How Does Your Garden Grow? - Garden updates

How Does Your

Garden Grow?

Well, we didn’t make it to our mushroom hunting class. My sister and I were really excited to attend but as we all know, sometimes when you’re a mom other things take the front seat and we have to regroup and make the best of it.

But you best believe that we eventually made it to the hotel room that night.

After a fun and restful weekend I was thrilled to see how well our cucumbers have been doing when I came into the office on Monday morning. Almost all of the containers have a stout little sprout standing tall in the sunshine and I can’t wait to get them in the ground next month. The tomatoes keeping them company in the breezeway also look hearty and healthy.

The radishes are definitely happy living outside in their nice big containers. The lettuce looks skeptical, but I think we can pull them through this difficult transition in their lives. All is quiet on the carrot front as I haven’t seen any of them pop out of the dirt yet though I have no doubt that they will.

While I’m feeling caught up and on schedule with our office garden, at home things are going a little slower than I had anticipated. My husband, Mike, and I are planning to build a tiered system out of wood pallets that would support my buckets in levels. This is so that we have more space for buckets and can avoid killing more of my lawn than absolutely necessary. I adore my lawn and it physically pains me to think about killing it.

The problem is that, like most homeowners, we have too many projects going and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to focus on just one. We have to clean the basement and put a bed together for my family who are coming to visit in July. We have to finish the chicken coop and get it put up in the backyard, as well as hang the fence for their run. My goats’ house needs a good spring cleaning and I have about six plants that need to be transplanted into bigger containers. The list goes on and on. And on, and on… The impending rain on Friday and Saturday will keep some of those plans on hold. Hopefully we can finish the coop and get the bucket stands completed on Sunday because I’m dying to empty my wallet at BRB Greenhouse which just opened in Sheldon, and I can’t do that until my buckets are ready.

Over the last weekend I put my guinea chicks and my leghorn chicks together in a big pen inside the garage. I was worried that the leghorns, which are a little bit larger, might pick on the guineas, but so far everyone is getting along and they all seem happy to have more space. As the person who feeds and waters the birds, I was incredibly happy to get the stinkers out of my house.

Not only did I harass my husband into bringing more buckets home, but my lovely coworker, Julie, told me she had a bunch of them and that she’d love for me to take them off her hands. So now I have a mountain of buckets at both locations with more on the way. While I’m trying to keep it conservative at the office, it’s entirely possible that I could go crazy at home and plant way more than I can handle. But sometimes I just like to learn the hard way.

On the other hand, I did have to sacrifice a bunch of my work seedlings to the compost bin because I just did not have the space for as many as I started. If I was set up at home, I’d have whisked them away to a new life out in the countryside. I’m not sure why I felt like I had to plant every single seed in each packet, but I did. Next planting season I’m only going to do half a packet per veggie. I can save half of a packet for the following year, right?

The first week in June is going to be a busy week for our little column. We’ll be transplanting cucumbers, tomatoes, and bell peppers as well as starting the green beans outside. This means that I’ll have to have at least another 20 buckets ready to go by then, if not more. Since I have buckets coming out of my ears the big restock is going to be on recyclables to fill the bottom layer of each bucket, and soil.

So far I’ve spent $124.32 on 16 bags of soil alone. I know this seems like a lot, and it is, but I’m trying to look at it as an investment. I might not break even this year, though with the prices of fresh produce lately its hard to say, but I won’t have to spend nearly the same amount of money next year because I’m composting and will have healthy nutrients to put back into my soil instead of purchasing more. Hypothetically, next year I should really only be spending money on seeds and plants, though I’m sure the universe will throw in an additional lesson or two for me.

Speaking of lessons, just when I thought it was time to scrap the bell pepper containers that looked barren, I saw one tiny little sprout making its way toward the sun over two months since I originally planted it. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement.

I guess some of us just need a little more time.

Mandee Ellis is a reporter at The Star News. Contact her at Mandee@centralwinews.com.