Garden & Food Update

The harvest of food is starting to grow. Yesterday I used a 12"x36" tray to bring everything in due to how much I had to pick. Here's a sampling:

Kohlrabi: Still bringing in about 2/week. I need to plant some more so that we can have some this fall.

Cucumbers: 4 in yesterday, I'll probably be bringing in many more in the days ahead. Most of the plants have been doing an excellent job, I have had a couple have the leaves wilt with no explanation I can find.

Snap Peas: I thought I would be done with these plants by now, but I still brought a large serving size worth in the house yesterday

Basil: It had been coming in small amounts, I just brought in a sandwich container of basil

Cilantro: It is doing well this year, I'm picking it as I am going to use it.

Zucchini: These plants are growing like crazy. I gave them 5 feet of space originally and some are currently 10 feet long with more to grow. I have brought in about 5 18" ones and a bunch of small ones. I over-watered the plant initially and they had blossom rot from it.

Green Beans: They have been slow this year due to me planting them late (and the cooler summer we've been having). I started harvesting yesterday and should continue to have more in the days ahead.

Dill: These have done wonderfully this year, they are about 4 & 1/2 feet tall and have beautiful flower heads.

Tomatoes: We've been having enough cherry tomatoes for salads so far, they have turned out well

Broccoli: I was concerned about planting broccoli this spring due to last year's crop taking all year to form some heads, but they turned out really well this year (again due to the cool weather). I have pulled out half of the plants and am almost done harvesting the rest.

Turnips: I don't believe I've eaten turnips before, but had some on Sunday and they tasted great. My wife enjoyed them so much she wondered why they are not more common in the stores. I planted some more this past weekend so that we can have a nice fall crop.

Lettuce: I believe we're going to have a crop all summer long. I have slowed down on my picking of it as we have been having a hard time eating all that I am bringing in. I planted more this past weekend to take us through the fall.

Grape Leaves: We canned 3 jars worth this past weekend so we can make a favorite appetizer in our house (stuffed grape leaves with rice, meat, and spices. I like mine with lots of lemon juice, my wife likes very little).

Other interesting items going on in the garden:

Asparagus: We received 8 more asparagus plants that someone dug up out of their garden. They planted them this year and did not like how they looked in their yard, so they gave them to us.

Pumpkin: I didn't mean to plant pumpkin this year, but we had 17 pumpkins donated to us last year and I threw some seeds into the compost pile by accident. The largest pumpkin we have so far is about 4 inches across.

Peppers: I picked a jalapeno pepper a couple weeks back since it was so small and I wanted the plant to focus on growing bigger, but we should be having banana peppers coming in this week as well as maybe some more jalapeno. I actually enjoyed putting the lone little pepper into nachos this past week with it cooked a little bit.

Eggplant: This cool summer has been rough on the eggplants. They really like those 90 degree days and we haven't had much of them. This week for example the evenings are supposed to be in the 50's for the most part and during the day in the 70's. The normal low/high is 65/83 which we are very off this year. Maybe those ice caps melting is messing with our weather here.

Overall the garden has been bringing down our food bills this year. We're spending right now about $25-35/week on food, which consists of sugar, flour, milk, cereal, cheese (a big expense for us), butter, snacks, and misc cooking supplies. My wife makes bread for us, we have a fair amount of homemade jam & syrup, homemade spaghetti sauce, canned applesauce & other apple items, etc. As an ending note, I'll leave you with my breakfast experiment from this past Sunday in order to use up some of the vegetables we have:

1 Tbsp Butter
1 Kohlrabi Bulb, tough skin portions removed, sliced into french-fry sized pieces
6" Zucchini cut into 1/4 circle shapes
6 Turnips at 2 to 3" each, sliced and left as circles or 1/2 circles
Fresh Dill (to taste)

Add butter to pan, cook kohlrabi first with some dill, then add turnips 2 minutes later. Once the kohlrabi starts to soften up, add the zucchini to the pan with some additional dill and cover until the zucchini is fully cooked. Serve with toast or eggs.

Garden

Our garden is doing great! With the rain we have been having every couple of days and the cool days (until recently), my cool-weather vegetables have been performing well. We're now averaging about 10 hours a week in the garden, with about 1/2 of that time harvesting and the other 1/2 weeding. We have some wild garden plants that we are waiting on results from, they include tomatoes, cilantro, dill, and possibly pumpkins or cucumbers.

