June 16, 2014 by MJ

Gardenin’ Ain’t Easy

Much like pimpin’, gardening ain’t easy. At least for a beginner. Well, remember when I said that the garden wasn’t much work at this stage? I was wrong, very wrong.

I’ve been watering the garden regularly and monitoring plant growth. I think most of you know about the pest that’s been visiting. I’ve come up with a solution for that problem. The next free weekend I have, I’m going to build a fence around the garden.

The other issues I’m having are an ant invasion, possible drainage issues, and soil erosion in the smaller bed.

I was fixing a hill that had been dug up this weekend. When I was turning the soil, I noticed something that looks like larvae crawling around. I’m guessing it’s ant larvae, but I could be wrong. One non-harmful solution I’ve found is a mixture of vinegar and warm water. You spray it at the edge of your garden and on any mounds you find. The mixture doesn’t affect the plants and is supposed to get rid of the ants. I plan to try that this week.

Late last week I found something funky growing at the edge of the larger bed. I was pretty grossed out by it so I pulled it up before I thought to take a picture. I thought it could be a fungus. We’ve been getting a lot of summer storms and rain lately so the garden bed is pretty much saturated. Whatever it was hasn’t popped up again, but I’m keeping a close watch. If the bed isn’t draining properly, I’ll have to create a drainage system.

Since the heavy rains last weekend, the soil in the smaller bed has become compacted. The mounds are much smaller and I’ve discovered rocks that were hidden under the hills previously. When I first set up the garden, I put most of the purchased soil in the new bed. The smaller bed mainly had the original clay-like soil. I meant to go back to the store and get more soil and compost, but never got around to it. I’m adding that to my to do list as well.

On the bright side, the cucumber plants in the smaller bed and the watermelon in the larger bed are growing well. Take a look:

Cucumber plants in smaller bed

Watermelon plants in larger bed

June 11, 2014 by MJ

Garden Pest Update

The waste of my garden pest. Can anyone identify?

Using my first-rate detective skills, I’ve determined that I’ve got a woodchuck creeping in my garden. There is a large hole not far from the garden which I assume is the entrance to its burrow. There is another smaller hole a few feet away which would be a second entrance/exit.

After doing extensive research (checking out Wikipedia), I’ve learned that a woodchuck and groundhog are one and the same. Groundhogs sound much less intrusive, I mean who doesn’t love Punxsutawney Phil? What do woodchucks have going for them- that awful cider?

The most interesting thing I found out about woodchucks/groundhogs are that they’re sometimes called whiste-pigs. I’m too lazy to look up the origin of the name but not too lazy to find out that WhistlePig is the name of a whiskey brand that was featured in an episode of Breaking Bad during the final season. You are welcome for that useless fact!

I think my best bet for dealing with the woodchuck/groundhog/whistle-pig is to build a fence around the garden and stake it firmly in the ground. This will require digging about a foot down to make sure the garden is protected.

This will take some planning and building. I’ll have to figure out too how to build a gate for easy access. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

June 9, 2014 by MJ

The Honeymoon Period is Over

I’m now in the maintenance phase of gardening. The initial high of starting my own garden has started to fade. It’s kind of like the period a few weeks after the wedding. Once the party and celebration are over, you gotta deal with the day to day stuff. My husband’s pretty awesome and I was very happy to marry to him, but the honeymoon period eventually ends. Real life has a way of doing that. Anyway, that’s what’s happened with my garden; I’m out of the honeymoon period and I’m now keeping up with the day-to-day.

I’ve been tending to my garden by watering every other day and weeding regularly. Actually, I’ve only been weeding the pre-existing 4X4′ bed. The 4X8′ bed with the soil and compost mix and lining doesn’t need to be weeded. Awesome! Note to self- next year start from scratch on the smaller bed and get new soil for less work. Come next spring, I’m sure the future me will be saying thanks for the tip.

The garden is less work than I thought it would be at this stage but then again the seedlings still aren’t very big. I have to admit it’s really cool to see the seeds I planted just a few short weeks ago grow into actual plants and eventually food!

I planted six cucumber seeds and three are growing. I had a fourth but I accidentally pulled it up when I was weeding the smaller bed. Whoops. I planted six watermelon seeds and out of those, four sprouted. After they got to be about 3 inches tall, I had to thin them out to three. Easy enough, I just plucked one from the dirt. Later that week, I wish I would’ve left it. What I suspect is my garden pest had pulled up the third one so I was left with two. Not cool. The carrots and lettuce are still pretty small but they’re growing slowly but surely.

Below are current views of my garden.

Cucumber Plants

View of both beds with a little green.

June 4, 2014 by MJ

Who or What’s Been in My Garden?

Last post I wrote about some animal using my garden for their own personal bathroom. I guess the garden’s location and aesthetics appealed to whatever animal plopped down and marked their territory there. My assumption that it is indeed a what and not a who. I really hope I’m right on that one.

If I want to stop this animal from getting into my garden, I have to figure out what it is so I can choose the best strategy. I don’t want to go all Taken on whatever it is; I’d rather deal with it humanely.

