Switched at Potagar

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon tilling, filling, and planting. 

My boyfriends dad helped be wheel the wheelbarrow around the other side of the house so that we didn't have to carry each of the four bags of soil individually through the house. His idea and a good one. Really good one! 

Once the soil was placed I started tilling the soil with a shovel. It made me really tired and got me way to close to the bugs. So I went looking for a hoe. Found one! That made it do much easier and made it possible for me to till the soil much better. 

Once that was handled I started out with planting the tomatoes. I miscalculated what space I needed. Since the tomatoes were our best crop I made sure to get all of those in before anything else. 

Then I worked on the cucumbers and strawberries. I had planned on using the recycled bed for the strawberries and planted 4 Ozark Beauties before I realized that I would either need to cover the soil with landscaping cloth so that the berries don't touch the soil and rot when they come in or plant them somewhere else. I stopped my planting right there because I wanted to come up with a solid plan. 

(R) Sungold Cherry Tomato. (L) Burpless cucumber plants and trellises to grow up. 

(Front Row from L to R) Bradley Tomato, French Radishes, Romaine Lettuce. (Mid L) Eversweet Strawberries. (Mid R) Lemon Boy. (Back L) Beefstake Tomato. (Back R) Lemon Boy. 

Container cucumber of the Burpless variety with trellis. 

Ozark Beauties in side garden. See how all the starter berries are touching the soil? That will rot them, 100%. 

Cucurbit Family

Patch Market...

I watered everything in PM when I first went out because the weather was hot, in the high 80's. I checked on the radishes and they are about 1/2 an inch tall and then moved into Potagar. 

Potagar Schoultz...

I watered everything with the new hose gun which I absolutely love and then I took the wheelbarrow to fill it up. When I looked inside it was filled with water and algae of some sort so I switched the gun to the power wash setting dump the wheel barrow over and started washing it out. The gun made quick work of it and then I wheeled over to the compost pile to fill. Filling was a lot harder than I thought because of the heat. I was sweating actually bullets that kept attempting to run into my eyes. I filled it about 1/3 of the way then added Perlite and wheel over to the front far right bed and dumped. When I'd finished I went inside to cool off. I was going to stay inside but I decided I wanted to plant the cucurbits; squashes. 

Cucurbit Family...

I went back out after cooling off for a few minutes and filling my Brita water bottle with ice and water. I grabbed the yard stick and 4 foot dowel. I measured out four equal plots of 4x4 square feet. I grabbed the the trellises, the crookneck squash, patty-pan squash, & shovel. I put a square trellis in the middle of the top and bottom two plots. I figured that each plant could climb one side of the trellis. I planted the patty-pan first in the front left plot and the 3 crooknecks around it. I was going to water with the hose gun but I wanted to give them a good start with some sea magic. So I went inside grabbed the concentrate and 1/2 measure cup. I poured in 1/4 a cup of sea magic and filled the watering can with 1 gallon of water. I watered with the sea magic close to the roots then watered the remaining dry compost surrounding the plants with just water. I had to fill the watering can again but it was worth it to keep water off the leaves; prevent burn. 

I was going to go inside and did but while I was in the sun room getting ready to head downstairs I saw the big containers I got from the Dollar Tree and decided to plant another cucurbit, the cucumbers, in the container. I carried the container to the compost pile filled it and added compost. I grabbed the shovel, cucumber in the small 4pk cell and the 2 cucumbers in the clay pot. I thought it would be easier to transfer the clay pot plants but there roots had really grown deep. I basically had to turn the entire pot over and re-plant it in the large plastic container. I then squeezed the small plant out and planted that. I watered with a gallon of sea magic water mix and moved it next to the watermelon recycling bin. It was too heavy to move anywhere else. Then, I finally went inside. I was hot sweaty and getting dehydrated. I needed to cool off but was glad to endure the heat to get all I got done, done.

3 cucumber plants. 

