Starting to think about the garden this year. Last year i started tomatoes about a week before March 17 (my normal day for starting veggies indoors). This year I am starting some flowers and plants for decorative purposes. Usually besides tomatoes and eggplant, i would start marigolds and zinnias indoors but this year i am trying two new plants!

Elephant Ears (Colocasia): I never grew Elephant Ears before, but seeing photos on social media, I decided that they would look good in the pool area and the grandkids would get a kick out of them.

Mexican Sunflowers: I have seen these used in the area as commercial landscape plantings. Deer resistant and attractive to pollinators, I will use these in a few areas around the driveway. The package says to plant directly in the garden outside, but i want earlier flowers so i am starting them inside in small pots

Merry Tiller

This year I started off with the usual lawn care, first I raked the lawn cleaning the remaining leaves from the previous fall and clearing the dead grass away. Then I spread lime pellets with the garden spreader to adjust the pH of the soil and then planted grass seed also with the spreader.

For the vegetable garden, I rented a “Merry Tiller” from a local rental shop.  This wa a “mid’ tiller with the tines in the middle, the previous machine was a “rear” tiller with tines in the rear.  There is another model with tines in the front which I haven’t tried yet, the mid tiller worked fine after familiarizing myself with its operation. it took me two hours to complete a 20 X 40 foot garden willing down to about 6 inched and retilling the area several times.

I planted half of the garden with corn. i mixed two varieties, Peaches and Cream Bi- Color Sweet Corn along with Silver Queen Hybrid Sweet Corn from the Weeks Seed Company. last year I tried “Kandy Korn”.

20 x 40 Cornfield

In the smaller garden I call the Weather Garden because that is where my weather station is located.
I tilled this garden, the smaller of the two gardens, maybe 100 square feet. I planted garden beans and mammoth sunflowers.

Weather Garden

raked and ready for plantiung!

Tomatoes planted using plastic garbage bags to reduce weeds

I have been seeing posts on social media about a safe, natural alternative to commercial herbicides. Basically from what i understand it is to spray unwanted vegetation with Acetic Acid (vinegar) and works by acting as a dessicant and killing the leaves. I found a recipe:

1/4 cup dawn dish detergent
2 cups epsom salt
1 Gallon vingar
note: I believe using this recipe will killl the soil and nothing will ever grow there again due to the salt! Use Carefully!

This seemed like strong stuff but i plan on using on the side of my driveway where there is a cedar mulch path, i don’t want anything to grow there. By removing the salt from the recipe, the vinegar alone will kill weeds. So I have a few areas i want to try with the mister using a garden sprayer.

Its been a long winter and its a bit difficult to get started, but we made a start to our 2014 garden. We have been raking the lawn for weeks to clean the leaves and dead grass and are almost ready to put down our granulated lime and then seed. We have already started our tomatoes and eggplants indoors in peat pellets. We have seed potatoes in trays in preparation for planting.

May 6, 2014 – Planted Burpee Garden Beans today in last years potato patch.

5-30-2014
-Planted Burpee Garden Beans, Peas and Sunflowers, sown directly into the garden. Nowarigolds and Basil planted in clay pots. Now wait 🙂 .
-Lawn has been limed with granules and then seeded. New Troy-Bilt mulching mower has been used three times so far!

6-19-2014
Squash, cucumber and pumpkins seeds sprouted and watermelon just poked its leaves above the soil. Rainy day, planted more tomato plants, using cut black garbage bags to keep weeds out, not pretty but seems to be effective! The garden beans i planted first are getting flower buds, and the second row of garden beans i added are growing as well as the sunflowers but the peas took bit longer and have just sprouted from the soil. working to control the weeds!

6-21-2014
Planted some Martha Washington variety asparagus today! I will need a lot of patience for asparagus, the instructions said to wait till the third season to harvest! i carved a trench next to my strawberry patch for the asparagus and using that area for perennials. Also planted two eggplants that i bought at WalMart in the main garden next to some eggplant i grew from seed.
Critter alert! somebody has been eating the leaves from the garden beans, the perpetrator is either Mr. bunny or Mr. ground hog as they have been sighted in the evenings. I put some chicken wire fencing around the ban garden, hope that helps!

6-25-2014


Waiting for rain but was disappointed, so I am watering the main garden tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, eggplants and cucumbers with a sprinkly head water hose. I guess i will water the backyard garden sunflowers.garden beans, peas, strawberries, asparagus and flowers too! Thiunderstorms at 10 pm! about 1/4 inch on my rain gauge, this will soak the ground for my sunflowers, beans and peas which i didn’t water. I hit the strawberries and asparagus with some Miracle Grow. I used Miracle-Gro for 30years on houseplants and my vegetable garden as well as roses. The soil where I live in Northern New Jersey is rocky with a lot of clay, so i Think it needs some help!

6-27-2014
put some wind whirligigs to scare off the bunnies and groundhogs, chipmunks, etc.. I remember my grandfather would put some pie plates on a string attached to a stick in the garden o scare away the critters so i think this will serve the same purpose.

7-7-2014

-Green beans picked and on the table! I planted the seeds on May 6 and harvested on July 7, just a bit over two months with regular watering and good rains plus lots of sun! I still have quite a bit of seeds in the pack, I planted a second crop on May 30th and those plants are doing well and should have beans soon.I am thinking of planting a third crop! I picked the beans just as the seeds were forming, I steamed the beans, served with butter, they were tasty and sweet with a crunch. Usually I would wait to maximize size but then there were seeds inside and they seemed tough, less flavorful.

Purpose

To plant and harvest potatoes

Equipment and Materials

personal equipment

Procedure

Step 1 Rake and clean strip of garden Rake and clean area for potatoes

Step 2 Dig a trench about 10 inches deep and 12 inches wide

Step 3 Place potatoes into trench about 18 inches apart and cover with loose soil and mulch.

Viola! Yukon gold potatoe plants after 3 weeks in garden potato garden

Well , many of the seeds I planted germinated, but were now becoming spindly, so I found a lighted plant cart I made a few years back and reassembled it. I keep it unassembled to save space. Its easy to put together, its made out of pvc pipe, elbows and tees commonly found in hardware stores. I added two dual 36 inch fluorescent light fixtures with four Philips full spectrum fluorescent bulbs. I am planning to run the lights from about 11 am until 8 pm, the room gets some morning light.

March Snowstorm

Although we are getting a bit of a snowstorm, March is when I start planning my garden. I received my seed catalogue and I noticed a Burpee seed display at my local supermarket. I like to have my seed trays planted by Saint Patricks Day (March 17), which means early in March I start taking stock of my supplies of seed trays and potting soil.  This year i will be renting a roto-tiller from my local Ace Hardware store, but first I will need to clean the winter debris.

Now that the snow is melted, I have stopped by the grocery store to buy some seed packets.  I like to start tomatoes before St. Patricks Day (March 17) so I can harvest tomatoes early in the Summer.  Last year I planted watermelon but it was late June and I got nothing, so this year I am starting the watermelon indoors.