3.22.2013

reaping what we sow

i sew. but until this week i have never sown.

on monday we were gardening virgins. today, we have the supplies and plans for a 300 sq ft vegetable garden. 

any bets on how much/if we will harvest?

here's how this adventure sprouted (eh?) in my head: i follow ashley ann on instagram. shes got chickens. i love eggs and decide i want to raise chickens too and that i am certainly qualified. [normally here is the point where i order like 25 baby chicks and they all end up dead in two weeks]. but since i'm so mature, i decided to see if i could keep another food source alive before moving up the food chain to poultry. 

i bought and planted cilantro seeds (aka coriander...i'm learning already!) on tuesday. that went so well (i mean, i successfully covered up seeds with potting soil obviously i am a green-thumbed prodigy!) that i went ahead and decided that the next step up from wunderkind seed-planter was straight to organic backyard farmer. 

jesse is a really lucky guy.

so we are taking back some of the land that the dogs have. they have like an entire acre fenced in back there and it's totally theirs and wild and you take your life (and your unstained clothing) in your own hands when you venture back there amongst the beasts. 

but lately, jesse and i have been looking hungrily at that land and have designs on taking many square feet of it for our own.  the garden is the first step. dont worry, in the tradition of fair trade demonstrated by our esteemed forefathers, we have given the pooches gifts of beads and firewater in exchange for their homeland. #facepalmforhistory

i used smart gardener to plan out my garden based on where we live, our yard's orientation, space and what we want to grow. they churned me out a to-do list by week and an optimum layout based on planty science or something.  

so a robot planned my garden. i'm sure this is just like how my ancestors started out.


we're trying for:

okra
eggplant
spinach
red peppers
jalapenos
basil
carrots
watermelon
spaghetti squash
zucchini
onions
tomatoes

i am kind of ignorantly excited about all the work this will take. we plan to just jump in with both feet (though not on our garden because we dont want to compact the soil) and figure it out as we go or just sink and fail miserably. this is the dukes way.

so okay hippie people with experience...advice for a gardening noobs? 

22 comments:

  1. Chickens are easier than a garden... And you can use their poop on your garden, so just go all in :)
    After knowing you/ reading all about your life for a few years, I know this much is true: you are going to end up so successful at gardening that you will end up opening a roadside stand because you will be up to your armpits in zucchini!
    Seriously, the zucchini spreads like crazy.
    Good luck! The kids will love it too- and invest in netting to keep the squirrels and birds out!

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    1. oh man...you believe in me?! now i HAVE to make it work. netting...like a roof of netting?

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  2. No advice, but in the same boat! We found out we can have chickens, and since we eat 18 eggs at any given egg meal, we thought it would be smart to have our own egg producers. However, the garden could also produce and save us some dough, so we decided to start there. I will be following your replies for tips, and I am heading over to Smart Gardener right now!

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    1. i'm kicking myself that the consensus seems to be chickens are easier. good luck!

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  3. You should check out the chicken tractor method... use a mobile chicken coop to turn and mulch your garden.

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    1. OMG chicken tractor. that is my new band name! great idea!

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  4. Blog stalker here commenting for the first time because you struck a heartstring. Chickens, gardening (and Ashley Ann, who I also follow and don't know...seriously, the web is weird, no?). We got chickens last year. They're totally worth it. There is definitely an initial investment with the housing even if you DIY. We got a wooden kids playhouse off of Craigslist and dear hubs DIY'ed it to bits and now it's a happy hen home. We inadvertently ended up with a rooster in our first five, so I, while the hubby was away one sunny Saturday morning, harvested said rooster and we had it for dinner two nights later. Me in all my Orange County, CA'ness beheaded a rooster in my backyard in the name of providing for my family after watching hours worth of You Tube videos, and it wasn't as bad as I thought. Now we have 4 hens and get three to four eggs a day, for about $20 in chicken food every couple months. On to gardening, I recommend the movie Back to Eden. You can watch it for free on their website here: http://backtoedenfilm.com/ It's a bit long, but it's free, and if you're into gardening it won't seem too long. I totally did that method with the wood chip mulch, and barely had to water all last summer...maybe once every week or two, because the soil retains the water so well when there's some kind of mulch over it, and harvested 50 pounds of organic tomatoes from 32 square feet (8x4 foot garden planted with about 26 tomato plants). I also had a ton of compost when I filled my raised planter beds and still had to buy a heck-a-load of soil to fill them up, and I only had two 32 sq ft beds. Prepare yourself for soil sticker shock unless you're not doing raised beds (although I totally recommend the raised beds precisely so you can have more control over your soil...better chance for the things to grow). You might check around Craigslist as sometimes people get rid of good garden soil. Don't just fill them with dirt. Also, if you compost, use it. I have more compost now and will be adding that before I plant in the beds this year because the soil continues to settle over time. I just planted some seeds to get started on my spring garden, and I always start the seeds in seedling trays because they need more attention than I would remember to give them if I planted them straight in the ground. My grandpa is a gardening ninja and when he throws pebbles on the ground they grow into boulders. I throw things on the ground and usually they just evaporate. The big Jiffy seed trays with the wicking mat that you can get from Home Depot seem like a big investment, but seeds aren't all that cheap, and if you plant a bunch and then they die then it's totally money and eventual food wasted. Do your seeds (and yourself) a favor with the wicking mat and seed starting pellets..something like this: http://www.nextag.com/Jiffy-Easy-Grow-Greenhouse-532378184/prices-html I order my seeds from Baker Heirloom Seeds. I love that they take a stand against GMO and I can get cool varieties that I can't just find in the store. Their catalog is gorgeous and it's amazing how many types of eggplants and tomatoes there are that you would never ever see in a garden store...white eggplant, orange tomatoes, purple carrots...amazingness. Plus, then you can save your seeds, pass them on to friends, or down amongst the generations and leave a seed legacy that one of your great great grandchildren will likely destroy because they don't get a moisture wicking seed starting tray like I recommended :) Anyways, gardening and urban homesteading is a huge passion of mine, so good luck with your garden, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have as you get started. I'm no expert...last year was my first year with a garden, but you learn so much with each plant and each season, that you can't help but want to pass on what you learn. Now that I've written a novel, maybe I should start my own blog :-)

