Careful what you fertilize with

(still mobile blogging)

A big tragedy struck my poor seedlings the other day. Quick background: We started a variety of tomato, pepper, and herb seeds, most heirloom varieties. We put most in our unheated garage under a shop light and over a heatedT seef mat. We didn't have enough space in the garage so we put about 1/3 in a south face window. That was about a month

Fast forward to this week. Seedlings were getting pretty big and strong but I noticed some leaves were turning yellow. Taking my gardening friend, Jami from Oregon cottage, advice I put  liquid fish fertilizer on them. Well wouldn't you know it the next day when I went out to turn on the shop light I was greeted with the most horrifying sight. (at this point in the story check out the pictures below). Something in my garage had eaten every last one of my poblano and red pepper plants. Also almost every single set of seed leaves were eaten off! Seriously? SERIOUSLY!

We have a stray cat that occasionally lives under our house-which is fine with us since it eats all the mice under the house. But I think the fish fertilizer was just too enticing for kitty because within two days of putting that fertilizer on, the plants were eaten! 

It's been almost a week since I discovered the terror annihilation in my garage and I'm sad to say that the plants look terrible (look at pictures). I originally started all these heirloom varieties to sell at my warm season gardening class. But I don't know if they will make it. Weak plants are sitting ducks for garden pests and I don't think my seedlings are strong enough to sell. What a bummer as I wanted to make a buck selling them! Blah and double blah!!

Seedling adventure to be continued......

End of an amazing day

After that amazing 40 minute stint playing nicely with each other, they wanted to take a bath together which lasted another 20 minutes. Wow! You can tell how amazing I think this is based on three whole posts dedicated to this event. Heck, my garden doesn't even get this kind of press.

Still going...

(refer to the post right below this for reference)

They are still going....playing nicely for 45 minutes!

***post-edit: right before I was about to publish, Lane fell off the bed and playtime was over. But still... 45 minutes!?!

(sorry about the sideways picture, I'm still figuring out this mobile blogging thing)

A rare moment and miracle

Behold, you are witnessing a truly rare occurrence in our home. Chase and Lane are actually playing quite nicely.
Now, if you are involved in my daily life, then you know that Chase playing nicely with his sister does not happen.
But today, God took pity on my poor, tired, and waried mothering soul and inspired Chase and Lane to play in their room together COOPERATIVELY for 20+ minutes. And no one got hurt. I feel like I just won the lottery or something. Hurray for small miracles!

Mobile blogging

Today was one of those days when a bunch of little things went terribly wrong culminating into one big  crappy day. At the top of the list is my computer breaking which means no computer time for me. It also means that I must now use my droid phone as my new computer- explaining to ebay buyers why I can't complete transactions right now (paypal app won't work), hoping I'm not overdrawn on my personal spending account (bank doesn't have an app available so I can't transfer $$ between accounts), can't download my podcasts (they are a huge part of my daily routine), and feeling overall general frustration at my inability to effectively blog (trying this blogger app for the first time)

Other craptastic parts of today: polite complaints about my 3 yr old's behavior, pouring rain, canceled playdates, & notifications of actions taken against me on ebay.

Thank you for listening And here's hoping tomorrow is better

Spring in my yard

Remember back in early March when I first cleaned up my front yard? I promised that snipping off all the blossoms would produce vigorous growth in April?

Well it did - the front yard is pretty colorful and vibrant with new growth. I top dressed the entire bed with my homemade compost (more on that in another post) and I think it really helped the fertility of the bed.

 My hellebores are almost on their way out - they've been blooming since February. I cannot stress enough how great this plant is for shade and early spring!

I found these pansies at Costco - you know how they get the most random plants? I have never seen ruffle edged pansies. I impulsively bought them and plan on using them in my front flower porch planters - don't worry, I have a plan for them.

Two more blueberry bushes - I pulled these out of my strawberry bed. I had this brilliant idea to plant blueberries along with strawberries a few years ago. The strawberries have flourished, but the blueberries got choked out. Now to find a suitable location for these two plants in my tiny yard! Until then, they have a home in this cardboard box.

