It's Been Awhile...

So much for my weekly updates.  The first big change has been adding a new puppy to the mix.

The second reason is that my camera just went out and died.  So I can't show any new pictures of how things have been progressing.  I finally have been able to get the puppies out of the garden, so things have been growing!

I'm starting to see a few flowers on the tomato plants so I can't wait to start seeing some little guys.  The herbs have been doing great, and I've been able to pick a couple little red strawberries off my hanging plant.

My biggest surprise though has been the leafy plants.  Now the salad mix was pretty big when I got it, so after I harvested that for the first time it was just a question of how fast it would grow back.  But the spinach had a couple near misses with Spock so I really wasn't sure whether or not they would recover.  Imagine my surprise when I see leafs ready to harvest this early in May!  Assuming they recover as well as the salad mix plant does, I don't think I'll have to buy any lettuce this summer.  

Plan C

So I was convinced that all I needed was something Spock wouldn't jump over.  It turns out that once he figured out that the plastic chicken wire didn't hurt and if he threw himself at it the stakes would bend and he could get in.  That along with the cold day did a number on my plants...so I basically had to start over.

I've decided that I'm done buying plants.  I have blueberries and some flowers that will be delivered in the next few weeks, but I'm not going to be replacing anything else (after the things I picked up today).

Along with the new plants I did my last shot at keeping Spock out...metal chicken wire with metal stakes.

So on the one side I've got two new tomato plants.  One's a regular tomato and the other will be cherry tomatoes.  I've also got some spinach and a green pepper plant.

One the other side I've got room for the blueberries, the only survivor from the first round of Walla Walla onions, a cantaloupe plant and a cucumber plant.

The last bit of the garden has been lucky enough to avoid the wrath of Spock (although the salsa garden didn't make it past the cold day).  The herbs are doing well.  I've also got a plant that's supposed to repel mosquitoes.  I've got a container with some coffee plants trying to sprout.  Finally I've got a salad mix and a strawberry plant hanging from the top.

So hopefully these guys will make it through and be delicious.

Plan B

So after the total carnage of the past week, I figured that starting from seeds inside is probably not a good idea with a hungry puppy around.  But I'm not giving up!  So when I went to pick up chicken wire I also bought some tomato plants and stakes.  Here are the final results.

The stakes are a like crooked, but seem to be holding up well so far.  Spock has tried to get in and chew on the plastic wire a couple times, but I think he's starting to get that he's just not allowed in there.

The other thing I made a game-time decision on was picking up some herbs.  Hopefully I'll be able to use them in my cooking over the summer.

Now after I got these set up outside I broke in the new hose and got everyone watered...and I mean everyone.  Spock was all about jumping in the water, but then decided he didn't like it and the only solution was rolling around in the dirt.  That left me with this.

RIP my plants

So after a long day at work...I come home to this.

and the best part...

So I started with 8 groups of four...1 was eaten yesterday....6 were eaten today.  So that means I'm down to one.  So hopefully that last little set of plants will make it.  I'll have to think about whether or not I retry any others inside.

The First Casualty

So things started sprouting over the past week.  But one thing I wasn't expecting was some fuzzy white guests.  After doing some homework I found out the mold is not unusual on the biodegradable containers I have, and it's usually a sign of over-watering.  Oops!  So I picked off the moss and put them all outside to dry out.

Then I did some more homework on how to try to save my plants...and some people recommended cinnamon.  I guess knowing how cinnamon dries things out it doesn't surprise me.  So I pulled it out of the pantry and seasoned my plants.  Of course this made them too delicious for Spock to resist.

So out of the eight groups of four plants that went outside...only seven survived.  I'm not even totally sure which ones were eaten.  I guess it'll be a fun surprise for me in the end.  However out of the ones that made it, about half are now showing some signs of green.

So hopefully the dry air and messy cinnamon will help keep my little plants going.  Because now I have a place full of dirt to put them.

Of course Spock has considered it his new place to play.  So I had to pick up some anti-animal powder to put around the perimeter.  So far it seems to be working...we'll just have to see how often I have to keep putting it down before the plants go in.

The Garden

Not much progress (actually it's pretty much like no progress) has been made on my seeds so it's not even worth sharing.  But I did make some serious progress on the garden front.  I figured I should start looking around in case putting together an area where I could actually grow something takes awhile.  So I wandered over to Home Depot to see what was there.

