Jack and Rachael’s Plant Adventure

It’s been a while since I have posted about our gardening adventure…

Our garden last year seemed like it was going to be a great success at my last post. Unfortunately June 2009 brought rain almost every day Due to this most of our tiny seedlings drown or hardly grew at all. The few that did grow struggled because our garden did not have enough sun for a vegetable garden. We were able to grow some flowers and a few green and yellow beans as well as one pepper and a few tiny tomatoes. Our first garden was certainly not the bountiful harvest we were hoping for but we did learn some lessons from this situation. These lessons have helped me to form a new strategy for this year.

Recently I began researching container gardening. It’s a non-traditional approach to gardening but I believe it is a good option for us. Our lease is up in May and we aren’t sure what type of housing we will be in after the move. Not only is container gardening MUCH easier to move it will ensure that we can have a garden no matter what kind of apartment or house we end up at.

Last year my gardening book of choice was “All New Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Bartholomew. I enojoyed the book because it gave planting advice for 1×1 foot areas. Perfect when you only have a small area to garden. Unfortunately this year we have no idea what our available space may be. This year my gardening book of choice is “The Bountiful Container” written by Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey. I have heard good things about this book and the suggestions given in it. I am excited to read it and absorb all of the information.

I knew very little about container gardening before I began researching it. Some of the little information that I did have was that tomatoes and peppers will grow well in containers. I LOVE tomatoes and Jack enjoys different varieties of peppers so I picked up a few varieties of each. Within the next few days we will plant them. We only have one southern facing window in our house so window space is at a premium. Last year our windowsills were very crowded and we had two! To hopefully help with this situation I purchased a small Burpee Seed Starting Greenhouse Kit to try this year. There are two square trays in the kit about 1×1 foot in size. We will likely use only one tray for this planting and I will post pictures as soon as we have them. Hopefully there will be some photos of Jack’s Venus Fly Trap in there too

It’s been a while since I last posted and a lot has happened in the time I have been away from this site. We FINALLY have our garden!!

Before I can get to the new garden you are going to need a little background. Around mid-April I planted new seeds. Of the original seeds that Jack and I planted the only ones that grew well enough (if at all) were in containers. They did not fair very well in the little seedling trays. I bought some new seedling dirt and replanted the trays. The new seeds grew like crazy. In just a few days they had sprouted up and there was no stopping them after that. They got to be huge! We weren’t able to move until mid-May and the plants that had been growing all along in the containers were getting so large we didn’t know what we were going to do with them until then. The pumpkins were trying to climb everything and they were doing a pretty good job. They had become completely wrapped around my blinds that were covering the window. It took me a good 5 minutes to untangle them before I could open the blinds. They had also decided that they were going to attack the plants around them. They were wrapped around my new bamboo plant and they were trying to climb the corn and pea (at least we thought it was a pea…). We ended up moving the weaker plants to another window so that the pumpkin could not smother them. We moved two weekends ago and the plants took the move okay. They rode in the back of Jack’s car and stayed in there until we had a safe place to put them. We put them on our back patio which seemed like a good idea at the time but after a day or so most of the plants seemed to wilt and die. I think that the seedlings that were growing in trays weren’t strong enough to be put outside yet. We were able to save a few of them but most didn’t make it One of the plants that actually did better after the move was the one we originally thought was a pea. The corn had begun to wilt and look pretty sad before we moved and when we were moving I managed to hit the center plant and I broke it slightly. We had to use a hair-tie and a clothespin to hold it up but after being set outside in the sun it seems to be doing much better. We always thought was a pea growing with the corn. One day at the old apartment it had tiny pretty little purple flowers (I took some pictures but I do not have them on my computer right now). A few days later a little pod like thing started growing. It looked like a pea at first but after a few days it was a little tiny yellow wax bean. The plant that we thought all along was a pea was actually a yellow wax bean plant. I am not sure how we got it confused but now we know. I will post pictures of the little yellow wax beans soon.

Yesterday afternoon Jack and I finally got to plant our garden. After some debate we decided that the best location for our garden would be in the existing flowerbed here at the house. We didn’t think our landlords would appreciate us digging up the yard and since we don’t have a whole lot of yard to begin with we didn’t think the roommates would like it much either. I was also concerned about people walking through the garden if we just put it in the middle of the yard. We left the existing plants in the garden but since the previous tenants appeared to have cared more about partying it up than yard work there were only a few shrubbery and some small lily like plants in one area and the other only had Lily of the valley. It was easy to plant around them and we found plenty of room for everything. It only took a few hours to plant everything and I think it looks great! We bought a pepper plant that was already growing and some tomato plants because the ones that we tried to grow didn’t grow quickly enough to be planted outside. We are still taking care of the tomatoes that did grow but they aren’t going to be ready for the outside for a long time. I don’t have pictures of the garden yet because it was too dark when we finished last night and it has been raining all day today. When I have pictures I will post them.

