Still Cooking

It rained all sunday.  It was a cold rain, too.  It really hampered my gardening ventures on Sunday.  I did get supplies for building my vine support system.  I think I'm going to paint it green.  Anyway, I did get some more seeds that I'm starting.  They are SUGAR BABY WATERMELONS!!!  I going to try it.  I hope this works.  They will be growing up the vine support system.  These will be the last seeds I start indoors.  Anyone have experience with these watermelons? 

Garden Update/Garden Reading

So Miss 38th Street and I have bought a load of plants this past week.  She has all of her flower boxes filled, as well as flowers around the property.  It looks great!  I'll get pictures later.  We have some transplants we need to plant, but I've been waiting.  The weather stations keep saying we are getting in the low 40's.  It has yet to happen.  I'm getting a little impatient, but I don't want to kill my tomatoes and peppers.

I do have a Thai Sun Chili plant potted and it is looking good.  It looked stronger after just two days in the pot.  I have one Scotch Bonnet Pepper plant ready to be potted.  It is so small compared to my other seedlings that I started.  I hope it takes off once the hot weather gets here.  I'll have pictures later today, if it's not raining.

I have been collecting some gardening books recently.  I am way into this.  I already mentioned that I was given the Square Foot Gardening book for Christmas.  That got this whole thing started.  I recently picked up a great book which I totally recommend, Rodales All New Encyclopedia Organic Gardening.  This book is fantastic!  The core book has been around since 1959!  It has been updated a couple times since.  It is packed with info vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs, techniques, disease/pest problems and history.  The other day, I also picked up Guide to Indiana Vegetable Gardening .  I haven't read too far into this book, yet.  I'll let you know how it is.  I also found a free seed saving book on the American Seed Alliance website.  You'll see the free download on the site's main page.  It's an informative site.  I need to read more into it, myself.  That's all for now!

Almost Done!

Miss 38th Street and I got a lot done on the property yesterday.  Miss 38th Street, with dirt on her pretty face, got her flower boxes planted (looking good, Babe!).  Three 2ft boxes, one 2ft rectangle, one circle, plus we spread foxglove, daisies and cosmos on the west side of the garden.  I can't wait to see how big the foxglove gets.

In the garden we planted the rest of the seeds.  We planted carrots, baby romaine (I had seedlings started but all ten plants got faded yellow leaves with black/gray spots then died), and green beans.  We also bought the rest of the transplants and some more flowers.  I bought one more strawberry plant to go with the other two that came back this year.  I got that in the ground.  I also put the garlic I got at the plant auction in the ground.  It wasn't looking too good, though.  I waited too long.  I put some peppermint in the ground west of the garden, as well. 

We are planting the rest later this week.  We were getting a little tired and it was getting dark.  So we'll get in the dirt and get this place looking good!

Patiently Waiting for Warmer Weather

I am waiting for the 30 & 40 degree nights to pass.  Almost half of my onions have died.  I have replaced some of them, but we'll see.  I did thin out my spinach plants yesterday.  I had to replace some of my spinach last week, too.

A couple days ago, I started some cucumber seeds.  I have six cups with seeds.  Go Seeds!

Also, I have recently bought Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia for Organic Gardening.  Wow!  That book is packed with great gardening info.  If you have questions about gardening, you should definitely pick this book up.

Thanks for the Info!

I wanted to thank my Aunt Konnie and my friend Marti for some great advice this weekend.  As I noted earlier in my blog, I planted a couple trumpet vines and hung a lattice on the side of the house for the vines to grow up.  I thought it would look nice, with a little maintenance. 

When I was at my parent's house for Easter, I spoke with my Aunt Konnie about my garden and landscaping.  She told me I shouldn't put vines on the house because I have aluminum siding.  The vines will get underneath the siding and pull it off the house!  Wow!

Then, my friend Marti wrote on this blog about the invasive trumpet vine.  The quote was "Oh no.. Trumpet vine is the scourge of the earth!"  If that isn't an ominous quote, I don't know what is. She was telling me horror stories about her trumpet vine, although nice looking horror stories. 

So with all that said, I transplanted the trumpet vines from the side of the house to the back alley.  Our back alley is pretty ugly and has a tall chain link fence.  So I planted the vines on the fence.  Now we still get to see the vines and it pretties up the alley a bit. 

I am so glad I started this blog.  It's these helpful tips and advice that are making my gardening experience that much more successful.  Thank you, again.

Rain, Rain and More Rain

It's another rainy Indiana spring.  It's raining daily.  It rained so much this past week, my mint plant that I planted on the south side of the house was washed away!  It was gone.  I did find it five feet down in the landscaping.  We still have had some cold nights.  I had some onions and some spinach die already.  I replanted the spinach last weekend, and replanted some onions this past Saturday (April 23rd). 

I bought another mint plant, peppermint to be exact.  It is getting hardened up with the other transplants we have going.  The baby romaine transplants we have under the lights are looking good.  I looked at the garden today, in the rain, and I see some radicchio popping up.  The spinach is looking good and onions are doing great.  The vivian lettuce is getting bigger.  No sign of the marigolds, yet. 

I was doing some reading today about transplanting garlic.  I bought some garlic transplants at the plant auction earlier this month and I'm trying to decide when to plant this.  I'm reading that it is basically a weed.  It will come back every year, in theory.  So I am not planting it in the square foot garden.  The SFG is still an experiment, so I don't know if it will return next year in it's current form.  So I think I'm going to plant it beside the two strawberry plants I have beside the SFG.  I think I can split the plant up a bit and spread it out.  I'm going to do it this week some time.  If anything I've said is wrong or a bad idea, please let me know.  Thank You

Busy Day in the Yard

It was a beautiful day in Indianapolis!  38th St Gardener was in full effect.  We worked on the whole property this weekend.  The garden, the yard and the landscape got attention.  It was another busy weekend, but I loved it.  Here's what we did:

Saturday, I went to my first PLANT AUCTION!  It was interesting and exciting.  I got two tomato plants (Stupis and Polish Linguia), garlic plants, mint, cantaloupe, and two Variegated Solomon's Seal flowers for Miss 38th St.  Nice looking plant.  LOOK:

We also joined the Indiana Organic Gardeners Association this Saturday at the auction.  Check out the site, if you are a local Hoosier.

Sunday, after we slept one off at the JW Marriott, we got to work in the yard.  We planted the Solomon's Seal, after a dug up a stump and a small tree, in the backyard.  It is in part shade.

I cleaned up the Day Lilly patches in the front and back. 

I pulled up two more stumps in the front landscape.

I weeded the landscape in the back, and pulled dandelions in the front yard.

I planted the mint at the side of the house, then planted the radicchio and marigold seeds in the garden.

It was a great day.  I've got dirty jeans, a sore back and dirt in my hair and I can't wait to do it again.