Garden time

One thing that makes me very happy is growing things (little boys included). Now that I finally have a home with a yard, I have really been enjoying my hobby. My garden has been a huge experiment for me and I am continually learning more and more about how to select and take care of my plants. My favorite time of year is when it is time to get my vegetable garden going. Each year I get more ambitious and I think I have been getting better results. I have learned over the past few years that San Diego has really crappy soil. I have amended the soil, composted, and mulched like crazy, but I still haven't had the success I hoped for. However, this year is all going to change because I was given a great book from my friends, Rob and Nicola, All New Square Foot Gardening, by Mel Bartholomew, http://www.squarefootgardening.com/. I used the magic Mel's Mix for my soil and Tim built the boxes for me. Check out the results so far in my first SFG:

I have tomatoes, broccoli, artichoke, leeks, lettuce, and onions growing in this one. (Oh and don't hate on my tomatoes, I know I got too excited and I planted them too early. It was too wet with the rainfall so they caught a fungus. I am working on fixing them with some veggie safe anti-fungal spray.)

Below, my second SFG is shown . I have peas and pea seeds, bean seeds, cucumbers (lemon and normal), tomato, Swiss chard, lavender eggplant, Brussels sprouts, purple bell pepper, banana hot pepper, rainbow beet seeds, and a squash that I grew from seed and some animal came by and snapped its stem last night- grrr. The other pics show my seeds/ seedlings (I have them in the sun during the day and take them in at night), and my SD farm bureau membership sign to show I am legit- ha ha.

Now I need to convince Tim to help me build my third SFG to accommodate all the seeds that I have been trying to germinate. For some reason my bell peppers and hot peppers aren't coming up as fast as all the others. I think I should be keeping them warm- next year. Also according to Mel, those seeds take a long time to germinate. Hopefully they will come up. If not, there is always the garden store!

Another tip for next year, make sure that the pen you used to label your seeds does not come off when the container gets wet. Oops, I guess I will have to wait and see what I am going to get.