The light box is fixed and the tomato and pepper seedlings have been transplanted. I have a seed heat mat underneath all of these. So far, they seem pretty happy.

We're trying a little experiment. We have way too many seedlings and not enough light from the light box. So we're putting a flat of seedlings next to the south facing window and we are going to see which grows the best.

My little ones have woken up for the morning so my day begins. This week promises no or little rain and lots of sun in the Pac NW and I am so looking forward to this - we hope to put row covers over the broccoli this week. Vegetable garden pictures soon!

Linking with Tuesday Garden Party - check it out

To Do in the garden and some things that are DONE!!!!

 The last few weeks have been pretty busy getting the garden ready - but that is what early spring is for - lots of prep work so that you can have a beautiful space in the summer!

As I mentioned in my last garden prep post, I had a bag of bare root blueberries that I purchased at Costco for very cheap. I potted them up in some containers I had laying around using compost and peat moss (peat moss is acidic - something blueberries like). However, I don't think it was the right thing to do as the blueberries don't look so hot - the leaves are "burning" up (probably from the compost mix) and they are not thriving. I'm not going to give up yet - we'll see how they do.

Since I'm trying to be as organic as possible in my yard, I'm forgoing using chemical controls in the lawn (i.e. MOSS OUT) and thatching the lawn (getting rid of old grass and moss) using a thatch rake. Lots of work - but lots of calories burned doing it!

Okay everyone - you are seeing into my worst part of my yard - the scary east side of my house - SCARY and SAD!! Some key sad highlights of this side of the yard:

• grass growing into the rock walkway
• torn apart trampoline (courtesy of my overactive boys)
• trash scattered around the trampoline (courtesy of boys and neighborhood friends)
• wagon of newspaper - waiting to be added to composter

I need to get this part of the yard shaped up. We plan on using the raised bed pictured on the right side of the picture for squash, pumpkins, and sunflowers. I'm currently working on hand weeding out the grass

(organic!) and try to carve out the pathway again. IF we get chickens - they will go in this part of the yard

Let's move on to better parts of the yard - the less scary part - so here is my strawberry patch. We have Hood and Quinalt varieties in this bed. Every year I weed the bed in early spring before new growth begins - weed out any grass that seeped into the patch and old plants and runners - and I sprinkle compost over the top.

The grass always grows into my walkway border - all it really takes is a few swift swigs of my spade shovel and it looks neat again.

Front planting bed - remember I told you that when I plant the primroses I always pull off flowers so they can establish? Well look at them now - bright, big and beautiful. Just waiting for the tulips to bloom (any day now!)

Here is the finished product of carving out the walkway.

Seedling Update! I mentioned a few weeks ago that I planted 72 seed pods. They germinated and were moved to a south facing window until I repaired my light source in the seed box.

For beginning gardeners and seed starters - it's time to transplant seedlings to bigger pots when the seedlings develop their first set of "true" leaves. The first two leaves you see from the initial germination is not the actual plant - it's really a set of leaves called the Cotyledon and these leaves provide the first food for the young plant. You have to wait until you get real leaves of the plant - I illustrate below what I am talking about.

So today - it's Sunday - and I need to transplant the seedlings into bigger pots - Thankfully my light is fixed and I have plenty of space to put them in! Will update all of you soon.

Salem Area Urban Gardening Classes

I recently decided to begin teaching beginning gardening classes to people who want to farm in "urban" areas. Gardening is truly my passion and I hope to teach many people that is can be simple and accessible. If you are local to me, please leave a comment or email me at: shannandesh at msn (dot) com and I will get back to you ASAP to reserve your spot!

URBAN GARDENING CLASSES - ORGANIC WAYS TO FEED YOUR FAMILY

4-PART SERIES WITH BONUS 5TH CLASS. ALL PLANS AND TECHNIQUES DEMONSTRATED IN MY BACKYARD. YOU’LL LEAVE WITH HANDOUTS AND WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF URBAN GARDENING.