Patty-pan (long stem front) and crooknecks. 

Wawa-melon: Second Shift

Shift Work...

Because I wrote my entry so early today it didn't include all of my gardening, so I decided to write a second entry. I haven't been able to do much work outside because of the crazy weather but I was able to sneak in some gardening in two shifts today. For the last few days the rain will pour down for 15 minutes then the sun will come out for an hour. I took advantage for the hours of sun we got before the 7pm downpour that's last until this point, 12am. I'll be picking up where I left off in my last entry.

Amending...

I amended the beds during the second break in the rain. I filled the wheelbarrow with compost and added perlite, just like before then created hills for the 7 square foot plots assigned to the sweet potatoes. I had to scoop the compost mix into the bed, rather than pouring, because it happened to be the one bed with completed fencing. It probably ended up helping me out because pouring would have been a mess and could have crushed the tomato-berry plant taking up the rest of the bed. It's interesting that the smallest fruit, tomatoes, take up the most space. The tomato-berry plant needs a 4x4 space compared to the 2x2 space the Parks Whopper and Atkinson needs. Once I completed the hills I grabbed the recycling bin and added the rest of the compost mix from the wheelbarrow into it. It really looked like I'd have enough to fill the bin but it didn't even fill a fourth of it. I went back for a second filling and Perlite addition. Instead of topping off the recycling bin I went straight to Patch because I didn't want to fill the barrow a third time to amend my plots. I had to scoop into the four plots allotted for sweet potatoes in my bed because it wouldn't have worked any other way. I added a scoop to each square foot then mixed it into the existing soil and scooped another 3-4 inches of compost mix on top. Smart Gardener recommended that I amend the top 8 inches of soil with compost so I mixed one large scoop at least four inches deep then added another 3-4 on top. I think this will give my sweet potatoes a great start. Once I'd added the extra few inches of compost to the plots the twine dividers were covered so I pulled them up and pushed the sticks holding them down just about an inch or two so that they would show but not look out of place compared to the other dividers. When that was done I smoothed everything out and cleaned up all the stray compost I'd spilled. I was careful not to make too much of a mess so clean-up was quick. Since I was already clean I decided to get rid of all the weeds I'd pulled and left collecting insects about a week ago. I wasn't able to get rid of them early because of the weather but I've wanted to so I gathered my pile and tossed it. When I cleared everything I noticed that the spot on the path that housed the weeds was covered in worms and potato bugs or rolly-pollies. The worms instantly started inching their way to the nearest soil and the "rollies" began to scurry. I quickly ran to grab anything to smash the RP's with, I found an old tree stake and started to smash away. I think I got most of them and it was kind of fun. I'm starting to think that RP's are much more dangerous and reproduction-happy than I originally thought. They are everywhere, everywhere. 

Georgia...

I finished smashing grabbed my wheelbarrow with some remaining compost and my shovel and headed back to the Georgia Jet bed. I wheeled the barrow past the gate into the drive way then went inside to grab my trowel, planting gloves, and the slips. I poured the excess water out of the Slip cup and headed back out to plant those babies. We ordered 12 plants but only had enough room for 7 in that bed, and I'm using my home grown slips in the 4 plots in Patch, so I rifled through the lot to find the best looking ones. I set them aside and started marking off 12 inches for each plot. Once I'd done that I planted them as high on the compost hill a I could and as centered as possible. I watered them very lightly because I knew the rain was coming and time was running out on my second shift. 

Seven Georgia Jet slips planted on hills. They look bad but the pamphlet said they would and that they'd survive & thrive.

Wawa-melons...

With the remaining compost mix I topped off the recycling bin and decided between peanut plants and watermelon plants. Since peanuts are a root legume I went with the watermelons. I used the 2 plants, planted from seeds on April 3, that were together in 1 newspaper pot because the recycling bin could only hold two, max. I noticed that a mushroom was growing in the pot. So I pulled it out, took the newspaper off (didn't have too), and planted them in the center. I can't wait for them to produce fruit. I love tiny things and seeing the first mini watermelons will be a thrill for me, haha. I finished planting and getting everything I needed inside right in time for the rain. 

