Monday, April 30, 2007

Spring Planting

Today, Brent left for a training and won't be home till Thursday, so I figured it was a good time to do a bunch of gardening projects to keep busy. After school in the a.m., we headed out to Home Depot and bought all our plants. After we got home we spent 3 1/2 hours planting everything. Here's what we got:

Red impatiens for the front gardens and well garden- 2 big flats- I want a full look! (The deer have eaten our flowers the past few years since our sensor light was broken. Brent finally fixed the light, so I'm praying and hoping they will survive the summer!)

Purple Heather- annual- on clearance, but nothing looked wrong! Two of those for the front garden.

White flowery low growing bushy type plant that I can't think of the name of right now! Two of those- and they're perrenial!

2 Blueberry Bushes- which I already had gotten a little while ago- planted on front/side garden

Purple clematis- I LOVE these, but have not been real successful with them. BUT, I'm determined not to let it die this year! LOL!

Then, the fun part! Veggies!

This year I gridded our square foot garden- somehow I missed this part of the method last year- duh! I used twine to grid off 12 inch squares. The kids loved hammering nails into the sides and wrapping the twine! (Yes, a staple gun WOULD have been much easier, but alas, Brent took the staple gun WITH him to training and I didn't want to wait! Besides, the kids had so much fun! I didn't have to hammer a single nail!)

2 Early Girl Tomato plants
2 Better Boy Tomato Plants
2 Bush Beans
4 broccoli, plus I sowed the seed so we'll have a continuing crop!
4 different kinds of lettuce seed
1 yellow pepper (this is new for me!)
1 Watermelon (you should've seen the HUMONGOUS one we got last year!)
2 Cantelope (actually, I didn't mean to get two. Somehow an extra one got put in the cart. Probably Jake since he inhales them!)
1 Honeydew- (also new)
2 strawberries (I think I want to do them in a container so they don't take over!)

I planted the vining plants next to the sturdy tomato cages. Last year this worked really well to have both tomato and cantelopes on a cage.
I still think I want to find a few other fun things- maybe sweet peas, sunflowers (kids loved them!), cauliflower (I don't know if I like this or not! LOL!), hmm... what else? This is the time of year when my eyes are bigger than my... desire to weed! The nice part is that the square foot gardening minimizes weeding!

So, all in all it was a fun day. We were tired but happy. And, the kids were soaked from playing with the hose while watering! LOL! I wish I had pictures of them planting but ONCE AGAIN!!!! the camera batteries were dead and my hands were too dirty to replace them!

4 comments:

  1. That is great Tiff! How many squares do you have?

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  2. I have 1 4x8ft raised bed, so with 12 inch squares, it gave me 32 squares- more than enough. I saved some so that in a few weeks I can sow some more broccoli and lettuce seed so we have a continuing crop as long as possible.

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  3. Cool. I have just one 4x4 (16 squares), but enough boards to make 3 more. I don't know if we'll make them all this year...I wasn't planning on doing a garden at all. How many broccoli do you do in 1 square? I only did 1 per square of the plants. How about when you plant the seeds? Can you tell me when you plant the lettuce and broccoli seed, so I can do the same?! LOL

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  4. I am tired just reading what you did! Good thing you have helpers!!

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