Farmers Market: Rosemary and Lavender

Today, Ryan and I got up early and headed to the Topeka Farmers Market for breakfast and herbs. I also bought a few flowers for my hanging pots on my front porch. I figured it was better to buy from local farmers than from Wal-Mart. The people I bought my plants from told me they don't use pesticides and they also grow all their own grasses for their chickens and ducks. So, I know I can trust the plants I buy for my organic, pesticide-free garden.

Rosemary

I remember a lady I bought thyme from a couple weeks ago and went to find her because I knew she had more herbs and I remembered they all looked healthy. She had anything you could think of -- sage, rosemary, thyme, basil and much more. I was there for lavender and rosemary, specifically, but I learned much more about her business.

Lavender

The business is David's Herbs, and it's family owned and operated. The woman and her husband and son-in-law run the business, and they all work together out of Perry, Kansas. The guy I was talking to said they are willing to answer questions about growing herbs, and if I had any problem with bugs I could send them photos and they would help me diagnose/fix the problem. That's awesome, especially for people who are new to this like me. The farmers market always has such great resources, and that's why I always return, and I always talk to the people I'm buying plants from. Most of the time, they're willing to help you out. They want their products to grow well for you so you'll come back next year, so usually, they'll answer your questions.

My aunt told me rosemary is great for repelling mosquitoes, so I thought that was a great idea because I have noticed a lot of mosquitoes around the garden. I bought two plants and put them in the far north and far south corners. That soil is well-drained and can be watered less than the other plants in the beds. I've read where rosemary is a great potted plant, and that also makes it easier to move indoors when the temperature gets below freezing.

Pineapple sage

I got lavender because I read the flowers attract honey bees, but also because I enjoy lavender and thought I'd try to grow my own. Plus, there seem to be tons of benefits from the plant and the oil you can get from it. I bought two different kinds, one is a taller variety and the other is more like a bush. I don't know which is which because I got to talking to the guy about duck eggs and other things he has to sell and forgot to make sure which was which. I planted the lavender in the middle of the beds on the far south and the far north sides of my beds. Just like the rosemary, I put them by the outer edge, so the soil is better drained than other other plants. Plus, it's out of the way so it can be watered less.

Basil sprouts

I also planted some pineapple sage, which is some amazing smelling stuff. I can't wait for it to grow and produce so I can use it on some pork or something. If you rub the leaves, it produces such a sweet pineapple smell, I couldn't believe it. I had to get some, so I did, even though it wasn't in the plan. I put it in the bed where I already have basil and thyme growing. It's a big pot and I can always transplant, which I'll probably have to do this fall.

I noticed that I have some basil sprouting, but only the custom version. The Dolce vita blend is not sprouting, yet. I'm thinking that squirrel might have gotten some of the seeds. He didn't get them all, though, for which I'm thankful. I can't wait to see it get bigger, then use it with some fresh tomatoes. I'm pretty excited about the food we are going to be eating this summer thanks to our organic garden. It's exciting watching everything grow, but even more so harvesting and eating everything. I know next year we will be having a bigger garden.

Lots of Rain Makes Big, Leafy Spinach

I didn't think we would be harvesting our spinach quite yet, but, it was definitely time. We could have let it go for a few more days, but we can already tell there have been a few bugs in our garden and we decided the longer we left the spinach there, the more they could eat instead of us. I don't know much about growing spinach, but I do know that it tastes amazing! It's better than the stuff I usually buy at the supermarket, too.

I read in a couple places that you can cut your spinach, feed it, water it and it will grow back. Here's one article I used, http://goo.gl/8OXJo2. Only, they say, it won't be as sweet the second time. That's OK. I intend to try it out and see what happens. This is an experiment so, what the hay? I'll try it. So we cut the entire plant off, but I think we may have cut them a little close to the ground. When I went back and re-read some of the articles I was using, I noticed it said 2-3 inches above the soil... oops. This article, http://goo.gl/8cKYot, says to only cut the outer leaves so it will grow back. We cut them pretty close and we cut the entire thing. I guess we shall just wait and see what happens. I put a bunch of compost over the spots where we cut, (which was pretty much all of it), and watered it well. I also used this article from Mother Earth News, http://goo.gl/RNLySC.

Cut spinach plants

We cut some cilantro, too, but not all of it. Ryan and I decided we want to let it continue to grow until it bolts, so we can harvest the coriander seeds. I've never done any of that, either, but I'll make sure to document it all for next time, and for you, of course! Please feel free to comment below with any tips or helpful advice about harvesting coriander seeds. I'll take all the help I can get.