You’ll learn:
• Organic techniques
• Soil preparation
• Cool season vegetables
• Warm season vegetables
• Pruning, staking, thinning techniques
• BONUS: food preservation (canning & freezing)

CLASS SCHEDULE

Each class is $5 per person/per class. Each class runs 60-75 minutes.

Class Dates/Times are as follows:

• March 5: Soil/Garden Preparation. Hands-on learning on how to plan out your garden based on conditions. Also how to prepare beds, supports, soil additives.

• April 16: Cool season vegetables. Plant salad greens, peas, broccoli (with row covers), and herbs.

• May 14: Warm season vegetables. We’ll prune and succession plants the cool season vegetables. Also plant out rest of garden – tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, beans, eggplant, and others.

• July 9: Prune, staking, and harvest techniques





BONUS CLASS:

• August 20: Learn how to can using boiling water canner and can pickles and tomatoes. Also flash freeze methods taught.

More about Me: I'm an urban gardener. I have never lived on acreage and I have never raised livestock. But I have carved out every availabe space in my small suburban backyard that has good light to raise productive plants.  Gardening provides exercise, sun, meditation, and results to my life - something a tired mother of 4 doesn't get very often! Once you are able to see what you can grow in your own yard, you will never look at supermarket produce the same way again. I believe in high quality soil, excellent sun and heat conditions, daily (or every other day) attention to your garden, and the community of gardeners sharing their seeds, experiences, and support.

Check out this post when we removed our entire backyard of turf grass and put raised garden beds so we could our family of 6 organic fresh produce.

Word spread and we were even featured in our local paper - check out this blog post!

Where have I been? Where do you think??

Thank God! I made it! Spring is here! Hurray! (enough exclamations for you?!)

finally, I made it through a dark and dreary and home bound winter with two babies under the age of 2 (I do not recommend this age difference) and now the cherry blossoms are out and it's time to get those seeds planted. We have been so busy these past few weeks with all of our preparation

This is my seed starting station - a "greenhouse" (72 cells, thank you very much) in my office because it is very warm in there and very dark.

We started pepper, tomato, and basil seedlings. I place my greenhouse over a seed heating mat. Do you know that almost all of my tomatoes germinated in 5 days? Go heat mat!

Then we got busy planning things out. I spread out all the seed packets that I've collected the past few months and set out to decide what goes where and when it gets put in.

 This is a beautiful colorful sight to my winter weary soul.

 This year we employed the Popsicle stick labeling system. We cut each stick in half and label the seed cells. I don't know if I would recommend this method for next year. I noticed that many of the sticks had mold growing on them after a week or two.

Jeremy rigged up a cold fluorescent bulb shop light in the garage for the transplanted seedlings. Yeah, but wouldn't you know it - and I'm not kidding here - the BULB CAUGHT ON FIRE within a week and so it is closed for repairs at the moment.

Good thing we have a south-facing window handy - but man!!! - I want my shop light in the garage!!!

Another gardening item that has taken quite a bit of time on our "to-do" list is the load of power plant mix that was delivered last week. Every year we order 2-4 yards (depending on how much our garden soil sunk) and wheelbarrow it to the backyard to amend the soil. This soil is worth every penny because it is a mixture of compost, composted manure, and topsoil and I never have to fertilize anything in my garden (save for a few liquid feedings of Miracle Grow on the annual flowers).

This is a little pathetic bag of two blueberry plants that was marked down at costco. 2 bare root blueberries for $8.00. I put it right next to the door to remind myself to plant it ASAP (footnote: I did plant them up, but they don't look so hot right now a week later, I'll give you updates)

That's the update for now. I just caught a quick moment of sun right now so I'm off to mow, thatch, and edge my front lawn. This is normally a task I reserve for the boys to do all summer, but I like to do the first major maintenance job of the year so I can get the lawn off to a good start. We also need to add the power plant mix to the strawberry patch. See ya!!