Starting your plants

Even though there is snow and ice on the ground, and spring seems far off, the key to a good garden is planning, planning, planning. This is also a good temporary cure for what my wife calls cabin fever. So, what to plant that is the question. As you look at all the seed catalogs that are on your pile of mail or if you have gone to your local garden center the amount of seeds stacked on the wall can be over whelming. WOW hundreds of seed packets, so many varieties and colors makes you feel lost as what to do or how to start.  Before you spend 20 bucks on seeds you have no idea if you can even grow or how long before they start to produce you need to plan.  First you need to decide on the size of your garden and how you are going to grow it.  Are you just putting in the ground, square bale, container or raised bed?  We are expanding our garden from 1100sq feet to 1800sq feet as well as adding square bales and containers. We are also putting in a square bale garden at my sister in laws home. Ok now you know how big your garden will be based on that now you can pick what you want to plant. The best way to figure out what to plant is what your need is.  We plant a ton of tomatoes because we love them and we can use them for canning.  Same with peppers and cucumbers.  We planted okra last year but will not be planting it this year because we are not too fond of it. Now that you know what you want to plant it is time to plan some more. On the back of most seed packets there is a graph or grid of when to plant that item in your zone outdoors or to start indoors near a window or under growing lights. Some seed companies and stores have sales on seeds right now so take a look online. We've found deals such as 30% off, free shipping, even  $25 off a $50.00 order. For us we like to start anything we can from seeds because we feel more in control with this. Right now we have started onions, leeks, and potatoes.  We started the potatoes from actual potato seeds.  This is something we are experimenting with because we have the time and space.  If your time and space is limited then just plant what you need. Theres a lot of great resources out there.  As you look online or check out books it is good to keep track of that information for further use.  We will print things off the internet or make copies from books and put it in a binder.  This is helpful because we can refer back to it and not have to try to remember which website we found it on, or what the name of the book was.  Please keep in mind to look for answers that are within your planting zone.  You can find all the answers of how to grow a garden in Florida, but if you're in northern Wisconsin it serves you no purpose. I really hope this helps and now you can begin to plan for your garden.  If you have any questions or comments feel free to let us know.


- Joey

Square-bale gardening and other things...

          Are you looking for a new and creative way to grow that vegetable garden?  Take a look at square bale gardening, or SBG for short.  Now I know you are thinking, wait, I already have a till-able garden area.  That is great, but you can also explore the world of square bale gardening.  We all have that little area of yard that we're just not certain what to plant or do with.  Or maybe you live somewhere temporary and want to have a small patch of produce, such as a patio garden, or your landlord doesn't want you tearing up the yard.  Aside from space and portability, square bale gardening keeps animals away from your plants, plants are higher up so if you have limited mobility it is closer to you, and with the correct prep work the bale acts as a sponge and does not dry out nearly as fast as soil. Now, I know you are saying, OK, I want to do this, but what is it and where do I get these square bales from? In the simplest terms a square bale garden is square bales of straw, not hay, that are turned on their edge, strings facing outward, not down, that you transplant your vegetables in.  This does require about 10 days or prep work prior to planting. There are many videos available on sites like youtube, that show the advantages of SBG and the steps involved in it.   You can get the square bales from sites such as craigslist.org will have posts for straw bales.  You want to check the home/farm garden section.  You can also post you are looking for straw bales.  Also, ask around.  You may have a co-worker or a cousin who knows a farmer, and trust me, farmers are always willing to make a little extra cash.  The most you will typically pay is about $3 a bale.  If they try charging you more walk away. Side note: Nitrogen is used to prep the square bale. Typically to get the quantity of nitrogen needed from your local farm supply store they will make you sign a waiver, permitting the use of nitrogen.  A simple way around this is to go green.  Human urine, while kinda gross to think about, can be used in the same fashion.  It has lots of nitrogen in it, and we all produce it daily.  Basically any vegetable you grow in soil can be grown in a square bale.
           Here are the steps to prep your square bales. Location is key.  Please note, we are explaining this in the "green" way.  If using nitrogen then use half the amount of urine suggested. Find a place that is sunny and warm and allows space for your square bales.  When prepping we suggest you do these steps in the evening. First, days 1 through 3 soak bale thoroughly, until water is running out of bottom of bale.  Don't worry, you cannot over soak it at this point. Days 4 through 6, using a measuring device that you will not be handling around food (like an old canning jar) measure about 1 cup (8 oz) of urine per bale, sprinkle evenly over bale. If using nitrogen it would be about 1/2 cup.  Day 7 through 9 use 1/2 cup of urine, sprinkle so it soaks in evenly.  Day 10 use 1/4 cup urine, sprinkle evenly.  Day 11, you can start planting.  When you plant just place plants directly into straw and you are good to go.  You may have to use a trowel to pull about the straw to get some plants in.  Then care for your garden as usual.  You will still have to stake/cage/trellis all the plants you normally would.  Please let us know if you have any questions.
           A quick little update from us.  We have a portion of the basement set up to start seedlings with some growing lights.  We are glad the care-taker of the property is a flower gardener and he had the lights available.  He is also our neighbor and friend of the family.  We have various pots and flats set up down there that we have re-used and freecycled over the years.  We have started leeks, white and yellow onions. We are also growing a flat of lettuce and spinach that we are seeing if we can grow to eat off season.  We'll let you know how that works out.  Also we have started a flat of seed yukon potatoes we got off of the plants last year. We are hoping they produce like regular.  The potatoes, lettuce and white onions are all second generation seeds we saved from last year.
     Next week we will talk about when to start seedlings.  Have a good one!

- Holly

PS:  We would love to hear YOUR imput.  Please feel free to leave a comment or a question, check out our facebook page, and please, pass the blog along :)

Prepping for the season

Joey and I have been discussing and planning for the vegetable gardening season.  We are going from an 1100 sq foot garden to 1800 sq feet and so we are looking to see what we want to add and change.  We also have spent too many hours looking through seed catalogs because we have received more than ever.  It's a good thing our neighbor/friend is a flower gardener and he can find good use for a lot of them too. Seeds we have started so far are onions, leeks, leaf lettuce and spinach.  We are also going to put in a little vegetable garden at my sister's house.  Her husband and her will benefit greatly from some tomato, pepper and cucumber plants.  We may do a straw bale garden there, but that decision has not been reached yet.  One hobby we took up this past fall was canning and we have been enjoying a number of canned goods from our harvest recently.  Theres nothing like heating up some pears on a cold winter night.  Delicious!  Its kind of funny after the 5 inches of snow we got today to sit here and think about the warm days of spring and summer to come, but as a WI native we have to keep positive thoughts, and I find prepping and planning for the season helps keep the cabin fever away :)

- Holly