One of the holes form the squirrel

With the harvested cilantro, I made some pico de gallo and wow, it was fresh. Really, the entire garden smells like the cilantro, so I was already overpowered by it. But, when I cut into it, it was even stronger, I loved it! Our garden is organic and we haven't used any pesticides of any kind and I feel like that is contributing to the way our produce feels. I feels clean, like I wouldn't even need to rinse it if it weren't for the dirt all over the leaves. This is the truth. Part of what I'm enjoying the most about this gardening experience is knowing what has been put on my food and knowing I'm not eating chemicals. The cilantro almost felt squeaky to me, it's weird, but I like it. It's so shiny, too. I think I'm addicted to this experience.

I found some proof that we have had a squirrel rootin' around in our beds. It must have happened this afternoon because it wasn't like that this morning before work. The only way I know is the soil is nice and soft and I could see his little footprints all over the place where he dug. He didn't dig up any of my stuff, but he dug little holes all over the place, including in my basil pot, so I hope he didn't disturb any of the seeds I just planted. He also kind up dug up the entire row that wasn't planted, so I'm not sure what exactly he was doing, unless he was hiding something there. I sure hope not.

After reading and doing some Googling, I found some information about squirrels. I bet he got some of my basil seeds, because he dug right where I had just planted some. I know he didn't get all of them, but still, it's kind of annoying. I couldn't really find any wonderful solutions, except maybe using my dog to keep them away. There are some sprays that could be made with peppermint or capsaicin, but you have to make sure you don't get it on what you intend to eat. I may ask around and see what has worked for people in my area before I decide what to do.

Our First Harvest: Spinach and Mesclun Mix

Today, we harvested our first spinach and mesclun mix for a salad with dinner.

After years of buying spinach and baby greens mixes from the store, I was surprised at how great ours came out, that we planted ourselves. They look and taste just like store-bought greens, but I know mine don't have pesticides all over them. That is excitement in itself - knowing what I'm eating.  It's so much cheaper, too. We spent about $4 on seeds for spinach and I bet we would have spent about that on greens for a couple of salads. We are going to get tons of salads from our garden. We've also been using water from our rain barrels, so we haven't spent much on water and sunlight is free.

Ryan and I made a salad with a mixture of spinach and baby greens. It was one of the best salads I've ever had. The greens are so tender and almost sweet, I don't remember ones from the store tasting that way. Ryan ate his entire salad before he ever took a second bite of his pork -- he said that's never happened in his life.

We also planted some tomatoes and peppers in our second bed. We didn't want to wait much longer because the biggest tomato plant really needed to be transplanted as soon as possible because it was getting wilted and sad looking. I added a bunch of compost to the soil where I planted it, so hopefully it will perk back up.  I added compost to each hole we dug for each plant.

Tomatoes will be plentiful this year with four different types of tomato plants: Black From Tula, Sweeties, Chef's Choice and Early Girl. I can't wait until we can harvest, but I guess it's a ways out.

I also bought a huge flower pot for herbs, (above, right). I planted the Siam Queen basil plant and kitchen thyme I bought last week at the Topeka farmers market in there, as well as some assorted basil seeds.  In the pot, before planting, I put topsoil, potting mix and compost and mixed it all together. After planting, I watered substantially with rain-barrel water.

I planted two types of basil: A Custom blend, which is an heirloom blend, and a blend called Dolce Vita blend. Both need full sun and are supposed to be sown after the last chance of spring frost.  The Doce Vita package says there are six different types of basils inside, whereas the custom blend had seven varieties.

Now, just gotta keep watering and let the sun do its magic.

Our First Pests and How We Handled Them

Uh-oh. I went out to weed the garden again (there's a lot of that) and found a slimy little friend -- a slug. You can see him in the photo below.

Our first "visitor"

Luckily, I work at a restaurant that has hard boiled eggs on the menu, and the cook likes me enough that he saved me a batch of the shells for compost. Instead of throwing them in my composter, I rinsed them, dried them, then stored them in an open container in my garage. If they are rinsed out, they won't attract bugs or flies, and nothing will mess with them. But you must make sure and rinse them out well -- I rub my fingers around the insides to break the membrane and get rid of all the slime -- you can't just rinse them with water, rub your fingers around inside to get all the egg residue off, or you'll have flies and bugs all over them quick. They also smell, so store them outside in a garage or on your porch. I've read a few places where people recommend boiling the egg shells in water then drying them to sterilize them. I've never done all that, and I haven't had any problems, yet.

I was reading an article by Mother Earth News, http://goo.gl/XcT3PO Learn How to Grow Spinach,  and it recommends pulling back the mulch, which I haven't done, yet. I'm hoping the egg shells work.

