One Southern Momma Gardens

A New Year, A New Garden

2010-03-18T15:33:00.003-05:00

After a third Wisconsin winter, we are preparing for garden #3. The first round of seeds are started, testing snuggled in a beautiful custom built grow stand. As expected, we'll try several new veggies this year. We're looking forward to eggplants, cabbage, and a few new varieties of peppers. Stay tuned. I am hoping to do a better job of updating this year.

August Harvest Time

2009-08-20T20:26:00.002-05:00

Our very first tomato, harvested August 19th. And our first ever corn. It was a bit starchy and not very sweet, but tasty nonetheless.

Yum! Carrots!

The garden in all of it's glory.

Some of our first fruits

2009-07-01T21:14:00.003-05:00

We planted quite the variety of lettuce this year. I must say the Bibb and Butterhead have become my favorite. Sweet, crisp, fresh. Nothing like it. Good thing I love a good salad.

Flowers Galore

2009-07-01T20:34:00.004-05:00

Since I don't really know what I'm doing with the whole flower gardening thing, we ended up putting in a bunch of annuals this year. This was something I really didn't want to do. Honestly, I do not see the point of paying for flowers, putting all the effort into planting them only to enjoy them for a short season. So, against my better judgment we put in Vinca, Petunias, Salvias, and some Moss Roses around the tree.

A few of my "late blooming" bulbs.

The annuals are there, you just have to look for them.

I know these are hard to see. I need to get a better picture now that they've grown a bit. These are the Moss Roses. A rare annual succulent. Beautiful very brightly colored blooms. The kids absolutely love these.

Honestly, I did not expect to have a bloom on a peony this year. Like several other things that we planted in the fall, I knew they would take a year or so to establish before producing blooms. I was pleasantly surprised with this little beauty. I'm so glad I took a picture when I did. The next day it was gone. Some bunny or other little animal had a delicious lunch.

Beginning of July

2009-07-01T20:22:00.004-05:00

I've been horrible about taking and uploading pictures of the garden lately as it's required quite a bit of work. I'm not sure what we did wrong with our "Mel's Mix" but somehow we ended up with tons of weeds. Oh well, at least the seeds are growing, we're enjoying the first fruits and watching the late bloomers enjoy the hot weather. OK, so we had one week of "hot" weather, but the tomatoes and corn loved it!

We went and picked strawberries at a local farm the other day. Oh. My. Goodness! I may never eat store bought strawberries again. They were that good. I made a salad that night with the strawberries, some snow peas and sugar snaps as well as lettuces, arugula, and green onions from our garden. I topped it off with some broiled chicken and it was delightful!

Perennial bed is to the right. Corn is in the middle, trellised and surrounded by re-bar to protect from the brutal Wisconsin winds.

Lettuces, Arugula, Spinach. We've been enjoying fresh greens for a few weeks now!

Beans! Mmmm. I can hardly wait.

Raspberry bushes, well, sticks. I hope they'll produce sometime before we have to leave here.

Blueberry bushes. Hopefully they'll produce in the next year or so.

Pictures Galore

2009-05-16T15:22:00.005-05:00

There are so many pictures that I've taken over the last few weeks, but haven't gotten up. Now they are in no particular order, and I can't remember what was taken when. I apologize and intend to do better in the future. Both for your sake and for the sake of my eyes. It's hard to edit so many pictures on here with my eyes hurting the way they have been lately. I will attempt to caption them the best I can.

Beautiful yellow tulips that have been dubbed "a family" by the kids.

Pink tulip "family of 3".

I finally gave in to the bird building a nest on our porch, and one day I happened to have my camera in hand when she was flying back and forth. This is Momma Bird.

One exciting surprise of buying the "economy variety tulips" is this little beauty. Pink and yellow striped.

Another surprise from the "economy tulip" purchase.

My Mesculun mix is coming along quite well. A few of the plants did survive transplanting, but most are looking quite good. The seeds that I direct sowed are also coming up well.

Thankfully, more of the lettuces survived transplanting, so it looks like I should have a nice crop and good variety. I'm looking so forward to pulling lettuce straight from the garden.