I found a kit for a raised garden.  Now since the area I've been eyeing was never used for a garden (and is actually pretty thin with soil in general) so I figured doing a raised garden would be the best way for my vegetables to stand a chance.  And there it was...a kit with instructions telling me what to do and having everything all spelled out for me.  So I picked up two 4x4 kits and made my way back home.  A few minutes (well more like 20) later and....

Now you might be thinking 'hey it looks like you have almost no soil' and you'd be right.  Now the kit recommended 8 cubic feet, so according to them I'd need 16 in total.  And at Home Depot all of the bags of gardening soil were 1 cubic foot.  The idea of me dragging home 16 bags of soil seemed completely ridiculous.   Not to mention I wasn't sure that I would actually want 16 cubic feet in total.  So I bought 2 cubic feet to figure out a good gauge of how much more I would need (and plan on shopping online for larger bags).  So here's what 2 cubic feet get me:

So yeah maybe the 16 cubic square feet is a good number to shoot for.  The other thing I will need is some kind of fence to keep everything protected from...

Number of times I had to chase Spock around to get a piece of wood or Styrofoam from the bock : 3
Number of times I had to shoo Spock away from chewing on the 2 cubic feet of soil I have: 2
Number of times I had to shoo Spock out of the garden itself: 2

So yeah...before any plants go in (and who are we kidding any more dirt goes in) I'm going to need to figure out how to puppy-proof it.

Week 1-ish

I was planning on making sure I updated every Sunday (with extras if anything particularly interesting happened) and of course am already a day behind...but it was all for a very good reason.

So here's what thinks look like this morning.

Which of course doesn't look any different from when I first planted them.  But if you look real close (which I don't think you can in this picture) I can see a couple green bean seeds cracking open so hopefully I'll have at least a couple sprouts next week.

One other thing I wanted to show is what's under the dome for what I'm calling "Proof that I can make some progress growing plants"

The way the plants are winding together is getting me thinking that I won't be able to transplant them to the ground very well...but we'll see.  Also the straws were my attempt at giving the plants something to wind around (which isn't working I know).

I'm also planning on making some progress in the backyard this week...so hopefully I'll have made enough progress that it's worth sharing.

The Challenge

 So here's the deal.  I've been wanting to get outside more and get more active.  Now last summer was filled with closing on the house and then settling in, but this summer I'm going to have more time.  I've got two goals for this summer.

The first one (which I'll start getting more into when the weather really turns) is that I want to start golfing.  I had lessons way back in the day, but will probably need to think about getting them again.  I've also got Mom's old clubs so that will make starting pretty easy.  There's also a golf course about 3 minutes from my house.  So later on I'll probably be stopping by and trying to get started.

Now for the vegetables...this idea was really inspired by a Christmas present.

Inside that are the plants that will make a mean salsa.  I've got tomato, cilantro, and jalapeno plants sprouting. I was getting excited at the idea of being able to make my own salsa and starting thinking that it would be nice to grow more vegetables.  So my small goal is to be able to eat something that I've grown.  My big goal is to have a whole salad made from things I've grown.

So it's still too cold for anything to be outside, but it is about the time when it's good to start seeds inside.  So I got some started today!

Now I put the leftover seeds from my salsa kit so I've got a few more tomatos, cilantro and jalapenos on the way.  And here are the other seeds that I'm starting.

So hopefully in the next week or so things will start sprouting.  Then the other nice thing with the containers I got is that they're meant to be planted directly into the ground, so doing the transfer should be pretty easy.  Then at some point in March or April I'll be putting in the other seeds that are meant to go straight into the ground in the early spring.

That means I've got about a month or so to get my backyard ready.  I've been keeping any eye on the area of the backyard that gets the most sun and think I know where I want to set up the fence.  Because (as I'm sure you've already guessed) I've got one big wildcard.

If the mat carnage in the picture doesn't give you enough of a hint, Spock does love to yank on things.  Of course he can really jump...so I'm going to have to do some more homework on the best way to fence in the garden.

So that's the plan.  I don't know if anyone is going to care to read this, but I'm probably going to keep going at the very least with the pictures to see how the plants progress.  So wish me luck!