Planting the herb garden

Greenhouses and Goats

Our 4H club enjoyed a behind the scenes peek at a greenhouse.  So much more goes on there than meets the eye.

Some of it is right before our eyes, but I just never noticed.  For example, each one of these hanging baskets has it's own drip irrigation.

Another thing I learned is that those first two tiny leaves on a sprout are called cotyledon. I feel so garden smart now. 

Seeing all these plants got me itching to get a couple seedlings started.

A small sample of bird feeders they had.  If there is something to stick out in your backyard, they had it there.  Everything was so, so cute, I didn't see one thing I wouldn't want.  The only thing that kept me from backing the car up to the front door and loading it up was that all that cuteness comes with quite a price tag. If we lived where it was nice out most of the year it might not seem like so much, but here in Minnesota, where our first and last frost dates only span about 4 1/2 to 5 months, it sure does.  

Next stop was the park for a meeting, Subway lunch and knocking a volleyball around.

We finished up the day with a visit to a goat dairy.  Nothing will make you say "ahhh" faster than 80 plus goats all together.  This pen held over 25 newborn kids. Made me think we needed more goats, but then I came to my senses.  Dancer's goat Jamal is from this dairy so I scoured the mommy goats to see if I could see the one that might be his mom. There were a couple that would fit the bill so there will be no definite  family reunion for him. 

How To Prepare Spaghetti Squash

We were given a spaghetti squash a few years ago from someone who had a garden overflowing with them and loved it.  The next couple of years we thought that we would just grow our own and not have to rely on kindness from others.  Well, we were unsuccessful in getting them to grow for some reason and gave up on them.  This summer we decided to try our hand at them again and we grew a plant that took over the garden.  I don't know why some years certain plants grow and other years they don't.   Anyway, if  you're fortunate enough to get your hands on a spaghetti squash, here is what you do with it.

Split it in two and scoop out the stuff in the middle.  You can roast the seeds like pumpkin seeds for an extra treat.

Lay it cut side down on a tray with a little bit of water and bake it at 350 degrees for about half an hour.

Take it out and rake over the flesh with a fork.  The strands, or spaghetti, will easily pull away from the rind.  Use this just as you would spaghetti.  

Stacked Front Porch Planter

Most of the parts to the planter in the order from bottom to top of the picture how I stacked them together, I added one more saucer and pot not pictured. No need for all of them to be the same color, because I have confidence I am going to keep all the plants alive and they are going to thrive so much on the porch that no one will even notice the non white pots.  Plus I am cheap and there was no way I was going to go out and buy new pots for a project when we have a shed full of old ones. Wait, I'll just tell people, if they ask, that I am so green I reused pots from other years, that sounds better than cheap.

First layer, pot with saucer in it and upside down pot on the saucer.  Fill in dirt around the saucer and insert plants

Second layer is saucer, large pot then another saucer to make a planting area. By putting the saucers in the large pots it also took way less potting mix which would have added a lot of weight and money to the project. I will have to water it a lot more often because less dirts means it will dry out faster, but if I decide to move it I won't need two men and small boy to lift it.

View from the side, just keep adding saucers and pots until it is the desired height.

Top view, can hardly wait for the flowers to start growing and make all the layers full and beautiful!

Our Berry Best

Our second berry of the year and there is one more ripening in the garden!  Yep, our total crop will be three berries and we are ecstatic about it.  Why? Because we seem to be berry challenged.  We have tried blueberries, strawberries and raspberries.  We have mail ordered them from very reputable sellers, bought them at the local garden store and gotten free ones from patches where "they grow like weeds."  Seems the only place we can get berries is the produce section of the grocery store.    

Happy Veggies

When cutting up veggies to freeze for our winter food supply, this green pepper was smiling.  It must have been happy to contribute.  If veggies smiling at you doesn't make your day, nothing will.

Frosty Peppers

The garden starting to produce fast and furious so it is time to start freezing some of it. These are peppers, cut up, laid on a baking sheet and frozen.  Then we put them in freezer bags and during the winter pull them out for soups etc.

Sadish Radish

Here is our radish crop.  The whole thing.  An entire long row.  The largest one is about as big around as a nickel.  We do have one thing to be thankful for in our radish harvest flop - we don't depend on it to pay the mortgage. 

Snowball Bush

 

We have this beautiful snowball bush that is heavily covered with flowers.

 

 

I am always so happy when it blooms because every single year, for the first few years we had it, our naughty goat Maggie would get out of the corral and, as fast as she could, chew each and every bloom off of it

We sold that goat.

First The Root Grows Down

 

We are getting desperate to grow something, anything.  With the weather not cooperating we put some seeds in plastic bags with wet paper towels and hung them in the window.  I did plant some tomato seeds but those darn cats thought they looked tasty and once the second leaves came out they ate them.  Those cats are getting less popular everyday.

