We have Beans!

Overnight, the beans have popped up! So far there are only 2 of the 8, but I am figuring that the other 6 are not far behind!

Garden Update, week 1

One week after planting...

We have green! A few of the plants have started shoots already! WooHoo! The Cucumbers have popped up, as well as the zucchini, lettuce and beans.

The plants that were added last week as quickly taking to their new homes and have appeared to get bigger already. We have had fun checking each day to see what new green is arriving in the boxes. So far so good!

We have about half of the garden planted so far and next weekend we will add more carrots, lettuce, cucumbers and zucchini. No point in having it ALL ready at the same time! We have also realized that we forgot to get any peas for this year... guess those will have to wait until next year. We have enough going so far this year.

At present count, we have:
4 tomato plants (3 in the garden and on on the deck)
4 banana peppers
2 hungarian Sweet peppers
3 red peppers,
6 broccoli
9 carrots
1 bib lettuce
8 beans
1 cucumber
1 zucchini

I an sure that the counts will grow as we add more over the next few weeks.
Just not sure exactly what else we are going to plant in the remaining squares...

Planting time

With the boxes finished and filled it was time to do some planting and put up the fence.

Part of planting was done from seed, part of it from transplants purchased from various places. I figured that since we got a later start on planting this year, instead of doing it all from seed, we would get some started right away with plants.

The next step was to figure out where we were going to plant everything and how many of we were going to plant in each square. By looking at how far apart the plants need to be "thinned" to when from seed, or how far apart the transplants need to be planted, we were able to figure out how many in each box... tomatoes - one per square. Carrots, 9 per square. But then we had to keep in mind those plants that needed extra support or something to climb up would need to be planted closest to the fence. Too much to think about!!

While I started some of the planting from seed, John tackled trying to get the fence post put in so that we could get the fence up. Best to get that up BEFORE we actually get the other plants transplanted - leave it open overnight and the deer will have a feast in my backyard. I want to feed ME, not the 4 legged critters.

Before long we had seeds planted, the fence up and figured out how to keep the door closed. Next stop - head to the store to pick up the plants that we wanted for stuff that we didn't have time to start from seed. Stops at 3 greenhouses (one just to check out some of the flowers) and Darrin and I were ready to plant! Darrin was really getting into the planting (he didn't get to do any of the seed planting since he was running around with the neighbor kids when I was putting those in earlier.

By the time we were finished we had banana peppers, red peppers, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce and beans. In a week or so I am going to plant some more lettuce, beans and carrots - that way I don't have everything ready to eat at the same time!

For more garden photo's you can check out flickr we will continue to add more photo's there of the garden and it's progress.

Final Day of Construction.... tomorrow we plant!

The final day of construction is here!

Once the boxes are built and in place, it will be time to blend together the "magic mix" that was recommended in the "Square foot Gardening" book. No dirt involved. The boxes are filled with a blend that consists of equal parts compost, peat moss and vermiculite. No fertilization needed. The vermiculite was pretty hard to find. On Tuesday afternoon, we started making calls to find it. Most places that carried it, were either out of stock or only had small bags, of which we would have had to by way too many, making it really expensive! Finally, when we called Green Bay nursery, they said they did not have any in, but they could order it and it would be here before the weekend.

So that was the first part of the project for tonight was heading to pick up the vermiculite and check out what else they had at GB Nursery. Aside from the vermiculite, the only thing that we needed was a few more bags of compost. It was recommended that you do not buy all of the same type of compost... but at least 4-5 different kinds. So we pound a few more bags here! Shopping complete!

A quick drilling of the drainage holes in the bottom when we got home, we were ready to go. Time to figure out exactly where we were going to put everything. Better decide that before we fill all the boxes!

We figured that Darrin would have been all over helping us combine the mix for the garden, but not tonight. Oh well, more fun for us! LOL

We quickly decided that there was no way that our tarp was big enough to mix everything all at one. So we opted to do half at a time. This was the easiest way to divide it up as we had even numbers of bags to work with.

What a mess! It became evident why they recommended spraying a light mist of water over the mix once you have everything poured onto the tarp - it is very dusty!

With everything mixed together, it was time to fill the boxes. Funny thing, even though we checked and double checked out math to figure out how much of everything we would need for the mix we ended up with A LOT of extra. Granted, we knew that we were going to have a little leftover, but we only needed about 2/3 of what we mixed! Works for me - now I have some of the mix that I can up in my potted plants!!!

