Monday, April 14, 2008

Garden Ready


Sometime in early April we do the annual Rolli Family seed starting activity. The past owners of this home left a sizeable garden plot that Matthew will till up and ready for the May 15 planting. We needed to start our first crop of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers to get a jumpstart on the growing season.
We even planted some annual flowers to get those going as well. Usually I spend the moo-la on the flats of annuals. This year we'll see how the flowers do when started from seeds.
We all chose our favorite types of vegetables to eat and yesterday after church we planted their seeds. The kids really enjoy planting and getting the flats prepared for the seeds. It's fun to see their excitement. They each develop their own "style" of planting. Anna sort of flicks the seeds off of our hands and into the designated section. She was so impressed with her new technique and requested that everyone watch how she was doing the task. Isaiah feigned interest and then was a bit more careful than his sister when it was his turn.
Once we plant the seedlings in the ground (around May 15 - after all danger of frost) we plan on starting a second round of veggies from seeds planted directly in the garden at that time. We've never had the space to do this type of gardening so I'm excited to see how it progresses. The lettuce varieties we planted have a 45 day time span until harvest. We are hoping to get at least three crops of lettuces. We also have three different types of tomatoes that'll be ready for picking at different times so yet another experiment will be done with the 'maters.
If we're successful enough with our plan I'll keep you all posted. I know you are all on the edge of your seats waiting to see how the garden turns out. If the garden survives the rabbits, deer and children "weeding" we may have a cuke, tomato and squash or two that'll make it...
(to be continued...)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can I consider you my own personal 'farmers' market and come over and buy veggies every now and then? ;)
I think this sounds awesome!!!

God bless-
Amanda

Jessica said...

Man..........I'd love to do that, if for no other reason than to get a few decent tomatoes. I'm so sick of settling for the least-yellow colored tomato and then cutting it open to find nastiness. Good luck with yours.

Thanks for the suggestions for my mom. She has an appointment with her acupunturist on Thursday, and this lady works in a clinic with a chiropractor. It's a whole holistic health center, and we were referred by a really good friend of mine who has had great success there. She says that if the acupuncturist thinks something else would be better for Mom, she'll send her down the hall to that person. Fingers crossed!

Kara Jo said...

I actually am on the edge of my seat. So keep us posted on the growing process!

Kara Jo said...

Oh, and I received the article in the paper with Abby's picture. Thanks SO much for sending that, Katie!

Birdie said...

How fun!! I hope you post pics soon! I'm still on garden watch here. You know,my neighbor, the gardener...
I tried to plant tomato seeds from a tomato at the grocery store, but nothing came up. I was miffed a bit. I want to plant squash too. Think I can plant them from the seeds I get from scraping my squash out at dinner??
You rock Katie.

Katie R. said...

Amanda, if the garden is successful you sure can come on over sip tea, watch birds and pick veggies. Or we could just grill some of the produce for you and your fam. My husband grills a mean bruschetta.

Kara Jo, thanks for the enthusiasm. I'm hoping it transfers into the seedlings so we can eat the veggies.

Jessica, it's a blast to walk out to the garden and choose what's going with the main entree for the evening's meal. Makes the work worth it.

Birdie, don't know if those seeds would be viable. The seeds that go into the soil are dried and are probably harvested from fruits/veggies grown specifically for planting. Did you ever try planting a fresh apple seed in the ground as a kid? I did and it never seemed to work. You may want to spring for the seed pkg. You then could grow your produce and dry your own seeds. I think that requires specific conditions. I'm so not "Martha Stewart" enough to know all that.