 

 

So far we have had a pumpkin seed sprout, a couple of peas and a sunflower.  I am wondering if we aren't getting good germination because the window is either freezing cold from the temps outside or really hot from the two days that the sun actually made a showing.

 

 

One thing that I find amazing about seeds is that no matter how you plant them, the root always grows down first, they will even turn themselves around, and then the plant then grows up.  Amazing, just amazing that every seed knows to do this.

 

Looking at these seeds with their little roots has put a song running in an endless loop in my head that we use to sing when the kids were little sprouts themselves.

 

♪ ♫ Of all you learn here, remember this the best.

Don't hurt each other and clean up your mess.

Take a nap every day, wash before you eat,

Hold hands, stick together

Look before you cross the street.

Remember the seed in the little paper cup,

First the root grows down and then the plant grows up!  ♪ ♫

Plant A Seed

 

The theme of the day at co-op was seeds.  The kids planted them in pots, in cups, in baggies, and in eggs shells.  They planted everything from mint to sunflower seeds.

 

 

Here they are making the seed tapes.  Some of them really got into this made several strips, must have been the gooey flour/water mixture.

 



A little socializing, actually that is what these three do the most of.

 

Just a cute picture of Dancer.

 

Making bread sticks for lunch.  The kitchen we get to use is amazing, it has all the bells and whistles.

Make Your Own Homemade Seed Tapes

With snow in the forecast for the next seven days we are still hopeful that there will be a spring, even a summer, and we will be able to plant a garden.  There will be a need for seeds!

We plant our garden with a planter, a must have when we were selling at farmers' markets.   If we didn't, these seed tapes would be the way to go, make them in winter, save your back planting them in the spring.  We are making these for an activity to teach kids in our homeschool co-op about plants and gardening. 

 

Lay out a strip of toilet paper and place a seed about every two inches. 

 

 

Mix up a batch of very runny paper mache (flour and water) and put a teeny, tiny drop on each seed.  This is to keep the seed in the proper place.

 

Fold the paper over and press down on every seed.  It takes just a few minutes for that little drop to dry and then the paper is stuck together.  Roll up the tape and it is ready for planting.

 

 

If you are working with really little seeds you may need a few couple loupes to see them.

4-H Project Day

Last Sunday was our yearly club project day.  It is a day where each family takes topics and does a little talk and has the kids do a project in that area.  The kids in our club range from 5th to 12th grade making it easier to do more complex projects.  This year we:

 

Made bread in a bag.  The kids loved, loved, loved this.  Most of them were eating their bread from the top down as they were leaving.  We even got one phone call that night saying how good that bread was.  Seems no one bakes bread any more and know how yummy good it is.  Hopefully a couple of them will be inclined to start now.

Canned pickle relish.   Only one other family had ever canned anything.  Seems we are in 4-H with a bunch of yuppies that need to be countrified.

 

 Cute memo boards.  A frame, chicken wire stapled to the back, a piece of fabric on cardboard hot glued to the back of that and clothes pins and buttons hot glued to the front.  This one is Sparks.

 

 

Dancer's, her fabric is much cuter than this picture shows.   

 

 

Painted flower pots and planted flowers. 

 

 

Made plant starters out of toilet paper rolls and planted seeds.

 

 

Fire pokers.  This was a length of rebar spray painted black,

 

with a wooden handle that was burned and then they could use a wood burning tool to put their name or whatever they fancied on it.  We tried it out with our first bonfire of the year. 

 

 

Kacheekers was very pleased that we were outside.  He is a lap cat and he doesn't get much attention all winter so this made him happy, happy, happy.

Happiness is...............

Opening the mailbox and finding an envelope full of seeds!!

Christmas Cactus Blooms

 

This fall Dad's great aunt Muriel died and we were the recipients of her Christmas cactus.  It was beautiful.  It was huge, at least three feet across, full and healthy.  The picture perfect Christmas cactus.  We took it, put it in the basement on a table and then we got the kittens.  The kittens loved, loved, loved the Christmas cactus and tore at least 3/4 of the branches off of it.  Then we got a little forgetful and it didn't get watered as it should have.  The kittens have been leaving it alone lately and we have given it a few glasses of water but we didn't pep talk it or anything.   I have heard that it is hard to get them to bloom, and since it has been pretty much abused since it got here, I never expected any flowers.  Then today we were delighted to see that it had indeed put out several flowers.  Perhaps it is a cry for help?  It worked, Dad hung it up so it will be safe from the kittens, that doesn't mean we will remember to water it anymore often though.  We also saw that this huge plant is in a little tiny pot and it has to be terribly root bound.  Maybe that is what makes them bloom, tiny pots, feline abuse and neglect. 

The Great Dust Bowl Of 2012

 

Pulled most of the garden out and then Dad tilled for the spring.

 

It was so dry the weeds didn't even hardly grow so he quit tilling thinking that we wouldn't have any garden left if he finished! 

Those socks are never coming clean and he had to use the air compressor to clean his shoes.