Mushroom in my watermelon seedling pot. 

Two watermelon seedlings planted, May 11, 2013.

Birthday Backdate

Birthday...

 Since I didn't do much gardening today except for watering I am going to write a little bit about my birthday because it was a garden birthday and I didn't get to write about.

Considering, that gardening is my thing on April 18th I spent the very warm afternoon planting tomatoes, lemon balm, and basil. I then showered and got ready for dinner with my family and boyfriend. At dinner I spoke of my garden, my hopes for it and then we did presents. My mom gave me a beautiful garden tool set by Threshold and a matching pair of women's gardening gloves. The ones made of canvas and suede, heavy duty. I like them so much but I know I won't do any planting in them for fear of getting them to the point where they are no longer recognizable. I was going to return them because I knew I would not use them because I liked them so much but I thought again and decided to keep them. I looked around online on how to clean them but found very little. I know garden gloves aren't meant to stay beautifully, perfectly, and purely clean but I also believe that they wouldn't make them in canvas and suede in beautiful patterns if they couldn't maintain some of there glory. So how do you clean these types of gloves? Or are they meant just for heavy duty work, like, weeding, wheeling the wheelbarrow and shoveling ?

Boyfriend...

Once dinner and all of that was done Mike and I came home and opened the presents he'd gotten me. He got me 2 sun hat, I requested, a few unrelated items, and a pair of comfortable headphones, the newest out from Apple, and the MOST comfortable amazing headphones/mic I've ever had. I have a hard time using headphones because my ears are sensitive and he knew I'd want to listen to music as I worked in the garden... great gifts all around. He also knew that I'd have trouble wearing an expensive hat out, at first, so he got me one cheap but very cute one and one more expensive one. That way I can easy in to the nicer one. 

Imagined...

When I imagined up Patch I also imagined what I would look like in Patch. I would have a sun hat on or around my neck, matching gloves, tools, and knee pad. I'd be wearing old shorts and a tank top and just be very smiley and peaceful. All the stuff I got on my birthday made that image come true. I don't have the caddy yet but I just found a matching one. Overall really good HAUL and birthday!

Tomorrow...

I'll finish building the tepee trellises, weed, and amend. I'll post a video on how to build the trellises and some images of the finished product in place!

Tool set!

Caddy I'll soon get!

Cheaper (L) and Pricier (R), love them both. I have a neon shirt to match the cheaper one.

Gloves to match my tool set and soon caddy. Love the pattern!

Potagar Schoultz

Patch Update...

Today I didn't work on my garden except for watering and setting out the greenhouse. I noticed that the first carrot seeds started to germinate, there are only 2, so far, but I still have a few days. I hope they'll all come out but if they don't I'll have the time to replant. I didn't work on my garden but I did work on the Potagar.

Setting Up...

It was a beautiful warm Saturday with a nice breeze, Mr. S. was home and working on his garden. I woke up early but didn't get up until about noon. I stayed in bed watching Big Love. When I finally made my way up and out I saw that he'd built 4 out of the 5 beds. He had them laid out just as they were built and I asked "is this how you plan on setting them up?" He said "No I just built them and put them down. I still have one more to build. I think we might put one next to your bed [in Patch]." I thought about how I'd set up the raised beds in the measured space on Smart Gardener and about how I could have gotten the measurements so wrong. It didn't seem like all the four by four beds would fit around the four by eight bed. Next thing I knew I had the measuring tape out, had grabbed a built 4x4, and started moving it . Nobody was out back at this point so I thought I could easily try a few different positions out...