I can’t wait until things start growing! Stay tuned for updates

It all started a few months ago…

I was cleaning out the refrigerator and I found some carrots that didn’t have an owner. They looked like they had been there a while since the tops of several carrots appeared to be growing. They reminded me of a story Jack once told me. It was about him as a little kid planting carrot tops in milk cartons. They turned into little plants that he transplanted into the garden. I mentioned it to him and we decided to plant these carrots to see if they would grow. We had plenty of dirt to plant the carrots, Jack had tried to grow some flower seeds he purchased off of eBay, but we did not have any flower pots or containers to plant the carrots in. We ended up scrounging an egg carton from the recycling. We planted four little carrot plants. We watered our carrots everyday and kept them on the windowsill in the kitchen. Sadly they did not seem to want to grow outside of the refrigerator. We continued to take care of them anyway until they fell off the windowsill and dirt and carrot tops went everywhere. We picked everything up, threw them away and forgot about growing things for a while. Until…

I was reorganizing in the kitchen and I came across two potatoes that I had forgotten about. They were growing some serious eyes. I begged Jack to let me use some of the flower pots he bought at Home Depot to grow these potatoes. It didn’t take a whole lot of convincing to get the pots and in a few minutes we had two little potato plants on the windowsill

We were growing things again!

After a few days it was clear that these potatoes were not going to suffer the same fate as our carrots did. The little potatoes peaked out of the dirt with their little green leaves. They were and are still growing like weeds!! A few days after we planted the potatoes we found an onion that was growing in the refrigerator and a clove of garlic that was growing in all sorts of directions that no one claimed, I can’t imagine why We planted both of these in the remaining two flower pots Jack had.

As you can probably tell, since we are planting the random items that we found growing in the refrigerator, Jack and I both REALLY want to have a garden. Unfortunately right now neither of us live in a place that we can have one. I have no yard what-so-ever and where he lives someone would destroy it. We have talked about it a few times and we decided that we would create a garden at the house we are renting for next year. We put the idea aside though because the weather was too cold to even think about having a garden without getting bummed out about the weather. That was until a few days ago when we noticed that our plants had outgrown their pots. The idea of a garden was back and this time it came with beautiful weather.

On Saturday some friends and I went to the store to pick up barbeque supplies. I checked the garden section while we were there for some larger flower pots but I didn’t see anything that I liked or that was in my price range. I couldn’t spend $10-20 each for cheap, ugly pots that the plants were going to outgrow in a few weeks. For the price of 4 flower pots I could have purchased 40-80 seed packets. With that comparison I decided to look elsewhere for large pots. Earlier in the day I asked my roommate Jess if I could borrow the pot that she once had a tree in and she said I could. While it wasn’t an ideal flower/vegetable pot it would work until I could find something else. I just needed to get some dirt so before we checked out of the store I ran off to get it. On my way I passed by the Easter section where I noticed cute little buckets. They were bigger than the cheapest ones in the garden section and significantly less expensive. They might not have had the “garden look” but they were cute and within my budget. I picked out a green bucket (it is a happy growing color) and headed off to get the dirt. While I was looking for the dirt I passed the seed section. It was crowded since it was a beautiful day outside and many people were outside doing yard work. I still stopped to take a look at the seeds. With all the garden talk I wanted to see what options I would have when we started our garden. One of the first things I noticed was the tomatoes. Everyday in the fall I walked by tomato plants on the way to class and I always wanted to “steal” one. I absolutely LOVE tomatoes and my own tomato plant would make me very happy. I picked out a tomato packet that looked tasty and went to find some dirt. I got a big bag of dirt and then picked out a cute red bucket (because my tomatoes would be red) on the way back to my friends. In the checkout line we discovered that the buckets would make great helmets

I put the supplies to transplant our already growing plants aside so when Jack got home on Sunday we could move them together and plant my tomatoes. By the time Jack got home on Sunday I had already decided that we were going back to the store for more seeds. I have wanted a garden and a backyard for so long I couldn’t wait anymore. They both are so close I can taste the veggies from my garden

When I asked Jack if he would go back to the store with me to get more seeds he thought it was a great idea. Some types of plants prefer to be started inside so that when spring finally comes to stay they can be planted outside as tiny seedlings rather than just seeds. At the store we were only going to choose plants that advise you to start them inside to start with. Instead we spent at least 20 minutes in the seed isle and chose 16 different types of seeds that we wanted to plant. We tried to narrow it down to just a few but we each had our favorites and we both wanted the other to plant the ones they had chosen. We couldn’t narrow it down so we just got them all. We grabbed a set of little biodegradable seedling holders and went off to start our garden adventure.

