Urban Homesteading on a Small City Lot: The Garden is Coming Along, Slowly but Surely

Thursday, March 14, 2013

The Garden is Coming Along, Slowly but Surely

These are the first peas to sprout.  The first one showed up barely on Tuesday (two days ago). Now there are four.

You can tell where they are going to show up by the cracks.  The soils gets surprisingly hard and crusty after you water it.  I think I will need to add seedling mixture on tome of some of my seeds later.

The garlic cloves I buried are growing strong.  I hope I got them in early enough that they will set head of garlic. Fingers crossed.
 
These are the onions that I planted from the Bimart sets.  The bulb ones haven't started coming up yet. I hope they do.  These ones are the Walla Walla sweets, which I love, but the others yellow onions that are good for storing and everything.
 

I wove this trellis for the peas from prunings from my parents plum tree. It didn't turn out as good as the one my mom made last year, but I think it will work.
 
Two of the beds are covered securely with black weed block fabric.  It will keep the weeds down and heat up the soil so that I can plant warm soil loving crops sooner.  I am trying this as an experiment.  I have tones of this fabric and I can reuse it later.
 
This bed is the front one closest to the front yard and road. I planted buckwheat over this this morning.  This bed has a horrible crust on top.  When I was trying to break it up to sow in the  buckwheat it sounded like I was picking through bedrock.  Yikes.  I hope the cover crop helps a bit.

I also planted this bed with buckwheat.  This bed has a layer of used potting soil on top, but underneath is is pretty horrible dirt.  Heath and I were out of what looked like the good stuff when we filled this one.  It was the last one to get finished. In the bed behind is where I planted most of the strawberries from the pots on the porch.
 
There is already loads of new growth on them.

When I was replanting the strawberries I found this tiny raspberry plant.  I planted it with the strawberries, but will need to find it a better home.


We still have the large pile of dirt and debris in the back yard, but it is getting smaller.  Once we get rid of this we will have room for another fruit tree and possibly a raised bed or two. We shall see.  I think that will be a project for this coming fall.
 
I put all of these bulbs and rhizomes in buckets last year when I was digging up the yard.  I still have not figured out where to plant them and they are starting to grow in there.  There are tulips, irises, lilies, and some other random stuff.

I got the hops planted in the ground next to where the pergola will be going.  We will need to build that soon, judging by the amount of growth you can see here.
 
Look at the stakes and string I marked the location with.  I don't want anyone to step on it and/or dig it up if they don't notice it.
 
I think I will save the front yard grass, bulbs and tree for another post this one is already pretty long.  I hope everyone is outside enjoying this wonderful weather.  Have a great day.  I am going to go check on my new chicks.
 
 
 


 

2 comments:

  1. Oh my, things are really coming up!! I can so hardly wait till you build the pergola. I am jealous!

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    1. I still haven't even ordered the lumber for that yet, so it will be a while. Then I will need a picnic table. Hint, Hint, Dad. Not that he reads my blog.

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