Gardening in 2003

26 May: My lettuce and onions are doing quite well. I've got 2 strong lettuce plants and 5 little onions. I planted the green onion type, not the big bulby ones. They don't look like they're ready yet, but they will be soon, I think. If I had another container I'd put in some more of those, since they're doing so well, and I thik that once I use them they'll be done. A couple of weeks ago we went to a nursery and I got a bag of topsoil, a tomato start, and a green pepper start. They've been planted for a while now. My tomato plant is doing well. We got a cage for it the other day, and none to soon, either! It's got its first flowers on it right now. The pepper is struggling some, but looks like it's starting to grow some flower-looking things, right out of the middle of the stalk. The bugs have been after it some, but I think that it's going to survive. Today I put in some cucumbers and lima beans. Andy likes lima beans, and I've never tried fresh ones, so I thought that I'd give it a try. I don't know how many plants it takes to make a respectable bowl of beans, but I put in 2. They should be ready in about 2 months, according to the seed package. I'll probably have to find another tomato cage for my cucumbers. I've seen people coax them into growing up, not out, so that's what I'm planning to try. So far, there've been no chemicals on my plants. However, last time I grew tomatos I had to do spray with pepper wax because just before they turned a nice shade of red the bugs realized they were yummy. So we shall see what happens. Since I don't have any little green tomatos yet, I'm not worried about it too much. At least, not yet. I'll figure out what I'm going to do when the problem is a little more immidiate. In the mean time, my backporch is starting to look like a convincing kitchen garden!

30 April: Yay! My lettuce is up! I didn't think that I put that many seeds in, I'm going to have to thin them, but I don't think that I'll do it quite yet. With just 2 tiny leaves each, they don't look like they're too badly in eachother's way. The onions aren't up yet, but I guess that everything can't all come up at the same time. Got to same some excitement for another day!

29 April: I've got my frosting bucket - matter of fact I've got 2 of them. I also got out my husband's drill and put 3 holes in the bottom of the pickle bucket, which still smells like pickles. I put the leftover dirt in it, and set it outside so it won't stink up my house anymore. We should have some money come in at the end of the week, so hopefully then I can get some dirt to fill it up the rest of the way, and then I can go get that tomato baby I've been wanting. The lettuce and onions aren't up yet, but I guess that's not really very surprising, since I only planted them a few days ago.

26 April: I got my first pickle bucket today. It's upstairs drying out after I washed it: don't want my tomatoes to smell like pickles now, do I? I also learned that Walmart's bakery uses the 5-gal buckets for frosting, and the lady said that she thought she'd have one empty in a couple of hours, so I may try there again today. The Walmart garden shop said that they sell the damaged bags of dirt for 1/2 price, so hopefully I can find something that's ripped and lost some of its dirt. There's a garden store a couple of miles from here that's got veggie starts for $.69 each, so that's where I'm planning to get my tomato plant from. But first I think that I'm going to have to come up with more dirt, which could be tricky. I've got a small bag, but I don't think that it's going to fill my bucket even halfway. Our budget is just so darn tight right now!

April 23: I got a small rectangle planter to put on the back cement. I guess it's kinda a patio. We've got this odd "grill" thing made out of bricks, and I set my planter on that, hoping that it'd get sun earlier if I did it that way. It's got some baby onions and some lettuce planted in it. I tried to get things further apart this year than I did last time. I suspect that I'll still not have enough space in the box for the things that I planted. It's so hard to tell how far apart you've put things when it's just seeds! (There, now you can see how inexperienced I am at this, but I'm trying to do better than the first time! =) I got 2 bags of dirt from Dollar General, and used 1 in the planter. There's one bag of dirt left - it's about 2 pounds, probably won't be enough when I do get that elusive pickle bucket.

21 April: Decided to try a container garden this year. We've just moved into a townhouse apartment, so I can't dig up what little dirt is around the place. However, I'm thinking that I could do something on the cement slab that we have just outside the backdoor. This ought to be interesting, the bees and wasps here are **HUGE** and I'm deathly afraid of them. Gonna try this anyway. I called the local Burger King to see if I could score a pickle bucket. They said that I should just keep calling every day until they have one - they use one up about once a week. That's a lot of pickles. The next big obsticle will be dirt. Haven't gotten past that one yet. I may ask around at church and see if anyone's got ideas. I just can't afford to go buy some at the store. I'm thinking that a tomato plant (or two) in the bucket(s) would be great, and then probably some lettuce and spinach, but I'd like to get some sort of long, low planter for those. Don't know where I'll come up wtih that, money is so pathetically tight. However, I'll also be looking for a job here soon, and that should help. I may also put some flowers in prettier containers out front. It needs something to add some color! However, those are lower priority than some veggies to add to the diet.

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