So I started rearranging and it turned out that I hadn't measured "so" incorrectly. I was a little off but not as off as it seemed. I moved the large bed into the middle and put 2 small beds on the left and 2 on the right (one was just the box of the bed that had yet to be put together). I thought it looked good but needed to get approval. I asked Mr. S to come take a look, he liked it but said I had to get Mrs. S to approve. One the conditions of Potagar Schoultz was that it made the yard look beautiful. He asked her to take a look and she liked it but thought that the yet-to-be-built bed should be left that way. Once I explained that it wouldn't take more of the space to the right she was in, I think she loved it! So I started putting together the last bed and set it in its spot. It looked good, GREAT!

Next Step...

The next step was to lay out the newspaper to kill the grass and weeds. Mr. S asked me to do that while he went out for a few minutes. I said that I would and went inside to grab a bunch of paper. I laid it all out and then realized that, that nice breeze was blowing it all up. I laid bricks, a rake, a hoe, and extra bundled up paper in the middle of each bed to hold it down. After I finished all of that I realized that those items wouldn't hold each and every end. I thought of how I could keep everything down while we added soil to each bed. I knew that we weren't going to do it right away and that when we did, it would take us some time. So, I watered the paper. Damping it did hold it down but I got soaked from the mid-thigh down. The hose isn't spraying properly anymore. I moved on to moving everything out of the way of the cement walk. We needed it cleared to roll the wheelbarrow back and forth. I finally grabbed the wheelbarrow, rolled over to the compost heap, and started filling it. I got it about half way full when Mr. S got back with lunch. I stopped cleaned up the remaining paper and went in to wash up for lunch. I was a hot mess from shoveling compost. It was the part I knew would be the most trying... 

After Lunch...

I took an hour break for lunch and to watch a little more Big Love. At around 3pm I went back outside. Mike's Dad was out there filling up the barrow for the 3rd time. He had almost filled one full 4x4. I helped him fill the wheelbarrow, add Perlite, fill more, add more Perlite, mix, wheel, drop in beds, and rake out what didn't drop. We did this 7 times. We filled two beds to the top and just added enough compost to the other beds to hold the newspaper in place overnight. The paper had dried by then. After that Mr. S went inside and I cleaned up the empty boxes, bags, and moved the wheelbarrow back to the heap for tomorrow. I was exhausted. I went in to shower, have dinner, and relax.

Later that day...

I took the print out from SmartGarden and started writing down the number of each plant we still needed and whether we needed seeds or seedlings. As I did that I realize that we had a large amount of certain plants to buy and they happen to be the ones that weren't favorites. For example, it was listed that we needed 16 sweet basil plants. I changed a couple things around so that 1 bed is dedicated to cantaloupe and the other to watermelon. I removed a few of the tomato and basil plants and added a few of the varieties with low yields  We're completely set for 1 more Home Depot trip if they have sweet potatoes if they don't we'll have to make one for trip for that. Once we buy everything and add the rest of the compost we'll be ready to plant each and every single seedling and seed minus the sweet potato, peppers, and watermelons. Those will be left inside until it heats up a little more. They like warm and long hot days. We're still in the "cool" time frame. It's going to look amazing with most of the things planted and even more amazing with everything planted!

Full View of all 5 beds from driveway gate.

Large 4 x 8ft. bed and left side 4 x 4ft. top corner bed.

Final Potagar Schoultz lay out.

Alone on a Home De-top

First Trip...

On my first trip to Home Depot for supplies I went with a friend, Chris. He made it possible for me to get all the stuff I needed and then helped me shop for everything. It was amazing! I was so excited to be getting all of the supplies I needed (minus the plants, too early). Chris helped me load the cinder blocks and choose the best top soil and humus for the job. Once we'd purchased everything a kindly work helped us load the vehicle. He asked us questions like how far we were going and etc. I replied "Arlington" and that set him off on the fact that he had gone to the local high school in Arlington as well. So he chatted and complained and chatted some more. Finally, we were done, thanked him, and drove off.