We should be able to harvest our first onions in a few weeks. I planted white and yellow so far and bought some red to put in, too.

My beautiful King Edward Tulips are on their last days.

In their glory days. These premium bulbs have been a site to behold. Absolutely lovely.

They almost look like a poppy when you look straight into them.

The herbs from last year are looking splendid! I'm thrilled with the Lavender as well.

And here's that nest.

Both kids say "Grape Hyacinth" quite well, especially for their ages. These are spectacular!

Another beautiful picture of my lovely King Edwards.

We still have to put up the trellis and install the fence, but the mulch is in!

I'm really pleased with how the front beds turned out.

Asiatc Lillies in bloom. This will be the earliest we'll see them in bloom since they typically come out later in the season. Gorgeous color!

Another surprise daffodil color. Fabulous!

May Flowers!

2009-05-07T10:18:00.004-05:00

I've been busy. Busy working in the garden, busy enjoying the sunshine, busy chasing kids and cleaning house. And busy taking pictures. So busy that I haven't had time to post and now I have another round of pictures to take and upload. So the story goes...much has changed since I took these Sunday, but you'll have to wait for that. For now, enjoy my newly planted Asiatic Lily. These were absolutely beautiful blooming at Home Depot Saturday, so I chose one that hadn't yet begun to bloom. I'm anxious to see these beautiful deep red lilies open.

Guess who likes this one the best?

While I love the look of a tulip border this year, I cannot wait to see what it will do in years to come!

Gorgeous purple tulips. They are small, but the color is stunning!

I've always loved daffodils, but I think I love them even more this year. The white one is amazing.

Now, back to the nitty gritty gardening stuff. We found a food safe bin for $12 (cheap...really cheap), and with a few modifications by The Daddy, we now have a beautiful compost tumbler. It will eventually get a stand so we don't have to kick it around the yard to tumble it, but for now this works.

I'm pretty sure that most of the work is done on the garden this year. Yes, there are still additions that will be made to the perennial bed, and we still have to add the trellises, but the majority of the work is done.

This one is a little blurry because I took it from The Princess's window, so the screen is obscuring the view a bit, but I think you get the idea.

Underway

2009-04-29T20:38:00.004-05:00

Today's gardening excitement started with the sun actually being out, so I was able to get my babies out in for a little hardening off.

The day ended with all our SFG boxes intact, full, with lathe in place, and the first plants in the soil.

We've still got to mulch in between the beds and set up trellises, but I'd say that our garden season is officially underway!

Here's a glimpse into the perennial bed which is alongside the boxes. Perennial herbs, blueberry bushes, and spinach are in now, but there's a little more work to be done here, too. For now, the herbs that made it through the winter...

The flowers are arriving!

2009-04-27T22:07:00.002-05:00

Yes, I found it! Actually, they are all over the yard. I would bet that by the end of the week, I'll have tulips everywhere. Nothing would make me happier!

Here it is, my very first Daffodil! It looks a little lonely, but I can see where the others are and am waiting (not so) patiently for them to emerge.

More to Come

2009-04-27T14:40:00.001-05:00

This weekend was rainy and cold, so I haven't gotten to work outside in several days. This time of year in Wisconsin is so hard. Spring seems to take forever to really arrive here. I do have my first Daffodil blooming now and hope to have a picture up of it soon. If the rain will stay away for a day or so, I can get my first plants in the ground outside, too. I'm really itching to get crops in the ground. Knowing I can grow my own produce makes it so hard to pay the high prices at the grocery these days. Cheapo me is looking forward to saving some serious bucks this summer!

Monday, Monday

2009-04-20T09:47:00.000-05:00

Friday and Saturday were beautiful! Sunny and 68-72 both days. Just gorgeous! Perfect for gardening. Currently, the weather is a bit less than perfect. Yes, 34 and snowy. Nothing says spring in Wisconsin more than snow on the 20th of April. Ah, Spring.

