Blog Archives
Gardening Adventures
I finally worked up my courage and decided to attempt a vegetable garden. I decided that a raised bed in the “square foot garden” style was probably my safest bet, so we bought some boards and built a 3′ x 5′ bed:
It helps to have knowledgeable people standing around and going, “Hm, interesting.”
Actually, she did way more than that. We blew through the gardening section of the hardware store and tricked out the flower boxes in the front yard with columbines:
Okay, that picture is boring. How about the glam shot?
Pretttyyyyy. And I hear they’re perennials or something, so maybe they’ll last awhile. Though only if I actually start watering way more than I’m currently doing, or so says Mom.
In the other box the alyssum and pansies were still going strong, so we just added two more columbines in there:
The chrysanthemums were actually still pretty green-looking (no flowers though), so I replanted them near the lavender while receiving admonishments to actually WATER THEM!
Anyway, back to the vegetables, I’m going to try starting most of them from seeds, but I got started too late in the season for broccoli, so I bought some broccoli plants:
I’m not entirely convinced that I’ll actually succeed in keeping anything alive, so I’ll finish up with a picture of one of our roses, since the roses somehow all stay alive despite my ineptitude:
Fall Flowers
I’m still a compete novice when it comes to even the most basic of of gardening. The petunias I planted in the spring were still alive, but looking pretty yellow and not very flowery.
So I started looking around on the internet to see if it’s even legit to plant different flower in the fall. Apparently it is, but I’m still pretty confused as to what I’m supposed to plant, since I live in zone 9 where it pretty much never freezes. most introductory garden sites seem to assume that you live somewhere with real seasons. 😛 Anyway, I figured it would be safe to stick with some of the most common suggestions: chrysanthemums and pansies. And sure enough, when I got to the store they were out front and center. Right next to them were some other plants I came across in my internet searching: alyssum and flowering kale. I love how cheap they all are, I don’t feel as bad buying a plant that I may not be able to keep alive if it only costs $1.29.
I split them up based on how much sun they need. I think our bigger flower box qualifies as “full sun”, at least for another month or two, so it got the kale and chrysanthemums:
View from the front door:
and the smaller, shadier flower box got the pansies and alyssum:
I think I keep underestimating how big our flower boxes are when I’m at the store… they still look a little sparse, and that’s after we picked up one more of each type of plant to make them look a little less empty. Hm. Ah well, it’s a process.
The Letter K 