Another article I was reading reinforced my usage of egg shells for slugs and snails:   http://goo.gl/welsJp.

The Farmers Market

Add crumbled egg shells to deter pests

Saturday, Ryan and I went to the farmers market to buy tomato and pepper plants for the garden. We wanted to go early in case the heirloom varieties are scarce in the coming weeks. We didn't want to miss out. We won't plant them until mid-May. I have a couple friends who swear by the Mother's Day rule, which is to obviously, plant on or around Mother's Day.

We bought four different tomato plants, three types of bell peppers (orange, red and green), two small jalapeño plants, a thyme plant and a Siam basil plant.

Our farmers market finds

The tomato varieties include Sweeties, a bright grape tomato with high sugar content and firm texture. Early Girl is a popular early slicing tomato, your typical medium-sized red tomato. The one I'm most excited about is the Black From Tula, a large purple/black heirloom tomato. The description says it's been said to have the best flavor of all the dark tomatoes, with "a rich, old-fashioned flavor that's sweet and spicy," according to the Tomato Chooser app. It also says the fruit can be as big as 8 to 14 ounces, so I'm especially excited for this one. And finally, the orange Chef's Choice tomato, which is a hybrid variety that reminds me of the Early Girl, only orange.

So, now we have a table full of plants, and I may need to transplant a couple of them, but this way I knew I could have a variety of locally grown produce to put in my garden.

Also, the lady who I bought the Black From Tula and Sweeties from was able to tell me where she bought her seeds and everything. That's what's great about buying local. I also found out that she and her husband live a couple blocks away from me and mine, and they sell beautifully rich compost by the gallon. If we bring our own container they will sell it to us for $1/gallon. We have our compost started, but it won't be good until next year, probably, so we definitely took him up on that offer. The plan is to add it to the soil when we plant the tomatoes and peppers here in a couple weeks. The woman said even just adding some to the tops of already planted plants will perk them up immediately, so I may add some to my spinach and see what happens.

I recommend heading to your local farmers market like we did, and talking to people. You can really learn a lot about your area that way, and maybe you will be lucky like us and find some cheap nutrients for your garden. I knew buying tomatoes from these guys would be a good idea since they obviously had plenty of rich compost to use.

A Week After Planting

April 13, 2015

So it's been a week and a day since we planted our first seeds: cilantro, mesclun mix and two types of spinach. We've been watering twice a day, trying to use our rain barrel water when we can. It rained a bunch the past two days so both of our barrels are nice and full.

Spinach #1 (heirloom)

What's cool is that the storms had lightning and thunder, which always provides nitrogen-rich water for plants. Never heard of that? Here's a link for more information: https://www.pick-a-pepper.com/readarticle.php?itemid=100

I've been excitedly checking the garden every day, anticipating sprouts. Most of what we've planted is sprouting, with the exception of the cilantro. That's really the only crop that I haven't seen popping up, but the seeds were bigger and had a harder shell than the others, so I bet they will take a bit longer to germinate and all that.

Spinach #2

I've also been thinking that maybe we planted the cilantro wrong. As in, we planted two rows of cilantro, and I am thinking we should have just done a patch of cilantro, so we could do other patches of different herbs, too. I guess I will just wait and see.

I found this cool idea from my website perusal at my internship. It's called an herb spiral, and it's designed for herbs of all sorts. Here's a link to learn more: http://www.littlemountainhaven.com/how-to-build-a-herb-spiral//  Maybe next year I could try one of these. I don't know where I'd put it though, so I'll keep thinking on that one.

Mesclun mix

Another potential issue is that I definitely planted the mesclun mix too close together. I'm going to end up needing to thin a lot of it out, but I knew that from the beginning when I planted them and they all stuck together and to my fingers. the sprouts are already really close together, and they've somehow spread to other rows and in between rows. I'm going to try to save as much as I can, but for now I am going to let them grow a little bit more before I pull any up.

So I guess I will continue to water and do what I'm doing. Everything seems to be going well, so far. I've seen some bugs and a squirrel or two, but nothing serious yet.

Planting Day -- Happy Easter!

Sunday, April 5th, 2015

Today was planting day.

We bought our seeds at Skinner's Garden Store the other day and we started soaking them around 7 p.m. last night (Saturday, April4th). This speeds up the germination process. (I linked to an article in my previous post that explains soaking seeds in more detail.)

We added some Miracle Gro

garden soil in rows where we

were going to plant.

