Garden progress (or lack of)

Well its been a difficult week for me. Somehow on Wednesday I did something to my lower back, which I've had issues with for the past 8 years due to a drunk driver t-boning my car on the drivers side, and my sciatic nerve has once more become pinched. But this time was much much worse then its ever been. I couldn't even walk or crawl on Thursday and I was in so much pain I couldn't stop crying. Friday I called a neighbor to take me to the er. I crawled out of the house and she took me and I'm slowly regaining the ability to walk and move again with the help of a walker. (Its painfully embarrassing to even admit I'm using a walker but its helping me move around so things can loosen up faster)

Well with all that my garden has been put to a halt. That and all of the rain we've been getting also prior to me hurting my back. We got over 4 inches in 2 days. My garden and backyard turned into a could be rice patty. So nothing has been happening there. I think that was the reason I hurt me back, when from working a few hours a day in the garden to watching movies inside and sitting on the couch.

I did get another potato bag since my 1st bag is having such great success. My tomatoes and peppers that I planted in the tires have started to flower and produce fruit. My asparagus is coming up and finally today I got my 10 pea plants planted since they started flowering in their seedling pots. I also made a trellis out of bamboo canes. Hope it works.

If its not raining tomorrow afternoon I'm going to start planting my other seedlings and blueberry bushes with the help of my boyfriend so I don't have to do too much so I don't injure myself more.  My rhubarb is getting bigger by the day.

Also 2 weekends ago I built a 4'x4' raised herb bed. I'm patiently waiting to see if my seeds come up since its been chilly and windy. Fingers crossed. If nothing comes up then I'll be heading to a local greenhouse I found on last Monday. Pure gold and I'll always be going back there now. I found super healthy cucumber and zucchini plants. And not to mention all the other plants. I was speechless when I walked in. Can't wait to go back and buy something more to support them. They have been in business for 55 years!

I'm still not 100% done clearing the garden of sod but I'm just going to plant what I have and clear the sod once I get to it and its in my way.

So tell me what all have you been planting? I'd love to hear!

Garden update!

So I've been very busy the last 2 weeks trying to get my new garden plot ready to be planted. I've gone from a full lawn to a bare (almost) ready to be planted garden plot in 2 weeks. I would of had everything ready sooner but I had to wait to have the area cleared of any and all ground wires. And a few other set backs were the heat, my blood hasn't thinned from winter anti freeze mode, back issues (I have a car accident injury that causes my sciatic nerve to be pinched now and then) and rain.

Saturday night/Sunday morning we had a nice rainstorm that gave us about an inch of rain. I'm really not trying to complain since we really need it but I'm just anxious to get my garden planted. Its also forecasted to rain until Wednesday, with another inch or more tonight.

So while I was trying to keep my mind off of my garden plot in the back I ended up making a cute little raised herb garden. I used a torn down pallet for the wood and I scored free dirt from my neighbors. 2 hours later I had this cute little bed. I planted sage, mint, rosemary, and spicy oregano. I'll plant more seeds tomorrow.

I'm thinking I'm going to make another box for the blueberry bushes I scored on clearance at the evil W. They were begging to be rescued.

I also now have 2 bags and a tire of potatoes planted. I'm using these potato planters that's a tarp type material in the size of a med duffle bag with a Velcro flap so when their ready to be harvested I just have to open the side flap and dig them out. I planted one bag 2 weeks ago and the other one today.

While I've been waiting for the garden to be ready I planted a few tomatoes and peppers into a few tires. My rhubarb is growing nicely too. Sadly my horseradish didn't make the winter so I'll try again this fall to plant some.
My front flower bed still hasn't started growing yet but I'm still waiting and hoping I planted them right.

I also got my new compost bin started! I did the tote with holes drilled into it and almost buried to encourage worms to come in and feast. I'll post about how to make one later.

