Projects

So besides the actual gardening and growing I had to do some related projects. First was a raincatch. This isn't really mandatory for the square foot gardening, but I do need it to grow my blueberries. As I mentioned in an earlier post, blueberries like acidic soil, and I got around that by putting the blueberries in containers. However I could ruin it all by watering the containers from the hose, adding in all the alkalinity from the groundwater. I'm surely not going to buy bottled or purified water, so I decided on collecting rainwater. I looked at raincatches at Home Depot (where I have been spending a disturbing amount of time and money recently) but they were too expensive and all seemed poorly designed. I decided to build a cheap one my own. I bought a 54 gallon Rubbermaid container, some 1 1/2 inch PVC, PVC elbow joints, screen, and zip ties. I think you can get an idea of the construction from the pictures:

I have no idea how well this will hold up, but the total of all the materials was around $28.00 and it took about 30 minutes to put together. The screen is to prevent mosquitoes from using the raincatch as a birthing pool.

Like a hobo Ive been keeping the rainwater in milk jugs and other bottles and hopefully this will be enough for the blueberries. After about two months rain and snow, I have about 40 gallons of water:

Yes, I know I drink a lot of soda.

For now Ive retired the raincatch. I have plenty of water, and when I run out I can just put the container under the drip line of the roof and it will be full.

The next project was a composter. Again, I looked at a bunch of fancy ones at home depot and they ended up being quite expensive. I bought a small, heavy-duty plastic trashcan and just drilled about 30 holes in the bottom and sides with a 5/8" boring bit, to allow oxygen into the compost:

In the end, this cost about 15 dollars and will be important for making my own compost for future plantings. Here it is after a month or so (I turn it every week or so):

ah Swiss chard...

Finally, I wanted to construct a kind of cage to prevent varmits from getting in to the vegetables and either eating the seeds, the fruit, or the plants themselves. I did it with 3/4" PVC and a few T and elbow joints. The top is a woven trellis and later I think I will put wire around the sides. I specifically made it so that I can scale it up by replacing the vertical supports.

Its going to be pretty awesome when I come out one morning and find a raccoon who has gotten himself trapped inside.

Update

The last couple of weeks have been very hectic with school stuff and a few visitors to Austin, so I haven't had much time to blog or really do much work in the garden. Honestly, there isn't much to talk about right now, other than a few small things.

Monday (March 15) I planted the remaining seeds in the garden: 2 plants each regular and pickling cucumbers (two adjacent squares in the upper left corner), 2 lima bean plants (from here, via the Masons), and 9 garden beans (in the lower right hand square). In the back row you can also see the shoots of four corn that I planted a few weeks ago.


Soon after taking these pictures I had my first bit of food from the garden: I picked a red onion and chopped up the stem and base for garnishing on some jambalaya, and I also picked some of the mesclun greens for a salad before St. Patrick's day dinner.

I have some specific concerns:

1. The potatoes are growing so fast. I have started trimming the plants, mainly to let some other plants surrounding the potatoes get sunlight, but I don't know the wisdom of doing this for three or four more months (for new potatoes), or what effect this will ultimately have on the potatoes I do get. Also, I have no idea what is going on under the soil... I've been thinking about next year and perhaps I will do a type of potato bin and just let the potatoes grow.

2. The strawberries are really disappointing. If anything they seem to be dying back. I don't know if they will take off once the weather starts to get really warm, but I hope so. My other berries, the blueberries and the blackberries, are doing really well. The trees also:

peach

apricot

Also regarding the trees, one of the main branches of the pomegranate in the front yard has been snapped off. There are also giant logs of crap around the base of the tree. I have a good idea who is responsible. I don't think the injury will be fatal to the tree, but in fact the tree may already be dead...or its just dormant for a much longer time than the rest of the trees.

I have two other projects. At the plant sale I bought two container tomatoes. I've planted those in some pots and I keep those outside most of the day (unless it is really windy or cold). Generally, I've begun to "harden off" the tomatoes and peppers I have under the lights by leaving them outside a few hours each day. The transplants should be ready to go into the ground in about 3 weeks (after the last frost).


Finally, I decided to try and grow some ginger, in what seems a very simple process. I'm doing it in the container because I will have to bring it in when it gets too cold.

Plant Sale

Given my seedling die-off and, on advice from mom, I decided to check out a few plant sales yesterday and today to buy some seedlings. I still object to this, because I want to grow things from seeds and buying young plants feels like cheating, but I want tomatoes and peppers and this might be the best way to get them, at least until I get better about starting plants from seeds.

Apparently these sales are quite a big deal, but I just randomly found them on craigslist. Yesterday (Friday) I went to a sale at one of the local Austin schools. I can't find a link to it, but it turned out to be pretty small- it was basically a vocational thing. I bought a habanero seedling and a jalapeno seedling.

UPDATE (March 8): I misremembered...I bought a Habanero seedling and a Cherry Bomb pepper seedling.

Today I went to a much bigger sale, at Sunshine Community Gardens. I showed up towards the end of the day, but the amount of peppers and tomatoes they had were massive (you can see a sample by clicking on the list at the above link). I bought two "new big dwarf" tomatoes, which I figure I'll grow outside in containers, not in the garden. I also bought a sweet pickling pepper, an Anaheim, and a "mucho nacho" jalapeno.

So here the new setup of the growing tray:

My grand champion cherry tomato is still totally dominant (its a good 6 inches tall and pretty bushy), and the black krim are coming up nice (bottom row, second from left). I am also getting some action on the other new varieties I planted a little bit ago, so hopefully that will continue.

Two "master gardeners" from the extension office had a table and I asked one of them what was going on with my seedlings. He told me that it sounded like the soil could be too dry or too wet. Big help (I'm being sarcastic). He also said that the grow light should be as close to the plants as possible, which I was confused about (I'm serious). He also told me that the extension service has an email address where you can send pictures and descriptions of your problems and experts can try to answer, which might be more promising.