Gardening Class #1

All about starting a garden...mainly a vegetable garden.  Today was the first class that I held here at Irish Gardens.  I wanted to share the knowledge that I have gained and my love for planting with others so I decided to have a class.  It was open to all ages.  I only had one person show up but thats ok.  We still had fun and I think she learned something.

One of the things I wanted to do especially if kids showed up was give them a chance to plant some veggies here in a special garden and come back at least once a month to check on them.  All the veggies produced from their plantings would be theirs to keep. 

Here is what we did and what we learned.

 The new garden area.  It seems every year I add a new garden.  Hubby's ok with that as it makes it less grass for him to mow.9

 My student - A (no names really needed) planted and learned.  First when building a new bed lay some newspaper down first...then the soil.  This acts as a weed blocker with out the price of the fabric.  Deeper is not always better is something else she learned.  Some plants do just fine in a little amount of dirt.  Then it was on to planting.  We discussed the use of square foot gardening and how much you can really get into this one garden...quite a lot.  To the right here she planted beans and carrots.

 Then after that we talked about some companion planting.  How planting marigolds with tomato's is smart for many reasons.  We talked about other companion plants as well but didn't plant those.  Maybe next time.  After the marigolds and tomato's the left were planted it was time to water.

 Lastly or maybe we talked about it first was onions.  And their crazyness in my gardens, but it gave A a chance to see what they look like from small seed bulb to harvest.  Granted these are far from the size you would find in the stores but the smell is dead on and sometimes you don't need all that onion...just a little bit.

A successful class if you ask me.  I had fun and I think she did too and thats all that matters right?

Harvesting Edible Garden Tour - September 2011

Welcome one and all to the Monthly edition of the Harvesting Edible Garden Tour.  A place where you can come and find out what is harvesting all over the gardening blogospere.  So what you say could be harvesting in Irish Gardens at this time of year?

 My greenhouse still gets warm most days so I still have Eggplant harvesting.

 The sweet peppers that have been growing in the greenhouse - The only sweet pepper plant to survive the crazy summer weather finally had a pepper ready to harvest.

 Chives chives and more chives.

 Still got a few tomatoes left that came ready this morning.

 Green beans finally are plumping up enough to harvest as well.

Carrots - finally after watching all summer the plants very very slowly get bigger I had carrots ready.  Guess they didn't want to get bigger than this just like last year.

So lets see what is edible and harvesting in your garden?  Post and leave a link below.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - August 2011

Welcome one and all to Irish Gardens on this rainy Bloom Day.  Well at least it's raining here.  It has been raining for the last 3 days.  I know we needed the rain but we need sun too.  It seems we are getting a lot of extremes this year....heat or rain, sun or shade.  So on to the bloom day pictures which surprisingly there is a lot of for a rainy day.

 Rose of Sharon still showing off it's double purple blooms

 Pumpkins are still flowering like crazy...still only one pumpkin so far though

 Beef-master Tomato plants are still flowering up a storm.

 Cucumbers too....lots of yellow orange over by the greenhouse

Even the Watermelons are still flowering still no melons yet though

 Only 1 eggplant harvested as of yet but lots of pretty purple flowers still popping up all over.

 Echinacea is still showing off her pretty purple flowers

 The pretty and delicate marshmallow flowers are still busy opening up.

 Finally some green beans are finally flowering

 A wild flower that was finally identified as Asiatic Day flower a local wild herb.  How cool.  Another herb to add to my collection.

 Blush Satin Rose of Sharon showing off it's beauty as well.

 Finally morning glories are beginning to open

 My new favorite morning glory is this beautiful variegated leaf

 Another beauty is showing off this Bloom Day.

 Poor hydrangea bush is falling over because it is heavy with rain.

 Hibiscus is looking down this morning also heavy with rain.

 Another Rose of Sharon that is showing off it's beauty.

And finally to end my blooming show is this pretty lady the Mandevilla vine...

Let me know what you think.  Head over to Carol's garden and see who else has posted about what is Blooming in their Garden....Gardens all around the world participate.

Beans - The life cycle

The fragile begining of the Bean's life. Starting them inside in a mini Greenhouse.  Seeing the little green stems come to life and rise from the dirt.  A very cool begining.  This is just 4 days after sowing.

The Beans are quick to germinate and very quick to show true leaves.  This is 11 days after sowing.  Just a short week after the first sprouts were seen.










