Transplanting the Kale

This is my first attempt at blogging from my phone. Let's see how it goes.

Back in January I planted Kale directly in my three recycled blender pots. I spaced four or five seeds about an inch apart in each.

On average each pot sprouted four baby Kale. I have already tranplanted four of these to share a home with freshly planted carrots and peas, but on this day I transplanted the rest so each has it's own pot.


I found five pots at a local thrift store for under $20.

One of them is a cookie jar missing it's lid.


I started with a few rocks in the bottom to save a little soil. This space will also hold water that the soil can soak up as needed.

I mixed the last of my used soil left from our last planting adventure with the Keefers container mix...

and filled the pots.

Because the Kale is still so small I used a tablespoon to remove them from their original home...

and then placed them in the centre of the new pot, gentlely using soil to prop them up. I also move the Kale into the centre of thier orginal pots.

I lined them all up along the railing on the east deck. I find that the plants get plenty of water here when it rains. If anything is getting too much water I simply move it away from the edge until it stops raining or the soil begins to dry out.

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1st Wordless Wednesday

Watch your Peas and Cs

In my quest to dominate container gardening I have drawn out a bit of design. I know what I want to grow and what I'm going to grow it in, and where and on which deck. I seldom follow any of these plans verbatim and this project was no exception. The plan was to find a long container and plant two rows of carrots in one and a row of peas and carrots in the other. This is what happened.

First the container. I had a hard time finding a container long and deep enough for what I wanted, (without building one which I may do later.) This is the best I could do. Not very long but pretty deep. This came from Canadian Tire and is actually meant to fit over the railing. I knew that it would not fit over my railing when I purchased the container, but thats okay. The added depth of the trough will be perfect for the carrots.

Next I had to address the growing medium. Soil. I am currently Laid Off during the Olympics and although I have a job to go back to, finances are tight, so we have put ourselves on a very strict No Spending Budgets. Bills and Groceries only. So I could not purchase any soil specific to this project and had to make do with what I had, which was a partial bag of Keefer's West Coast Container Mix, a hodgepodge bucket of reused potting mixes, left over "garden mix," composted soil from the District of North Vancouver, and a bucket of "junk" soil I tried unsuccessfully to us as a patio sandbox material for Cillian.

For the first pot I combined the "Garden Mix," the reused, and the junk soil and mostly filled the container, then topped it off with the Keefer's Container Mix.

The second pot was a comprised of the Keefer's and garden mix with a little of the reused mix.

This is where I first deviated from the original design. My Kale seedling are still young but knowing that I will need to transplant them soon and having nowhere to put them at this point I decided to plant one on either end of the carrot- peas container.

Using a table spoon I carefully removed 4 seedlings from the fullest Kale pots...

and planted one on each end of the new containers.

Then I made a 1/2" trough along the front of the container for the Carrots.

I poured some seeds from the Johnny's Selected Seeds Pouch into the spoon and began planting dropping them into the trough. I left about six inches from the Kale, so the Kale won't shadow the carrots too much.

You can plant the seeds 3/4-1" apart and then thin the seedling to 2" later. Not wanting to have to toss the unwanted seedlings, I spaced them about 2" apart now.

Then I dug another trough along the back and plant the peas about an inch apart.

I'm not as worried about the peas being dominated by the Kale as the peas are a vine and will grow higher then the Kale and they should live in harmony.

I placed on container on the East deck. I will either move this pot back against the railing or build a small trellis for the peas later.

The second container I put on the North Side against the railing so the pea vines can grow up them. I shuffled the other pots and containers around to accommodate.

The last thing is to water. While at the store I found organic fertilizer from Rubicon made from concentrated seaweed. As per the directions I added 1/2 teaspoon to my watering can which is about one liter.

I watered the contain enough to penetrate the soil and repeated a couple days later. The idea is to keep the soil moist but not swampy or over saturated.

Container Food Gardening

Last weekend was a busy one, as has been the week so far hence I'm not getting to writing this blog until Wednesday.

I had Friday off work, I have been working late hours so having the Friday off gave me a chance to catch up on sleep so I could spend Saturday with the family instead of taking up temporary residence in snoozeville.

So Saturday morning we got up and headed out to the Trout Lake Farmers Market.  Our Kits market doesn't open until this Sunday, but the Trout Lake Market is a great market and arguably the most popular in Metro Vancouver.  Lots of Fruits and Veggies for Suzanne to pick from and plenty of flowers and other plants for me.  One vendor was selling Corn and lettuce plants.  I picked up 5 corn stocks, 3 red leaf lettuce and 3 green leaf lettuce for $4.

Next it was off to 2 and half hours of house hunting.  With the down turn in real estate in Vancouver and the low interest rates its a pretty good time to buy if you can manage it.  We have been looking since January.

