Friday Update 11-23

Well. Here it is, another Friday. the Wee Garden is coming along nicely. It is still early, but we have been seeing some benefits, and returns already.

The biggest one this week, was the zucchini. I harvested two more, and we had fresh zucchini for dinner the other night. I sliced and sauteed them with some butter, fresh ground pepper, and sea salt. They were the best zucchini I have ever had! We still have 2 more on the vine, and hopefully more to come.

We also have enough greens in the big pot for another salad, and the new salad table is sprouting nicely.

 We have 6 yellow squash on the vine, and they should be ready soon. This plant is a little backward, as we have an abundance of female flowers, and no males. I did some research online, and opted to hand fertilize them with zucchini flowers. It seems to be working!

The Cukezilla... aka the lemon cucumber is doing well, with tons of blooms, but no cukes yet.

The potato tower is getting tall, and I am anxious to see how it turns out. It is well over 2 feet tall. I am so encouraged with this one, I started another one with some red potatoes I got at the grocery store. They started sprouting before I could use them up, so I figured why not.

The tomatoes are doing great, especially the beefsteaks, that we started first. We have 6 pots of them, with 12 plants, and at least 10 tomatoes already growing. There are still a lot of blooms on these, and the bees have been very busy out there.

We also used fresh basil this week. I made some beer bread, with fresh basil, sundried tomatoes and garlic. It went really well with our pasta. we also used the basil in that sauce. Can't wait to make it with fresh tomatoes!

You can check my weekly tally here!

So, that is how the Wee Garden grows today!
Thanks for reading!
Claudia

We Have a Tomato!

We have a tomato! Our first! This is too exciting!

OK, to be fair, this is a Beefsteak, and it is only about 1/2 inch big, but...WE HAVE A TOMATO!

I know... crazy... But sometimes it is the simple things in life that make us happy!

That's how the Wee Garden grows today!
Thanks for reading,
Claudia

First Zucchini

We have harvested our first zucchini! We probably could have waited another day, but I didn't want it to get too big.  It weighed in at slightly over 8 oz. Not sure of the price of zucchini right now, but last time I looked it was on sale for $1.99 lb... We have several more on the vine, and are looking at around 3-5 this week!

So, that's how the Wee Garden grows today!
Thanks for reading!
Claudia

Wee Garden Record Keeping

In discussions with Hubby, I realized that this was not a very good experiment.  I have been very neglectful in keeping any records of what our costs have been. We have bought soil, seeds, fertilizer, chicken wire, wood, and more pots.  Although we will find out if we can grow some of our food, we not know if it was actually cost effective to do so.  So, I am going to have to start keeping better records of our expenses and what the actual yield is from the Wee Garden.

I tried to find my receipts from the last couple of months, but only found a few... So, we are making an estimate, and taking it from there.  Our estimate of what we have spent so far, through yesterday is $300.  Wow. That seems like a lot.  Many of the things we have purchased, we will be used again, cutting our costs for future plantings.

So far, we have gotten about 5 meals out of the small salad pot, but expect to get more from the big table we just built. If you take the cost of mixed baby greens into consideration, and the actual cost on that particular pot, one bag of dirt, and a half bag of seeds, we have come out ahead on that.

I have also harvested and cooked with fresh basil, several times, and traded some basil plants and some of my seed stash for some other types of tomato seeds and plants and some sweet cayenne pepper seeds.

I am going to start keeping a log on what we spend, and what we harvest, as we go.  Hubby thinks I should keep a diary of our progress/setbacks, so we have it for future reference. I will do my best to keep up with this.

So, here is where we are at, $300 and 2 months in.  We have had several salads with fresh greens, and fresh basil in several meals. We have 1 zucchini, almost ready to pick, and several more on the way.

The Cukezilla, aka lemon cucumber has too many flowers to count, all males so far. The beefsteak tomatoes have between 15 and 20 open blossoms on them. We have 2 smaller tomato plants going, and more seeds started. The yellow squash is blooming, and it has both male and female flowers.  The broccoli is coming along nicely, and I remain hopeful.  The purple potato tower is getting huge. We also have cilantro, oregano, carrots, bell peppers, jalapenos, cantaloupe, eggplant and more zucchini started.

I am going to start keeping better records of spending and harvest, and have purchased a kitchen scale to weigh as we go. Hubby suggested keeping a diary of our progress, so I will make an attempt at posting every day. We are out there every day, doting on our Wee Garden, taking pictures of our "babies". So far, this has been a totally enjoyable experience, and I look forward to it every day!

So, that is how my garden grows today...
Thanks for reading!
Claudia

Compost Bin

So much has been going on in The Wee Garden, I just had to make a quick update of our latest project.

We decided we needed to get our compost pile started, so we went to Home Depot yesterday, and picked up a few things.  chicken wire, and stakes.  Hubby had other projects to do, so he left this to me! I was totally stoked, and did this completely on my own. I even got to use the sledgehammer!

The designated supplies/tools:

The designated spot:

The stakes:

The finished project...

Bread bag clips, so we can open the lid without poking ourselves on the wire.










Thanks for reading,
Claudia

The Wee Garden... 10-22-12

The Wee Garden Experiment is moving right along... every day there is something new! I planted some yellow squash seeds on Wednesday, aned they are coming up! When we got up this morning, there were 3 sprouts... When I went out to look just 3 hours later, there were 5!  That is just 5 days... Yay!

The Lemon Cucumbers are growing like crazy, and I think they grow at least an inch a day!

I am thinking lots of pickles this year! That would be great!

We had out second meal with a Wee Garden harvest.... The lettuce grows like crazy, and I picked some to put on our turkey sandwiches...

The tomatoes were from the store, but hopefully we will have our own by February...

So, that is how the Wee Garden grows today!
I'll keep you posted!
Claudia

The Wee Garden

So, here we are, about a month into our little garden experiment. And it is going great! Being unsure of our ability, we planted everything in pots... which, luckily, we got for free!

The tomatoes are getting big ....probably because Hubby dotes on them!

We had our first meal from the mixed greens.  Only one kind seems to be doing well. We had a nice salad with these baby greens last weekend. It looks like it is ready for another this weekend. I think I might start more lettuce this week, and spread it out a bit, maybe the other seeds will do better. I do love to eat salads.  The fresh greens were a little spicy, even though I bought the sweet mix.

I thinned the carrots and the broccoli. the carrots should be good, with a harvest of baby carrots in about a month, then letting the rest get a little bigger.

The broccoli is another story. I planted way too many seeds, and am reluctant to thin them more.  Just hate to waste good healthy plants, even though I know they can't grow crowded like they are.

The basil is getting huge, and I am thinking Caprese Salads this week... have to buy tomatoes, though. The cilantro and oregano are growing, but not as fast as that basil!

The lemon cukes are the babies of the bunch. We started the seeds on October 3, and they are bigger than the Zucchini planted almost 2 weeks earlier!

The citrus that my Hubby bought while I was away has had an unbelievable amount of flowers on it.  We now have tiny Limequats and Myers Lemons... So many Limequats, I am not sure what I will do with them!

The biggest surprise this week was the zucchini... It has buds! It has only been a month since we planted the seeds, but there they were one morning.... BUDS! We will see how that plays out. I know the first buds usually drop, and don't produce fruit, but I am still so excited!

So, that is how the Wee Garden grows this week!
I'll keep you posted!
Claudia