Gardening with art & zen (peaceful water & rock features)

To help you get your home garden started, visit gardens in your area. It will help you visualize and learn what type of plants grow well together, positioning, and types of plants that do best in your area. This garden I visited yesterday was a wedding venue, and I absolutely adored it. The hosta plants were large and in charge! There was even a lime tree growing fruits in my area's gardening zone 6-- I was shocked. The only explanation I had was that this garden was heated in the soil. I'm not sure...

This particular garden was filled with perennial and annual flowers, red maples, pines, tomato and pepper plants, water features and sculpture pieces that made the garden a piece of artwork. That is the thing to remember, your garden is a blank canvas. You can choose the colors, the methods of planting much like painting, and you can have as many bushes, flowers, or trees as you want on your canvas. 

Signs of Spring Part I: canning, houseplants, Seed starting, & walking in the woods

 I have started seeds indoors. The broccoli I sowed is at least 4 days old seedlings. I have them growing in a micro greenhouse using plastic salad recycled containers. 

In addition to broccoli, I am germinating basil, parsley, and cilantro. 

If you gave the space and you live in Zone 6 to 7, you can beginning starting cabbage, cauliflower collards, and other brassicas indoors. 

There won't be a last Frost advisory until late May, but I tend to start my seeds indoors in Late February.

It was a nice, warm Sunday, so I brought my houseplants otside to get some Sun and fresh air.

I was hauling compost to my gardens today, and noticed these signs of Spring...the Crocus. Such a cold hardy and dainty little flower...

Yesterday was my birthday, so I indulged in some restaurant veggie sushi...

I turned 32 years old...

As Spring presents itself, it's crucial for me to spend lots of time outdoors. It's my version of therapy. So after work  this past Wednesday-- when it was another warm afternoon-- Ashley and I went to our local park and had a little fire. We roasted some veggie dogs and peppers.

Last Friday-- the afternoon was warm, so I took the houseplants outside to fertilize them.

Although it's not my normal canning season, I was gifted 10 pounds of tomatoes or more. I decided to can tomatoes and spaghetti sauce. For the spaghetti sauce, my recipe was 9 tomatoes, blanched and skinned, then simmered for 1 hour with peppers, onion, carrots, herbs, salt. I sterilized jars, lids, rings, and equipment. And was able to can 3 pint jars of sauce.

For the cold pack tomatoes: I sterilized the jars, boiled tomatoes to remove skins, packed the tomatoes in the jars with lemon juice and water bath canned for 50 minutes.

I'm excited for what Spring will bring.  I hope for more peaceful weather, warm days and nights, colorful flora and fauna. 

I also hope to get some veggies in the ground this upcoming early Spring for things like Swiss chard, collards, kale, spinach, radish, cilantro and lettuce.

Early March starter plants under grow lights

The starter plants are a couple weeks old. I have been keeping them under a grow light in my kitchen. On the warm days, I take the starters out to the porch greenhouse and then back in at night. These are cauliflower, varieties of cabbage, and collards. I used potting soil mixed with seed starting mix for the starters and keep lights on the plants for over 10 hours. The amount of light varies depending on when I wake up and go to bed because I don't have the lights on a timer.

As I was passing the greenhouse center where I usually get truckloads of mulch, I bought three Early Girl Tomatoes and put them with the starters. I also have cilantro, basil, onions, and carrots growing as well.

Soon I will sew other tomato varieties indoors in recycled water bottles because they're bigger containers than typical starter cells and pots. I tend to start tomatoes and peppers indoors early in March, but I end up regretting starting early because they'll grow better, faster, stronger if I threw out a bunch of seed in the summer instead.

Come April, I'll have greens transplanted outside in the garden and I'll have summer crops started indoors. Tuesday I sewed lettuce varieties indoors along with radish, swiss chard, broccoli, so we'll see their progress in a month, and I'll transplant them outside with the cabbage and cauliflower.

Garden artistry, transplanted tulips under peach trees

Today was another warm and sunny afternoon. I happened to be gifted tulips today so I transplanted tulips under two peach trees.

I squeezed in some other gardening and other garden artistry today as well--collecting rocks for pathways and placing around more blueberry plants; I sewed basil too; and I chitted potatoes to be planted in the grow bags come Good Friday.

In gardening, you have to take advantage of the weather at all times-- you never know when there will be a long cold and/or rainy week.

Starting veggies indoors & making rock gardens

Last week I started cabbages, cauliflower, collards, and red lettuce. Once they sprouted, I have kept them in the greenhouse during the day, then I bring them in at night with a light on them for a couple of hours. I used a seed starting mix for these plants, then I will transplant them in one of my gardens in March.

Come March, hopefully I'll have much of my main garden mulched so i can directly sew early growing peas, radishes, and lettuces. By this time, many of the early flowering plants will be up, as I already see the daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips poking through the soil. The crocuses of course are blooming since they're a very early blooming flower.

In a couple of days, I'm going to start onion and carrots indoors as well with a tray filled with potting soil. Once they get established, I'll put them out in April.

In my last post, I forgot to show you the rock gardens by placing rock around fruit trees and fruit bushes. I have been collecting rock from the woods and hauling them to the garden with a wheel barrow. In addition I have been placing rock over paths in the garden because the paths are getting swampy as this winter has been very wet.

Rocks around 4 of the peach and nectarine trees

Rocks around 10 of the blueberry plants & goji berries

Indoor starter garden update Feb 20 2017 & how I overwintered Figs (VIDEO)

Indoor Starter Plants with LED grow lights (Mid-February 2017)

Below are updated pictures of the indoor starter plant garden. I have LED 4 foot lights attached to two rubbermaid shelves. Growing on the top shelf is Swiss chard germinating in recycled strawberry/blueberry/kiwi containers. I buy a seed starting mix, or will mix my own potting soil with vermiculite, perlite, and peat moss. On the second shelf is Cherry tomatoes and Beefsteak tomatoes growing almost directly under the grow lights.  The tomatoes were sown 6 days before they sprouted, and now they are at least an inch tall. Beside the trays of tomatoes are a Goji berry in the orange pot and a Pineapple plant to the right. Below on the 3rd shelf is another goji plant in the orange pot with a tray of onion seed germinating, then Beets, lettuce, Artichoke, Brussels, Broccoli, and Cauliflower growing in the second (middle) tray. To the right is a tray of Radish growing. The radish are becoming quite leggy despite putting them directly under the grow light like with the tomatoes.

Cherry Tomatoes

Radish (right)

Goji berry

Goji berry

Indoor Growlight Starter Plants & Greenhouse in Early February (Winter)

In the Indoor garden, there are LED grow lights above the starter plants (seen above). Some of the plants sprouting are radish, lettuce, broccoli, and beets (seen below). Those that I sowed are Onions, Beefsteak and Red Cherry Tomatoes, Artichoke, and Cauliflower.

Basically I turned the porch into a greenhouse to keep the outside animals warm in the winter. And of course it works as a place to start cold weather crops in the late winter and early Spring. Below I took pictures of the greenhouse I assembled using materials I had on hand. Because it was warm for the last two days in Kentucky, I put the tropical plants outside in the greenhouse. You may have seen in the past that I have Pineapples growing, as well as Snake plant, Aloe, and Cactus. The tropical container garden is dwindling considering the inside and outside cats tore up many of them or "fertilized" the plants to the point that they killed many of my indoor plants. But of course I am collecting and growing more.