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    1. Wow go Jenny!! I wish I had a garden. It's so much fun attempting not to kill plants. I've never grown more than herbs on the windowsill. Good luck with your adventures Keight and keep up the good work Jenny.

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    2. Jenny! Please start your own gardening blog! I'd read it :)

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    3. um yes PLEASE. this was amazing! cannot even cope with you "harvesting" a chicken. so help me if i get an accidental rooster!! sooooooooo much good info in this here novel. we arent doing raised beds because of lazy and cheap. we are composting but probably not enough yet to help us for a few months.

      i got the pellets and jiffy pots but not the little greenhouse-o-matic and now i am kicking myself since it was like a freakly 20 degress last night and i had to go out and cover those lil things with garbage bags to swaddle them in protection.

      i am gonna watch the mess outta that movie and hit you up for advice like whoa.

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  5. We have lots of chickens and have had lots of gardens....chickens are WAY easier. Way. Also, okra is delicious....picking it, not so much! :)

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    1. ah! what is yucky about the picking? does okra have thorns? tell me!

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  6. Be prepared to work your ass off! Cheri is right: chickens are way easier. But seriously, eating/canning/preserving your own food that YOU grew is straight up the best. So excited for you!

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    1. i thought you only cultivated gingers...whatchu grown, gurl?

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  7. As a professional gardener, aka horticulturist, there are plants every year that do amazingly well and plants that don't. You don't know which will be which, which is why you try a bit of everything. I did a blog post a while back for small space vegetable gardens you might find useful, although with 300 square feet that's no small space. http://foyupdate.blogspot.com/2011/03/vegetable-gardens-for-small-spaces.html

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    1. this is awesome! a professional hortigirl. i am so pumped. this post is amazing (planting in a bag of soil...LOVE!

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  8. Every summer growing up, I would always plant a pack or two of zinnia seeds. They are super durable flowers that loved the South GA sun and heat. I loved having fresh cut flowers in our house (still do). The seeds are cheap so you can add a row or two along the edge if you want some colorful flowers to cut throughout the summer. They are low maintenance. We have an herb garden now that I LOVE but that is as far as my experience goes with planting food. Our backyard is way too shady to try and grow anything. Good luck! I love how y'all totally go for things wide open. We hope to have chickens one day too.

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    1. oh i love that idea! we do have some extra space and i am in my old age loving fresh flowers (though hating buying them). to the garden!

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  9. There is no better feeling than the feeling of producing a garden! It is an incredible amount of work, but so rewarding. I caught the gardening bug from my Dad, and it only seems to get "worse" every year :) Because we can't grow everything right away and getting started seems overwhelming, my advice is to concentrate on plants that are expensive to buy in the store. I don't fuss with onions, carrots, and corn because they are so cheap at the grocery. Instead, I focus my energies on pricier items like tomatoes, eggplants, bell peppers, and herbs ($3.98 for 4 basil leaves?? No, thank you!). My second piece of advice is to follow the spacing directions on the plant containers/seed packets. Those tiny little tomato seedlings seem so small when you plant them, but crowding them will kill off plants and produce crappy tomatoes. I learned that the hard way my first year. http://www.pardonthenoob.com/2012/06/tomato-trellis.html
    Enjoy! Looking forward to reading about your progress.

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    1. amen! i was looking at the things i am supposed to do for growing the carrots and green onions (the latter which i already grow for free on my windowsill) and thinking....hmmm possibly not worth it because even the organic stuff at the store is WAY cheap. i love your string trellis!

      cant wait to noob out myself!

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  10. So proud of you! We'll help eat the goodness!!!

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  11. We had a garden at our old house, and I miss it terribly! So much fun!!! I think all four of you will love it. II would recommend taking the time to build some raised beds and filling with great soil. Some work up front but it makes everything else so easy... Planting, weed pulling, etc!! I would start easy - tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, zucchini, squash. Good luck!! Can't wait to hear how it goes!

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