Garden Project Day 3 - Construction nearly completed!

With the work that was completed in the last few days, Darrin took a few minutes to sit down with the "plans" to figure out what we needed to do next.

Today's mission, get the rest of the boxes completed so that we can play tomorrow! It could be a long night!

Actually, not too bad though. Since everything was cut and all holes were drilled it was just a matter of putting everything together. It was fast work to get the boxes put together and the bottoms put on.

We did make a few modifications to the original plans as we worked through the project. We were not going to put bottoms on the boxes. However, in the end, all of the boxes were getting bottoms - just in case we decide that we need to move the garden or something goofy like that!

One of the final steps in the building process was to get the grid bars put on. Each box will be divided into 1x1 squares for planting. So that means in each large box, there will be 8 boxes for planting in and the small one will have 4. The biggest challenge in this step was to actually get the grids attached to the boxes so that they were even. Can't have one square bigger than another! LOL

Once the grids were in place, the final step is to drill drainage holes in the bottoms of the boxes and we are done! We will get those in first thing tomorrow and my garden will be ready to put into place and plant!

Garden Creation, Day 2

After dinner, the guys headed out to the garage to start on the garden boxes.

Tonight's mission - get the boards for the boxes

Mom can't help with her own Birthday Present". Now of course, that was never said, I was just getting other stuff done in the house. But tonight I didn't have to do anything. They had everything under control. All the boards were cut to the appropriate length, double and triple checking the numbers of course.

Darrin helped with the measuring, marking and sawing of most of the smaller boards and then John tackled the 2x6's with the "big saw" as Darrin called it.

After all the sawing and banging I heard, of course I was curious. They were on a mission! I guess my job for the night was taking the pictures. Apparently Darrin told John "oh yeah - mom can't help make her own birthday present!" But of course no one ever said that LOL

Once the boards were all cut and final counts were done, it was to move to the next step. Darrin wanted to help here, but John got to do all the drilling.

Once everything was cut a prepped, they decided that they needed to at least put one of the boxes together to make sure they were going to be what I wanted. So the small 2x2 box was the lucky on.

Looks good to me! Phase 2 begins tomorrow

Dear Menards, Can I please have 2+ hours of my life back?!

On Thursday, as we were getting in the car to head up north, John told me that part of my Birthday present was on the seat of the car. Now keep in mind that my birthday is still about 3 weeks away. So of course I was curious...

It was the newest edition of the "Square Foot Gardening" book. I have been talking about wanting to plant a garden for a few years but with all the deer around here all the time, we were hesitant. The neighbors tried a few years back (before I moved into the neighborhood) to have a garden, but gave up because they just ended up feeding the deer, rabbits, squirrels and whatever other 4 legged plant eating varmints that happened to be within smelling distance of the house. And this was all with a fence around it!!

After seeing the success that my uncle has had with his garden over the last year, keeping in mind that he had a deer feeder not even 30 yards from his fenced in garden, I wanted to try. John remembered his mom watching this guy's show on TV as he was growing up about Square Foot Gardening... and come to find out, he had a new book out!

So for my birthday this year, I was getting a garden! We spent the weekend going through the book, reading up on the "directions" for a proper square foot garden... grow everything in 1/3 the space of a traditional "row" garden. Sounds good to me! I figured out who big I wanted my garden, leaving the option to "grow" in the future if the need or desire arises. An 8x8 ft garden sounded like it would give us what we wanted in the space we wanted to use.

Tonight we spent 2+ hours at Menards and Steins picking up part of what we needed. I am convinced that Menards has some weird force-field or something that automatically takes away 2+ hours of your life just by walking in the door. We were at Menards from 3:45 until just after 6pm! I know that we left Menards to go to Steins for a bit (basically right across the street), but we were only there long enough to find out that they didn't have much of what we needed for the "magic" mix that we needed for the garden. (apparently only a few places in town carry Vermiculite, and everyone was out of stock so we had to order it) So we went to Menards to but most of what we needed. It was not until I got back into my car that I realized it was after 6pm! Granted there was the time spent looking for my lost keys at Menards, but that's a whole different story!

