In order to keep my email feed working properly, I have to limit the amount of posts to 20. This sometimes causes a problem because I write more than 20 posts in a 24 hour period. When that happens, I like to let you know what you may have missed because the information didn’t appear in yesterday’s daily email.
In the picture above, you can see my garden from last year. I have raised beds, so I put the mulch around the outside of the beds and the grass clippings inside the beds. This is a pretty good picture of both ways I use the newspaper underneath.
I love to garden, but I HATE to weed. Weeding seems like an endless chore and makes gardening, a task I love to do, much less fun. There are several strategies people can use to keep weeds at bay, but they are usually expensive or add unnecessary chemicals to the ground. I find that using newspaper and grass clippings, things I would normally discard as unwanted, are great at weed control.
As a couponer, I have no shortage of newspaper. Thankfully, I can turn my discarded newspapers into a great weed control devise. Newspaper is biodegradable and can be put down as a weed barrier in your garden. Instead of using that expensive black plastic stuff which is bad for the environment, I block weeds with the Hartford Courant and the Journal Inquirer. I take 3-5 sheets of newspaper and wet it thoroughly with water. It shouldn’t be completely sodden but moist enough not to fly away in the breeze. I then lay the sheets between and around my plants. In my flower beds, I cover the newspaper with a thin layer of mulch – just enough to hide the newspaper. The newspaper will eventually decompose, so you don’t have to worry about pulling it up. In my vegetable garden, I cover the wet newspaper with grass clippings. Not only are grass clippings great for the soil, I have a place to use them so I don’t have to bag the waste. I continue to cover my vegetable garden with grass clippings throughout the season. The grass clipping compost nicely, and the newspaper and clippings can be tilled into the soil in the late fall or early spring without worries. I’d like to see you do that with that black plastic stuff!
Each spring, summer, and fall, I write about my garden and what I’m doing or planting. Last fall, I ran over myself with my own car, so I didn’t get an opportunity to clean up my gardens for the winter or sow any late fall crops. This spring has been a trial as well with very cold temperatures and rain . I finally managed to get into my garden this weekend, and have a few pictures for you. I still have a long way to go – the pictures are just from my veggie garden. I haven’t even touched my herb/fruit garden or my flower beds yet.
Here’s what my garden looked like in March:
This is what my garden looks like today:
Please share your garden pictures. I love to see what other people grow and how they do it!
If I want to be honest, right now I’m filthy dirty and I stink! I spent most of the day playing in my gardens trying to catch up on weeding and planting. I wanted to get this post written before I take a shower and lose motivation.
Although I didn’t get everything done – who can in only one day – two of my front gardens are complete. (Or complete for now. Being an avid gardener, I always find more to do!) I planted a bunch of annuals and spruced up the beds. I’m usually not a big annual person (because I’m frugal and prefer perennials), but my mom gave me four flats of stuff she wasn’t going to use. I have to admit annuals bring life to a flower bed when you’re waiting for the perennials to bloom.
These two pictures are of my front garden, or at least part of it. As you can see, there’s not a lot of color yet. However, rest assured in a few more weeks, you’ll see splashes of reds, blues, and pinks. You can’t tell, but my iris and pinks are blooming.
The next picture is of my shade garden. This space is actually shared with my next door neighbors. In fact, they provided most of the funds for this space. I just do the planting and the labor. That works for me because that’s the part I like the best. Well, maybe not the weeding so much!
You might be able to see the hosta, astilbe, and bleeding heart. These are great shade loving plants. Today, I also planted columbine and cinnamon fern. These plants are shade loving as well. For annuals, I filled in with some coleus, caladium, and impatiens.
The next few pictures are from my veggie and fruit gardens. The fruit garden actually has herbs and flowers in it as well, but predominately it’s fruit. I had a big area in my yard that used to be where an above ground pool used to sit. (It was gone when we bought the house.) Rather than trying to turn in into grass, I decided to create another garden. (Actually, if I had my way, the whole yard would be very little grass and mostly flowers, veggies, and fruit.) In this picture, you can see my strawberries (I ate two today!), rhubarb, and blackberries. I also have blueberries and raspberries.
To the left are snap peas. I hadn’t planted this variety before. They have fuschia flowers which I think is really neat. On the right is garlic. This needs to be planted in the fall for a summer harvest. You also have to snip the bulb that grows in the middle of the greens in order to get a good garlic head. It -forgive me- looks like the top of the male sexual part when it matures. Be sure to clip it as close to the ground as possible. These are good in salads and stir fries.
