growing vegetables

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My Five Reasons for Starting a Compost Pile

Compost piles are gifts that keep on giving. At least that’s what I’ve read. Since last summer I’ve been giving some thought to starting a compost pile, but that’s about as far as I got. Until now! After thinking about it for so long, I finally decided to put one in the corner of the garden.

Compost piles have lots of benefits but I wanted to share my reasons for starting one.

1. Composting is easy–  There aren’t very many steps to starting a compost pile or to keep one going. Staff at my favorite garden center told me they’re hard to mess up which seems pretty close to idiot proof. Good news for me.

2. Composting is free- There isn’t a cost to composting if you use yard materials such as decomposed leaves and grass. The food scraps come from already purchased groceries. Some people choose to buy a compost bin, but I’ve just cleared a corner of the yard and started the pile there.

3. Composting means a healthier garden- Composting provides really rich soil for the garden which means a nutrient-rich base for the plants. Yay for stronger, more nutrient dense fruits and vegetables!

4. Composting is better for the environment- The food waste doesn’t end up in a landfill and decomposes naturally. Composting is better for the environment and I’m sure it will greatly cut back on the amount of garbage we generate.

5. Compost can be used in landscaping- Compost isn’t just for a vegetable garden. It can also be used in flower beds and landscaping. It’s good to know that the pile I’m starting now can be used for next year’s landscaping. I haven’t had much luck so far in growing flowers in the yard since we’ve been here, so hopefully the compost will help.

If you have other reasons or benefits for starting a compost pile, please share!

 

 

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Starting a Compost Pile in Six Easy Steps

Starting a compost pile isn’t very difficult. There are tons of resources online on how to start one. I found Rodale’s Garden Life very helpful. Here is how to build a compost pile in just six easy steps.

Location of compost pile

Location of compost pile

1. Select a location- The location should be somewhere convenient and close to the garden. You don’t want to have to go really far to add your scraps to the pile or have move compost a long way when it’s ready to use. I chose the corner of the yard closest to the garden.

Base layer of leaves

2. Start with a layer of organic materials- This could be leaves, grass clippings, straw, etc. Good thing we were too lazy to remove our leaves from the yard last fall, the decomposed leaves were the basis for my first layer.

Layer of soil

Layer of soil

3. Add a layer of soil- I added a layer of soil on top of the decomposing leaves. I used soil from the front yard in what will eventually be our drainage ditch. So I didn’t have to buy soil or pull it from somewhere it was needed.

Layer of fruits and veggies

Layer of fruits and veggies

4. Add a layer of green materials- Starting a compost pile is like making a lasagna. You keep adding layers. The next layer should be green materials like kitchen scraps. We’d been saving ours for awhile so we had a good mix of fruits and vegetables.

My completed compost pile

My completed compost pile

5. Add a layer of organic materials- This was the final layer. I added some more leaves to the top and voila, compost pile done!

6. Moisten- The final step was to wet the entire pile. The pile needs to be moist, but not wet so it can do its thing and break down the food scraps.

So there it is! A compost pile in six easy steps. In a couple months time, I should have extremely rich soil to use in the garden.

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Slugs Aren’t Picky About Their Beer

In looking for ways to get rid of slugs, I found out something very interesting. Slugs love beer! Their fondness for the alcoholic beverage has something to do with being attracted to the yeast. Even though I find slugs repellant; I found them slightly less so when I realized we have a love of beer in common.

The organic pesticide spray I used a couple of weeks back wasn’t quite doing the job. It didn’t do anything to prevent slugs from chomping on my strawberries, so I had to find a new strategy. This is where the beer comes into play.

Someone needs to learn how to pour a beer properly

Someone needs to learn how to pour a beer properly

I dug two holes deep enough in the middle of my rows of strawberries for small plastic cups. I filled the cups with beer we had in the fridge that Steve and I had both refused to drink. So oatmeal stout it was for the slugs.