First, we laid down some Miracle Gro Garden Soil, which I got on sale at Home Depot for $3.88/cubic foot. A little more than one bag was needed to do what is pictured here (on the left).

In the first two rows we planted cilantro. I'm not really sure what to expect. We followed the instructions on the packet and planted them a 1/2" deep 3" apart. We had some leftover seeds, so Ryan planted them in a hanging planter and we hung that on the chainlink above the other cilantro we planted. Now, we just need to remember to water that particular cilantro a bit more than the other.

We decided to then do the non-heirloom spinach, separated by the mesclun mix with the other spinach (heirloom) on the opposite side of the mesclun so it's separated and we can keep them straight. This way we can know which spinach is which.

The regular spinach said to plant 3 seeds 4"-6" apart whereas the heirloom spinach called for 3 seeds

Marigolds are bright in color
and offer many benefits
to your home garden.

planted 12"-14" apart because I think it's more like a bush.

I don't know how well the mesclun mix is going to turn out. The instructions said to plant 1/2"- 3/4" apart, so I was assuming that meant one seed because it didn't really specify. Then, because the seeds were so small and sticking together from being soaked, I wasn't able to get them to plant the way the pack said to. I ended up with one row when it said I should end up with two. So I will see what happens. I decided not to worry too much about it, this is my first time planting food, and there will be more opportunities in the future to do better.

UPDATE: After talking to a friend who has more gardening experience than me, she said to add the seeds to a little bit of sand, then sprinkle that mixture where I plant to plant, that way they are dispersed more evenly. She said you may still need to thin them out a bit, but for the most part the sand trick helps spread the seeds apart a little bit better.

Another thing we figured out is that we should count our seeds and plan how many we are going to plant before soaking them. We ended up with extra seeds we had nowhere to plant but that had already been soaked. So, in the future I hope to remember to count them, then soak them, then plant.

After planting, I also planted marigolds around my beds. Here is more on why to plant marigolds.

This photo was taken after we
mulched and watered.

Next came watering. I had to fill my waterer with water from our rain barrels because we have yet to figure out a good hose system for them. Ryan also tried something new: He hooked up soaker hoses to the barrels and laid them in the north garden where we have yet to plant anything. It actually worked! He was able to leave the soaker hoses and the water came out of the rain barrels and slowly watered the garden. Now, we just need to get some new hoses that will work better with our garden setup.

Lastly, we spread an alfalfa mulch all over where we planted. This will help with pests, weeds, water retention and nutrients for next year.

The packets say to expect to see growth in as little as five days. I'll keep watering and hope it works. I'll post more soon, once things start to grow.

This is the north bed where Ryan is trying out
the soaker hoses. It works, we just need better hoses.

Planting time

April 4, 2015

Easter Sunday Ryan and I will plant.

We decided to start off with some spinach, cilantro and mesclun salad mix. We are going to plant the south bed, which will have partial shade in the late afternoon. We wanted to get something in the ground and these items can be harvested in a few weeks and we can then plant more of the same, or pick something new.

I bought the Tomato Chooser app and the When to Plant app, both from Mother Earth News. They have been very helpful in helping us choose when and what to plant. I've also been reading the book, Growing Beautiful Food: A Gardener's Guide to Cultivating Extraordinary Vegetables and Fruit by Matthew Benson. I love the book because it has lots of great information on what type of soil you need for different crops, when to plant, when to harvest and much more.

The Tomato Chooser app was helpful because you can search the hundreds of
varieties by color, size, how many days to maturity, seed type and much more. There's a great button you can push for more resources called "Guides". There you can find articles from past issues of Mother Earth News all about growing tomatoes. You can also just browse 333 different tomato varieties to find the ones that are best for your garden.

The When to Plant app helps you plan out when and what to plant in your garden.  It has a setting you that will use your location to help decide when it's best for you specifically to plant certain crops. So then, you can click on "Plant Now" and you will find a list of crops to plant now.

 When to Plant App

On any list there will be bars of various colors indicating different things. Blue shows when to start sowing indoors or under cover; green shows when you can sow outdoors or transplant seedlings; yellow shows the range of expected harvest dates possible. It's very handy in planning when to

plant, and when you can harvest and plant again. Especially for newbies like us who have no idea what to expect!

Each app cost me $1.99, which I didn't think was bad. I found myself searching the internet and finding different explanations for each plant and I was just getting confused. These apps keep it simple and helped me choose my favorites and create a plan.

So, the seeds we plan to pant tomorrow are soaking in water. I was told by a friend that I should, so I am. I Googled why you should soak seeds and found this informative article on a website: http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/seeds/soaking-seeds.htm.