DIY Trellis

Mr. C is totally motivated to get our garden going again. He just got to read his Mother Earth magazine this week and was very excited about the trellis made of sticks from the yard and we definitely have plenty of sticks laying around.

Isn't he just so sexy?! I just love it when he's being green. :-) Working on our garden and doing it with little impact. A man after my own heart.

We had our 2 kids + 3 more this week and Mr. C decided to do it that day, he took all 5 kids on a little hike down our very steep hill and collected all the sticks he needed for the trellis.

Here is the finished trellis. This box will hopefully grow snow peas. We will see in about a month.

Don't you just love all the weeds around the outside. That was my brilliant idea to grow alfalfa as a cover crop. That stuff sure was a pain! Oh well, you live, you learn.

Kristen

The Garden is Planted

I am SO excited! I have been waiting and waiting for the huge plant sale at the arboretum. Finally, this weekend it was here.

Here is what my planter boxes have looked like since we got a huge truck full of soil that we had to shovel into the boxes.

At least I have some other stuff growing in the garden all year.

We just planted this a few months ago. I actually planted 3, but this is the only one that really took off. The other two are small.

Lots of onions and some garlic.

I got to the arboretum by about 10:30 and it was already a good 85 degrees. That's ok, I just wanted all my organic veggie plants. Once we got in I went straight to the organic booth.

All in all, I ended up with 48 plants for about $56. I know it doesn't look like 51 plants, but some of those like the pole beans have 4 or 5 in one container. They are pretty easy to split.

Here is my first planter box, remember the peppers? Well, I got one more and added some basil and garlic to the box. The garlic didn't transplant well so it doesn't look so pretty. I also added one more pepper. A yellow one.

You can click on that picture to see the 5 bush beans in one little container. :-) That is so exciting.

In this box, I have 12 corn, 8 pole beans and 4 cucumbers.

Here I have, 1 crimson watermelon, 5 bush beans, 1 muskmelon, 1 zuccini, 2 butternut squash, 1 squash with a hard green outer shell and the rest I don't know because Mr. C planted them and didn't keep the tags. So, it will be a surprise. But there are 16 plants in all. So fun! I will have to show pictures in a month so you can see the growth. I just learned that the butternut and other squashes with the hard outer skin will keep all winter long. I hope I get a ton.

Here are 5 tomatoes, 3 celery (transplanted), 2 peanut plants and 1 egg plant. I am totally excited about the peanut plants. They will be very fun!

Last, I have these 2 cucumbers that Mr. C is trying. It's a new self watering space saver thing. So far, so good.

Can't wait to see it grow and eat it up!

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Bell Peppers!

Finally! We get to plant our spring garden, although, spring doesn't officially start till March 20th. The "Monster Pepper and Tomato sale was going on at Cal State's Arboretum. Peppers (crunchies) are a favorite around here so C was very excited to pick out what he wanted. Anyway, remember that planter box we made? Well, now we get to fill it.

C did most of the digging, I just put the plants in.

Digging the hole...

Checking the fit...

Perfect!

Time to water...

Oops, I deleted the good picture.

We have tangerine pimentos, heart shaped pimentos, small red and yellow chrunchies (very sweet) king red, big orange and yellow and a couple disease resistant hybrid varieties. 13 in all.

I hope this inspires you to garden and eat lots of veggies.

Planter Boxes

1st we have gopher removal...

Well, it is greener then running the hose through the holes for hours. That didn't work anyway.


So you have probably figured out, we have a BIG problem in our garden. That's right, gophers! We thought we caught the little critter, but the next day there were more holes. He is just going up and down the rows eating all my cabbage, broccoli and now he has started to attack the strawberries. Oh My Goodness!! This is so frustrating. We have a little fence around the garden to keep the rabbits out. Putting that up was a ton of work. We used a trench digger to dig down about a foot for the fence and it is about 3 feet high. Works great for the rabbits, but not enough of a barrier for the gophers. So, now we are building planter boxes. Only 1 a months so we can afford it.

We used cedar because cedar and red wood are supposed to hold up in the weather. Cedar is less expensive then red wood, so that's what we choose. The wood also has to be untreated so there are no chemicals to get into the soil. We bought the wood for about $80 and we had to line the bottom with tight chicken wire. That cost about $60, but we will get 3 bottoms out of them. The box is 8 x 4 ft. You can buy them ready to be assembled, but I think they are a bit more expensive for a smaller box.


Here are a few pictures of the construction.

We used these 4x4's to connect the corners, holes were drilled then the screws.

The wire mesh or chicken wire was laid across the bottom...

Then it was held in place with staples from a staple gun.

The lovely box is finished, easy. Now to clear the spot in my sad looking garden.

I must give you the excuses about why my garden is so sad right now. The rain made the weeds grow wild and there are SO many weeds. Then after the rain, it got really hot here, about 80 for a while so the broccoli just flowered away. The garden was all confused, winter stuff stopped growing, spring stuff started, then it got cold again. In the 30's at night. So, there you have it... we are between seasons and nothing grows well. Now I will show you a picture of the SAD, sad garden...

Can you see that red cabbage lying upside down? I picked that up to find a big hole where the roots should be.

Ok, so a couple of things are growing well, the chard that I thought was rhubarb and the artichokes.

Here is what I am dealing with...

Ok, now back to our little planter box. We had to get some dirt, some from the store and some from the rows the the gopher is eating...

Fill it up...

Add some worms...

I almost forgot to tell you what the grey stuff is besides the planter box. I took some ash from the fire place and set that along the outside to keep the ants away. Our strawberries have become the ant hill capital of the garden.

And our lovely box is finished. 

Well, almost. It needs the bell pepper plants and a bit more dirt. Not much though. I am still moving my onions out of my rows and taking dirt from that.

I hope you will check back to see the bell peppers growing. We will be buying them at the arboretum sale in 2 weeks. In the mean time, I'm going to get back to sewing. 

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