Garden Update

Posted by suburbanhomesteadblog in Back to Eden, Flowers, Gardening, Lettuce, onion, peppers, Produce, progress in our plants, spring, tomatoes and tagged with first fruits, flowers, garden, garden pictures, Garden update, Homesteading, lettuce, onions, pepper plants, plants, Spring, Tomato plants, urban gardening May 22, 2013

While I was back at home for a couple days, I got out into the garden, and was able to snap some photographs of it. Enjoy!

(Click on images to view larger.)

Large view of the garden.

The other side.

A row of raspberry pots!

The lettuce has officially gone crazy.

Mmm… Onions!

Lots of delicious cooking in sight!

Fully blossomed onion top.

Half blossomed

Closed up.

Mr. Bee decided to let me take his photograph. 😉

Gettin’ nectar and pollan.

Red radishes

Golden radishes

Cantelope

Bean blossom.

Bush (I think!) beans

Bean row

Peppers

Yellow pear tomatoes

A larger variety (the name escapes me at this point).

A beautiful tomato blossom.

Flowers that look like they’re dying. 😦

Raspberries

Peaches!

Mom’s Mother’s Day gift

Comfrey

Early Spring Busy-ness

Wow! It’s been a while since I lasted posted on here. But don’t think that means that we haven’t been doing anything in the garden. In fact, it’s quite the opposite! We’ve done several things the past couple weeks: planted potatoes, planted lettuce seeds, planted tomato and pepper plants, planted lettuce plants, potted several different … Continue reading →

Seeding Starting – Winter 2013

Posted by suburbanhomesteadblog in Gardening, onion, peppers, seed starting, Seeds, spring, tomatoes, Uncategorized, Winter and tagged with Garden update, onions, pepper plants, seedlings, seeds, Tomato plants, winter January 15, 2013

Seed starting and planning

Ever since the end of December I knew it was time to start thinking about getting seeds started, especially for onions, and I never got around to it in December. But, today, I finally got my seeds started (the ones that needed to be). What a relief! Yesterday, Joel, Abby and I went to North Haven Gardens, here in Dallas, and got some onion sets and seed potatoes. We already had plenty of seeds from the past couple of years, so we didn’t really have to purchase any seeds this year. After running some errands in the afternoon, we came home, and worked on creating our own seed starting pots, out of paper. With the help of my three siblings, we made 48 paper pots – a bit time consuming, but quite easy. Using paper pots is cheaper (basically free, compared to ~$10 per flat at your local home/garden store), you can make your own, and they are biodegradable, so you can place them directly in the ground when it’s time to plant your seedlings outside.

Jaden and Johanna work at making paper pots.

A packet of onion seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Company.

Seeds, a note pad and pots.

Taking notes

Notes on seeds starting spring 2013

Waiting…

This morning, I woke up, and there were snow pellets on the ground, cars and house roofs. It didn’t stop me from going out, and getting my newly created paper pots filled with soil. I then came inside – where it was WARM!! – and put seeds in each pot. Got them moistened (which you have to keep that way until they sprout), and put by a window. Below is a list of the seeds I started:

Yellow Pear Cherry Tomatoes
Speckled Roman Pole Tomatoes
Purple Russian Tomatoes
Sungold Select II Orange Cherry Tomatoes
Amana Glowing Orange Beefsteak Tomatoes
Turkish Orange Eggplant
Udmalbet Eggplant
Black Beauty Eggplant
Long Thin Cayenne Peppers
Sweet Yellow Stuffing Peppers
California Wonder Peppers
Sage
Lavender Munstead
Oregano
Italian Flat Leaf Parsley
Forest Green Parsley
Celery Tendercrisp
Red Creole Onions
Bronze D’ Amposta Onions
Redwing Hybrid Onions

Now, to make sure to keep them moist, and ventilated so they don’t mold, and hope and pray that they sprout and grow up to be strong plants which give us lots of produce!

If you want to know how we made our paper pots, click here. I’ve made a little tutorial about it. Enjoy!

Photos

Posted by suburbanhomesteadblog in Back to Eden, Gardening, peppers, Produce, tomatoes and tagged with Back to Eden, garden pictures June 23, 2012

Sweet bell peppers, banana peppers, cayenne peppers and yellow pear tomatoes.

One of the small yellow pear tomatoes. They are SO good!

We Got Some Produce!

Posted by suburbanhomesteadblog in Back to Eden, Gardening, peppers, progress in our plants, squash, tomatoes and tagged with Back to Eden, garden pictures, Garden update, pepper plants, squash plants, Tomato plants, urban gardening June 18, 2012

Summer is right around the corner, and it looks like our garden is going to give us a lot of produce this year (Lord willing). Our tomato plants are loaded with small tomatoes and large. The squash plants are taking over the garden, and so far we have two full grown butternut squash (they are harder to grow). And the pepper plants continue to give us plenty of peppers: cayenne, jalapeno, banana.

The Back to Eden method, with rich composted soil and lots of mulch key to healthy plants, has really brought up the production of our plants. Last year, for example, our tomato plants grew very tall, put on lots of blossoms, but gave us only a few tomatoes (I think a lack of sun was part of the problem). And, the large tomatoes, we didn’t get a single ripe one off of it! We can’t say for sure, seeing that the harvest hasn’t come yet, but even at this point there are signs that we will get plenty of healthy produce. We will just have to wait a few more weeks and see what we get!

If you haven’t already, check out the Back to Eden film, watch it, and get your garden spot ready for a fall garden!