Taters? What's taters?! Boil'em, mash'em, stick'em in the

apple crate! The potatoes are in! One apple crate of kennebec and another apple crate of adirondack blue.

I had to do this at dusk to appease the potato gods. Hee! Just kidding! By the time I was done with church, cleaning the house and mowing, it was 4:45 pm and small group starts at 5. So all I had time to do was plant some marigold seeds and water my raised beds before people came. Hence, the potato planting had to be pushed back to 8 pm because I really wanted to get them in today.

Here's the apple crate with the burlap square that I sewed a couple of weeks ago. This basically involved sewing the four corners with fishing line so that I could have about 2 inches of raised sides. And I decided to make the burlap squares so that I could fill the crate with dirt and it won't fall right through the slits between the boards.

As you can see in the second picture, it worked! Well, you can't really tell from the picture that some dirt didn't fall through, but enough dirt got in there and is staying in there is all that matters. I used Miracle Grow's garden soil because Lowe's had a sale on them two weeks ago. This soil has slow release fertilizer for 3 months which I hope will be good for the potatoes.

In the kennebec crate, I had two halves of a potato that I bought a month ago as well as a whole potato that I bought last week. The halves were very shriveled and didn't seem to have many shoots coming out of them so I bought another one just in case. Halving them was probably a bad idea because the potato was already pretty small to begin with.

The adirondack blue crate has one and a half potatoes. Almost the same reason as the kennebec except that I think one of the half has mold and probably won't grow so I didn't plant that one, and the other half actually looks like it has some live shoots coming out of it. Just to be safe, I got another potato to make sure I have at least one plant in the crate.

Next, I covered the potatoes and soil with straw that was leftover from when we got our backyard done and the basement waterproofed. (Had to use flash for this picture because it got really dark really quick while I was working.) Story behind the straw: the contractors that did the waterproofing nicked one of our trees with their machinery and to make up for it (or so we think is the reason), they sowed some grass seeds and mulched over the area with straw. I didn't use that straw. I used the straw that was leftover from that project that was just sitting in our driveway getting moldy. This straw has already served as front lawn-to-garden converter (used in conjunction with cardboard, it killed the grass quite nicely, and now that the raised beds and hardwood mulch are in, the straw has been put into leaf bags to be reused for projects like this. I had used some on the raspberry canes that I planted at the end of March and most of those canes have leaves now!

And things wouldn't be the same without my dogs hanging around, being curious and getting in the way. So here's Bubba and Bandit (Okay, fine... I just like taking pictures of my pets because they are so darn cute!):

Oh no! Frost! Just kidding

All the weather channels issued a frost warning yesterday which made me feel stupid and cocky for already planting my tomatoes and pepper plants out in the bed. Suzanne, who is a very experienced gardener said to just cover the plants with flower pots, but then I read that covering with plastic wasn't such a good idea as it wasn't breathable (which would really have been fine for one night), so my solution: the reusable grocery bags that I bought for planting morning glories and moon flowers.

I especially liked the Recyclosaurus ones, but they only had 3 left in the store :(

After carefully watering and covering my plants yesterday, I don't think it actually ever frosted. Granted, I was up only at 8:30 and the ice might have thawed by then but I doubt it. I did, however, discover that even though those bags look like they are water permeable, they are actually not. I got some water on top of one of them and that water was still there this morning. This means that I will need to poke drainage holes when I turn them into pots, which I still think is a better idea than spending double for one of the commercially available grow pots.

Lastly, here's a picture of Bonita as she helps me eat the dandelions in my garden :D

Hoop house aka cheap greenhouse for a raised bed

I am going to try to make one of these:
http://www.backyardgardening.net/article/raised-bed-hoop-house/

Spring is here!

Pictures taken today, April 2, 2012:

You can actually see green now. Most of the seeds have sprouted and the ones that haven't, I planted new seeds in their place.

Left plot: Onions, jalapeno pepper, sweet pea, lettuce, kale and two tomato plants.There's also supposed to be alyssum but you can't really see them yet.

Middle plot: Tomato, bell pepper, carrots and spinach. Again, the alyssum border is not quite visible yet.

Right plot: Lettuce, spinach, sweet pea and alyssum.

Raspberry canes in front of the bird feeder and bath. They are from a guy in Gordonsville who created this thornless everbearing hybrid about 15 years ago. He's super into Japanese stuff and had a beautiful Japanese-themed garden.