the season only to let Jack Frost claim the lives of the tiny seedlings.  I have to be patient and not allow this to happen to me.

It was supposed to rain all weekend but Saturday turned out to be really pleasant.  We managed to get some yard work done only to be surprised with a dusting of snow this morning.  I have been planning my garden for nearly a year now.  It was a year ago March 11th that we became homeowners and chicken owners.  I had decided long ago that when I owned my own home I would have chickens and a garden.  It's hard to believe we started out with 5 fuzzy chicks and now have 7 mature laying hens.  They have been doing a great job and we get anywhere between 4-7 eggs each day.

With our busy schedules I wanted to get a jump start on the raised beds we are planning.  I want to do it as organically as possible so I don't want to use chemicals on the ground where they will be going.  I am going to have 2 - 5x10 ft raised beds and 2 - 4x4 potato planters along our back fence, next to the chicken coop.  My goal is to have them installed and filled by the end of April so I can get them planted in May.  So this week, Brent and I laid down some black plastic and weighted them down in order to begin killing the grass where the beds will go.

Spring Rhubarb

Last fall we covered the Rhubarb plants with straw to protect them from the cold weather.  I had never grown a perennial plant like that so I wasn't sure if it would grow back this year.  We decided to peek at them and see how they were doing under their protective covering and lo and behold!! We have baby plants growing!! This year we will actually be able to harvest from it so we can have fresh rhubarb crisp!

I am so anxious and excited to have a real garden this year.  I only hope it will be as successful as my chickens are.  Now I have to decide what to plant.....