Welcome back to my garden journal! The weather currently has us with lots of sun during the day. Cool nights have me moving seedlings inside at night but that’s fairly on par for Maine. They say not to put any seedlings in the ground until Memorial Day, wow it’s hard to wait!
Since my last garden update we have put dirt in the raised beds and planted beets, sugar snap peas, carrots, spinach, lettuce mix, red lettuce and bibb lettuce and potatoes.
I used the muffin tin to help me space out the seeds. It was simple and something I already had. The boys enjoyed pushing the muffin tin down to make the imprints.
I wasnt planning on growing potatoes but had a bag of several rotten spuds and the others had tons of eyes on them. I know that grocery store potatoes can be sprayed and may not actually sprout but I figure why not try. We started with 4 cute little rows of potatoes and then I also acquired some actual seed potatoes from a friend so I now have 7 cute rows of potatoes planted so hopefully we can grow something. I sliced the potatoes so the pieces each had an eye and set them out for a couple of days so they could dry and heal over a bit. This is recommended so they don’t rot before they sprout
I am on day 14-ish of conditioning my straw bales. I’ve been watering them each day and the inside of the bales are looking a bit more broken down and are warmer then they were last week. Once we dont have the cold nights I’ll be putting some plants and seeds in them!
My pumpkins and cukes were outgrowing their milk jugs so I re homed them to some pots and they seem much happier.
Our front flower beds needed some love so Mister helped me dig up some of the grass to make it a bit larger and move even. I topped the existing dirt with the topsoil/compost mix we used in the raised beds. I was going to use landscape fabric to help with weeds but a neighbor generously gave me several stacks of newspaper to use. I was happy to save a few bucks of supplies and be able to recycle! I worked my way across the space with a few pieces of newspaper (about 4-5 pages thick) and then topped with a handful of wood chips to keep the paper from blowing away. Next time I will have the hose handy and spray the papers down so they don’t blow away. After all the papers were down I topped with a thick layer of wood chips. I was planning on buying a dark colored mulch but with the amount we would need or a flower bed this large it was going to be quite expensive. Since we had several trees taken down and lots of wood chips we opted to use them in the flower bed. Not my favorite look but it’ll do for now and hopefully the flowers make up for the second choice mulch. This year Id rather invest the money into the perennial plants than the mulch.
On Mothers Day we took a trip to the garden center. Some of the boys were sleeping and with the covid restrictions it was best for me to go in by myself. I wasn’t upset to peruse the greenhouses on my own. I received a lot of help from the staff and ended up buying two Yellowtwig Dogwood bushes, a hydrangea, 4 heuchera and a hellebore. The heuchera and hellebore are still getting used to the temps. I have them outside during the day and in the bed of the truck that is covered at night to protect it from frost. I wanted the Dogwood bushes because of the pretty yellow branches offering a bit of winter interest in the flower bed. Our plan is to build a deck at some point, that’s why you see the piece of wood on the front of the house. I needed to give us the ability to decorate the space but also make it easy to move when we build a front deck in the future. The lilac I put in last year is coming up slow and steady. I moved some hostas around and they are coming up nicely.
As of this post we have a few sugar snap peas peeking up out of the soil as well as some beets, spinach and lettuce. It’s so exciting to go out and enjoy the morning sunshine and check on how the veggies and flowers are doing. I am blessed with several wonderful neighbors some of who are wonderful experienced gardeners. They even share their flowers! I was given several new flowers and placed them in the side flower bed. I am still stumped as to what to put in the front to fill the space but not block the basement windows. Any thoughts? I also have some containers to fill with annuals, I’m excited to go to the greenhouse and pick them out. I’ll share those with my next post!
Hi Melissa,
I love reading your blog! I’m as far away from a gardening pro as can be, but when I saw your question about what to plant that wouldn’t block your basement window, I figured I’d make a suggestion…something tall but narrow wouldn’t block the light, and something pretty would be nice to see from the inside – something like lilies? I’ve been seeing some beautiful ones out lately.
Thank you Julie!! My other issue us that we dont have gutters (yet) so the water really beats up plants so I have a sort of small space to put the plants along with the window issue. I put in some stuff yesterday hopefully it’ll look good when it fills in, I”ll update in my next Garden Journal:-)
I would love to learn to garden. It is something we have talked about in our house but never acted on.
If you listen to Podcasts look up The Beginners Garden Podcast and on Youtube look up Garden Answer, those two spots have taught me a ton and have given me so much inspiration!
Well geez, after all these years, I never once thought to use a muffin pan! That’s brilliant – thanks!!
Cant wait to see how your garden turns out!! I cannot keep any plants alive so Im so in awe of people who can garden like this!
What a great idea to use the muffin tin. That would definitely come in handy with having kids helping you plant seeds.
I loved having a garden last year, but this year we have moved and are in temporary living. Good tips to save for next year!
It has been years since I have had a garden! However, I’ve been thinking about working on one sometime soon.
I really enjoyed reading this. I really wish I kept my allotment but I gave it up because I didn’t know what I was doing. If only I had found your blog earlier. Thanks for sharing your journey.
Thank you for reading! What about a small pot of some herbs or a house plant? Plants in all forms make me so happy!
Keep it up! You’re doing a great job!
Love this. I hope I have land some day and can start a garden.
Consider a couple of containers or the straw bale method, both are great for small spaces.
Unfortunately, my gardening skills aren’t as good as yours! But you do make it look easy and you’ve given such great tips here. I know my kids would love to grow some plants so perhaps this will be our activity for the week.
Even a couple of pots with herbs or sunflowers would be a great activity to keep everyone excited about growing things!
Such a clever idea to use a muffin tin to space out seeds! AND a fun pseudo science experiment with the potatoes you had on hand! Keeping my fingers crossed everything comes up great!
Thanks so much for reading!
We are about to move and I am going to attempt to plant a vege garden (again), hopefully it works better than the last one!
I’m keeping myself prepared for some failures, there so many factors that can effect things. As long as we learn from them!Good for you trying again!
Sounds like it’s coming along nicely! I love that you get the kids involved! Such a great thing for them to learn about!
The muffin pan impression trick for making sure seeds are evenly spaced is genius! I’m going to do that for our fall garden! Thank you. I hope your garden does great this year.