A day of fun in the sun

Well yesterday was the 1st 90°F weather of the year. I'm not a fan of temps over 75°F but the dogs seemed to have fun the short times I allowed them outside. I think tomorrow I need to install the ac unit. Fingers crossed that my landlord will get my central air unit will be fixed before the real heat set in. Last year it was damaged by a tree that was uprooted in a bad wind storm. More on that later. Well here are a few doggie shots from yesterday. i dont have a fenced in yard so i have a single tie out line so everyone has to take a turn going out.

miles

dixie

lola

rylie

DIY egg muffin breakfast sandwich

In the past 2 years I've been eating less and less at fast food restaurants.
3 reasons for my choice
1) Tying to cut out as much and eat less processed nasty foods I can
2) Trying to save money
3) Trying to lose weight

Now I've been recreating a lot of my favorite meals with fresh whole foods with a lot of luck, most times it tastes even better and if by chance I have to eat out (with friends or family) I have a hard time ordering since I'm so used to how I make it Lol.

Now the past few mornings, my boyfriend has been wanting a well known muffin sandwich from a certain fast food chain. Well since we don't have one close (the closest one is 20 miles away) and I happened to have English muffins in the fridge I figured I could whip some up.

Now I know its hard to get the eggs to fit perfectly on the muffin without cutting it away but I have a trick my Grandma taught me when I was a kid, use a wide mouth canning jar ring. Canning jar lids have 2 pieces, the lid that seals and the ring that screws on and holds the lid in place.

**Please excuse the horrible cell phone pics** 

All I do is wash the ring and dry well, spray it with cooking spray or coat with any type of oil you prefer, I use coconut oil myself. Get your egg frying pan to your preferred egg frying temp (I use about medium heat) place greased ring, lip side down.

Add a slice of ham (like I did) or a precooked sausage patty or strip of bacon in the ring.

Crack an egg and season to taste.

Add a splash of water and cover with a lid to "steam" the top part of the egg until its completely cooked (1 to 3 mins).

Flip so now the ham is on top and the ring should lift off. The ring will be hot so use a fork.

Let cook a minute or so then add cheese. Now I replace the cover and turn off the heat to help the cheese melt a little better.

Add egg, ham and cheese to toasted English muffin. Tada! Easy homemade egg muffin breakfast sandwich!

Spring has sprung in ND and new life is finally emerging!

I'm so excited for all the new growth!

rhubarb

daylillies

iris



chives

tulips

horseradish (i hope)








awe! look at the baby flowers!

I started these flower seeds last week to fill my new front yard flower bed. I'm mainly going for taller flowers to hide my "dying" deck. Its such an eyesore but not much I can do unless my landlord does something. I'm growing snapdragons, hollyhocks, foxgloves, and penstemon hybrids. I only started these last week since it was still dipping into the 30s at night and my flower bed wasn't dug up yet. Now that its dug I'll also be adding seeds in with the seedlings. Its on my to do list for Saturday. I love how tiny some of the sprouts are!

the little chive and mint plants that could

This is a story of a little garlic chive and sweet mint plants that refuse to die. The chives I grew from seed 2 years ago. It did pretty well for the 1st year. Well something happened over that winter and it somehow got shoved into a corner in my kitchen. Well with that said it did not get watered or sun until I found it in march when I was getting my seeds started for spring. I felt so bad that I watered it right away and stuck it in my one sunny window. Well this little plant sprung back to life and greeted me with lovely green spiky leaves after 2 days. I was shocked! Well that summer it lived outside and grew and had lovely flowers that I left so I could collect the seeds so I could grow more garlic chives. As fall came I moved it back inside and gave it a trim and kept it by my one sunny window. Well it gets really dry here during the winter in ND so I tried to keep up on watering it but I slowly would forget and it only would get watered once a week then once every 2 weeks. The tops of the leaves slowly started turning brown so I finally started watering it ever few days and it started to grow again. Well in march of this year I went to visit family which turned into a month long vacation since there were snow storms every weekend my boyfriend was planning to come and get me (we share a car). So in his care he completely forgot to water any of my plants so when I got home I was sad to see my little chive plant all dried up and dead, but I hoped that if I started to water it again it would come back and boy was I right! The mint on the other hand was a garden center buy and it was very temperamental last summer. It seemed like ever other day it was threatening to end its little planty life. One day it would be all lovely and green and the next be half brown and crumbling to the touch. I'd move it in and out of the sun but it just didn't like me. I was tempted to just chuck it out in the fall but I just couldn't so I brought it in over the winter just like the chives. Well the mint really hated being inside and has been dead up until Feb when we started getting a bit more sun in my one sunny window. And poof! Green and lovely! I can't wait to move them both outside! And I think this year they will both be planted in the herb garden! Look at how pretty they are!

