I am down to two jobs, I can finally breathe and SLEEP! I have been so sleep deprived lately that I had to go see my doctor to get sleeping pills just so I could sleep. Now that I am done teaching I will have more time for other things in my life, like my family! And my garden.
So a bit of what has been going on in my life lately. I finished teaching today and turned in my grades for the one class I taught this spring semester. I still work for Disney and Miami university. I am getting ready to shift over to my summer hours at the university. You would think I am looking forward to that but I am not. I have the most screwed up schedule I would rather work second shift all summer. I will be working Sunday through Thursday. Sunday I work from 1-8 which only counts for 6.5 hours, so I have to make those up over the rest of the week. I chose to do that on one day, Monday, rather than spread it out over the whole week. Monday I work from 10-8 and Tuesday through Thursday 11:30 - 8. so not a very fun schedule. I almost had to quit from Disney because of this crappy schedule. Thank goodness I have a great store manager at Disney and he worked it out so I can still work for him over the summer. Yay!
So now to the point of this blog, gardening!!!
Where to start?
The Greenhouse! My wife gave me an add in early March from the Tractor Supply Co. that had a small green house for sale for $40. I think she was kidding me at first, but me and my gardening addiction was like "hell yes". So I went out to TSC and picked one up! It took a few days for me to get time but I finally got it set up. The Night I got it set up I put my flat of seedlings in it, Broccoli, Eggplant, and Bell Peppers. All of which were doing well and close to needing an up potting. That night We had a storm BLOW through. I went out to the Greenhouse the next morning and it had tipped over, AHHHHHHH!!!!!!! My poor little babies. I think God was letting me know that it was time to up pot. So after crying over spilled plants and setting back up the green house, I anchored it with about 10 bricks at the bottom. Whew! everything worked out... Until the next storm. The next storm blew over the green house and all my plants again! even though it was anchored! I was thinking that maybe this wasn't a great idea and that I had blown $40. My wife suggested using tent pegs to anchor the greenhouse down, what a great idea! why hadn't I thought of it, so I went to Home Depot and found pipe hangers for $.46 each and I bought 10 of them. When I got home I pushed them straight into the soft ground and voila I had an anchored greenhouse! Since that day I have not had a single problem. Of the original plants I still have 4 green peppers and 3 eggplants that survived the Big Falls of 2012 :P I have also started sugar baby watermelons and zucchini. I transplanted the zucchini out a couple of days ago and everything seems to be going all right so far. I have moved my tomatoes out to the greenhouse so that I could give my wife back her kitchen table. The tomatoes too are doing well in their new environment, I just want them to survive this hardening off, get put in the ground and produce!
I finally had time to plant/start some of my herb seeds in the green house a week or so ago. I was realizing that I need to take better notes on what and when i plant things whether it is in one of my boxes or in the green house. I have Opal Basil, Genovese Basil, and flat leaf parsley, so far no action. I also planted a a couple more of each cultivar of tomato. I was getting nervous about my tomatoes i had already planted, I may have started them too early and I didn't want there to be any problems. I am supposed to be growing some for one of my wife's coworkers. so I will probably end up with extra plants. This is a quick picture history of my tomatoes:
31 March 2012
31 March 2012
26 April 2012
2 May 2012
This is my garden's chronology:
Sunny
31 March 2012
1 April 2012
16 April 2012
26 April 2012
2 May 2012
Shady
31 March 2012
1 April 2012
16 April 2012
16 April 2012
2 May 2012
the Greenhouse
