To Beer or Not to Beer

We think we may have slugs. I have no idea how you can actually tell what kind of things are chewing hole in your plants, so we are guessing. We have many friends, and websites tell us that the way to get rid of the slugs is to put out some beer in cups. Apparently the slugs enjoy beer, so they crawl in the cups and die. GREAT! So we stopped at the convenience store on our way and picked up a large (cheap) beer. The lady behind the desk even gave us 2 cups when we told her what we were doing. We were excited to get rid of a garden nuisance.

We pulled up to the community garden and realized that the space is also shared by a school, and every few feet they had placed a sign indicating that we were in a school zone, and that there would be harsh penalties for any drug activity. It was 2:15 in the afternoon, school was about to get out, there were a lot of people around, so we decided not to risk it.

We went home and did a little more research, and found some evidence that slugs do not like sand. Apparently the sand cuts up their bellies and they die. Sad, yes, but not as sad devoting all of this time and money into a garden only to have critters eat all of our food.  So we circled the most edible plants with sand, and we wil now hope for the best...

The second sand circle is where there used to be another head of lettuce (pre sand). What are the chances that the entire head was eaten by a slug? Any ideas about what might have take that away? 

Do You See What I See?

May 19, 2012

We figured out that if we put two hoses together we can get close enough to our plots to water our plants. Granted, it's a little bit more work than we would have to do if we had a closer plot, but a lot less work than carrying a dozen watering cans back and forth. After we finished we actually discovered if we take a slightly different route we can gain even a few more feet!!

Do you know what that is? It's a strawberry blossom!! It's the first proof that we have that something might actually grow from this thing. It's not the best picture, (it was getting dark) but it is VERY exciting.

YAY!

Bugs Already?

May 18th, 2012

 We headed out tonight after a very sunny day to check on our little plant friends, and give them some water. It seems our plots (among the last to be rented) are quite far from the water source. So, we filled up three big watering cans, and hauled them over to our space. Let's be real here, I carried one, Ali carried two. I have no idea how she did it, water is heavy. This is clearly not a good long term plan, because soon we will have more plants, and they will need more water than is sane to carry.





I'm wondering if our spinach (and other greens) are being eaten by something while we are not there. Do you see the leaf on the bottom left has holes in it? The other leafy vegetables have similar holes. Anyone have any idea what it could be? The whole garden is an organic garden so we can't use any chemicals, but if anyone has any ideas about what could be chewing them, or what we could do about it, it would be greatly appreciated!

Planting Day One!

May 15, 2012

Our friends from the farmer's market told us that we could plant our greens, beets, broccoli and strawberries early, so we ventured out to play in the dirt. The community garden we are a part of has a large shed full of garden tools so we got out some shovels, and some bent pitchfork looking tools, and some rakes and went to town. First we turned up all the dirt and added a bunch of compost (also included) and mixed that all in. Then we started digging.

Top Right: Broccoli
Top Left: Spinach
Below Spinach: Beets
Near the Middle: Lettuce mix and romaine heads
On the bottom: Strawberries!!

I'm already wondering if we should have cut back on some of the greens, or planted them closer together, but they are in and they will be delicious. Does anyone know when it is time to harvest lettuce? I have no idea, it looks like lettuce now, but I'm sure it's not ready.

Seedlings!

We have seedlings! In fact, I think we've gone a little bit over board. This picture only shows a portion of them. We bought onions, basil, cucumber, lettuce, broccoli and spinach at the Farmer's Market in Portland from the nice man at Rippling Waters Organic Farm, in Standish. We have six of each, which seems reasonable, until you take into account that we have more....many many more. We also bought 3 strawberry plants from a different farmer.

We also went to Broadway Garden's in South Portland and bought red peppers, yellow peppers, large tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, pumpkins, romane lettuce, watermelon, beets and celery. Yes, we have 6 of each of those, plus a jalapeno pepper plant.

In addition we have 2 butternut squash plants a friend gave us, carrot seeds, and 6 more tomato plants that Ali's parents picked up for us.

In case you've lost count, that makes 102 seedlings, and a packet of seeds. I think we need to downsize. The problem is there are so many delicious things, how do you decide what to get rid of? YIKES!

Getting Started!

May 14, 2012

Ali and I have rented two 5 foot by 10 foot garden plots at the Westbrook Community Gardens. We are super excited to get started and see what we can grow. We are welcome to advice from more experienced gardeners who have had success. Our current plan is to put a bunch of vegetables (and maybe some melon) in the ground and see what happens. Hopefully this space will help us document what has worked, and what has not, for future growing adventures.