Coming into the house this week:

1/2 lb sugar snap peas/day
3/4 lb lettuce/day
1 cup regular peas/day
1 head of brocolli/day
last of the spinach
Cilantro as needed
Tops of Lemon Basil
Couple of cherry tomatoes
Grape Leaves
2 Kohlrabi/week
Various Radishes (did not do well this year, I suspect the seeds I got do not like our region).

Will be coming in soon:

Zucchini (we have 5 plants and they are taking over, each has 1-2 zucchini)
Cucumbers (plenty of flowers, haven't had ones form yet)
Green Beans (plenty of flowers, haven't had ones form yet)
Jalapeno Peppers (got 1 about an inch long)
Parsley (as needed)
Oregano (as needed)

We have had a lot of stir-fry the past week working through some of what has been coming in. The lettuce we have been giving away to friends in need. My wife pickled some of the sugar snap peas and froze a fair amount as well for future stir-fries. She also canned some grape leaves and I'll be needing her to do some more soon.

In mid-July, I'll be starting indoors some Brussels sprouts so that we can have a nice fall crop of them. I planted 20 Endive the past couple of weeks that we will harvest in the fall.

Garden Update

Our expenses and time this year for the garden have gone down dramatically. My schedule now consists of spending a 1/2 hour in the garden in the morning, picking what is ready to be brought into the house, and picking weeds out as I am harvesting. I utilize a tray with compartments in it to make the cleaning process go quicker. Once they are brought in, they are washed and put into their appropriate containers in the fridge or made into a salad for lunch. I also spend an hour or 2 on the weekends doing an overall scan for weeds and removing them with a hoe.

Harvesting Currently: Snap peas, lettuce, brocolli raab, radishes, spinach, strawberries, chives, green onions

Finished Already: Asparagus & arugula (have just a couple plants left to remove)

Surprises: We have wild tomato, cucumber, and pumpkin plants growing in and around our compost pile. We also started tomatoes in 4.5" containers this year on Valentine's Day and have tomatoes forming in the garden already. I will be doing the same next year for our tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers.

Problems: We have still 3 & 1/2 trays of plants under lights since we were going to help a home for single mothers-to-be, but the spring has been really wet and when it has been good, we have not had the equipment to till the soil. We will be looking for homes for them later this week. Our green beans are having a late start this year due to having to redo our back yard garden, but are coming up nice now.

Garden Economics

Since my garden is almost into maintenance mode, I've been thinking about the economic side of a fruit and vegetable garden. I know that for some a garden can help reduce their food expenses, while for others it does not. The difference between the two is how much time and money they spend on it. Buy mulch every year to prevent weeds and there goes your profit margin. I believe more than just the generic concept of time & money, the plants they choose should be looked at. Below is a list of plants that I have learned are not bad choices:

Strawberry: Once you have your initial investment in plants, they'll take over the bed you put them in and keep coming back every year. We put ours in last year near the house with a sidewalk as the border to prevent them from taking the whole yard. The only items I've done this year to the bed were remove some covering I put on it on the fall (which actually killed most of my plants, this fall they won't get as much of a covering) and then take the rake through it once the weeds sprouted. The strawberries are already forming and I should be having strawberries in a couple of weeks.

Asparagus: This is another annual that once you have planted, the only real work is keeping the weeds away (which you can do with plastic over the area). We started them last year and this year had about a side-dish for 2, but expect more next year. We did not plant them in the ground properly, so that is why our crop was a bit low. A friend of mine nearby with a large farm has them growing wild on his property and harvested 2 pounds a week ago.

Onions & Garlic: These are ones that you also put an initial investment into, but they'll keep producing year after year. One of my neighbors has a garden FULL of onions so much that she gave us some bulbs last fall and they are already starting to form flowers in our garden this spring. If you space them close enough and plant them at the right time, the weeds won't have much of a chance.

Spring Lettuce: For my garden, the romaine lettuce is the winner of easiest spring vegetable. I'm still learning how best to do this one, but I've learned the best way is to plant your lettuces real close to each other. The benefit is the lack of weeding that you will need to do. You won't get as large of a head as you do at the grocery store, but the focus is to reduce your time and costs. We have been picking leaves off for the past 2 weeks and have been enjoying them. (We started them off indoors).