There was still a few more "ingredients" that we would need, but we at least had everything we needed to build the boxes. We called Darrin on the way home and told asked him to throw a frozen pizza in the oven since neither of us felt like making dinner!

Starting on the construction part tonight was a thought, but that was as far as it got! Guess we start tomorrow instead!

Arizona Day 4 - Caves and Canyons

Once again, there was no sleeping in on this vacation! Then again, why sleep away your vacation - time is limited, may as well make the most of it!

We were up and on the road this morning with 3 destinations on the agenda - Colossal Cave, Sabino Canyon and the Butterfly house at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. It was about a 45 minute drive to the cave so we had more scenery to enjoy. We were at the cave shortly after they opened and only had a a short wait until the next tour started. This gave us some time to enjoy the breathtaking view from the visitor center, as well as wandering through the gift shop.

Of course John had to find something to stick his fingers into...

And to sit on....

The Cave tour itself is about 45 minutes long and is about 1/2 mile long - all underground. It was amazing to see all the different rock formations created over thousands of years! That, combined with the fact that it is always about 70 degree's in the cave, it is always a perfect day for a walk! The cavern was actually a CCC project back in the 30's and it was in the early 90's that the park was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It was hard to get many really good pictures in the cave, but we did manage at least a few.

Once we made it out of the cave, we headed back to the house to drop Michelle off since her asthma as really bothering her. Then John and I headed out with Richard to Sabino Canyon - again, about a 45 minute drive. We have come to the conclusion that everything is about 45 minutes away from Michelle and Richards house!

Since it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, we knew that it was going to be busy at the canyon, but we got lucky and actually found a parking spot right away! (Apparently Richard said is it not uncommon to have to drive around the parking lost for 15 minutes some days, just waiting for a spot!). There is a tram that runs up and down the canyon, leaving about every 30-40 minutes. If you opt to ride the tram, you get a 45 minute narrative along the 3.8 mile climb into the canyon. If you do not ride the tram, there is no fee to use the recreation area, with the exception of parking. Since we were limited on time, we decided to take the tram all the way up to the end and then walk part of the way back down.

Aside from the road that the tram follows, this area is virtually untouched. The strangest thing to see what that there was actually water in the river beds, ever though we were in the middle of the desert. That is only because it is January, and this tends to be the "rainy" season. Along the way, we were amazed by how many people we saw actually RUNNING through the Canyon. I guess if you live in the area, this is THE place to go to get in your workout. Granted I don't blame them. If I lived here, I would probably do the same thing!

After spending a few minutes taking pictures at the top of the massive Canyon walls, we decided to start walking down. We figured about what time we had to be at the bottom to make it to the Botanical Gardens on time and would base where we got back on the tram by that. Along the way, not only did we get some great pictures,

But we also had the chance to cool off by walking in the water that flowed over the road...

Took in some of the local scenery... (Yes, John too this picture, but they were flirting with Richard)

and got some exercise!

Of the 9 stops on the route, we walking all the way back down to stop 5 before catching a tram to head back down. We would have gladly walked all the way down, but finding dinner along the way to the Botanical Gardens would probably be a good idea!

Dinner at Quizno's again (this was the 2nd time in 3 days) on the way and we got the the Botanical Garden's about 15 minutes before the butterfly house closed. But this was the way we planned it. The guys were here to attend the after-hours butterfly photo shoot. They allow a limit of 5 people in to the Butterfly house after normal hours for the sole purpose of taking pitcures of the butterflies! You are allowed to bring in any equipment you want - tripods, flashes, lights... you carry it in and you can use it!

While they were in playing with the butterflies, I spend 2 hours just wandering through the gardens. It was really peaceful just wandering by myself. Since it was so late in the day, there were not many people there so it was really quiet. It seemed like every corner I went around, I found something interesting. Many of these I did try to capture in a photo, but some of the pictures just did not do justice to the peaceful scenery.

At one point, one of the staff of the gardens pointed out a Cooper's Hawk that was perched way up in one of the trees. If he would not have pointed him out, I would have NEVER seen the bird - he knew how to hide in those trees!

Meanwhile, John and Richard were getting up close and personal with the butterflies. Just how personal? How about nose to nose!

There was just too many awesome picture from today to try and narrow down just a few to post a few here. To see a better selection of the events from today, click here. This will take you to John's Flickr photo's, feel free to bookmark that site as new photo's are always uploaded there!