Making Do With What You Have

I planted some lettuce and spinach a couple of weeks ago. I used a charcoal bowl from a smoker that no longer is usuable. It is a nice size to plant the greens in as it's just big enough.

The greens at one week.



Lettuce and spinach today:



The plants are still small but they're growing. In another couple of weeks I will thin them and have a salad of tiny leaves. Good and tender. :)

William found an old plastic flower pot that we had stuck away in storage, I planted radishes in it. They are beginning to come up.



Enough about salads...Well, I guess the seeds I planted in pots today will be the topping to the salad. I planted seven different tomatoes: They are Dinner Plate (don't this name just make your mouth water?), Dorothy's Mennonite Big Heart, Marianna's Conflict (a delicious tomato), Red Pear, Yellow Pear, Paqubot's Roma, Jelly Bean Grape Tomato and Red Tommy Toe (the last two are good eaten straight from the plants...yum).

I love trying different variety of tomatoes. We eat tomato sandwiches for lunch a lot in the summer. The Marianna's Conflict makes a delicious sandwich even though the tomato is not very large.

Red Pear and Yellow Pear are great for dehydrating. The Roma will make good sauces and the Tommy Toe and Jelly Bean Grape will top our salads this summer.

I've never grown the Dinner Plate nor Dorothy's Mennonite Big Heart. This is a test run on these two to see if they grow here. I have run across a few that don't do well in our area. One being the Brandwine and another one Abraham Lincoln.

While I was in the planting mood today, I planted some California Wonder Sweet Pepper, Jalapeno (gotta have the jalapeno...it's not summer without it) and Long Red Cayenne.

We had a small three-tiered greenhouse but the cover was worn to the point it wasn't usuable. I searched the internet to find another cover....Prices have certainly gone through the roof. A replacement for the wornout cover was almost as much as the greenhouse cost when I bought it about six or seven years ago. I'm sorry but I'm a cheapskate and I'm not paying that much for a piece of plastic.

So William went to Lowe's and got some plastic drop cloths. We made a cover for the greenhouse frame. Another make do with what you have. We covered the frame, tucked the extra under the bottom of the frame and the front I closed with clothes pins. It's not pretty but so what...If it works we got a cover for mere pennies. There were three drop cloths in the bag so if this one gets a hole in it we can easily replace it. All three of them cost around three dollars. Frugal me. Frugal William. heehee or call us cheap. We don't care.

In another week or so we shouldn't need a cover for the frame anyway. We usually have the real spring right after Easter.

Here's the lovely greenhouse. It get's the job done no matter how tacky it looks.



William worked on some of the raised beds this afternoon. He has one pretty much ready to be planted and has the areas for a couple of more to be set up. I've tried to get him to rent a tiller and till up the dirt but he is doing the tilling with a shovel. Maybe I can get him to rent one next weekend since he will have three days off then.

That's the muddling around going on here at Honey Bunny Haven. I feel good about our little start on the garden but the sunburn is smarting a little.

First Day Of Spring-March 20, 2010

This first day of spring began a little dreary but later in the day the sun decided to come out from behind the clouds and officially start SPRING! William and I worked in our garden area for a while this morning. We cleaned around the winter onions, planted the fig bush (that actually survived in a pot throughout the winter) and then William put pine straw mulch around the fig tree and the blueberry bushes. That was the extent of our outside work except I planted some more radishes in the container.

The lettuces are growing. I plan to fertilize them tomorrow if it's not raining all day. Rain is in the forecast for most of the day tomorrow. Since it's already begun to rain the forecast looks pretty promising.

If it rains then William will stay in and rest on his last day of spring break. After tomorrow, it's back to school for all the teachers and students. They will have a long weekend for Easter. After that no more holidays until school is out.

William has done a good job with my secret garden. He's got the walls up and we've set some plants out in the garden area. Weather permitting, I plan to paint the glider and the chairs to go inside during the Easter weekend. I'm thinking Easter egg blue for the glider, one chair will be pink and the other will be yellow. We will paint the table William is going to make a light green. Won't that be a colorful place to relax? I'm looking forward to it and am hoping to get finished before the weather gets hot so I can enjoy sitting out there. A good book and a glass of good iced tea. UMMM.....I'm just a southern belle. LOL

We've been discussing purchasing some more easter eggers. We've been well pleased with the ones we bought last year. We didn't get loads of eggs this winter but we got enough that we didn't have to buy any from the store. That's more than I can say for the barred rocks we had.

Maybe I can order some more chicks around the first of April as the temps will be getting warmer. That way it won't be so hard to see after them. I do so hate to have to buy 25 though. I only need about ten pullets to go with the ones we already have.

That's all that's going on around here for now. Except for one wonderful event taking place this week. Our son came home safe and sound after being deployed to Iraq for nine months. A happy heart I'm carrying. :)

Makeshift Garden

Today has been a gorgeous day. We had the heat off and the front door opened for most of the day. The sun was shining and it felt good to be outside.

I found an old charcoal pan that was in a smoker we had. I cleaned it out, put some gravel in the bottom then filled it with potting soil. After I got it cleaned and filled with the potting soil, I planted some lettuce mix and a few spinach seeds. A salad in a pan! I left it on the back porch where I can keep an eye on it. It will need watered and covered if the temps drop low.

In a couple of weeks I'm going to plant some more lettuce, spinach and chard in an old plastic tub. We can eat salad from our own lettuce mixes. I'm looking forward to a fresh salad.

We don't have the garden tilled yet. Every time we think we're going to be able to get it tilled the rain comes again. William and I walked through the garden yesterday afternoon checking to see if the ground is dry enough to till. It was still a little too damp but now we have rain in the forecast for the next four days. Tilling is out again for a while.

Eventually, we will get the garden tilled, the beds made and the seeds in the ground once again. This time of the year I always get antsy wanting to dig in the dirt. The time will come. It will come. Surely!