Fall Gardening!

So today I'm trying to finish up building my second raised garden box. It was expensive for the cedar boards! Insanely expensive. My original plan was to use dirt bags to build the retaining walls, making those dirt bags from old sheets, and then plaster over that. Unfortunately, getting the dirt proved to be problematic.... a long story that I don't want to tell. You would think dirt would be easy to come by...

After building and filling the boxes, I want to make some kind of watering system out of PVC pipes that can also be wrapped in plastic for a hotbox effect or netting to keep the yard critters from ravaging the fruits of my labor:)

I'll try to take a pic and post it later, for now, I'm gonna go slide on my boots and get to work!

Mortar and Pestle

So, I picked up a marble mortar and pestle at Marshall's for 9.99. I had eyed it a few times before and considered getting one for "energy" reasons. In macrobiotics (something I have studied a bit), they encourage using manual vs. electric devices to prepare food, for "energy" reasons. To be honest, I have no idea what I believe on this matter, but I'm open to it. I tried the mortar and pestle a couple times to grind my raw cocoa nibs and it did a fine job in comparison to the coffee grinder, it just took about 5-10 minutes longer and a little bit of labor. I can see myself using this often to grind herbs and spices. Its much easier to clean than the coffee grinder and beautiful enough that I would leave it out on an open shelf, instead of deep in a cabinet somewhere, which makes it more convenient to use. Also, the extra time is not an issue if I grind stuff while browsing the internet or watching television, or just sitting around (which I do a lot of). It actually makes me feel more productive!

Summer Garden transitions to Fall!

So as I have talked about earlier, I have an unjustifiable loyalty to the notion of gardening. I've cycled through 4 or 5 gardening seasons, and put in brief spurts of strenuous labor here and there, with little to show for it. I'm TRYING here! I have to give myself credit for that. Somehow, I need to muster up the motivation to try harder.

For the summer garden, I managed to till the earth several times, build a raised garden box from reclaimed scrap wood, fill it with dirt, manure, compost. Dig rows in the ground garden. I also filled several pots for a container garden of herbs and tomatoes. In the raised garden box I planted radishes, beets, carrots, and tomatoes. In the ground garden, I planted black pole beans, squash, mustard greens, okra, cucumbers, and again tomatoes. Sounds like a ton of work right? Not to mention watering and weeding consistently...

You would think that I would be swimming in produce, right? WRONG. Not to say I didn't get anything, but not enough to live off of. Obviously, I can do better. So, I will be pulling up all the summer foliage in a few days, tilling, spreading the compost pile in the ground and letting it bake in prep for the fall garden which will be planted in September. One day, I will get the hang of this...

Garden Update

I started my seedlings in egg crates a couple weeks ago and had them germinating on top of the fridge under a fluorescent light. They came up quick and grew well for almost a week, then they wilted and died... so sad. I put so much effort into it and I'm not terribly sure where I went wrong. Possibly, I shouldn't have started the seeds in a compost mix that I baked to sterilize it? I am going to start seedlings in pots outside in about a week. Hopefully that works, I really don't know how many set backs my optimism can take before curling up to die...