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| My garden in early July 5 boxes (front to back): -Green beans/Tomatoes/Sunflowers -Pumpkin/Watermelon -Pumpkin/Watermelon/Green Beans -Lettuce/Tomatoes/Cucumber/Sunflowers -Nothing/kitty's roll-around box |
SO: I started out by germinating seeds in plastic bags, putting them in little plastic growing containers or peat moss cups underneath a Happy light in my kitchen, and then finally planting them into the ground. This was all done in hopes of speeding the growing process.
Let me tell you what: It didn't.
Ok, it helped a couple of my plants (the cucumbers, green beans, watermelon, pumpkins) but mostly it actually stunted the growth of the rest of my plants (sunflowers, basically all flowers, green beans, catnip, basically everything else).
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| Seedlings sprouting in plastic container in house |
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| Greenhouse in my kitchen! |
Green Beans- Funny thing, they actually grew really well inside the house... until I transplanted them into the garden, and their growth has basically been blah. BUT: The green beans that I sowed directly into the ground actually flourished! Today, the bean bushes that started directly in the ground are much healthier, greener, happier, more vigorous, and more successful than their counterparts. It's actually quite amazing. It taught me that not every plant needs or even wants super special attention inside the house.
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| Green Bean Bushes garden box |
Sunflowers- They started growing strong inside the house, then when transplanted outside, they also struggled to acclimate and basically were stunted for a while. They are doing WONDERFULLY NOW, however, and many of them are growing TALLER THAN ME! CRAZY! Also, note: a plant does not have an automatic designated height that it grows from the ground regardless of how deep you plant it... What I'm saying is: I planted some of the sunflower peat pots too far into the ground (because the stems were weak and I wanted to plant them deep to protect the stem), and consequently some of my sunflowers are more like moonflowers, meaning they don't reach ALL the way up to the sun... they actually are about only 1-2 ft tall. wat wat.
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| Mini- Sunflowers (only mini in height) |
Catnip- Found it on clearance at ShopKo, so I bought 3 of them, planted them around the front/back yard... and all of a sudden I'm hearing cat fights in the middle of the night, I run outside, and essentially the entire neighborhood of cats is over at my house with poor little Kitty (our quasi-adopted/cared-for stray cat named Macey but we call her Kitty) trying to scare away the intruders with her scary scream/squeal (because she's declawed and can't fight against the other cats effectively). SO: long story short, I dug up the Catnip plants and gave them away on my Freecycle.org site. ---I guess I should explain what Catnip is. Catnip is a member of the Catmint family of plants that have an extremely aromatic, invigorating, enticing, euphoric effect on cats. Cats can smell it from far away. They sniff it, bite it, lick it, eat it, roll around in it or near it. It's actually quite adorable. Sooo, that's why I kept 1 little piece of a Catnip plant and put it in a pot near kitty's waterbowl on the porch. :) It's kinda hidden from the street, so it's her own special little treat :)
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| Kitty protecting the Catnip after I dug it up |
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| Kitty laying by the Catnip after I dug it up |
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| Kitty laying against the house, garden boxes in background, hammock and duck pool in background |
Lettuce- I bought a dozen or two lettuce starters, they grew so fast that I actually had to harvest some of the leaves (aka feed them to them Duckers!) before I even got a chance to plant them. Well... I planted them... and who do you know go into the garden and ate my lettuce down to little greens and some were even pulled out of the ground. SASSY DUCKS! Yes, the lettuce is for them, but no they can't have it until it grows! So I re-plant the ones they pulled out, I add some little lettuce sprouts that I started inside the house... and what do you know... the ducks got into it again! This time they ate the lettuce ALL THE WAY DOWN to the STUBS! lol! Every green leaf was pulled off of those babies! Thankfully they were too distracted doing this and did not eat up the little sprouts that were growing. SO, I did eventually get a healthy harvest of lettuce (after finally fencing the ducks away) from those sprouts I started inside, and that lettuce kept regrowing (after you pick the outer leaves to eat, it keeps producing) and I got a good couple weeks of lettuce for the ducks, and a yummy BLT for me :) Then, the plants were big enough that I felt good about letting the ducks roam free in the garden... and now... back to stubs. No wait, I don't even see stubs anymore :) lol! That's ok though, because lettuce doesn't really do well in the HOT of the summer, it gets bitter and starts trying to reproduce through bitter flowers (and yes it's been hot here in Utah, weeks over 100 degrees and now weeks in the mid-90's).
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| Lettuce on the left |
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| Lettuce on the right |
Other- There are a few other plants I haven't written about that I will include in 'Gardening Obsession! Part II' (including cucumbers, tomatoes, rose bushes, raspberries, and the Virginia Creeper vine).
Duckys- So I fenced the ducks out of the garden for the 1st month while the plants were young and weak. Occasionally I would take the ducks on a little field trip and they would get garden privileges for about an hour, but then back they would go into the yard. Well, this week I've decided to open the fence and give them day-time privileges in the garden, even unsupervised! That's a big deal. I had to wait until the plants were taller, stronger, and healthier before I could submit them to the ducks big flat webbed feet and wandering beaks. At a certain point of maturity, the ducks stop being interested in tearing and eating the leaves off of plants. So now, the sunflowers are too tall for the ducks to rip the leaves off!! Today, however, they did start biting and eating the pumpkin leaves (which are huge). With their new garden privileges, I'm hoping that they spend alot of time in the two pumpkin patch garden boxes, because the leaves get SO numerous and vigorous that they can start to harbor bugs underneath them... which the ducks love.
~Gardening with the duckys this summer has been so much fun. I can spend from morning until late evening gardening and doing yard work with them, for some reason they just make everything outside so much fun. :)
~Important~ The most important facet of my gardening I have not yet written about. This special facet will get it's own blog post next: Strawberries :)
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