A Fruitful Earth Day

Yes.  I know that April 21st was a beautiful day.  But, instead of doing the work around the house that I needed to do, I took off for a day of Geocaching.  I enjoyed nature, but in a less than productive way than if I had stayed home and worked on my garden.
That being said, I did have a productive Sunday.  We had to leave home at noon for some hockey festivities, so everything I was to accomplish needed to be done before then.  The whole family pitched in!

• There were blueberries to plant and mulch.  We had one die on us last year.  Gurney's sent me two new bushes this year to replace the one that died last year.  We got those in the ground and mulched and weeded all of the blueberries.  Alex collected grass clippings and Mackenzie mulched with a layer of newspaper and grass clippings on top.

• I decided that I wanted a bigger compost pile that would be easier to open and turn.  We had three old pallets from our wood pellets, so we got a fourth one from the neighbors burn pile and made a second compost pile.  Tim built the new "bin" last weekend, and Mackenzie worked hard to shovel equal parts green and brown into the new compost pile.  Thanks to my dad for collecting up his leaves this spring so we had some brown to work with.

• Tim, Alex and Mackenzie worked hard to plant the 13 little Fraser Fir trees that we bought from the Columbia County Land and Water Conservation tree sale this year.  Thanks to my brother-in-law for dropping them off to us, thus saving me a trip to town!  Tim still has 25 domestic apple trees to plant this coming weekend.  We have a huge decision ahead of us.... where to start our new apple orchard!  We also were excited to discover some buds on our Honeycrisp apple tree.  Last year, it was a beautiful tree, but had no buds or apples.  We have buds this year!

• We also have lots of blooms on our strawberries.  Mackenzie decided to try and sell the plants this year, so she could earn some money to play on expensive all-girls hockey team this year.  So far, we've raised $28 for her!  She's excited to sell tomato, pepper, eggplant, and cucumber plants this spring, and she plans on having a "produce stand" as the summer progresses.  We'll see how that goes!

• My dad is amazing!  He got out his old Ford tractor and a rusty old disc, and went to town on my garden.  It looks amazing!  We'll be able to start planting next weekend.  I owe him something awesome for him riding around in circles for a good hour.  I think I'll treat him to several jars of homemade salsa, as a big thank you.  I'd better get these tomatoes in the ground so I'll have plenty to can with this fall!

Our mulched blueberries have newspaper as a weed barrier and then grass clippings to hold moisture in.

Priorities.... Mackenzie decided that it's time to get the hammock out.

Spring has a way of sneaking up on me!

I've been taking pictures, but not finding a time to write about them...


Project #1: Seed Starting Central
The cheapest way to grow a garden is to buy seeds and start them yourself.  Now, I'm a lazy person, and forgetting to water the seedlings can render an entire flat useless.  This year, I put watering in my calendar that I check frequently.  I've still had a couple of days that I've forgotten, but the seedlings have become little plants, and they are pretty happy looking!  Because I was horrible at keeping up at blogging (too busy playing in the dirt!) I'll date the pictures.  What did we do before digital photography put a digital date stamp on photos?

March 18th

On March 18th, I had finally spent enough money at Menards to start my seeds.  I needed some new plastic flats this year.  I also use seed starting medium in my flats.  It happened to be on sale this year.  I used some Miracle Gro from last year and some of the Schultz.  The Schultz was much harder to work with, as it takes a long time to absorb the water.  A really long time.  However, as time has passed, this has proven to be a plus.  When I water the flats, I can pour water on the edges and it doesn't uproot the seedlings.  It was much cheaper, and I forgot to mark which flats were which, to compare growing success.  Whoops!

March 18th

Last year, Tim had made this grow stand for me.  It was made using lumber and supplies that my father-in-law had around, and it's wonderful!  The light is provided by regular fluorescent fixtures that we got for $9 each at Farm and Fleet.  I have a before picture and an after picture.  There was a lot of work in between the two!

Most of the seeds that I started this year I was given by someone who saved them out of the dumpster.  I bought two packages of jalapeno seeds (those things are so expensive to buy in the cold winter months!) and one package of cabbage seeds.  Aside from the extra electricity cost of running the grow lights and the seed starting medium, there wasn't a lot that I needed to buy this year.  That makes for a happy husband!

March 25th