Sprouting: Fun, Nutritious, Super Easy

One of my co-workers had been talking how him and his wife have really gotten into sprouting.  He kept saying that it is basically rinsing twice a day turns a tiny bit of seeds into a jar-full of sprouts that are tasty, healthy, and mix in about anything.  Hmmm...with Adah not eating any veggies maybe something that she could see and do might make her more interested.  I ordered a sprouting sample pack from http://sproutpeople.org/, watched their YouTube videos on how to sprout, grabbed a jar that once held spaghetti sauce, and started sprouting.  Sure enough, it was easy and fun.  I soak the seeds for 8-12 hours, drain, and then rinse and drain them twice a day.  After four days we had sprouts.  While I like them on wraps and burgers, Adah hasn't warmed to them just yet.  However, she may grow on them:) 

Bean and Brassica Sampler packs from Sprout People

Jar and a wire mesh strainer that we had.

2 tablespoons of seeds filled that bag.

Immanent Cicada Invasion Sparks String of Yard Projects

Read all about it! The secret is out, my wife hates cicadas.  Actually hate is a little too mild for her thoughts on those red-eyed creatures that appear every 13 years.  With experts predicting that the cicadas will appear  next week, I thought we should use the last remaining sunshine and bug-free time to take care of two turf removing projects before we go inside for a month or so.  In order to control weeds and moisture around our grill and rain barrel I wanted to tear out the grass and put down pavers and rock under both.  I have pictures (no before pictures of the grill yet again) to tell the story but let me sum up the key points.

1. Removing grass is hard work and burns lots of calories so the pizza was a good idea to even out.  Ice cream would have been better.

2.  Loading the dirt directly into the truck was a smart idea.  Once I am home I can just drive the truck to the rock and dirt dumping location.

3.  Measure twice, move cement blocks once.  While the grill is in perfect postion we didn't measure where to lay the blocks for the rain barrel and they aren't perfect.  It is a good start and then when I do more reain barrels next year we'll do it right.

4.  It is easier to level dry sand.  At least I would assume since wet sand was more like building a sand castle.

We are happy with the outcome and to check yet another big project off the list.

Thanks Dear for doing the detail work.

Done and before the grill.

Perfect fit!

Me having the time of my life...kind of.

Adah loves rocks...a lot.

And this is why I love having a truck.  It holds lots of dirt.

Weeds Be Gone!

While I have been furiously working on our veggie garden and trees in the backyard, I am afraid that the only attention that I have given our frontyard was the occasional mowing.  The problem with this neglect was it gave the weeds plenty of time to take root and take over everything.  In fact,  a new weed took over the one front flower bed and started on the other.  I think it was Creeping Charlie but being new to this blogging thing I forgot to take before pictures.  Anyways, I had a few main goals for Saturday.

1.  Weed the beds of anything looking not like a flower.

2.  Dig out the section that the neighbor cats have been using as a litter box.

3.  Divide and transplant the Hostas.

4.  Spread the leftover bags of compost to fill in low spots of dirt removed in cleanup.

What I thought was going to be an hour quickly turned into three hours as we were throwing tons of weeds, dirt, and other stuff in the back of the truck.  However, the hard work paid off (well as long as the hostas and monkey grass survives the transplant) as you can see from the pictures.  I even like how the compost looks like fine mulch.  It was exhausting but hopefully it will be easy maintenance for a little while.

This one was covered by the creeping charlie!  It was bad.

Our pretty hydrangea!

Hopefully this Hosta will keep the cats from their favorite potty place.

Garden Picture Update...4/25/11

It was a little more of a dry week than past weeks but humid.  It seems that the plants liked the humidity.  Something ate all the leaves off the summer squash so I replanted that and I am a little concerned for the green beans.  Also, I have learned that if there is something that looks like grass coming up in the holes of the okra that it truly is grass and needs pulled.  I noticed yesterday that the okra has come up and are just late bloomers.  Here are the picture updates of growth.

What is eating my green beans?

