square foot garden

I'm gonna live where the green grass grows, watch my corn pop up in rows.... (come on country fans, sing it!)
(that's my corn... in the rows...)

 
We are, for the most part, following the square foot garden method this year.  We missed the date to grow seedlings inside, so it will be a slightly delayed garden this year.  Most plants started as seeds put right into the ground.  We started a new garden in the backyard...

turned our fountain area into an herb garden...

see the wittle babies? aren't they so cute?!!!

and will use the side garden for the rest of the seeds or to transplant plants when thinned out.

But... there is a part of me that wonders if all the time and energy put into this is just creating a large Smorgasbord for  this guy...

Little juicy red heart shaped piece of hope

Our square foot garden is planted (post to follow another time).  I cheaped out frugally stayed budget savvy this year and planted just about everything from seed.  However, time crept up on me and I didn't get them started inside like I wanted.  Point is, everything is really tiny.
BUT, I did buy strawberry plants.  So it wasn't a shocker to me that it was the first to produce something edible! 

This is huge!  That is why this little strawberry is now called my 'little juicy red heart shaped piece of hope!'  And see the red thing behind it?  It is it's little sister.  We'll call her 'ray of sunshine'.

And look, they brought along their little friends!  welcome friends, welcome.

Garden planning time!!

I have big plans for the garden and big plans for this weekend.  I am spending this weekend researching, planning and prepping.  We hope to add two smaller raised beds in the back yard this year, and go bigger and better.  The weather is supposed to be nicer tomorrow so construction will be in full swing - we are going to go as organic as possible with materials, seeds, etc.   We are going to somewhat follow the 'square foot grdening' approach and divide the back beds into sections, building some trellis-like contraptions to get as many things growing vertically as we can. We need to figure out what will grow where and get the seeds and start planting indoors.  I peeked around many garden blogs last night and it looks like I am ALREADY a little behind... sheesh!

The main garden is on the side of our house (in the front yard) blocked from street view by the a/c units.  It seemed to be a good spot, but is right up against the house, so getting to all the plants seemed to be problematic.  The backyard spots will be more accessible.

My biggest fear is that I am going to just be investing a lot of time and energy to make a giant smorgasbord for my dog!!

But my hope is that we are able to produce enough fresh, organic foods for the rest of the family to eat!

A fungus among us!

We have just had a week of straight rain here in north Texas.  I just went to let the dog out and this is what I found in the backyard.

I was chatting it up with my friend, Andrea, the other day and telling her how my once beautiful lush grass is struggling since my life changing garden experience this summer.  She is a pretty health conscience/ingredient checkin'/over all natural remedy kinda person with a nice lawn, I might add! She told me about a solution she makes up and sprays on her lawn.  Not sure where she got it from (I like to give credit!) but here is the rundown...

In a lawn sprayer, place....

1 cup amonia

1 cup dish soap

1 cup mouth wash

1 cup epsom salts

and top with a beer.

can do as frequently as every 2 weeks during growing seasons.

After a chuckle and asking if she was serious... which she was, I looked to see if we had all those things around the house...


I was telling my mother about this and she mentioned a possible link between antibacterial soaps and dish soaps and hormone levels in the water supply.  Anyone know anything about that??
Sure enough, I had picked up a cheap bottle of antibacterial dish soap in my shopping trip last week.  I heard costco sells a huge, cheap environmentally safe version I will pick up on the next costco run.

I've been turning genderless baby fish into girl fish and didn't even know it! eeek.