Entry to the home of my garden pest

There is a hole about 10 feet from my garden. I put out an appeal to find out what it could be and my good friend Becky sent me this site. Thanks Becky! The page helps identify animals pests by what their ground holes and waste look like. The ground hole in my yard is to the right.

Our backyard is wooded and near creek so the possibilities are endless. By using deductive reasoning and the above guide, I’ve narrowed down the possible critters to a raccoon, rabbit or woodchuck.

I’m thinking the best strategy is to build a chicken wire fence, 2-3 feet high around the perimeter of the garden. I haven’t seen any evidence of burrowing, just damage on top of the garden.

If anyone has any other ideas on how to stop a garden pest, I’d love to hear them.

June 2, 2014 by MJ

My Garden is Growing!

You can see the tiny green sprout if you squint really hard and look closely.

Little seedlings are starting to sprout in the garden bed! It’s been a little over a week since planting and they’re very small right now but I can tell that they’re seedlings and not just the beginning of weeds. It looks like I’ll have some vegetables this summer! You gotta take the victories when they come, right? Even if they’re small.

While I have my first small success to enjoy, I also have a potentially big problem. Tending to my garden recently, I noticed that something had ruined my nice distinct hills. Some unnamed animal had dug up a couple of the rows and then decided the garden would make a nice toilet. This is an issue for multiple reasons the least not being, the animal messed up my pretty rows!

Garden dug up by undetermined animal

Now I have to play detective and figure out what kind of animal this is so I can properly deal with it. Which is great because I love the ID channel and I love playing detective. Like the time when I noticed my neighbor was out of town for an extended period of time but there was a strange car at his house and a couple of strangers going in and out. I became convinced that the two people had killed my neighbor, hid the body and were squatting in his house. Well, a few days later, my neighbor reappeared safe and sound. It seemed he was just out of town and the two strangers were house sitting. I guess being obsessed with the ID channel is not a good thing. Hopefully I won’t be wrong in this case of playing detective.

I’ll put my detective hat on and report back.

May 30, 2014 by MJ

Picking and Planting Seeds

So I picked out the garden box I wanted, built it and filled it with dirt. With a lot of the initial labor done, I needed to figure out what I want to grow. I thought the easiest thing would be to plant things I eat regularly. People who know me know that I love my carrots! (I usually have one Bugs Bunny style for lunch every day.) Carrots went on the list along with lettuce, cucumbers and watermelon. When I was looking at the rack of seed packets, those seemed pretty easy to grow. I also picked out green beans but I didn’t realize until I got home that they needed to grow on a trellis or next to a fence. Another project for another time. I didn’t want to get overwhelmed, so I stuck with those basic four.

Digging hills for gardening rows

I asked SJ to help me plant because I’m still not entirely sure what I’m doing. The instructions said to build hills and plant seeds an inch or two down. I didn’t know how to get hills out of my flat soil, so I was just going to drop seeds in the dirt until SJ suggested building the dirt into mounds. The light bulb went off. That made perfect sense! And not too difficult either.

Out came the shovel to dig rows and create nice even rows. I was going to originally do four rows but went with three because the watermelons needed extra space. I took advantage of the smaller 4′ X 4′ box for the cucumbers.

By the time I was done digging and arranging rows, things were looking pretty good. SJ and I planted the seeds according to the instructions. There aren’t any pictures of him because he said his main jobs were to look good and take pictures. Thanks SJ!

After a couple of weeks of work, the seeds are in. The only thing left to do is wait for the veggies to start growing.

Finished garden with veggies planted

Planting the vegetables

Step 2: Adding Soil to the Garden Box

Step 2 for starting the garden is pretty simple. Once you’ve built your frame, you need to add some dirt for planting. Rocket science, right?

Well, you can’t use just any old dirt, it has to be nutrient rich. In North Carolina, a lot of the soil tends to be clay-like. (Fun fact- this makes building true basements very difficult in NC homes.) So off to the local home improvement store to find dirt good enough for the garden box.

Once I got to the store, my first step was staring at the different types of soil, mulch, compost, etc. So many to choose from! I was staring at the bags of soil for so long that SJ came and asked me if I knew what I was doing. I replied confidently, “Of course!” As soon as he was out of sight, I pulled out my phone to do some research and figure out how many bags I’d need. I looked this stuff up several months back in my new project excitement, but forgot most of it in the meantime.

I settled on Miracle-Gro Flower and Vegetable Gardening Soil and Nature’s Helpers Premium Mushroom Compost. The instructions said to mix 50/50 so I got 12 and 13 bags respectively. Hauling all those bags took two trips so we had to dump the bags in the yard between trips before going back to the store. More accurately, I dumped the bags. SJ was smart enough to at least leave the ones he took out of the car and put them inside the fence. He had another errand to run so it was just me and the 25 bags of soil.

Between me, a wheelbarrow and a whole lot of lifting and cursing, I managed to get the all of the dirt in the garden boxes. I was happy that I got all of the dirt poured on my own, but my back was nowhere near as cheerful.

