The Life and Times of Lance Sexton: February 2011

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Background Seeding

I planted some Broccoli and Cabbage seeds indoors a few weeks back. Probably a week later than I should - but hopefully they will be ok.

Sadly most of the plants got damaged. The cabbage ones were dropped at some point while they were outside soaking in the sun. I only have two of those left - and one has a leaf missing...
I planted some more - but it's a little late in the day for those really. I will see how they go anyway.

As I am new to all this I had no idea what to do with these plants. They look like cress, but grow too long and fall over. I was told that they need tying up!
I tried tying them up to plastic forks with string - but I damaged load of them like that.
It is very fiddley. Some plants just bent in half and broke. Imagine trying to tie bits of cress to a post without damaging!

I was told to tie them to sticks with strips of woman's tights (Hoes as they are called here).
That way the string wont crush the plant. The tights will also expand with the plant growth.

So here it is:

So how can this tiny cress like plant become a huge cabbage?

Broccoli tied to skewer sticks.

I may put the cover on my Square foot gardening Box 1 and put these plants out there. It will be like a green house...

A proper green house may cost hundreds of dollars. But the one I constructed cost about $40

(14 concrete blocks and two pipes with some plastic.)

As I was going to have the concrete blocks anyway - the greenhouse part only cost about $8 to $10.

Nice!

Square Foot Gardening Starting to Take Shape

I spent presidents day sorting out my garden ready for an imminent planting of vegetables.

I have the two 4 ft by 4 ft square raised bed containers ready with weed block on the bottom.
4 by 4 is the internal dimensions - the little squares on the outside are a bonus. I will be planting carrots and Echinacea in those.
On Box 1 I have some plastic plumbing pipe bent over like a tent with a nut and bolt in the middle.
Eventually I will put some semi-transparent plastic sheeting on there to protect the new plants from any cold weather that is still to come (and heavy rain - and scorching sun). The weather has been hot the last few days (in the 70s) but is cooling down again now... temperatures will drop close to freezing next week.

I did not know how much time it would actually take to get all these concrete blocks level. I had a spirit level and positioned each one. It was an incredibly hard job. Maybe I should have tried the 4 ft by 4 ft wooden plank method first...
I decided on concrete so that the boxes would last a long time. The Square Foot Gardening book does not recommend using treated wood as the chemicals leach into the soil - and then into your produce. So untreated wood may only last a couple of years. I guess the ground would still have had to been level...
Re-grading my whole garden took a long time. Shifting all that earth is no fun - and I still don't think it is level...

I did actually spray paint the dull looking concrete blocks with a sort of brown colour on the outside. I ran out of paint quick - so box 2 is still boring grey. I will leave the inside of the box as I don't want the paint chemicals getting into the food...

Here I am turning my compost heap. Sadly I don't think it will be ready in time. I have not got time to turn this every day - so maybe I will end up buying some. Frustrating really - but maybe it will be ready in time for Box 2 (Planting in April).

There are other preparations going on in the background - so I will post those later.

Hopefully you will see amazing results and want to try this method yourself...

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Garden Schedule

I completed my garden planting schedule recently.
Week zero is the end of the first frost (the pinky coloured line). The average for Georgia is mid April. I am going to use the 9th of April as my date, but we will see. When the dogwood tree blooms - that is supposed to indicate the end of frost.
Hopefully this will work out. I certainly feel more confident on my planting times. It's a great exercise. Recommended ***

S = When to seed inside
P = When to plant
H = When to expect harvest

Click for original size.

Solomon feats Little Gym Birthday Party!

A few hours after Stone Mountain - we took Solomon to 'The Little Gym' to a birthday party. The girl was Emma and we were invited by Danny and Anita (pictured below on the far right). Emma is their Grandchild.

Anyway, it was pretty good. The children spent an hour in the gym running about and going wild. The staff had various activities for the children to do.

Sadly Solomon was not interested in any of it. He just wanted to run about. A lot of the time he was the only child running about. The other children were being sociable and getting involved with the games and stuff. Solomon was not conforming to the group - but enjoyed what he was doing - which was running over obstacles around and around and around.... We were sure he was going to get tired now - but no.

We still had trouble getting him to bed. He was probably wound up from all the excitement.

He still woke us up early - after all that went on yesterday!

Bubbles!!!!

Donuts!

And now for my next trick...

Solomon at the bar.

All of the Party Animals together! (Solomon needed to be held into place)

After all the Gym work - there was cake and food and drink. It was a nice little party as children's parties go. I have attended at least 3 children's parties now and this one was great for the children. We will see how much it cost and maybe Solomon can host one there some time.

Solomon Feats Stone Mountain

We decided to go to Stone Mountain yesterday. I was planning to do it on President's Day (which I have off work) - but we were not able to do it then...

Anyway - we took Solomon and I decided if he got too tired I would carry him up.
Well - he did not really get that tired. In fact he wanted to run down and he did not sleep when he got home (unlike us). So it seems like he is a little bag of energy!

Here are some pictures:

Solomon - no rock is too big... no Mountain is too high...

What does prosecuted mean anyway?

We made it to the top!

Family picture where I proposed to Stacy...

Us looking down on 'snow mountain' from Stone Mountain.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Compost is Happening!!!

I was turning my compost the other week (trying to do it every week as it needs to be ready by March!).
I found some earth worms! Yes that is right - actual worms!!
That means that the compost is being mistaken as earth by the worms (cool eh?).
I am kinda hoping the worms are adding to the decomposing process.

Here are some gardening pics of progress so far...

Decided to get these straight in the end. It takes quite a lot of work I discovered....

This is the critical mass needed to compress the compost down. As you can see I took the netting off and I will put the posts up next to the pile and then put the netting back and transfer the pile over - getting all that oxygen in. It's turning nice and brown inside...