Chris helped me load the wheelbarrow to drop the supplies in the garden. Our house is on a hill so that's kind of a big task. We had to push all of the supplies to Patch up the hill on one side of the house, across the back of the house and around to the other side where my garden resides twice. We cannot go the easy way because for 1) it's way to narrow and 2) stairs. Even with the both of us loading and unloading it was a bit trying but went quickly. I wanted to address this because I said I had done all the heavy lifting in my last blog. What I meant was that I had gotten the bricks, 1/2 the mulch, topsoil and 3 cinder blocks to the garden on my own and completed the building 100% on my own. Chris helped me get all the rest to the garden. So grateful to him because I made a second trip to Home Depot two days later...

Second Trip...

On my second trip to Home Depot I was alone. I went to the one by our house and spent an hour trying to find things that they just didn't carry. Things I had bought with Chris at the Home Depot a few miles further down the road. (I did get the type of seeds for carrots and spinach that grow well in my area but nothing more.) When I arrived at the 2nd location I parked in the first covered garage and was greeted by a familiar employee with a much weirder demeanor. When he recognized me from my first trip with Chris he began quoting Napoleon Dynamite and following me around the store quoting and asking if I'd need help loading. Finally, I'd gotten so scared and annoyed I asked a young guy to show me around to the things I needed. I picked up six more bags of top soil, 3 concrete blocks, and a Shepard or Forged hook to hang my strawberry topsy turvy. The young man helped me ring everything up and as we were finishing the weird-o guy approached the young man and myself and asked "you got this man? Or do you want me to load?" The other guy answered in an irritated manner "NO DUDE I GOT IT!" Then as the guy left said (to me) "that guy creeps out most of our female clients and does not get that not everyone wants help." He helped me load up my car and I left.

When I got home I grabbed the wheelbarrow and loaded 4 of six bags. It took me 3x as long and my shoulders began hurting half way up the hill. I got it all the way up and to the Gate unloaded and went back for the rest. At this point I'm sweating profusely and my muscles are strained. I loaded the 2nd bunch then tried pushing it up the driveway. I began rolling backwards because the weight superseded my own. I pushed through it and made it to the garden without too much damage but vowed to take someone with me the next time around.

I only need plants now but if I ever do need more I'm taking someone with me 1) because of creepy Napoleon and 2) because I lack the strength.

I'm still really excited and I get to start the container part (decorate area around the bed) tomorrow but at this point I have a much greater respect for farmers landscapers and major home gardeners. It's hard work especially alone on a hilltop.

Building Bed in Patch

Once I had cleared the side yard for Patch Market I needed to build a raised bed. I wanted the bed to be large enough for several different types of veggies and cheap. I wanted to recycle. That didn't happen but I was crafty. I found some old bricks from a project we'd done on the house (sitting in the drive way for 2 years) and bought a couple of cinder blocks (@$1.21/cb) to fill in the lack of bricks. The bed would have been a lot prettier in all brick because it would have matched our house more but it looks good enough and cost me very little in supplies. Well, not including the soil. Being a very petite 5'2 and 108lbs. it was difficult to load the cinder blocks and bricks into wheelbarrow I happened to have (another home repair project) but I managed alone. That isn't to say I didn't almost role down our driveway a few times and trip over my own feet half a dozen times but I did manage. It was hard work and I was sore in the morning. I know everyone says gardening is hard work but stupid ass me I thought 'lazy'. I was wrong.

Like I said, I almost rolled down our hill, and tripped but that wasn't all. I also almost flew over the edge of the wheelbarrow pulling out roots. I got soil in my eye about 4 times putting the bricks in place and smashed my fingers with the cinder blocks. To put the icing on the cake on the way out of Patch I caught my pinky finger on a thorn and bled out gracefully all over my new gardening gloves. So much for all the fun! I think it'll start getting better now that all the heavier lifting is done. Well, I hope so because I don't think the almost's are going to last. Soon I'll be posting "I did's".

Total Cost for bed: $14.52 + tax