Peppers & Eggplant: These don't produce the quantity for me as much as my tomato plants in the same family, but what they do is slowly produce some great vegetables that I can take my time (for the most part) to pick.

Below are some that are bad choices on the time aspect:

Green Beans: We grow lots of them, but they will become your daily chore if you have even just a couple of plants. The key thing is to cut the green beans before they get too big. They'll easily produce new ones from flower to green bean in a day at the peak of the season. For us, the season went from late June to late September. That's 3 months of hunting for beans.

Peas: They are not as bad as green beans, but they will be a daily chore for 3-4 weeks. They produce their pods pretty quickly, so you have to catch them before they get too big.

Below are some that are bad choices on the money aspect:

Starter Plants: The easiest way to get ahead is to start your own plants. When I hear about people spending $3-5 on a tomato plant, I think to myself that they have already lost the war. For the same price I was able to start 18 plants in my house (though I had to put some more time into them).

Potatoes: From the seed potatoes I see at the garden places, it is another one that you have lost the costs war just buying the seed potatoes. I've seen the price of regular potatoes this past week at $0.16/lb, while the 1 lb of seed potatoes was at $5/lb. To just break even one would need to make at least 32 lbs of potatoes from the seed.

Let me know what I missed!

February Garden Update

Our shipment of seeds came in the mail today, so I figure it's time to post an update on our garden. We have planted 3 trays worth of seeds, with each tray having 50 inserts. The list includes:

15 Green/Purple Peppers
5 Jalapeno Peppers
5 Lemon Balm
10 Broccoli
10 Eggplant
5 Artichoke (trying for my wife)

20 Tomatoes
10 Banana Peppers
10 Rocket
10 Broccoli Raab

10 Lettuce
10 Leek
10 Celery
10 Kohlrabi
10 Chives

We have them placed above our dryer to keep them warm and assist with sprouting. The total cost so far has been $60 ($42 for seeds, $8 for starting soil, $10 for tray inserts). Other expenses in the coming month we expect are 2 more lights ($15/each) and probably $10 more in tray inserts. After that, the only expenses we may have are some additional posts outside.

Regarding last year's garden items, we're still working through green beans, frozen celery, frozen peppers (pretty mushy), spaghetti sauce, tomato soup, apple sauce & filling, pumpkin pie filling (which my wife made more filling today), pickles, and jam. We'll see how productive our garden is this year.

2009 January Garden

It's official, my wife and I our planning for this year's garden. I received some cash from my in-laws in the mail and my wife went to Menards to pick up some lumber. She is going to build me a 7 foot shelving unit for me to start plants in. I purchased a light last year and rigged it to work in our bay window, but it was too cold there. We'll be taking out some furniture from our living room in order to make room for the shelving unit.

I'm also making a list of seeds that I need to keep an eye out for (Cucumbers, Eggplant, Peppers, Kentucky Wonder Green Beans, Cilantro, Zuchini, Sugar Snap Peas, Onion Bulbs, Spinach, Radishes, & Basil). I already have Dill, Tomato, Lettuce, & Celery Seeds. Our Strawberries, Asparagus, chives, & some local onions are in the ground right now.

For most of our new seeds, I'm going to see if Walgreens is going to have $0.10 packets this year (I missed out last year). If they don't do it this year, I know Walmart got some in the spring which I'll use for my warm-weather crops. For the cucumber seeds, I'm going to look for a hybrid that is mildew resistant, since that is what caused most of my cucumber problems last year.

We also have 5 stumps that in March we want to have removed in order to help the garden grow better this year. We are hoping to tear up part of our driveway as well to make more room for the garden, which will be dependent upon the roommate situation. We're also hoping to get some rain barrels as well to reduce some of the leaking in our basement.

We'll also not rush to put out plants before their time this year. We put out our tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants out too early last year and they kind of just sat there and watched us. We'll put a lot more cool-weather crops in first and when we're ready to plant the warm-weather plants, we'll just pull out the cool-weather ones.