And the work stops

Well I'm sad tonight. Its been a chilly week and today it finally got back to in the 50s so I started digging my garden plot again since I last posted. I had almost gotten around the whole plot when I hit something hard. I dug up the dirt and found a 1/2" copper pipe leading somewhere only about 4" to 6" below the grass roots and topsoil.

Now not knowing what it could be I covered it back up and called the "call before you dig" hotline and set up a survey for next week. (Yea yea I should of set it up before but I'm the spur of the moment type person.)

Now all I was going to do was pull the sod off of the plot this weekend so its not like I was going to dig to china. But I still wanna be safe then sorry.

Its just so odd its so close to the sod. Thankfully my neighbors have a metal detector so I'm going to go ask her to come over with it to see how long it is and where it may lead to.

Now you may say : its a sprinkler system or natural gas line. But see its about 18' from the back of the garage and we heat with bulk heating oil with the tank nowhere close to the pipe and no sprinkler system or running water in the garage. And behind my house is a field so nothing back there to lead to.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Digging the dirt

Happy May Day!

So its finally, finally warm enough here in ND where almost all of our snow is gone. Only a few piles here and there. So that means its planting time! I'm so stinkin' excited about my plans I've got going on. After 3 years living in my house and dreaming of a real in the ground garden my dreams may be coming true and soon.

Now the past 2 years I've been planting a small garden in pots on my deck. The first year I tried to use a borrowed tiller to make a real garden in the back yard but the dirt was too hard and the super grass had 4 inch root system so it was impossible to dig by hand. I've been slightly disappointed in my green thumb with containers. Now I do have a retaining wall for my daylillies and they grow amazing. So I don't think my issue is growing plants, its my lack of choice in having them in containers.

Now last fall I got to thinking about using tires to grow a few select items in the back yard. So I got a few tires all ready with newspaper and dirt for this spring. Well we had a ton of snow this winter and my backyard has up to, in a few areas, almost a foot of standing water in the low spots so my tires won't be ready until everything dries up.

Well during the winter I made a choice to try start a worm compost pile which would be partly buried. So I took out my shovel and splashed into the backyard where I thought a good spot would be, and tested the ground to see how hard it was going to be to dig a hole. To my surprise it was like a hot knife through butter. So it got me to thinking....hey I could dig my garden plot! So yesterday I marked an area and waited until my boyfriend came home from work and got his opinion on the area. He thought it looked good but there was one hitch, the old clothes line cement anchor will be in the middle of the garden and I marked a big area, maybe too big Lol.

 

This is my backyard soon to be garden plot. Please excuse my messy backyard. The tires are going to be used to grow potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, horseradish, and rhubarb (for now).

 

Now while I decide what to do in the backyard, I started a larger flower bed in front of my deck. Now this deck of mine is old and falling apart (I rent so not much I'm allowed to do with the deck) so I'm going to grow tall flowers to hide my deck. I've picked out hollyhocks, snapdragons, foxgloves, and a few others. I've got the seeds started and once the last frost is past I'll add seeds with the seedlings.

So I've been digging a 5ft x 24ft area where I'll be planting. My boyfriend even surprised me with 10 pallets from his job so I can build a flower box to make it look a tad nicer. I'm also planning on building a compost bin "house" and use what I can to start my rabbit hutch (and any other crazy project I come up with Lol)

 

This is my soon to be flower bed. Once again please excuse my mess. The big brush pile in the front was all the weeds and mystery flowers growing from last year. Like I said my deck is an eyesore so I hope the flowers hide it well.

I just checked our forecast and it'll be dropping back into the 30s til this weekend. All I can say is boo!

So anyone out there planning a garden or growing flowers? I'd love to hear!