Project Garden Noob - Year 6

Our personal history with trying to grow potatoes: 3 years ago - Husband and I have attempted potatoes on the deck of our apartment in a plastic "pot" type thingy we found at the nursery.  Nothing.  2 years ago - The first year with the garden, we tried them in a felt container that was sold as a potato growing kit from Tagawa .  Hilling (see video below) potatoes in a flexible felt "pot" was a challenge.  Again, nada. 1 year ago - Put potato cages outside of the garden. Great concept, but this pregnant lady did not have the time, resources, or inclination to hill.  Also realized potato greens are technically poisonous to animals.  Violently pulled them out, pissed off husband, pissed off pregnant lady. You are caught up to now.  While I'm not as excited about the prospect of potatoes, hubby is, so I'm trying to do some due diligence and figure out how to make these bad boys grow dammit. Step 1.  I'm going to have a supply of hilling...

A couple years ago my husband made me Valentine's dinner.  He made paninis with a side of julienned carrots and parsnips in a lemon butter sauce.  I was so surprised and touched, my husband seems to fear the kitchen, so the fact he made the effort still holds a special place in my heart.  The other astonishing thing about this meal is it was the first time I ever had parsnips.  I immediately fell in love and decided we have to grows these in our garden. Desired end product: For two years, I planted parsnip seeds.  You know what I got?  Nada. Nothing happened at all.  Carrots were just fine.  So I was a little perplexed with the parsnip and decided to do some research. Apparently, parsnips take some love.  I discovered the following traits of the parsnip to take into consideration: You must use new seeds each year.  They do not store well.   You should soak the seeds before planting to assist with germination. They t...

It's been almost a year since my last post and oh what a year it was.  Pregnancy kicked my butt, I remember planting my lettuce seeds sometime last May, looking at the fluffy dirt and just laying down. I know if I were living thousands of years ago, I would be dead.  Easily.  So while we planted the garden, the garden did not receive the love and attention of Year 1.  Here's a little recap of the season: We planted very similarly to the previous year (tomatoes, zucchini, onions, cucumbers, carrots, potatoes, lettuce). We tried to plant squashes on the hill, but right after they sprouted, they were mysteriously gone.  Either rabbit or dogs, not sure which.  Next year will require a more thorough defense plan. Tomatoes:  They did better than last year, and I was excited about harvest time (kinda, chopping up tomatoes in a lot of work), but a tragic hail storm hit.  And well, this happened: Zucchini:  They did fine.  We end...

And my garden on my mind. I'm so funny. Garden fever has started, which kinda creeps me out (who have I become?!).  Sadly, we've been dealing with a lot on the home front and are a little behind on where we were this time last year. Hubby and I never had the chance to start seedlings indoors.  I feel bad, since he built such an awesome seedling system last year.  But next year will be different, and it's not going anywhere. So last weekend (April 11th), we did make some progress by adding dirt/compost to our garden.  We went to Santa Fe Sand and Gravel .  They had several soil blends to choose from.  We choose 1.5 sq. yds. of their Planter's Mix and 1.5 sq. yds. of their Grower's Supreme. The Planter's Mix is 70% topsoil and 30% compost.  So decent filler dirt.  The Grower's Supreme is made of the following: 15% Humus 30% Bark 15% Sand 25% Peat Moss 3% White Pumice 2% Expanded Shale 10% Sheep Compost I really have no idea what ...

Only my husband and I would be crazy enough, in the dead of winter, to start composting (yes, this post is maybe two months late). It came about a bit half-hazard (obviously), our yard has four massive trees, which in turn generate massive amounts of leaves that we bag up and send to the landfill. We decided to keep some of the leaves, mulch them, and leave them in a pile.  Said pile hung out for a while until we read up a bit on composting.  Realized we needed to add those kitchen scraps to get the whole process going, my husband took one of my jamming pots that was gathering dust and boom, created a countertop composter (side note: we are not experiencing a lot of smell by not having a fancy, aerated composter.  Maybe it would breakdown more with more aeration, but so far, the cheap solution is working for us.). So then we started dumping kitchen scraps outside and burying them in the middle of the random leaf/grass clippings pile.  Then I had a moment of pan...

Hmm, no post since September.  I wonder why? Oh yeah, because our garden looks like this: We got an early cold front.  Well, maybe not early, I have no idea.  It was cold enough that I ripped out our tomatoes, and between that and the mildew, the garden was toast. Lessons Learned?  Where to start. Good Things: -We ate out of our garden.  I told myself I'd be happy if I got onions and zucchini.  We did.  We even got small amounts of lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, watermelon, pumpkin, and spaghetti squash (the pumpkin and spaghetti squash didn't get eaten by us...whole other story). -I have a newer found respect for farmers.  I always knew farmers work hard to fill our grocery store and fridges, but I really feel, and I'm sorry if this is snobby, until you do it yourself you really don't know just how hard it is.  Especially organic.  The fact we ever even survived as a species boggles my mind at this point.  Mildew decimate...

Our latest garden development has been animal destruction.  Everyone said we'd have an issue with the rabbits.  Because of hubby's awesome fence, that hasn't been an issue. But recently, our near ripe tomatoes were suddenly being eaten (sadly, I have somehow not taken pictures of the devastation).  We were worried about two culprits - rats and squirrels. Squirrels seemed like an obvious culprit.  We were finding tomato chunks in the yard and  this one in the tree.  I apologize for the truly terrible picture.  But you get the idea.  Limb, red blob = tomato. Rats we were a little skeptical about.  I've never seen a rat in Colorado, but we noticed that something was digging holes underneath the fence that faces a busy street and we didn't think it could be rabbits because the tomatoes are in cages, and the damaged tomatoes were high off the ground.  Something had to be climbing.  Hubby decided to get traps and make some fanc...