Sunday, April 6, 2008

Sowing


OK, so this is a deceiving picture. This is not the subject of this post. However, it has a lot to do with the subject! This is an image from Nathan's dark past. A few years ago Nathan had a "farm off" with his friend, inspired by my favorite video game, Harvest Moon. Unfortunately, Nathan's farm kicked the bucket when he left it unattended for a week when he and his family went on vacation.

Hey, if at first you don't succeed, try try again!

April 1:


THIS is the subject of this post. Nathan and I have been talking about starting a garden, and we got the thumbs up from his dad so we got started on Tuesday (April 1). Right now our garden consists of cups of dirt with seeds hiding inside, hopefully waking up from hibernation. We bought a bunch of different seeds, and some recommend starting them and then transplanting them, so that's what we're doing. I'm just hoping we have as much luck as Nathan did with his "farm-off" ...minus the losing part.


Each cup is lovingly labeled with Sharpie marker. Some packets came with more seeds than others, so we have about a billion onions, peppers, tomatoes, and basil planted but only a few of some others.


April 6:


Today we bought some more seeds and continued planting. The only ones we started from seed today were Roma tomatoes... a LOT of tomatoes. I planted 18 cups with 3 seeds each and still had about that many left over. We planted some potato eyes too- I've heard of people doing that but have never tried it. I hope they grow!! That plant in a pot is a baby orange tree that we bought in Florida in November. It's not doing so hot at the moment- the leaves are sort of curling, plus the cat knocked it over a couple times and broke off one of its two main branches- so we thought it could do with some sunlight. Hopefully it'll perk up.

We also bought some strawberry plants. A package that was supposed to have 10 came with 11! Yeah! They came in a plastic bag in some peat... they're little sickly looking sprouts with lots of roots. We figure for something like strawberries that's fine, since they reproduce by sending out runners. As long as the roots are healthy they should be fine... we think. It feels good to have actual plants in our garden at any rate!

We'll keep you posted periodically. Larry has someone lined up to come plow out a spot in the backyard once it dries out a bit (it's still pretty swampy from all the rain we got in March). We're both really excited about this project! Let me list everything we're planting (or as many as I can remember at the moment):

-Broccoli
-Carrots
-Sweet Corn
-Yellow Squash
-Cucumbers
-Zuccinni
-Sugar Peas
-Green Beans
-Potatoes
-Onions
-Roma Tomatoes
-Cantaloupe
-Watermelon
-Strawberries
-Pumpkins
-Lettuces
-Bell Peppers
-Rosemary
-Parsley
-Chives
-Oregano
-Flowers :)

Oh yeah, and our garden is already famous! Larry used a couple of our starts as an illustration in his sermon this morning. Haha! Don't forget to be good soil! ...Luke 8, the parable of the seed ;)

3 comments:

Jael Paris said...

Good luck to you! It all sounds very healthy.

Unknown said...

Yum! Save some produce for me! Sounds like an ambitious project. Ours always did well until the weeds took over. *sigh*

Unknown said...

Mitchy and I are starting a garden, too! He bought every packet of seeds available at the local grocery store. He has high hopes but I think I'll be doing most of the work. :) Therefore, I will need help! Do you have to put the seeds inside in cups before outside? The area intended for the garden is mostly sunny. I'll email you soon!