March 19, 2010

Hi everyone Beth here, just updating you all on the recent gardening. We planted our tomatoes, Eggplant and peppers about 2weeks ago and have had them in the window sill waiting patiently for them to sprout. On monday 3/15 Dave and Ben came over to plant some radishes and peas and some onions with me and we only had a couple of sprouts at that time. Dave mentioned that we start putting our seeds outside during the day to get some heat on them to grow better. IT WORKED! As of this morning when the coolest guy that works for Bryce Christensen Excavation came to deliver our sand (and gave us a smoking deal by the way) we noticed that we have like 25 sprouts YAY!!! So speaking of smoking deals, Dave got the best one, Free Gypsum, but he might not agree because he had to shovel it by himself that day

Soil and Sprouts

Dave went and got gypsum ordered some sand today. He also went for compost but they were out and we may have to wait until next Monday to get some. The dirt is all level with a slight slope for proper irrigation and the 2 pickup truck loads of gypsum is all spread waiting for tomorrows 13 yards of sand. Our starts have started sprouting and it is very exciting to see them appear.

Hi there! I'm Puck, we are all really excited about this new venture that we are starting. The friends that will turn into family and the love that we all have for each other will surely grow just as much, if not more, than the garden itself. I, for one, am looking forward to making a new wonderful family to share my life experiences with here in Washington Utah. But on to the garden. We started the seeds in egg cartons recently and we can't wait to see the seeds sprouting! In the mean time the sun has been hiding behind giant rain clouds and will not let us do what we need to do to get the garden ready for planting. We have a lot to do while the seeds are sprouting, and the rain is not helping at all! I've got Spring Break this week, and was hoping that we'd be able to get it all ready for planting. Here's to hoping for good weather soon, and rain AFTER we get the garden planted! Luvs n hugs, Puck

Seeds

If we are going to garden, we will need some plants. If we need some plants, we should start as many as we can form seeds. So... off to HomeDepot. Beth's alternator on her car seems to have siezed up on the way over there so that kinda put a damper on things but Beth has a great attitude and we continue on to get our seeds.



We had a printed page from the University of Utah's website that explains which plants need to be planted at what time of the year. We got everything that we will need to either make starts with seeds indoors or sow directly in the garden for the next month or so.


According to the paper, we needed to do some starts inside for the plants that we will sow next month Those were peppers, eggplant, and tomato. We gathered all of the egg cartons that we had. We placed dirt in egg cartons, placed 3-4 seeds in finger siszed holes in the dirt, and coverd the seeds with dirt. We then placed the cartons on sheet pans in the window sill. Beth's house has nice deep window sills since it was build forever ago (thanks pioneer engineering).

We are starting a garden at Beth's house

Beth has a house. It is an old house in Washington, Utah. She has spent so much time and energy on her home and it is beautiful. With so much done to the inside, we all decided to take advantage of the water rights and large yard to do a bunch of work outside.

The plan thus far.... Garden and Chickens.

The back yard was uneven and had been spread with herbicide a few years back so we decided that the very top soil should be removed and that the entire area needed to be somewhat level so that we can properly irrigate. Beth has many friends. Her friend Dennis had a skid loader so he allowed us to borrow it. Thank you so much Dennis! We are still in the process, today there was rain but yesterday, we moved a lot of dirt. It was so much fun! Ben and Dave do not have any experience but they got the hang of it pretty quickly.

We are attempting to forage for materials for the chicken coops. We found a nice old barn out in LaVerkin. We contacted the owner's the sister-in-law that lives next to it and I think we can find the owner this week. The place is very run down but it is full of old bee hive boxes and cedar planks and steel barrels and even a old frame for glasshouse panes.

Dennis also offered to give us 10 chickens. Dennis is awesome. He also said that he has a bunch of spare material in the way of pipes and possibly other building materials.

We would like to add gardening boxes to the top of the chicken coops. Dave is a wood artisan so I am sure that he will come up with some fresh and innovative designs for the structure that will allow for a perfect chicken habitat in the desert. Hopefully, gardening on top of the coops will cool things down for the poor birds in the hot sun.