4 April 2012

The last two weeks have been crazy! I don't really know where all my time has gone. The garden is almost finished but the last two beds are on hold. David leaves on Sunday for over three weeks. We did get almost everything built and I have started to work compost into the soil. I am looking forward to next fall/winter/spring when I can focus on fixing the soil and not building beds and hauling dirt.

The East Side.

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The West Side.

My Patio - I am almost finished with it. I just need to finish about ten rocks and I will be able to call it done!

My seedlings have out grown the garage and I have spent the last week carrying them out to the front yard to harden off. They spent the first five days by the house. They only received four hours of direct sunlight in the morning and the rest of the time in shade. I have keep moving them further out from the house and they are up to 6 hours of direct sunlight every day. The last two days they have been indoors because of the wind and cool nights. I am hoping to they are ready to plant into the garden next week. I am starting to get tired of hand watering every little cup.



Tomato and Pepper Plants

Now an update on the plants already in the garden. I found two blueberry bushes last weekend and just had to buy them. The larger one is the Bluegold Blueberry and the smaller one is Duke Blueberry. They were the same size but Roxie (the Great Dane Puppy) decided they needed to be pruned. I am not sure how she was able to get her 100 pound body under the fence, but she did. So I installed a temporary puppy guard until I am able to find a better solution. I planted the bushes along her fence to help give her and JD a little more shade and a wind block but I may have to move them. 

Blueberry Bushes

The Wild Plums are starting to put on leaves. It looks like three made the move without any damage but the larger ones are still trying to decide if they want to put on leaves.

Wild Plums

 My first group of lettuces are almost ready to pick. They have really started growing in the last two weeks. I have several more transplants to move out here but I cannot decide where to plant them. Plus everything has to wait until after Easter. I don't want to ask my neighbors to plant sit along with checking on the dogs. It might be to much for them.

The onion transplants are really growing slow. I am afraid they are not going to get big enough to harvest. I decided to buy some onion sets. We use a lot of onions and it is the one crop I really need to produce. So I am going to keep my little ones I started and plant the 300 onions I bought in the next bed.

Texas Sweet Onions - I bought and planted these last weekend. If you look closely you can see my little ones at the bottom of the picture.

I am trying to grow a lot of new plants this year but I am really excited to grow potatoes. I ordered Yukon Gold and White Superior seed potatoes and planted them in one of my 4x4 beds. As they grow I will add more soil to the bed and hopefully get a decent harvest from the little box.

Potatoes - OK...This is a picture of the dirt were the potatoes are planted.

As I mentioned earlier, we are going home for Easter. The real reason for my visit is to see my Mom. It is her birthday on Sunday. I usually miss it but not this year. I started telling everyone in October that I would be home. Of course - the US Air Force likes to have their say in everything we do. Instead of staying until Monday, we have drive David to the airport on Easter. Now I just have one more picture to show you. It is Alex, my little helper. He loves to help me with the 'baby plants' and to play in the dirt while I work in the yard. Yesterday he decided to where Daddy's boots and I had to run for the camera!