Corn is up.  Next stop is plant three more holes tonight.

Need to weed the okra now that I know what it looks like.

Garden Planning for Geeks Using Google Maps

For those who don't know me I can be a little bit of a geek.  I like some of the interesting uses of technology that other people may not think of.  So for this post I will show you how I channeled my geekness (or dorkness) to create a template that I can use draw out my garden plans using Google Maps.

Since I have a very strange shaped yard I was struggling to find a way to have a scale version of my garden plot...that is until I saw my property on Google Maps satellite view!  All I had to do was do a screen shot of my property, print, put it on a light box to trace the property lines, and then do a few measurements to create the scale key for the whole thing.  Once I had that I can enlarge to certain slices of our property or print 50 copies to be an OCD lawn and garden planner.  Take a look at what I did.

Google Map Satellite View

See the printed map below? Now added measurements.

Final copy ready for printing or enlarging.

Rain Rain...Come Again Another Day

One of my fun adventures for this spring has been getting my Christmas present from Leah setup.  Yes, Leah got me a rain barrel since she knows me so well.  Plus it was her way of compromising me getting a rain barrel and her having one she thinks looks good and matches the house.  This has been one of my favorite most rewarding project this spring because of the immediate reward. I am just amazed at how much water I can collect from a little bit of rain. If it is a dreary day with light rain on and off, I will go from empty to full by the end of it.  It then takes me at least a week to drain it with watering my garden (which it has rained so often this spring that I have never run dry).

Our rain barrel and watering cans.  I love Adah's elephant!

So, now for the details of the process.  First off, Leah bought me the 60 Gallon Smart Garden collapsable rain barrel for Christmas so we could take it down during the winter. Find it on Amazon here for more information. After I installed the rain diverter by sawing a horizontal cut and two vertical cuts in the downspout I placed the rain barrel on the ground.  However, I discovered that the rain barrel needs a little height in order to have pressure so we drained it in a hurry before a rain and put them on blocks and 2x12's. Now we certainly have enough pressure to fill our watering cans and could possibly even do an irrigation line to the garden despite it sitting about the same height of the barrel.

Our future projects include draining the barrel this week (I disconnected the diverter) so that I can dig up the grass, level, and lay stone down to eliminate the grass and make it even more sturdy.  I would love to add a few more barrels in the future like my friend Rhett did but one thing at a time.

Yep, it's full after one rain!

Garden Picture Update...4/16/2011

Here are some pictures of our garden from 4/16/2011.  As you can see we have our lettuce, spinach, carrots, and wildflowers up and the corn, green beans, and okra are starting to peek through.  The strawberries are also starting to come alive despite being transplanted from the snows of Ohio after Adah's party by mom.

The salad greens are starting to look good and I have my little heirloom tomato in the top corner.

It's the herb bed with now herbs.  Yes, I mowed the grass on Sunday:)

My okra is on top and the jalapeno peppers are planted.

Green bean trellis is ready for them to emerge.

Strawberries are looking good.  Probably won't have many this year but next year will be great.

Wildflowers to make my girls smile!

Arborist for a Day

There is something strangely therapeutic about pruning and trimming trees.  We have a big yard for those who have not been here and in our yard we have a number of mature trees.  The willow always sheds but I hate to admit that we have neglected to prune some of our large cedar trees since we moved in a year ago.  However, that changed today.

We have a overgrown cedar at the back corner of our property along the fence line.  It was a mess since there were dead branches running along the ground making it impossible to even get close enough to the fence to see if there were any problems.  Armed with gloves, loppers, and hand trimmer I set out for hours trimming all the dead stuff off and removing the low hanging branches. I forgot to take before pictures but take a look at what I cut out.

All that pile came from that tree.

Once I was able to clear out some of the inside, I know have a great place to plant shade loving plants.  I had some Lily of the Valley that a coworker gave me so despite the toxic qualities I planted them.  I'll had some monkey grass, hostas, and maybe some daffodils for next spring.

