Feeling a Little Guilty

I'm thinking I should have just taken some time off from school during planting season. Yesterday I was feeling a little under the weather and way too exhausted to go to school. I called in so that I could go home and sleep. But did I? Of course not, not with more gardening needing to be done. Silly me, of course I wasn’t going to sleep when there were things to be done. But I feel accomplished now and got some final things done.

Ran over to Bachman's last night and oh boy do they have some cool things. I guess I never knew they had so much! Hundreds of types of plants, many different seeds from different companies, everything you could ever need in the way of trellises, poles, netting for vines. You name it. I’ve been gardening for quite some time now, I’m kind of ashamed I haven’t shopped there before. I found a healthy looking watermelon plant and some honey dew seed that I’ve been trying to track down for days. I didn’t find popcorn seeds but I expected I could only get that online. Oh well, guess I’ll save that for next year.

After Bachman's I ran over to the community garden and planted the remainder of the garden. I added basil, 3 different kinds of watermelon, cantaloupe, a Roma tomato donated by my grandma and 2 honey dew plants. My garden is mostly full though I need to do some hand tilling on the edge where the grass has taken over a good 12 inches of my dirt. That will be a project for this weekend.

Once I got home I started on the new garden bed along the patio. I pulled out some of that dirt, filled it with good garden soil and evened it out. I replanted the carnations, added my white delphinium, and planted seeds for marigolds, and 2 different kinds of zinnia. I also planted something I don’t know the name of which is supposed to get tall and produce purple flowers. This was also a donation from my grandma and I think it starts with a v or something. I’m sure I’ll find out later. Next step is to finish that whole area, add more good soil and plant my hundred or so gladiolus. Yes this should have been done already but what can I say, I’ve been a little busy. I’ll just have a late crop to look forward to. This year I think I’ll follow the rules though and plant them in 1 or 2 week intervals so they are continuously blooming all season.

It’s amazing how much time I spend thinking about flowers and gardens and vegetables. Who knew I’d become such a devoted gardener. “I won’t rest until the garden is planted” haha TGIS (summer)

Community Garden!

Fridley Community Garden is Open!  Enough Said.

This is what happens when I let my fiance do the labeling.

Derek's work again.

Zucchini, tomatoes, jalapenos, habaneros, california wonder pepper, sweet corn, pumpkins, cucumbers, pickle bush cucumbers, summer squash, green beans.

Creating Planting Space

Yesterday was one of the most exhausting days I've ever had.  I'm super sore in my arms, shoulders and legs, I feel like I ran a marathon.  Maybe I should work out before I do any heavy gardening.  I had a shovel in my hand all day but boy did I get some things accomplished!

I found this small area on the side of driveway #2.  I thought to myself, that would be a great place to put some flowers, we never use the driveway and it's right on the patio. I had no idea this tiny area would end up being such a huge job.  Turns out it's full of rock.

I spend at least two hours trying to sort out the rock.  At least the dirt is pretty okay and not pure sand like there is everywhere else.  However it was a much bigger project than I had in mind.

After a few hours and tired dirty hands, this is the outcome.  I ran back to the new house and grabbed some plants I though would look nice there.  I ended up with all of my pansy's (yellow, purple, black and a mixture) and 3 lupine plants.  In this picture it looks like I killed my lupine but I promise you they have perked up since and it looks like they will be spending a long and happy life there. 

 By this time it was probably around 1 or 2 pm and I decided to start my other huge job, creating planting space around the curve of the patio.  My fiance had the idea, which is great!  So here's the before and almost after:

I'm obviously not done yet but my hands hurt too much and it was 7:30 by the time I got to this point.  Another issue is that the dirt is so sandy and I bought some good dirt last night but I'm going to need to get rid of my sandy soil somehow. Not sure how you go about disposing of dirt/sand.

 On a less exhausting note, there are some pretty things going on in the garden and some tasty things at my old house.

Today I plan to go to the community garden.  I drove by last night and there are plots already planted so I'm guessing it's been open for at least a week but no one told me.  Oh well, this is the first weekend I could plant it anyways.  I cannot wait to get over there!

Fridley Community Garden

I did not choose my spot for my community garden plot because I called from Florida and had no idea what the layout was. They just posted the layout and fellow gardeners on their website. I'm number 30, looks like I'm as far from the parking lot as possible (almost) and on the very end. It will be nice to have 2 corners to myself but it's annoying to be so far away and on the far end from the water as well. Can't complain though, at least I get to plant this year still!

I went to home depot today on my lunch break and grabbed my seeds and some plants for my garden including the following:
Plants:
Pepper-Big Bertha
Tomatoes- Mortgage Lifter
Zucchini
Summer Squash
Cucumber

Seeds:
Morning Glory- Scarlet O' Hara
Sweet Peas
Sunflowers
Wax Beans
Mixed Lettuce
Pumpkin -Pie/sugar
Carrots
Sweet Corn

I think I'll have plenty of room for everything I want. Lots of people got two spots too which I thought was interesting. I hadn't even thought about that but maybe next year I'll have my yard all ready to plant and won't need the extra space.
This weekend is going to be great. Dirt on my hands and plants in the ground, that's exactly what I need right now.