It rained all day on Sunday so we couldn’t transplant our plants and plant our new seeds outside. Instead of waiting I set up a picnic blanket in the living room at my apartment.



With the blanket down we were free to make as big a mess as we wanted and we could just bundle it up in the blanket and shake it out outside later. Since our existing plants were the reason for the new buckets we moved them to their new homes first. Jack poked some holes in the bottom of the green bucket for drainage and we filled it with dirt.



The first plant to be moved was one of the potatoes. It took a few minutes to get it to come out of the pot, it was pretty stuck and holding on for dear life. In order to make it easier to take the potato plant out of the pot we put some water through the hole on the bottom of the pot. The water helped to hold the dirt together and helped the plant slide out of the pot. When the potato plant finally came out of the pot there were tiny roots that had sprouted everywhere. We planted it in its new home and moved on to the second one. This potato was even more stuck than the other one. The roots even came out of the tiny hole in the bottom of the pot.



When it came out of its pot you could hold the entire plant dirt and all in your hand and it held the shape of the pot. The roots had formed a very strong base.



We moved the garlic next, when we got it out of its pot we discovered that it had grown more than we could ever see from the surface. It actually has tiny bulbs that have begun to grow. We were very excited to see this; obviously we are doing something right!



Our last transplant was the onion. It had been looking rather sad lately. We couldn’t figure out why though and thought that maybe it was because the pot was too small. Sadly, when we went to move the onion it fell apart and some sort of tiny white bug had gotten into the bottom of the onion, we had to throw it away

Here is a picture of our newly transplanted plants!



Now it was time to start planting the seeds we bought earlier at the store. We made little maps for each 2×5 tray so that we could remember what was planted and where. This is what our trays look like:



Jack suggested that we plant things that were alike together so we sorted the seeds into groups of 3-4 per tray. Each seed type was given 3 seedling cups; in each seedling cup we planted 2-3 seeds (or in the case of beans and peas, 1 per cup). We took turns planting the seeds, Jack planted the peppers and I planted the tomatoes, beans, peas and fruits. We filled up four trays of seeds! That is over 40 seeds! I am excited since at least one of them has to grow. We also used the red bucket and two old cool whip containers that I found in the cupboard for seeds. The red bucket has pumpkins in it now and Jack planted corn and one pea seed in one container and lettuce in the other.

This is how we filled up our trays:

Tray One: Peppers
1-3 Kaleidoscope Mix: Five Sweet Bell Peppers
4-6 All Alarm Hot Mix: Five Favorite Hot Peppers
7-8 Long Pepper Mix: Sweet and Mild Peppers
9-10 Jalapeno M

Tray Two: Tomatoes and a Little Basil
1-3 Roma
4-6 Endless Summer
7-9 Super Sweet 100 Hybrid Cherry Tomatoes
10 Basil

Tray Three: Beans and Peas
1-3 Contender Green Beans
4-6 Cherokee Wax Yellow Beans
7-10 Super Sugar Snap Peas

Tray Four: Fruits
1-3    Streamliner Hybrid Cucumber
4-6 Burpee’s Fordhook Hybrid Watermelon
7-10 Sweet ‘n Early Hybrid Cantaloupe

We made a mess all over the floor while planting our seeds but we had fun. Who knows maybe the next time I post pictures of seeds being planted they will be in a real back yard



Since planting seeds was a spur of the moment thing we didn’t really think about where we were going to store our plants once they were planted. The trays fit perfectly in the windowsills of the kitchen but the buckets and cool whip containers do not. I am going to rearrange my room a little bit so that there is more space by the windows but I still don’t have quite enough room. Hopefully it will be warm enough soon and all of our plants can stay outside on the porch of my apartment.









This blog is going to help Jack and I track the progress of our garden but it is for more than that. It is also a way for us to share our garden with you! If you are lucky maybe we will share our produce with you

We hope you enjoy it!

Here are some pictures that Jack and I took earlier tonight: