Garden is started
 

Well I started my garden today. Went out and bought some sheep and cattle manure (5 bags each) and mixed it on top of my garden. Also added some blood and bone meal. Built some wooden thing for the peas to climb up and planted my onions, some peas and some lettuce. I'll take a pic of the garden when I have a chance...I'm friggen wiped...and slightly burned...not much...just a little. I need to learn to take breaks otherwise I wipe myself out. And it was only about 12C max today too. But I was outside for about 6 hours. I set up my compost too.

I'm pooped...and I'm going to eat pizza now...home made.

Oh...and X-Men Origins: Wolverine was good. I liked it anyway. 7 or 8/10.

Haha, good to hear Hig. Not worried about one last bout with mother nature?

Onions, peas and lettuce can be planted in April. In some places as early as March. Then you just stagger the planting periods. So I planted a couple of small rows of lettuce, then in a week or so I'll plant some more. Then a week or so after that some more. That way you have lettuce fresh over a period of time. Lettuce also is quick. Peas are hearty too, in that they can last in cooler temperatures. And onions can stay in the ground all year round. I believe you can plant carrots early too.

Looking forward to pictures. I know all about wearing yourself out, i do that much to often.

Ok...finally here they are. Not much at the moment, have to wait till the weather gets warmer. I'm taking next week off to do some gardening and setting up my self watering tomato planters. Sucks that the long range forecast is dropping below 0 C at night during that time though. I may have to wait till June, which I'm not wanting to do, but...gotta do whatcha gotta do.

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My future lawn mower in training:
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My future gardener in training...same kid. He needs to learn to wear a lot of hats. :D
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that layout is awesome! great work.

I planted my stuff this weekend. I'm not overly happy with it right now. Left some stuff inside just incase the first batch doesn't take.

Ok, here's some pics of my garden with my non-dslr camera hense their not so greatness.

Even though my garden is doing pretty good I think...I'm kind of depressed tonight. We had a bought of rain today and it stopped so I decided I'd go plant my tomato plants (the ones I'm going to plant in the garden, not the ones I'm going to plant in the self watering containers). So I go outside and start to stake the wood into the ground...then the rain starts to spit. I should have just stopped their but the rain subsided and I continued on. I wasn't thinking and planted the tomatoes too far away from the stakes, and when I turned around to look up at the sky...holy jamoly this giant dark cloud was looming over. Well I tried to tie some up as quick as I could but it was too late...the hail came blasting down at me. I could only run inside and wait it out. Alas, when all stopped, I lost 3 out of the 8 tomato plants I planted. The other 5 seemed to be ok with a couple taking minor damage. I was quite bummed out. I should have been patient and planted them another day instead of trying to rush it. So I may have to go out and buy some other tomato plants for the corner or just plant something different since I now have space left over. Sigh...

Well, the rest of my garden seemed to have survived. Here are some pics. These are Pre-hail, so no pics of the tomatoes.

Starting off with the belgian onions.
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Here we have some basil with two rows of carrots one on each side which I just planted last week so their not up yet. There's also peanuts at the end of that row...not sure if they'll come up or not, but we'll see. May have to start them earlier next year.
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Next is the first sproutings of the cucumbers.
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The strawberry plants I bought seem to be coming along slowly. Already got a red one in the bunch, but it's still small. These should crop up multiple times throughout the season.
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My one hot pepper plant that my co-worker gave me that she had extra. I didn't realize at the time you had to start peppers really early, so she was super nice and gave me one of hers. She's my go to person whenever I have any planting questions.
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My wax and green beans which have yet to sprout as I've only just planted them last week as well.
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Sugar snap peas seem to be doing really good. I have 2 rows per lattice so far, but the 3rd lattice I ran out and need to go buy more seed.
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And lastly we have lettuse. These have been planted from seed in the garden. they go all the way to the end but you can't see them all. On the right is romane lettuse and the left is head lettuse so their spaced apart more.
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Well that's it for now. I'll try and take better pics next time. I'm still sad over my tomato plants...but I'll get over it. I still have lots left...just gotta keep them alive.

I love your garden. I'd have to get rid of my pool to get enough space for that though. Which may happen in the next year or two anyway.

Looking good Hig! Sorry to hear about the hail though.

Self Watering Tomato Planter Finished
 

Ok, so I finally finished my tomato cage...one of them anyway. I didn't buy enough washers to finish the second one but it's almost done.

I didn't take a picture of EVERY step, but most of them. I also won't go through every step in this post as it would fill up a LOT of space, plus the video's that were put together by those two guys say a lot more then I could in this thread. The only difference between what I did and what they did is that I used mulch at the end to keep the soil moist instead of the plastic bag like the guy used in his video SVOBoy posted a while back which you can watch here:
Lifehacker - Turn Storage Containers into Self Watering Tomato Planters - Garden

It didn't take that long to do, but it was a little longer then an hour and a half like they touted. Maybe once you've done 50 or 60 of them. :)

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As you can see, because they're so small I also put in a stick for now to stabalize them. I'll remove it later once they've gotten bigger.

So we'll see how it goes. I'll keep you updated on their progress and how well they grow.