Apparently, slugs aren’t picky about their beer. When I went back a couple days later to see if the the cups of beer worked, I found several dead slugs in each cup. Success!

When I informed Steve of my victory, he asked if the slugs were drunk or dead. I told him the slugs probably got drunk before they drowned. I felt a little bad for the critters, but it means that I get to enjoy the strawberries in my garden instead of them.

Below is a picture of the slugs post-bender. Don’t scroll down if that kind of stuff grosses you out.

Cup full of beer and slugs

Cup full of beer and slugs

 

 

Victim of the Garden Pests
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Victim of the Garden Pests

Strawberry plant

Strawberry plant

I’m excited to have my first produce of  the season! I recently picked my first strawberries of the plants. The strawberries weren’t as sweet as I hoped, but they should reach their peak in the next couple of weeks. Even though I’m starting to see the results of all my work; I’m facing a familiar problem as last summer.

Garden pests! The villains of  every garden. They are the equivalent of the character in a Lifetime movie who shows up and then everyone starting getting killed. Fortunately this isn’t a Lifetime movie and I realize what’s causing the problem.

Strawberry eaten through by a pest

Strawberry eaten through by a pest

Last week, I found a rather plump slug having a feast on a strawberry and removed it from the garden. The slug had had done this to the berry. See the photo to the left. I actually found it kind of impressive that the slug had hallowed out the fruit. But also very annoying.

Last year, I solved the pest problem by building a fence around the garden. The fence still keeps critters out, but now I have to worry about insects inside the garden.

This calls for a visit to the local gardening center so I can find organic pesticides that will keep my fruit and vegetables safe. Check the next post to see what kind of advice I receive.

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How My Garden Grows

Today’s post title is a play on lyrics from an old Oasis song. I’ve been nostalgic for the ’90s lately, especially music. Maybe it’s because I grew up during that period- junior high through half of college. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have adult stresses to deal with. Maybe it’s because I’ve never gotten over my disappointment of not becoming a Fly Girl.

As a side note- Notice I didn’t put an apostrophe before the s in ’90s. It’s because the word is plural not possessive. Misused plural/possessive apostrophes annoy me to no end.

Now that the rant is over, my plants are growing! It’s been raining here so much that I’ve hardly had to water the garden. I was worried that all the rain would flood my garden but as you can see below, that hasn’t been a problem.

I fertilized everything two weeks after planting. I bought some organic tomato and vegetable fertilizer during my last trip to the garden center. I didn’t fertilize all of last year, even though I know I was supposed to. I think fertilizing has really helped my plants. I just need to remember to keep doing so all summer.

Some of you may notice that I let the strawberry plants flower. I read that you shouldn’t let them if you want a bigger yield for next season. But if you’d rather have more strawberries this year, let them flower away. I wanted the instant gratification of strawberries this summer. Well as much instant gratification as you can get from planting, tending to and waiting two months for the fruit to ripen.

Everything seems to be on track!

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Week three of the garden. Strawberry plants in front, tomatoes in the back.

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Close up of my strawberry plants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Cucumber plants coming in

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Lettuce plants coming in

 

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Time for Planting

I wanted to lead this post off regarding a comment I received on my April 21 article. Commenter stated, “You are no longer a gardening virgin. You’ll need to change this to Popped Cherry Gardener.” Very funny and factually accurate. But I’m still keeping the original name or the 10 people who read this blog won’t be able to find it.

There was no complicated formula for choosing what to plant; I decided what to include in the garden based on what my husband and I like to eat. In the summer months, that means lots of salads and fruit. Come summertime, it will be great to walk into the backyard and pick produce for our meals. Because I’m doing things differently this year, I’m expecting to have an abundance of peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries.

I’m growing the lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers from seeds. With the tomato growing disaster I had a few years ago, I figured it was better to go with seedlings and skip months of frustration. I don’t have any prior experience with strawberries, but they seem to be hard to grow from seeds as well. For awhile, I felt a little guilty as if I was cheating by not growing everything from seeds. But that ended once I realized my sanity was more important than whether I grew from seeds or plants.