Last of all, we'll produce less pumpkin and apple pie filling this year. We've been enjoying them when we have them, but my waist does not need me eating pie every day. I would say 12 of each should be enough for us. On the other hand, we'll need to at least triple the amount of apple juice we made this year. We made 16 quarts of apple juice, which we are watering down to 32 quarts, but our daughter is drinking over 2 quarts a week and we'll be running out by the end of this month. We also are on our last bag of brocolli since our spring brocolli did not turn out well last year.

How to Handle 17 Large Pumpkins

I walked into the house last night and found 15 large pumpkins bathing in our sun room, 1 on the kitchen floor, and 1 in the oven. We had talked about trying to pick up a few more pumpkins after Halloween to make some pie filling, but not this many. Our church was using them as decoration and they were cleaning them out this week. They had even more than the 17, these were the remaining after everyone else took what they wanted. My wife was able to load them into her car (with the baby and car-seat as well) in just 1 trip.

Here's the breakdown plans:

1. Puree and freeze as much as we can fit. Our freezers are pretty packed already, so it will take some work but I think we can handle a few of them.

2. Cube and can some of them. I'll see about picking up some more jars tomorrow and we have some clean empty ones.

3. Keep a couple in the basement to be used later. I'm reading they can last 6 months, so in January once we've cleaned out some of the stuff in the freezer, we'll have room to freeze more.

4. And most importantly, we will puree and be giving it away on Sunday for families in need wanting to make their own pumpkin pie.

50 lbs of Apple Juice & Sauce

My wife just got back yesterday afternoon from visiting my great-aunt north of us. With our daughter drinking quite a bit, we did not think we would have enough apple juice in our pantry and my great-aunt always loves to have us visit, so my wife and daughter went up there Tuesday morning with jars and a juicer. Our daughter was well-behaved and sat at the counter all day (except for nap time) watching my wife working away in the kitchen and running outside to pick apples.

I did not count all of the jars, but my rough estimate is 24 pints of apple sauce, 18 quarts of apple juice, and 6 quarts of apple sauce. We'll be giving away gifts of apple sauce this Christmas. In addition, my wife brought a box of fresh apples for recipes in the coming weeks, as well as some squashes.

Garden Results

The judges are still out tallying everything and we have a few last-minute stragglers, but here are the highlights:

Freezer:

- 35 lbs of green beans
- 50 peppers worth (some whole, some cut)
- 1 & 1/2 gallon worth of breaded eggplant (which is disappearing fast)
- 6 gallons of whole tomatoes (for stews)
- 1 gallon blueberries

Basement:
- 32 qt Spaghetti Sauce (number fluctuates based upon use and production)
- 29 qt Tomato Soup
- 12 qt Apple Sauce + 10/2 qt for Christmas gifts
- 1 1/2 qt Grape Leaves
- 4/2 qt Mulberry Jam (gave a fair amount away during the summer, have some in fridge)
- 9 qt Pickles (also disappearing fast)
- 1 qt Blueberry Syrup
- 22 1/2 qt Tomato Juice (remains after making Spaghetti Sauce, use in place of vegetable broth)
- 3 qt Apple Juice
- 11 qt Misc Soups (Celery, Vegetable Broth, etc)
- 27 qt Apple Pie Filling (We were up to 30, but been using them)
- 5 + 4/2 qt Salsa

Items Learned:

- Less tomato plants and more other plants (eg: Eggplant & Cucumbers).

- Put apple sauce into pint containers instead of quart. We don't go through it fast enough and we had 1/2 a jar go bad already in the fridge.

- Next year we'll be getting a de-seeder for the mulberries so we can harvest more and make more jam.

- During the time your jarring and 2 weeks afterwards, check your jars every other day to make sure none lost their seal. I just checked and I think we lost a jar or two of the misc soups put down last week.

- Don't be afraid to pick the grape leaves in the spring. We were not successful growing grapes, so I'm just going to focus on growing leaves instead and see about picking grapes from a neighbor that let their grapes go to waste.

Now that we have plenty of jars and shelves to hold them downstairs, next year's costs are going to go down.

Garden Purgatory

If I believed in purgatory, my garden would be pretty close to it. It is what has been keeping me away from blogging this past month (as well as work taking me away). Every day we pick at least a pound of green beans, a pound of cherry tomatoes, enough basil for cooking and 15 pounds of regular tomatoes. Every week we've been picking some eggplant, peppers, cucumbers & broccoli. Almost every night we've been making either spaghetti sauce or tomato soup or just freezing them.