Once back home it was time to get my corn and lettuce into the soil.

As we are hoping to move sooner than later I have taken up container gardening.  I already have three tomatoes in containers, the aphids are gone by the way, and as we are on a tight budget these days anything I can find to use as a container, is a container.  
I started with a trip to my favorite local garden center David Hunter.  I picked out a bag of stones and a bag of outdoor soil mix for under $10.  
I started with a couple inches of stone at the bottom of the pot.  This will weigh down the pots so they don't fall over from the weight of the top heavy corn.  It also helps with drainage.  The soil on top will hold moister until ever particle is wet.  After that the soil becomes too saturated, like my tomato.  The water will then filter into the stone and then out the bottom of the pot.

Next I mixed the garden soil with some of Keefer Soil Energizer that I had left over.  About 4 scoops of soil per scoop of Energizer.  I planted each corn to its crown and the lettuces I just covered the roots.

I lined the corn up in a row and put the lettuce between to shade them a little.  I moved the strawberry and tomatoes out front, the corn will protect the tomatoes from direct rainfall and the tomatoes will further shade the lettuce.  I am happy to report that after only a couple days the lettuces have almost doubled in size and the corn has grown as well.  A couple of the corn stocks starting to lean over so I added a stick into the soil to hold them up until the roots get a better footing.

Once all this was done, my realtor called to let me know that we had bought a house!  Soon these little guys will have a permanent home in the raised bed of my south facing back yard.  Still getting the financing straight and we have an inspection tomorrow, but I am considering myself, a home owner!

TLC Tomato Loving Care

Yesterday the boy and I got to spend a big chunk of time in the garden.  It wasn't enough but there were jobs that needed doing ASAP.  As mention in my last Blog, I bought 3 tomato plants from the VanDusen Plant Sale a couple weeks ago and transplanted them into these pots.  

The cooking style pot was bought at the SPCA Thrift store for about a buck for this purpose.  I couldn't find any other so the other two went into regular reused nursery pots.

I didn't drill any holes in the new pot hoping that the sun would keep the soil from becoming too saturated, but I failed!  I thought about it instead of doing it.  I've been reading the Organic Sister blog and I am learning from her policy of Doing not Thinking!  You can't see it in this photo the the poor tomato became very water logged, very quickly.  And it became sick, which weakened its immune and made it prone to...

APHIDS!  

Although these three plants are next to each other, only the one has been attacked!  To me this is proof that better gardening methods are a better way to keep away pests then chemical spraying!

These little guys have been feasting, enjoying my tomatoes before I even had a chance.

I drilled three holes into the bottom of the pot and let it drain.

I then topped up the pot with Keefer's Soil Energizer to make up for the loss of soil through the holes, and to compensate for soil compaction cause from the flooding.  

I added a small layer of organic matter, dried leaves, to cover the soil so as to protect from further soil damage from rain, and to reduce evaporation.  I maybe should have waited on this stage until the soil had dried out, but I'd hate to waste more water. 

I will add an organic layer to the other Tomatoes as well as the azalea's to protect the soil from the elements.  This may be another good example of a time to use Organic Sister's Doing not Thinking.

I think that I read somewhere that Marigolds detract pests like Aphids.  I know that cats don't like them but I will try and confirm that.  So I bought a small 2X4" tray from Choices and placed it next to the Pot of Tomatoes.  Until the plant is healthy again I am leaving it in isolation so that the aphids stay off the other tomatoes.  Once they are gone I will return the little guy with his friends and repot the Marigolds into separate smaller pots and boarder the Tomatoes with them.

I miss my Garden

I really do miss my garden.  I have been giving it 10 - 15 minutes of attention at a time maybe 2 or 3 times a week.  Not enough, but time well enjoyed.  I was at the VanDusen plant sale a couple weeks back.  Just me and the boy, no pictures.  Here is the plant sale in a nut shell.  Terrible parking, HUGE lines, awesome selection, and great prices.  

Because I am planing on moving I am not doing anymore planting in the ground.  I'm a container man for now. 

Two Azaleas on the rim of my fire pit.  These are the pots I transplanted them into.  Cheap!

When we moved to our present place in Sept 07 we brought this hanging Strawberry with us.  I hung it from the north side of the carport roof to get it up and out of the way.  There it sat and did next to nothing.  I took 2 minutes on my way out the door to move it into the sun.  That should help.

These three pots represent my food crop this year.  Two Beefy and one striped Tomato.  I received a recipe for catchup and was looking forward to trying it out this fall.  I bought these at VanDusen at a moment when Cillian was attempting to run away from me.  I asked the ladies for a couple Beefeaters and they handed them over.  I got home, read the tag and thought to myself, "Taxi" is a funny name for a tomato...  Opps, yellow catchup it is!