Take a look below at the filled garden box.

Garden box filled with soil and my blood, sweat and tears

Next up, choosing and planting seeds!

Step 1: Building Raised Garden Beds

Garden area before

I decided to use raised garden beds instead of digging in the ground because it seemed easier and honestly, I’m a bit lazy. It also helped that there was a 4X4′ raised garden bed in the backyard from the previous homeowner. I didn’t want to go too big or too small for the size, so like Goldilocks I chose a size in the middle and settled on a 4X8′.

Next I did some research on local home improvement store websites to see what products were out there that I could use. I didn’t want to go too high-end in case (the very real possibility) things don’t work out. I settled on the
Frame It All variety. It seemed easy enough to put together and that it would hold up.

Using Power Tools to Build the Garden Box

Once I got home and opened the box in the backyard to start the assembly process, I realized there were a few broken pieces. One to never let an incomplete set stop me, I plunged ahead with the help of my husband.
Thanks SJ!

As I thought, the raised bed was pretty easy to put together. It just took drilling a few holes, inserting some screws and snapping the pieces into place. I even got to use some power tools (and looked good doing it!)

After an hour or so, including preliminary work like leveling the ground, we had a raised bed. We also put down a screen to prevent weeds from growing.

Adding dirt was a step for another day. It was enough effort to get the thing built.

Partially Built Garden Box

Finished Garden Box

May 23, 2014 by MJ

My Top 10 Reasons for Starting a Garden

I’m starting a garden this summer so I want to share my reasons why. My top 10:

1. Prove I don’t have a black thumb- My husband tells me I have a black thumb because I manage to kill almost all the plants/flowers I bring home. At least I’m pretty sure that’s the reason why he tells me I have a black thumb. I want to grow a garden and do it well.

2. Save money on food- You can’t get much more cost effective than buying seeds and then doing the rest of the work yourself. If done right, you’ll end up with a variety of fruits and vegetables that last all summer, for much lower than grocery store prices. Like a lot of people, I eat a lot of produce during the summer months.

3. Learn more about gardening- Since this is the first time I’m growing a vegetable garden, I expect to learn a lot this summer. I’ll use what I learn this year to have an even better garden next year. Although if I’m no longer a veggie garden virgin next year, I’ll have to rethink a new name for the blog.

4. Develop a new hobby- I’ve been a competitive runner for over half my life, until earlier this year. I’ve had knee problems on and off for the last couple years and few months ago, my knees told me enough. (Cue the sympathetic violin music.) So I have to find a new hobby. I don’t know if there’s competitive gardening, but vegetable gardening will do.

5. Make good use of outdoor space-I lived in a townhouse with an 8 X 8 concrete patio for several years. Since moving last summer, I have an actual yard! Now I’ve got enough room to make a go of a proper garden.

6. Exercise- The bending, pulling and movements needed to till, weed and tend to a garden are all good exercise. The best kind in fact- exercise that doesn’t feel like exercise because it’s something you enjoy doing.

7. Enjoy the outdoors- Gardening is a great way to spend time in the sun and enjoy the warmth of summer. Although June through August in North Carolina, summer warmth is really blasts of a hot furnace blowing on you combined with the humidity of a wet blanket thrown over your head.

8. Relax- Gardening is a great way to relax and get lost in what you’re doing. It’s also relaxing to listen to the sounds of nature like birds chirping. And hopefully not the sounds of the non-stop barking dog that lives behind you. Just me?

9. Easy access to delicious, fresh foods- You can’t get fresher than your own backyard. I’ll have access to fresh foods all summer that will be perfect for salads or the grill. All I’ll have to do is walk a few feet from my back door.

10. Take on a new challenge- I don’t know if I’ll be successful at this or not. It will be interesting to see if I can solve problems that come up and become a full-fledged gardener.

May 19, 2014 by MJ

Welcome to Veggie Garden Virgin!

Welcome to Veggie Garden Virgin! So MJ… what’s up with the name? No, this isn’t a fetish site for vegetable enthusiasts. I chose the name because I’m growing my own vegetable garden for the first time.

Photo by Sheila Brown

Since moving last summer from a townhouse with a tiny concrete patio to a house with more land, I actually have room to try what
I’ve been wanting to do for years. Hopefully my efforts this summer will go better than when I tried to grow tomatoes from seeds a couple of years ago. Let’s just say that I started the seeds in March and didn’t get any fruit until November. And that was only because
a neighbor took enough pity on me to give me large pots and high quality compost. And then help replant the tomatoes. After that, I had a few juicy, although small tomatoes just in time for winter.

I’m using this blog to track my gardening trials and tribulations. Hopefully others will find this a useful tool (or a guide of what not to do.)

My husband has graciously offered to help, although I think it’s more for a front row seat of all the ways I could potentially mess up this summer. I’m hoping to have some friends with experience offer some tips and guidance as well.

I’ve done my research, which mostly consisted of reading a few gardening articles and looking at pictures of pretty gardens. Let’s see what happens this summer as a veggie garden virgin!