Here we have them in the ground in the Greenhouse.  They are doing very well.  This is 2 weeks after sprouting started.  Just one week after true leaves were shown. Day 19 over all.








Nearly 5 weeks have gone by and now there are little white flowers all over the place.  The begining of the fruiting has begun.  Over all this is happening on day 53.








The flowers are still blooming and forming.  Some like this one is being pushed off by the Bean.  Such a tiny little pod.  Very skinny as well.  This is just a mear 5 days after the first flowers started to appear.  Over all we are looking at day 57.







They are starting to fatten up.  This is actually almost 3 weeks after they started to appear.  The coloring is starting to change as well.  Hard to tell at first but you can see that the fatter pods apear to be darker as well. At day 76 they are ready to Harvest....or at least the fat ones are. 







The first harvest.  May not look like much but there is plenty more that will be ready soon.  In fact so that we could have them for a meal I took the harvest each day in immediatly froze them.  Once there was enough for my family I cooked them.  They still tasted fresh and good. 








Signs that the beans are nearing the end of their life.  The leaves started to turn yellow brown like this about a week after my first harvest.  Day 83 over all.  As the next 2 weeks went on I harvested what I could when it was ready.  Eventually though the leaves all started turning and it was time to put the plants to rest.





They gave me a great run.  I got enough for 2 good meals (even some left over still frozen)  Tips for following years is to plant less at one time but plant at multiple times.  The average time from sow to harvest is 55 days.  I was a little over that but hey...I still got to harvest.

Spacing and layout.

Spacing is important when it comes to planning a garden of any kind. A vegetable garden has a little more need for it. 8'x8' seems like a pretty big area to plant stuff and if these were flowering plants sure....it would be more than enough. But I have vegetables. Each Veggi has a required bubble of sorts. Some it is as simple as just spacing between each plant...others need between each plant and in rows so far apart.

Take the corn for instance. Each plant needs to be 6-8" apart but in rows 2-3' apart and it is recomended that there is at least 4 rows so they can be proper pollinated.

Tomato plants are different. They do have requirements but it's not the same, and it depends on the hybrid you have. For the ones that I have here they are considered a patio plant. Meaning they need very little growing room other than up. It is recomended for these to have something to help support the main stem though.

The Green Beans are very different in that they only need to be at least 6" apart from each other.

The Broccoli likes more room to play than the Green Beans....they like at least 16" between them.

Now another question that I had in planning what to plant, where, and how is....well where. Can I plant one veggi next to another? Will it look ok? Then of course I realized that looks isn't what matters in a vegetable garden...unless you are looking at the product it's self. A vegetable garden doesn't take as much planning as a flower garden may but it does still take some planning. You don't want to many next to each other or too far apart. It this plant better outside the greenhouse or does it matter. Take the corn again....in the Greenhouse at 5' is where the walls begin to form the roof....corn stalks can get to be over 5' tall so they wouldn't work too well in the greenhouse...unless that was the only way to grow them. Another thing to remember when planning a vegetable garden I found out the hard way. Don't sow too many of each seed. Unless it says to plant in a mound or grouping only 1 should be in each spot. When starting seeds usually it is done by placing 2-3 seeds into a single spot...then thinning them out. Me I didn't want to thin out some of them....they all looked so healthy and cute....but now I have more than I need as most of them sprouted.

2nd Transplant

Ahh the joys of gardening. My poor babies have waited as long as I could let them in their starting pots and it was time...actually a little past time to move them to their new and final home.

Here we have the Tomato Plant that was moved to the Greenhouse.... looks a little wilted but was perking up before I closed the greenhouse back up. If you look in the forground of the photo you can see the Broccoli that was also transplanted today.

Next photo is of one of the Green Beans that was transplanted. Such a little thing.

And the last photo is of one of the Broccoli plants.

Progress everywhere.

The Jiffy Greenhouse:

After just shy of 24 hours in the Green house these little gems have taken off. The growth is just amazing. Granted this is the time for them to be growing but hey.

Sweet Corn..

..Green Beans

Cauliflower..

..Broccoli

Green Pepper..

..Peas

The Outside Garden:

The Garden off the kitchen has also shown a lot of progress over night. I am sure that the rain storm last night helped. The Rhubarb is starting to get it's trademark color. And the Onions are popping up all over. The onions that were already showing are just getting taller....off to a good start.