Gardening Setup

2009-04-18T20:17:00.000-05:00

We've spent the last two days enjoying the beautiful weather, working hard digging sod, setting boxes and laying liner. It's exciting to have our 4 4x4s, 4 4x2s, and 2x2 in place and ready to go. I have a feeling the next few weeks until I can plant in earnest are going to be difficult.

We had the whole family involved. Everybody wanted to help dig sod, "hoe a row", and enjoy the sunshine. Let's see if they are this eager to work in the garden when it's time to pull weeds...oh, wait, that's right, we shouldn't have weeds this year...I'm even more excited about this garden now!

Early Flowers

2009-04-18T20:12:00.000-05:00

The spring color continues to show in our yard. This is one of the most exciting springs I've ever had. I've never had bulbs before, so it is really exciting to me to see what emerges as the days get longer and the sun warms the earth.

Proof of Spring

2009-04-12T20:16:00.001-05:00

In the fall, we planted close to 130 bulbs. I'm so excited that the first blooms are here! Crocus and Snowbells are up and are beautiful! There is evidence all over the other beds of bulbs emerging from their winter sleep. It is a beautiful and exciting time for us.

CORRECTION: What I've called "snowbells" for weeks are actually known as "Early Stardrift". Ooops.

On a SFG note, I planted four varieties of lettuce this week, so we added a second tray to our greenhouse setup. We also built the trellis supports, and cut re-bar. I'm afraid we're going to run out of building to do in the next 6 weeks, though. We're getting awfully anxious to get started on our "real" planting!

The Long Awaited Pictures

2009-04-08T17:03:00.000-05:00

I know, I have promised pictures of the pellets and sprouts that I have going (and our greenhouse setup) and have not delivered. I'm sorry. Here they are...
The first planting, prepping for the second round.

My very first sprouts of the season!

Planter's Pride greenhouse box with biodegradable pellets.

Greenhouse and grow light setup.

Building Beds

2009-04-05T22:37:00.000-05:00

While planting happened yesterday, the most important activity of yesterday was the building of the beds. We built 4 4x4 boxes, 1 2x2 box for The Pink One's pink flowers, and 4 4x2 boxes for trellising and herbs. I got to run the drill press for the first time to prepare the lath for marking the beds.

Here's the link for Square Foot Gardening if you're not familiar with the concept.

Planting, Round 2

2009-04-04T15:20:00.000-05:00

Week 2, 8 weeks until estimated last frost: started 4 pellets each of Okra, Yellow Bell Pepper, and Jalapeno Pepper; 2 pellets each of Yellow Pear Tomato, Super Sweet 100s, Big Boy Tomato, and Mexicana Hybrid Tomato.

Mesulun has all germinated, except one pellet (which may not have gotten planted as 4 plants have sprouted from one pellet--oops!). Herbs are beginning to germinate.

The first sprouts

2009-03-31T15:35:00.000-05:00

Wow! I'm in shock. When watering my little pellets today, I noticed sprouts. In multiple pellets. Hooray!! Some of my Mesculun Mix is up and growing. Here's to fresh homegrown lettuces!!

This was not my idea--Honest!

2009-03-30T07:56:00.000-05:00

So, here I am with yet another blog. This time, to chronicle the growth in my garden. Yes, it's March and approximately 9 weeks until last frost so we're not really in "garden season" yet, but the first planting has begun. And since I need to keep a garden journal to reference for future gardens, The Daddy said, "you know you could just start another blog." And here we are.

2009 is our first year of doing a square foot garden (SFG for future reference). It's also the first year that we've attempted an indoor greenhouse. And to make clear, it's only our second year gardening, ever.

Saturday, March 28th was a big day. We purchased all the supplies (well, almost all, surely we forgot something) to build our SFG boxes, and we did our first plantings.

Using a Planters Pride 50 pellet greenhouse box, we planted 4 pods each of mint, rosemary and lavender. We also planted 13 pods of 5 varieties for a Mesculun Mix. Because of the short growth cycle of the Mesculun, we're actually going to attempt to grow then entirely indoors.

After planting 2 seeds in each of the pods, we spritzed with water and placed then under 2 40watt Phillips "Daylight Deluxe" florescent bulbs.