Our lettuce I've decided to just let die, with all of the tomatoes it's been hard to keep up on them. Our chives didn't do too well this year, enough for a little bit of flavor but nothing beyond that. Our corn did not do too well either. Cantaloupe produced a little bit, but I've been having problems with neighborhood kids stealing them. Celery and leeks are doing well. We've got some new Kohlrabi growing and will be ready in a few weeks.

I think the hardest of it all has been the cherry tomatoes. We planted way too many of them and they are the most time consuming since you can't just let them sit for a day, otherwise they start bursting on the vine. Next year we will do 2 or 3 plants only of cherry, not the dozen or so I did this year.

My favorites have been the peppers & eggplants & basil. They have just needed a bit of watering, can survive a few days being ignored. Overall, the garden has been a success and we've learned a lot.

Garden Update

Wild fruiting tomatoes growing in my yard: Last year we had a tomato sprout up in our back yard that we didn't plant and it fruited, they were nice small round fruits. This year I have probably 50 of them sprouted up all around my yard. I first thought they were weeds, but the leaves are tomato like. I let some of them grow and I'm starting to have fruit growing. I'm keeping the seeds to these babies! If you have an idea for a name for a tomato plant that fruits naturally by Mid-May in Chicago weather, let me know.

Rest of tomatoes: We still have 32 plants, but only enough room for maybe a dozen more. I'm going to see if neighbors want them and then put the rest on Craigslist.

Beans: Sprouting everywhere! Bug eating them, suspect it's the flea beetle I've been fighting elsewhere in the yard

Radishes: Still fighting the flea beetle, going to mail in a request for a refund on the bug killer spray.

Hardening Off: I've learned this year how important hardening off is, otherwise I get plants that lose leaves outside from the shock. I'm hoping I have an OK garden this year.

Garden Update

I'm having a wonderful day over here, been outside since around 8 AM playing in the yard. Here's what's been going on with the garden:

- Finished putting up fence, need to put in a couple of posts but overall it's up.

- My mother-in-law is visiting and she purchased for us 105 tomato cages for the garden, I have put out about a third of them already.

- Planted 30 tomato and 8 dill plants. I'm only starting to see what 150 tomato plants will look like and I'm getting scared. Even spending just a minute on a plant every day will be 2 & 1/2 hours. I'm thinking I'll have to plan a rotation and visit each plant every 3-5 days.

- Planted rest of the peppers and finished tearing up the front yard.

- My mother-in-law also bought us some strawberry plants since I killed most of the ones we had planted due to not having mulch around them. The ones she bought have a bunch of leaves and should take hold. Planted them and put down mulch around them.

- Spinach looks like it will be ready in 2 weeks, getting bigger every day.

- Been fighting flea beetles on my radishes, sprayed with insecticidal soap.

- Peas and green beans have been doing great.

- Grapes are starting to form fruit, pulled some off so that we get nice-sized fruit this year (haven't taken care of it before, so it only produced leaves).

- Onions are at green-onion size, I'm suspecting we'll have plenty once the tomatoes are ready to be picked (if not sooner).

- Planted cilantro outside.

- Started some cantaloupe and parsley inside. The cantaloupe are almost breaking through the soil already.

Garden Update

Our garden is coming along very nicely. The peas have grown nice and healthy, the spinach looks like it will be ready to eat in 3 weeks, the green beans and radishes sprouted, Brussels Sprouts and Kohlrabi and Celery took well to being transplanted. We even had the asparagus try to produce a head (very small one, but a head still), though we cut it so we would have better production next year. Some of the onions are 6 inches tall already. The pepper plants that were mushy have taken well to being outside.

Planted This Past Week: Quite a bit has been planted this past week, just this morning I planted some basil, 3 types of cucumbers, and 2 types of beans.

Planting This Week Outside: 4 Broccoli plants (stragglers of the group), Dill, Tomatoes (both did not get outside due to concerns of frost).

