One Week Post Transplant

Hello everyone, and welcome back to week five of my gardening experience. As you know, last week I planted my first set of vegetables. One week later and I am already seeing a lot of progress. My shell beans have already sprouted (see picture) from seedlings in just ONE WEEK! Aren't they beautiful?! 😍 My purple lettuce however, did not do so well, the leaves were dying and I was unable to salvage the plants. So I decided to dig those up and plant a more stable crop, cabbage (which next to collard greens just so happens to be my favorite vegetable). My jalapeno pepper plants and my bell pepper plants have already started budding. In anticipation of these growing plants, I decided to stake them using single rods and garden twine. This process allows the plants to grow and avoid damage from wind and the possibility of snapping under the weight of the vegetables. Staking my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants simply helped to provide more support for my plants. I also attempted to weed my garden, thankfully there were not very many weeds. However, it can become a little tricky when dealing with planted seedlings. With these you must be careful to pull the weeds and not the beginning growth of your vegetables. Overall, this gardening session was short, yet exciting! I cant wait to see what growth next week will bring. I might even stop by a few days early to check on my plot. Until next time. . .

Peace, Love, & Veggies 🍅

Tiffany

I Got Beans, Greens, Potatoes, Tomatoes!

Last week I was unable to transplant any seeds into my garden due to the threat of Hurricane Irma. Thankfully, I weathered the storm safely and so did my garden bed. This week I was finally able to transplant seeds to my garden. I began by clearing away any debris that Irma blew into my garden and flattened out my plot. Talk about back breaking work! I mean so far this gardening thing has been WAAAYYY more work than I anticipated. Any who, after that I picked the plants that I wanted to grow. (I actually should have planned this out a little better, because your girl was actually just picking stuff.) I decided to plant shell beans, grape tomatoes🍅, carrots, lettuce, jalapenos, cayenne peppers, and bell peppers (or as we say in Louisiana, sweet peppers 💚). My instructor just insisted on me planting some radishes because they grow faster, but your girl doesn’t eat radish. I am in no rush to harvest foods that I don’t eat. Remember patience is the key to gardening. However, I may go back and plant some other vegetables that I eat at a later time (after better planning of course). OH AND EGGPLANT🍆! I did plant an eggplant, how could I forget about that!? I am so excited to see how my garden flourishes over the next few weeks. I am probably going to start checking on her maybe three times a week to ensure a plentiful harvest. Stay tuned on my journey. As always. . . 

Peace, Love, and Veggies!

Tiffany

I Signed Up For What Now?!

Hello, and welcome back to my gardening journey!

Last week you learned that I had recently began my gardening class. I was so excited to get started that I could hardly contain myself. Well, on my first day of class, my enthusiasm went down quite a bit. We had to begin our journey by preparing our gardens for transplant. Well, that sounds easy enough right? WRONG! Trying to remove every weed, trace of hay and other debris from your garden is no easy task. It seemed like every time I would finish one area to begin another, more debris popped up! (Take a look at the picture to the right to see exactly what I mean). It was almost like a never ending cycle. That’s when I realized, this was going to be a lot harder than I thought. Gardening is no easy task, between the dirt, back breaking work, and ant bites (remind me to get some Benadryl 😩), I truly have my work cut out for me.

After my day of defeat on Thursday, I decided to go back and give it another try, and this time was better than the last. Armed with my music, gloves and determination, after about three hours of hard work, I removed everything from my garden bed and it is now ready for transplant. I am so excited I can hardly wait! Stay tuned next week to see what I finally decided to plant.

Peace, Love, & Veggies!

Tiffany