It's April now and I'm dying to get out in my garden and get to work! My new 3 boxes should be built this time next week! Hopefully (🤞🤞🤞) my new garden fence will be up as well!! But this is all contingent on everything coming together just right. Here's what all needs to happen...
1. We need to have the sprinkler guys out to move a few sprinkler heads (3, I think), and turn the sprinklers back on if they think it's warm enough to do so. I bought a Farmer's Almanac this year, and after having browsed it, cover to cover, I think it's wild that it's reprinted and actually sells each year, but whatever, to each their own. I looked to see if it had predictions for the last freeze date for the area. It does not. Do you know who does? Google. I did find the OFA online and did find a precise frost prediction for Wichita. Anyway, all of this is to say, I think it might still frost, but I think we're out of the hard freeze zone, so the sprinklers ought to be fine, IMHO, but obviously I'm not the sprinkler professional. 🤷🏼♀️ So we'll see if we can actually get them on. 3 heads have to be moved because they are either yard sprinklers that are going to be inside where we want to build the garden fence or garden sprinklers that are going to be under a box if they're left where they are. Although, at one point Michael talked about just extending the tube/piping on that one up through the dirt in that box... We may need to talk about that again... Forgot about that until just now...
2. We need the weather to cooperate and stay dry for the next week. It's stayed dry enough so far (we actually have cracks in our yard and in the garden again 🤦🏼♀️), so I think we'll be good on that front. The forecast is showing low chances of rain between now and Saturday, so we just need these forecasts to stick all week. Plus, after a chilly end of the week, my kiddos would love to get back outside this week. 🤞
3. We need to be able to rent the skid steer on Saturday/over the weekend. Everything has kind of been in the air while we waited for the yard to dry up and the supplies to go on sale and such. Now that we have the weekend in mind that we'd like to get things done, we need the rental place to have the equipment we need.
4. We need to get lumber. This shouldn't be a problem. I haven't heard that Menards or Lowes have run out or are going to anytime soon. We should get getting the wood picked up Friday sometime. We're building 3 more boxes, two 3x9ft boxes and one 2x10ft box. If I've done my math right, we should need 8-12 ft long boards and 4-10ft long boards. It's gonna be a spendy trip to the hardware store. 😳 It's gonna be a spendy weekend overall (once you add the dirt and the skid steer too). Needless to say, I am very spoiled. I just hope I can grow a decent amount of stuff in my garden this year. Last year was good and I'm hoping this year is even better! 🌶❤🍅🧡🥕💛🥒💚🥬💙🥦💜🧄🤎🧅 There aren't enough emojis for all the plants I intend to grow this year!!
5. We need to get dirt delivered. Last year we had 3 cubic yards of dirt delivered. We topped off one bed and filled another one. This year we're topping off two beds and filling three. 😳 I quadrupled last year's order. 😳➕💰✖4️⃣=😱😳🥴🙃🤪 I haven't heard back from the dirt guys. I emailed them this morning, so I don't expect to hear back from them until tomorrow. Hopefully they're available Saturday to make that delivery.
So yeah, a lot of things coming together before next weekend, hopefully. I can't wait to get back in my garden. It brought me so much joy and pride last year. I know it will be a good thing to focus on as things around the world continue to play out and hopefully, eventually, settle. For now, to satisfy that itch to get to work on my garden, I have been planting seeds and buying plants. 😂😂
A little over a week ago, on Friday, I had to go into school to work. When I left I thought to myself, well, I'm already going to have to go home, strip down, and take the decontamination shower when I get to the house, might as well run a couple errands while I'm at it. I went to Atwoods and bought tomato and pepper plants, as well as a spinach plant. I'm sure Grandpa Heorman would have shaken his head and rolled his eyes at me for buying so early. I know they can't go in the ground yet, but I am antsy and I had to do SOMETHING!! 😂 So I did. I have kept them alive indoors for 9 days now. On nice warm days they go out on the deck for sunshine and fresh air. That's where they were when Gabby got my spinach and peppers. 😡 They continue to do well, although I think I'll end up buying more spinach. I loved having it last year and look forward to more this year! I'm already making plans on where to put everything once my boxes are built. 😁 Doing what I can while I wait on the darn weather to move it along!
Another thing I've been doing to satisfy my gardening itch, is that 2 weeks ago I planted 18 seeds in some little biodegradable pots. They can be planted right in the ground and don't have to be removed from the pots, so I thought I'd give the little seeds a try. In the past, the only way I've been successful with seeds is when I've sown them right into the ground. But maybe this is my year! 🤷🏼♀️🤞 Of the original 18, 6 came up. 🤦🏼♀️ Hey, I'm trying here. My peas and zucchini look awesome!! The others are slowly coming along... We'll see how they do... I feel like if I took them outside right now, 4/6 would instantly die. But I'm still trying!! Yesterday I replanted the other 12, hoping at least another 6 might pop through. We'll see what happens...
One final thing I've been doing to curb my gardening itch is to plant and see things growing right in the garden boxes I have. My strawberries are coming back up right now. They are getting bigger and fuller each day. I plan to buy about a half dozen more small strawberry plants to add to 1/2 of my first box. I want the strawberries to take over that whole box, but we're not quite there yet. I have 8 strawberry plants coming up right now in the back 1/2 of box 1. I'm super excited about this because last year I had 2 strawberry plants planted back there! 😀 One plant, which actually started in the clay soil many years ago, sent off runners this year and really went wild! Now, this was also in the box where the tomatoes were so big that my peppers couldn't grow. I can only imagine how my strawberries will do this year with some actual sunlight!! I'll go ahead and plant something else in the front half of my strawberry box for this year, but my hope is that by next year I won't have room to plant anything else because that entire patch will be strawberries! 🤞 I'm nothing, if not hopeful!!
Avery has also taken a liking to gardening as well this year. Out little girl, LOVES carrots! Actually, just the other day when I asked her her favorite food, she said it was carrots and ranch. 😂😍🥕 So she and I have been planting carrots in my second box. We started on February 8th!! We sewed (??) one row of carrots into that second box. Then, we set an alarm for 3 weeks later. We kept this up, planting every 3 weeks. We're currently at 2 weeks since our last plant. Next week will make 3 weeks and we'll plant our 4th and final row of carrots. They're tiny, but they're coming up! The pictures I'm about to go out and take make them look a little smaller. Since the dirt is coming next week, I'm going to try and get them to slowly grow up and over the dirt at I raise the dirt level in their end of the box. They're so small I just want to be really careful and gentle with them.
So there ya have it. That's what's going on with my garden. I love it! I can't wait to have more space and to plant more things! I'm very much looking forward to my new beds! It is going to be crazy expensive this year. 😳 But then the big expenses will be done. Stay tuned for many many more gardening updates!
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