Overwhelmed

I am doing some online research about seed starting, since it's time for me to start my onion seeds. I have been following the method in the All New Square Foot Gardening book, which makes it seem pretty simple. But now that I've started to read online, it seems that I am doing everything all wrong and that it will be a miracle if I ever get anything to grow. Okay, so I'm being dramatic, but I feel like I'm on information overload. I want a fun project to grow plants with my son. I am learning a lot though.

I did move the broccoli seedlings out of the vermiculite and into some potting soil. Of course, after I did that, I read that I did it all wrong. Here is a picture of our little seedlings in potting soil:


I was planning to start our onion seeds today, but I was reading the website for our local extension office, and apparently in my area, you can't grow onions from seed. What the heck?

January down!

2011 is 1/12 of the way over, so I wanted to update my progress (or lack thereof).

1) Take a photography class: I'm about 2/3 of the way through my photography class. I am learning a lot. I need to put what I learn into practice more. I have also signed up for willete's joy of love online class, which runs the month of February. More on that tonight, hopefully.

2) Take pictures of the kids every month: well, I'm doing this, but still struggling to get the kids to cooperate. I have some great shots of them individually, but not a fantastic one of them together. Since E started crawling at the beginning of January, it has been so hard to get her to sit still or even stay anywhere near her brother. She is off and into everything! I plan to upload some pics tonight from home

3) Create - and actually stick to - a budget: I created a budget, and then blew it out of the water. It's not tragic because we also sold a car that we don't need to replace. The main cause of us going over budget was both of the kids outgrowing their clothes at the same time. I feel like I am doing better at keeping spending down though.

4) Plant a vegetable garden in the spring: Have the broccoli started, but I may have screwed something up. The Square Foot Gardening book that I am using said that you could plant 5 or so seeds per cup when you start the seeds. I tried that, but I put 5 seeds all in the same little hole in the cup, so I think they are too close together. I am going to try to salvage at least one of that plants this weekend by moving it into another cup. I am not too hopeful since I am a first-timer, but we'll see how it goes. I am also going to start my onion seeds this weekend. Hopefully they will fare better.

5) Build a bookshelf for E's room: I haven't started this yet. Still haven't finished the ledges I am building for the kitchen. We have all the supplies needed for that project, but our garage is too messy.

6) Organize the garage and bonus room. My sweet husband is working on these two tasks. I really wish I had taken before pictures of each. Sunday he tore down a huge, not-functional-for us shelving unit in the garage. Our hope is to put in shallower shelves and a work bench in another part of the garage. Right now we don't really have any work space, so it's difficult to do some projects. The bonus room looks a lot better since we move all the Christmas decorations and boxes into the attic, but it still needs much improvement.

7) Run a 5K. This is off the table until June. I don't run while nursing.

All in all, I am pretty pleased with our progress. The kids were sick for a couple weeks and my husband worked non-stop for the first couple weeks of the month, so I'm happy we accomplished what we did. Heck, I'm just happy to have survived this month.

Bring on February!

Seeds purchased, broccoli started

I ran to the local home improvement store to buy what I need to start my seeds. I purchased 11 seed packets, some peat trays and 8 quarts vermiculite. I spent $25.65.

Yesterday, B and I planted to broccoli seeds. He doesn't quite understand yet the time that it takes to grow plants. He was expecting the seeds to shoot right up.
I am only planning to transplant one plant, but I figured I ought to start four just in case we don't have great luck.

Still working on getting a good January picture of the kids. Got some cute ones of them individually, but it is very difficult to get them where I can see both of their faces at the same time. My photography class is going okay. I actually skipped it on Saturday to sell my car. I think I'll be able to make it up though. I was disappointed in the last class I attended. The information was very basic and not what I expected from the description.

This weekend we'll see how the next class goes. I also plan to clear out the space for the garden. It's been very cold here and the kids have been sick, so I haven't been motivated to get outside. I'm starting to get over that though. I'm ready for some vitamin D.

Planned our garden!

I received the All New Square Foot Gardening book for Christmas, and this weekend I planned out our garden. We are going to be two 4'x4' beds, so 32 square feet. I am planning to start with these plants at first:

basil
beets
broccoli
carrots
cucumbers
lettuce
onion
oregano
pepper
potato
spinach
tomato
winter squash, probably butternut
zucchini

It sounds like a lot, huh? We'll see how it goes. I also created a calendar for when we need to start seeds, transplant into the garden, etc. When I saw the calendar, it didn't seem as daunting. I am really looking forward to it. I hope it works out for us.

Our next steps are to start our broccoli seeds indoors (mid-to-late January) and build the beds (will need to move the broccoli outside by mid-March). The area where the beds are going to go needs to be cleaned up a little as well. This is what it currently looks like:

The picnic table is moving over to the patio. It needs some love, but we can't decide if we're going to refinish it or get rid of it and buy something. We should probably do the former since 2011 is going to be all about saving money.

I can't wait to see the garden materialize. I also can't wait to eat some of that (hopefully) tasty, fresh produce. YUM.

Dirt Under My Nails: Goal 4

Ever since we bought our house, I've wanted to start a vegetable garden. Actually, even years ago when we had a small apartment in Southern California I tried to grow tomatoes (is that a fruit?) on our teeny patio. That didn't work so well.

Aside: That's the story of my life. I start something, but don't finish. I didn't water the tomatoes so they died. This blog is supposed to help me overcome my inability to finish.

2011 is the year I am finally going to start my garden. I think it would be a great thing for B and I to do together. B favors his father over me. My husband is just so much more fun than me. I am definitely the heavy in our household. I think starting a garden together might be a good bonding experience for the two of us.

To start planning for this, I have checked out Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening from the library and added his All New Square Foot Gardening to my Christmas list. I think I am going to do two 4' by 4' beds. I was just going to do one, but I gotta have zucchini and one plant takes 9 sq ft to grow, so we'll do two. I have started reading the book and thinking about where we are going to place the beds in our yard and what plants we're going to put in the beds.

Also, since planting depends on the first and last frost dates, I went ahead and looked those up for my area. The last frost is around April 25. The first is around October 14.

Next steps: Read books. Select plants for beds. Create a calendar for planting.