Still to Plant: Parsley, Cantaloupe, Corn, Peppers, Eggplant (probably all around Mother's Day)

Work To do: Our front area has about 25 sq feet left to be torn up, will be working on today and Sunday. Our fences are up in the front, will be putting up the fence for the back probably on Sunday. We're almost to maintenance mode for the garden/farm.

Problems: The lettuce crop pretty much is decimated from the frost we've been having, I'm using it as a learning experience and I'm just planting more seeds every week to see who will win.

"Free" Landscape Hooks

I started putting down landscaping fabric in our back yard to help with weeding our garden and read the directions about needing landscaping hooks in order to secure it down. I didn't want to spend the money on something that will probably be flimsy plastic clips that will break or come up, so here's what we did at our house:

1. Grabbed 50 old metal hangers from a previous roommate (there's the free. Often you can find someone trying to get rid of them on freecycle as well).

2. Using a pair of wire-cutters, cut right below the twist on either side so you have the hook removed.

3. Cut in the middle of the bottom half.

Now you have 2 landscaping hooks! The best way to use them is to put the non-straight edge in first as far as you can, then put the other part in as far as you can. Depending on your soil, you may end up with a few inches of the metal showing, so make sure to space their entrance into the material far apart enough. This can be done while watching one of your favorite shows since it requires very little brainpower.

Garden Update

Here's where we're at:

Sq Feet with plants: 157
Sq Feet prepared for plants: 63
Sq Feet to prepare and plant: 566

What's Planted: Strawberries, Lettuce, Spinach, Peas, Onions, Chives, Leeks, Asparagus, Peppers, Garlic, Green Beans, Cilantro, 4 Tomato plants in pots

Planting This Week: Peppers, Onions, Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, Tomatoes, Dill, Flowers

Planting Later: Carrots/Radishes, Eggplant, Celery, Basil, Kohlrabi, Cucumbers, Flowers, Cantalope, Tomatoes

What's Growing: Peas have sprouted up, spinach took very well to the ground, lettuce is taking root, chives and leeks made it through transplanting.

Decisions to make: It's been hard to find time to meet with the guy from church that has the tiller, my schedule is packed (even on Saturday). I'm thinking of using a shovel for the front 90 sq feet remaining to tear up and then just laying down landscaping fabric in the back.

Money spent: We're back to spending, purchased fencing to enclose areas from neighborhood animals (and kids). Spotted a possum checking out my strawberry bed on Saturday morning. Also purchased landscaping fabric for the back.

Item Missing: Wedding ring is in the dirt, small area we were working in last night, going to contact friend that has high-end metal detector for their help. Always remember to work with gloves or take any rings off.

I'm waiting for next year's garden, it will be a whole lot easier!

Garden Update

Today's the day for lots of planting (for my wife). My work is taking me away for this beautiful day, but I've given my wife a list of plants and where she can plant them. She also spent several hours yesterday moving rocks out of a bed next to the house (sitting most of the time).

Planting Today: Spinach, Lettuce, Leeks, Chives, Peas, Thyme

Planting This Weekend: Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Kohlrabi, Peppers, Eggplant, Onions, Tomatoes, Dill, Asparagus, and possibly others

Work This Weekend: Hopefully the guy I know that has a tiller will be free to come over soon (and that we'll have enough dry time to do the tilling). Otherwise I'll have to look into doing it with the shovel and pitchfork, which will not be fun (did about 50 sq feet a week ago).

Problems: Some of the pepper plant leaves started getting mushy, I think it is because they are on the edge of the lighting and we've been watering them too much. I'm hoping that getting them outdoors will help them. I'm also having troubles figuring out who are Brussels Sprouts and who are Kohlrabi. The problem is they are both cabbage-like and I've planted so much. Same situation with the leeks & chives. Next year each tray will get 2 labels (#R, #L) and all info will be put into a spreadsheet.

Successes: It appears that the plants are growing very slowly, but it helps when I'm not paying attention to them every day. Our leeks & chives are over 6 inches tall and an inch away from the lights. The Roma tomato plants we started early have many leaves.

Financial: I'm deciding now whether to sell some of our plants or not. I'm thinking of try to plant everything we can with the space we have, then selling the excess. I have been good staying away from looking at more plants, since I've got so many already.