After I started this, Leah and I started to notice these strange, orange balls in one of our other cedar trees.  They looked really gross so Leah did some googling to see what it was and what we should do.  Sure enough it was a fungus called Cedar-apple rust which is not deadly to cedar trees but it does damage on any type of apple.  So I took down the ones I can reach and will keep an eye out for the ones that fall in hopes of avoiding an apple-calypse for our neighbors.

Lastly, I noticed poison-ivy runners climbing up one of the trees so I sprayed it with the some Roundup (I know that is bad stuff) and called it a day.  While the trimming may be done, the relaxation and sense of accomplishment will last the rest of the day.  Give pruning a try.

Sources:
http://plantclinic.cornell.edu/factsheets/cedar-applerust/cedar-applerust.htm

Another View

The Microscopic, Caped Superheros of Lawn and Garden

It was a dark and moist evening when out of the small tunnel sprung the caped nematode to utterly destroy the plans of the unknowing garden pest with aspirations of killing my tomatoes one by one!  Sure makes a good story but what is even better is that these little critters exist to overpower all those garden pests to rid my lawn and garden of those bad buggies.

A friend of mine a few months ago told me of a natural way to combat fleas and ticks from bothering their dogs.  She mentioned nematodes and how easy it was to spread them so I did some research.  What the protect against is astounding.  They can combat Weevils; Beetle grubs; Japanese beetle; Masked chaffers; May/June beetles; Black vine weevil; various white grubs; Banana weevil; Bill bug; Colorado Potato beetle; Cucumber beetle; Sweetpotato weevil; Asparagus beetle; Carrot weevil; Banana moth; Citrus root weevil group; Sugarcane stalk borer; Various tree and vine borers; Bagworms; Flea beetle; Fleas and over 200 other species.  They are microscopic, ground-dwelling worms that like to munch on the eggs and larva so it kills pests before they even become pests.


I bought mine off of Amazon and they shipped two-day mail from CA.  They come on a sponge and all you do is squeeze the contents out into warm water and then spray them on the yard using a normal sprayer that hasn't been used with chemicals.  Apply once per year in the spring and you are good to go.  I even read somewhere if you live in a warmer climate you spray once and they will live happily and multiple year after year.

Thank you caped crusaders!



Resources:
http://greenmethods.com/biocontrols/nematodes/

http://amzn.to/gjCZsH

Houston, We Have Planting

It is official, I have vegetable seeds in the ground.  I even even have a few plants too.  I know that the last official day of frost in Nashville is April 15th, but with temperatures getting into the 90's last week I took that opportunity to celebrate my getting over the 72-hour stomach bug I planted our Kentucky Wonder green beans, Clemson Spineless okra, a few holes of sweet corn, one Black Beauty zucchini, one Summer Prolific summer squash, and a butterfly wildflower mix.  I did that on April 10th so I wasn't very early but I got a jump on it.

Now I did plant my spring mix, spinach and lettuce a month ago so I have little sprouts coming up.  Oh and my mom did transplate some of our family's strawberry at Adah's birthday, but this is the first full planting. I also bought a few plants at a plant sale yesterday and got those in the ground last night.  One is a mule team heirloom tomato and then some jalapeno plants.  After a good water of Miracle Gro Organic Choice I think all my veggies should be happy.

My Hopeful Mission: Food and Fun

So, because my memory is so poor I am starting this blog. Why you may ask? I am on a mission and have been for the last few years to have my own vegetable garden that will feed us throughout the year while being as organic as possible. I have practiced building raised beds at the in-laws house and learned much from what my mom and grandma but this is the first year I have had enough land to make my little garden plot. I just can never remember exactly what I did. Sad.

This blog is less about showing off my mad gardening skills but more about have a digital notebook so I can remember what success I have had and what things I need to do differently next year. I started this a little late since I have already planted some things but I will write various posts that include dates and photos. If anyone out there is reading a learns from any of my mistakes or successes then this blog served a greater purpose. Thanks for joining me and let the gardening fun begin!