Gardening Update - The Plants are IN!

This weekend was all about two things.  Gardening and moms J

Since I’m going to be gone all this coming week for NASCC: The Steel Conference, in Pittsburgh – and next weekend we’ll be in Dekalb for little Wessie’s college graduation from NIU – and the weather was forecasting extreme warmth and no chance of frost at all – we decided it was time to plant the garden.

Saturday morning I went and visited my local organic gardener:  Bloomberg Gardens, and bought the following plant starts:

• Cilantro
• Oregano
• Jalapenos
• Chives
• Broccoli
• Lettuce varieties (Merlot, Caesar/Romaine, Green Oak Leaf, Kale, Spinach, Red Leaf)
• Grape and cherry tomatoes.

As I mentoned before, I already had green pepper and large tomato plants compliments of the Lincolnwood FFA chapter, so this was a great start.  Once I had all the starts I could find from them, I went to my home-away-from-home, Home Depot, and bought organic plant seeds and a couple more starts to complete the rest of the garden:

• Sweet Corn
• Peas
• Pole Beans
• Cauliflower
• Cabbage
• Asparagus
• Onions
• Radishes
• Carrots
• Cinnamon Basil
• Cucumbers
• Strawberries

….which also led to the need for tomato cages, trellises, and garden ties.  So…after 4-5 hours of ‘out and about’, we were finally ready to plant!

We decided to mark off 15” x 15” squares on the perimeter frames of our raised beds (we were too scared for a true ‘square foot’ grid our first year.  Remember, our only gardening experience prior to this was back home, where land was of the essence and you NEVER compacted your planting….so one small step at a time).  Starting at the north end of the beds with our tallest and cage varieties (sweet corn, pole beans, cucumber, peas, tomatoes) and working south to the smallest of lettuce and root vegetables, we worked square by square to get everything in – both me and my small helpers. 

Pole Bean Seeds



Sweet Corn seed planting



By 6pm, all plants and seeds were in.  Fences had been secured…and watering had commenced.  But….as time passed and my ‘precious garden was in the ground’, some big concerns popped up:
• Squirrels.  We love our squirrel neighbors – right now.  We feed them field corn out our back door and they are as friendly as can be.  They sometimes just sit about a foot outside our patio door and watch us eat dinner at night.  Normally, I would think ‘ahhh…cute squirrels!’  But guess what – now that I’m growing food and really want it to succeed (aka….provide food for us to eat and NOT the animals), I’m really concerned these squirrels will find a way in to feast on these forbidden fruits.  Chris has deemed himself as ‘chief of security’.  Yep…he did say that J  He spent a couple hours Saturday reinforcing the fence by stapling it to the bed walls and anchoring it even tighter to each vertical pole.  So, bottom line – nothing is getting in…unless they climb over or chew THRU the fence.
• Black birds.  When I eat breakfast in the morning, I look out to see a couple dozen black birds in our 75’x300’ back yard each morning, looking for any type of worms or seeds they can feast on.  We even have a bird feeder up by the house, adjacent to where the field corn is at – that the birds love.  It almost needs refilled once a day.  But, what happens with these birds….They can just fly in the top - right?  Wait, doesn’t that mean they will just land on the dirt, sniff out some good sweet corn seeds and peck them out instantly for a good ole’ sweet breakfast? 
• Rabbit and bunnies.  Last week when I spent more time home than I ever care to - with walking pneumonia, I remember looking out my bedroom window and drooling over the raised beds that were just filled with soil from the previous weekend that I couldn’t go play in.  And guess how many large rabbits I counted in our yard from my second story window – 5!  And guess what, rabbits make bunnies!  On the cute-factor scale, these little adorables rank pretty high, but I find myself starting to despise their sight – because….guess what?  Rabbits LOVE: lettuce, carrots, - really anything right!?!



"Chief of Secuirty" at work...

So, as a recent provider of food to small animals to encourage my kids to be able to watch and learn from them, I now find myself in an interesting quandary with these pesky invaders of my property:

·         Are they smart enough to stay away from 64 square feet of vegetables and only focus on the field corn and bird seed at the front of the house?

·         Do we need a roof top fence on the bed until the plants get established?

·         Do we need some ‘clangers’ to keep the birds away?  (You know, my mother-in-laws best trick for this is metal pie pans tied to a stake.  Since I didn’t have any of them but my kids do have pinwheels, I stuck them in the ground Sunday morning next to the fresh planting of sweet corn seeds.  To me, I don’t think they’re going to intimidate any birds, so, might have to find some pie pans somewhere).

·         Any organic solutions I can apply to my garden to keep the hungry little folk away?

Since I am gone all this week, till Friday night, my two little protégés and my ‘Chief of Security’ are in charge of watering and maintenance.  I’m pretty concerned I’m going to come home this weekend to a fence that maybe – a raccoon ate thru- or baby bunnies found a small hole to infiltrate.  I’m pretty confident the watering will be handled well – but if anyone knows the watering habits of small 5 year old protégés, you may understand that they are known for high pressure in close distance – which immediately equals drowned, washed away seeds.

I’m sure I’m worrying about this too much, but really – really – I want this to succeed.  I’m sure July I’ll be cussing the fact I don’t have not enough tomato eaters in the house and I’ll be giving them away at work by the bucket full.  Until then, these veggies and herbs are our babies.  But – we might have some faulty expectations built.  When I heard the twins on the phone last night with their Grandma wishing her a Happy Mother’s Day, I heard my daughter utter the words “We planted a garden.  Now we don’t have to shop at a store anytime”.  Lord – the pressure is on J

The one great positive I’m already seeing coming out of this is that the kids are so excited to talk about all the things we can make and cook with them.  Last night we got our kids to eat some baked jalapeno poppers in the oven.  How – you might ask?  Well – they know we are growing Jalapenos in the garden and were excited to learn how we can prepare them and eat them.  I’m not going to assume that by summer’s end they’ll be eating onions like an apple or cucumber salad each night – but I am sure that at least they’ll start to eat more outside of their comfort zone and start to appreciate a little more where their food comes from and how much work it takes to get food from the garden to the table each night!

Happy gardening – from our suburban garden J

Mother's Day Morning....in front of our freshly planted vegetable gardens