Most of my veggie garden is done in raised beds. I find this is the best way for me. I have a variety of different kinds. Some are bought and some my hubby made for me. The bought ones (black) are from Gardeners Supply. The red tomato cages and the pea fences are from Gardeners Supply as well. I highly recommend this company. (There’s a link on the right side bar of my blog. It will get you 10% off!)
This last picture of my garden shows off my two newest raised beds. One has my new asparagus plants I’m very excited about. The other is empty and waiting for the basil plants. Hubby made these from UNTREATED wood and decking supports. The total cost of both beds including the soil was about $100.
I hope you enjoyed the little tour around my gardens. I will probably do this again mid summer when everything is blooming like crazy. Happy Gardening!
Anyone who reads my blog regularly probably noticed I didn’t post very much yesterday. As much as I would like to be able to be in two places at once doing two different things, I sometimes have to take some time for myself to have some fun. What I considered fun for yesterday was spending the day with my friend Coleen having lunch and picking up free plants for our gardens. We traveled to Guilford, CT to a fellow Green Thumb Trader‘s house to visit her and her gardens. Being a member (and also the Moderator) of Green Thumb Trader is a really cool experience. I have saved so much money on perennials for my garden. Yesterday was no exception. Coleen and I took home at least $100 worth of perennials, including asparagus (so excited about this one!), sedum, bee balm, and cat mint. These are all things Coleen and I didn’t have in our own gardens and probably would have spent money on at a nursery. Instead, Julie, our Green Thumber Trader pal, was more than happy to share her bounty with us. Coleen also made out with different plants for her fish tank and koi pond, as Julie had plenty of those things as well to share. All in all, we spent about two hours discussing plants and generally having a great time.
On a side note, if you are ever in Middletown and are hungry, take a trip to It’s Only Natural Restaurant. It’s one of the few vegetarian/vegan restaurants in Connecticut. The food is excellent!
I was planning on spending a huge chunk of the morning out in the garden today. Unfortunately, the weather here in Connecticut isn’t cooperating, and it’s raining. Because I won’t be able to post highlights of make work out in the garden today, I thought I would write about farmers markets.
I love farmers markets. Even though I grow my own veggies and herbs, I can’t grow everything. Farmers markets let me buy many varieties of veggies and even try now ones. The first time I ever had a purple potato was when I found them at a farmer’s market in front of Whole Foods in West Hartford. They are spectacular, albeit strange looking when mashed. Because I liked them so much, I grew them in my own garden for the first time last year.
I’m pretty fortunate that my town hosts a farmer’s market throughout the summer and early fall once a week. I go as often as I can, even when my garden is overflowing with produce. There are lots of times when I don’t buy anything; I just like to look at the local offerings and talk to the farmers. I guess you’d call me a garden geek. I also like to check out different farmer’s market across the state. I’ve even been known to go out of my way while on vacation to frequent a farmer’s market. Yup, I’m a garden nerd.
So, how does one find farmer’s markets? Believe it or not, finding farmer’s markets is pretty easy, especially with the help of the internet. Below I’ve listed two links for farmer’s markets in Connecticut. The first are the certified organic farmer’s markets and the second is the official farmer’s market locator. This one is great because it also lists what is in season for each month. I’ve also listed links for Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York. If you live in a state I haven’t listed, simply do a search with your state’s name and “farmer’s market” typed in after it.
I told you I bought the peat seed starter pots at Ocean State Job Lot for about $2. My friend Heather just sent me this really cool YouTube video of a woman making her own seed pots from newspaper. It’s SOOOOOO easy and the newspaper biodegrades just like the peat pots do.
I noticed yesterday my garlic has started to peeks it’s little heads out of the soil. Garlic is extremely easy to grow and requires very little in the way of maintenance. You just have to remember to plant it in the late fall. I planted mine in late October last year. I bought organic garlic heads at the grocery store, separated the cloves, and planted them root side down in even rows about six inches apart. I then mulched over the cloves with leaves and grass clippings to keep them warm over the winter. The first year I did this, I sent away for organic garlic seed bulbs and paid a lot of money for them. I realized right away I didn’t need to do this because the garlic from the grocery store is just fine.
The bulbs I grew last year were on the smaller side, but I’m not sure if that’s due to the type of seed bulbs I used or because of all the rain we got. One thing for sure, these bulbs are very strong!
PS – Here’s a resource for gardeners and starting seeds. (Thanks Green Thumb Trader)
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