Garden Update

Lots going on over here since my last garden update, here's the latest:

3 trees brought down: We have a huge pile of brush for me to work on next weekend with a wood chipper and the pieces need to be cut into smaller pieces for our fireplace this coming winter, but they are now on the ground. Total cost to bring them down: $1300. It was a tough choice to do while we are trying to be gazelle intense about our debts, but if our garden in the back yard is going to go well this year, we needed them cleared out. This will help accelerate my plans in starting a garden business.

Planted Indoors: We planted the cilantro, cumin, and lettuce we had decided before. We also planted several varieties of tomatoes for us to try to sell in 6-8 weeks (250 plants).

Transplanted: Finished most of the transplanting, the only ones left to transplant are the lettuce from last week. Once they have sprouted, I'm stopping with transplanting. It takes too much work starting seeds in one container to move them to another container for not much benefit.

Looking Ahead: The next few weeks are going to be yard cleanup, most of the plants we can start indoors have been started. The rest we either need warm weather outside or plant directly in the ground. We should be getting some nice weather after today (40's and 50's).

Garden Update

Last weekend was pretty busy for the garden, here's where we're at:

Planted Indoors: 131 Bush Peas, 5 Lettuce, 20 Leek, 20 Sweet Peppers, 20 Basil, 20 Brussel Sprouts, 20 Spinach, 20 Basil, 20 Dill, 20 Chives

Sprouted This Week: Spinach, Brussel Sprouts, Chives, Sweet Peppers

Purchased: I picked up some more seeds (it's an addiction I tell you), some seed sprouting mix, 4 more trays for the tomato plants I'll be selling.

Outside: We've had a lot of snow come down this week, hopefully we had the last of it. We're supposed to get warmer this weekend and melt it.

Transplanted: 19 lettuce plants transplanted successfully, already have 2 true leaves on them. Hope I can plant outside in three weeks with shelter.

Looking Ahead: Planting indoors 10 cilantro, 10 cumin, 5 lettuce seeds. Removing trees this week from our back yard.

4 Tree Quotes

Here's the 4 tree quotes we have received to take down 3 trees in our back yard:

* $2700 turned to $2600: This was the first quote, the guy was originally starting at $2700 to take the brush but leave the wood, $2600 to leave everything. I told him for $100, just leave it. He offered then to take it away for the $2600. Was not very professional.

* $2400: This was the second quote we received, much more professional, though they would have cost more for them to leave the wood (they make money by chipping the wood and selling it).

* $1300: This one I talked with the owner of the business (he owns several businesses) in person on Saturday, we've been trying for a week to get his tree person to come out but the guy has been really sick. The $1300 is them just bringing it down to the ground, leaving it for me to cut up (or hire someone else to cut it up).

* $1900: This would be taking it all away.

I'm thinking of going with the $1300 route for getting it down to the ground (my main concern) and then I can probably hire someone for $10-20/hr to cut it all up and pile it alongside the house. For the stumps I'll rent a stump grinder for $100/day and take care of 5 stumps I have in the back yard (3 from these trees, 2 from trees I took down last year). In all, I think we can do this all for under $1700.

The removal of the trees will allow me to expand our garden plans to be around 800-1000 sq feet and get rid of some dangerous trees close to our house (and our neighbor's house).

Garden Update

I've been forgetting to do garden updates, so here's the latest:

- Spent $10 on seed starter soil and potting soil. I'm mixing the two since I few the seed starter soil is a little to light for my 3" pots (and a bit expensive).
- Spent $5 on more seeds. I'm thinking next year I'll just buy all my seeds at once and be done with it. The more I look, the more I want to plant.
- Working on getting bids for the trees out back to be removed, had 1 quote at $2600, which is way too high in my opinion for 3 trees. At that price, I'll hire an old friend from out of town that does this work to do it, much rather give him the money and spend some time with him. I'm wanting more area to grow, so that's why we're removing them (and safety)
- Lettuce and broccoli seeds have sprouted, our tomato, eggplant, celery, & cauliflower have not yet, so I moved all the plants to a warmer spot near an air vent.

I'm also going to this year start weighing the crop coming in and when it comes in. I'm going to set my goal to produce about 2,500 pounds from our garden this year. About half of that will be from tomatoes (which we eat quite a bit of throughout the year w/ pasta & salads). About 1/4 of what we grow we will be giving to our church to give to families in need.