Hooray for spring and the start of gardening season!

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Getting the plants into the ground

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View of the larger bed with tomatoes on the left

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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View of the entire garden

 

 

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Six Gardening Lessons Learned

This will be my last post about my garden for the year. I’m not planning on doing a fall or winter garden. Thanks for those of you who have stopped by and taken the time to read about my gardening adventures. I did this mostly for myself and to help others who were gardening virgins like me, but it was nice to know that others read the blog too.

I will start again in the spring, although I won’t be a veggie garden virgin anymore. A quick rundown of what I learned this summer:

1. Start early- You can start planting after the last frost of the spring, which in North Carolina is around mid-April. I figured I still had plenty of time after that because it didn’t start to get warm until mid-May. Due to procrastination, I didn’t really get started until the end of May. Next year, I will start a lot easier so I get more produce out of the garden.

2. Root vegetables are evil- I will stay away from root vegetables. I had long carrot tops in my garden and picked them figuring  the carrots would be several inches long. Wrong! The two carrots together probably added up to two inches. When I told someone about my underperforming carrots, she admitted that she had the same problems of being able to tell when root vegetables were ready.

3. Watermelons will take over the garden- I planted watermelon because I enjoy them and thought they would be great to eat throughout the summer. Unbeknownst to me, watermelons grow on very large vines that like to spread out and up, taking over everything in its path. Much like the blob. Fewer watermelon seeds next year.

4. Fertilize more- I fertilized very few times over the summer. I bought rich soil and thought that would be enough. This is probably the reason why my produce was rather anemic. I will fertilize more next summer and hopefully start a compost bin.

5. Beds need regular maintenance- I made sure to do regular weeding, watering and all the typical maintenance but once the heavy rains came over  a week to one and a half week period, I dropped the ball. The mini floods caused the garden mounds to flatten out. I didn’t rebuild them because I didn’t want to disturb the growth process. Now I realize that I should have rebuilt the mounts to improve drainage.

6. Take no prisoners when it comes to garden creatures- I knew I had a problem with creatures in my garden for several weeks before I took action. The fence proved to be very effective. Lesson learned is not to wait so long next time. Take decisive action and don’t put up with creatures eating your vegetables and pooping in your garden.

I’m sure there are many more lessons I’ve learned throughout the summer, but these six immediately came to mind.

Thanks for reading and see you in 2015!

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State of the Garden Report

All last week I was expecting to go out to the garden to see part of the fence collapsed or a big hole in it. But the good news is that it’s still doing it’s job. No signs of four legged visitors disrupting the soil. I can relax and just enjoy taking care of the garden.

I did get a question last week on how I was going to get in and out of my garden with new fence installed. I answered that I would use a step stool to get in. When asked what about getting back out, I stared blankly for a few seconds because I didn’t have a good answer. I probably should’ve developed a solution for that dilemma. On the bright side, I did some weeding this week and could lean far enough over the top of the fence to get it done. There are some space between the rows so I can get in there if I need to and avoid trampling the plants.

To report on the current state of my garden: The two watermelon plants I planted last month are doing very well. The vines are starting to take over. I planted two more and they’re starting to bud. I have three cucumber plants which are getting bigger every day. I planted two more and those are popping up as well. I haven’t seen any pepper or carrot seedlings yet though. I’m hoping those appear this week since I planted those at the beginning of the month. We’ve gotten several days of good soaking rain this week, so watering on my part was at a minimum. Overall, a good week in the garden!

Pictures of my garden as of July 20 below.

Still waiting for the problem of overabundance in my garden

Still waiting for the problem of overabundance in my garden

Side view of the garden as of July 20

Side view of the garden as of July 20

 

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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

Cucumber Plants

View of both beds with a little green.

View of both beds with a little green.