This being the second year of having a garden at our house we had only one goal…for it to be better than last year’s. This isn’t a very ambitious goal since last year we managed to kill a bunch of squash plants that my dad gave us (his produced abnormal prize winning sized squash) and bought two tomato, one basil and one strawberry plant. We got a few tomatoes off each tomato plant, the basil was already ready to go and we didn’t get one strawberry.
At the annual Hidden Valley garage sales last year we found a house that was selling tons of fruit and vegetable seeds for a very low price. They said the seeds had one year left until they were to go bad. We bought a bag full of all different kinds: bell peppers, cucumbers, squash, lettuce, beans, peas, pumpkin, watermelon, herbs and more.
We got started early this year with an indoor greenhouse. We weren’t quite sure how many seeds to put in each container and frankly we weren’t even sure they would grow since we bought them at a garage sale. Andy mentioned that we should put a quarter to half of the packet in each container. I guess this is something we probably should have looked up, but I just went with it. Once we planted the seeds we put them a window in the office that get’s the most sun, with a towel underneath it so it wouldn’t ruin the furniture.
The next day when I got home from work I went to go water the plants and the kitties had knocked it over. They must have stuck their claws in the towel and pulled it down. The container with all the seeds and dirt was all over the floor! I called Andy and said that he better come home soon before I kill the cats.
After that I was skeptical that anything would grow at all. We had no idea which seeds were planted where and pretty sure that some of the seeds got mixed up with others. But sure enough about 1-2 days later there were plants growing! They started growing like crazy and we quickly realized that we should have put only a few seeds in each container. When we got back from Peru we noticed that the plants were even growing up the cord of the blinds. It was definitely time for them to be outside.
As soon as the weather allowed we re-located the plants to the backyard. All the compost we created throughout the year only made about a large bag full, so we roto-tilled it in with the existing soil.
There were so many plants that it took about 4 hours to plant and covered the whole length of the back wall. We kept the paper cartons on when we planted them, which was a stupid mistake as I quickly found out that they weren’t doing too well. They were so soggy that for some reason I thought they were going to dissolve, but didn’t so I re-planted all the plants. Sadly a few plants didn’t make it, but luckily our strawberry plant came back this year and is even producing fruit! However it’s getting eaten by the birds (and Anya 🙂 ) so we need to get a net to protect it.
Hopefully in the next month or so we will have lots of home grown veggies to enjoy! To be continued…