It's not about how big it is but how you use it.

No pictures today, sorry. This is like a diary entry, I've never written in a diary, I find it a little foolish and those Secret gurus that tell you that you need a clear vision and write it down can come over and write it down for me. Yes, the vision, always pristine and very sunny, cart-fulls of carrots, spinach, lettuce and radish. The sun shines through the leaves and illuminates a pot of wonderful beef stew where you gleefully drop your freshly picked veggies in and all the kingdom smells the wonderful aroma and buys bowls and bowls of soup from you. Ahhhh.

Well, the interesting part about this is: Veggies will grow in small and large patches but they like specific company along the way. For example: I planted garlic, onions, carrots, radish, radicchio and swiss chard in a box. The garlic, onion and radicchio love each over very much and will insist growing and being friends. However, the swiss chard does not like to live next to Mr garlic, it will stunt and shy away from any growth. Carrots will germinate very slowly in a half shaded area next to garlic and the beets just don't care who is next to them, they just want to extend out as much as they can.

So, I got an important lesson from this. Plant at least 4 squares of the same crop in the same box. If you have leafy greens, plant with other leafy greens. If you have roots, plant with other roots. Variety is very nice but sometimes the neighbors try to 1-up each other.

So, next planting session, I will have:

- At least 60 strawberry plants in the same boxes, no variety.

- 4 Lettuce, 4 swiss chard and 4 spinach in the same box.

- Radish, beets, carrots in the same box.

- Tomatoes on their own

- Bush beans on their own.

- Flowers are best kept out of the box. They can look nice in the box but they just take space and attract unwanted bugs.

Half-hearted efforts give half-hearted results.

OK, I am NOT a farmer, I'll admit to that right now. I am NOT a farmer. This does not mean that I can be excused for not making an effort in keep my garden working.

Well, it's been over a month since I last posted and I have a lot to review.

Ahem... List form of things that I have learned:

1. More sunlight = more growth. Less sunlight = crappy growth
2. Slugs will eat in order; Marigolds, dying parts of plants, bush beans, everything
3. If you leave the garden to grow and not tend to it for 3 days, everything will go to crap
4. Thistle can turn into the size of a tree
5. Slugs like beer, slugs will stink if left dead in beer for more than 3 weeks
6. Good help is hard to find; Bad advice is easy
7. When you find the good help, keep them happy with Rhum and Beer.
8. It's OK to rip out the stuff that is not growing well.
9. Some seeds are just crap
10. Trees shade a lot more when they have leafed out.

So it was not a banner start to my gardening experience. I know where I went wrong on some stuff, I know I need to make an effort with others.

One thing is for certain, pests will eat your food. It's all about survival in the gardening world, protect your food and don't be fooled by thinking that the slugs will not eat your crop overnight and that those crows are dumb. Crows will work in teams and there is always a lookout. When you see a crow in a tree close to your garden, there are 4 crows in the garden looking for your tomatoes.

Not happy :(

I left my herbs and tomato seedlings out today so they can get some sunshine. Unfortunately half of all my herbs dried out, all my parsley and 4 of my tomatoes.

Not a happy camper at all.

Kill it with fire!!!!

Quite the scare last Thursday, someone decided to make a nice forest fire at the back of the hill where I live. They had 2 scout planes circling the area for 5 hours making sure the firefighters knew where the blaze was heading.

Kids got really stressed out about it. :(

This is the scout plane. It was circling a just a few hundred feet up.

And another shot of it just above the tree line.

2nd round of the perfect mix.

So the first time I did the mix for my boxes I only had cow and sheep manure, peat moss and Vermiculite. So this time I searched far and wide and found 6 different mixes.

Check it out:

Left to Right:

• Vermiculite
• Mushroom Compost
• Forest Compost
• Peat Moss

Marine Compost

Sheep Manure

Cow Manure

Horse/Cow

/Sheep blend

I managed to fill 2 boxes last weekend. Pictures to come.

To the Poop Mobile!

Who said you can't haul ass in a Smart! LOL!

Here's 490lbs of compost and manure for you.

.... and who needs airbags?

Snakes, why did it have to be snakes....

My daughter found this big guy next to the ex-chicken coop. A garter snake and it's a beauty!

It's the largest I've seen around here and I wish I could have seen it myself.

Checked Wiki and found that it is mildly venomous but their fangs are at the back of their mouth. I like these and I'm expecting to make a home for them in my SFG so they can get the slugs and mice.

Learn more about the Garter Snake here.

More planting, more teeth gnashing.

You really have to be physically fit sometimes to get some gardening done...

Yes, wonderful grape vines transplanted from the front of the house (thank you again Diedra). A thankless and backbreaking task. I hope the roots survived the digging.

Put in some Karina Pea seeds this morning. I have 4 squares with 9 seeds each. They should start coming up by this weekend. I also put in a new square of carrots, the first square still has not germinated yet. Still waiting.

A stroll through the old stumping grounds.

I pulled up two good 'ol stumps this weekend, took me a whole after noon. I have 2 more to go. After a while I felt pretty dizzy hitting the roots with an axe. Gatorade to the rescue!

Stump 1:

Stump 2:

Pieces of 8s, pieces of 8s.... squaaaaak!

Built a 4x4 and a 1x8 box using 2x8 boards for my SFG (whew!) I'm always puzzled when looking a pictures of SFG's, the 4x4 boxes never look exactly right when the grid is put on. So I thought I'd make my box as a 4x8 on the inside.

2 - 4' board

2 - 4'3" board

Screwed in together the right way will give a true 4x4 box.

Here is the result:

And finally after much slogging, sloshing and getting the shoes totally muddy from a leaky hose and a dirt ground, I managed to put in my soil mix and put in transplants from our friend Dedra (such a sweet girl).

Garlic, onions, radicchio and chicory. From seed: carrots, radishes.

Poop and scoop.

I got my ingredients for the dirt I will use in my SFG.

2x cow manure

5x sheep manure (I was supposed to get 5 different types but nobody has anything else)

1x Perlite (4cu/ft)

1x Peat Moss (3.8 cu/ft)

1x landscape fabric.

Pressed play on my remote.

Working on my new garden was put on pause because of some bad luck. A couple of weeks ago I did some work in the SFG area and noticed that I had an electrical crimp stuck in my tractor's tire. I couldn't find the flat fixer anywhere but I finally found a mesh I could use to fix it.

Here is the flat: before.

You can't really see it but it right to the ground. I managed to pull the crimp out and now ready with the tools (see the crimp).

Muahahaha: Burn! And fixed!

Seedlings are like cactus'

I almost lost 3 trays of seedlings last week. I decided to go on a transplanting binge and move the tomato, a few herbs and many of the marigolds into larger trays so they could strengthen their roots. I added water, lots of water, too much water! Two days after, everything looked dead and dying, I was so devastated by this.

Gord from work told me that I over-watered and to let them dry out with a fan ( but I don't have one) and they may come back.

Well, I'm glad to announce that only 3 tomato seedlings died and the rest are bouncing back, it took a while. The Marigolds look terrible though, they lost their top leaves from wilting and over saturation. I did a check this morning on them and I found FLOWER BUDS! Coolio!!!

Some elbow grease needed.

Remember the before photo of the barn area on the 1st post? I had a few hours to spare on Sunday so I went at it with a rake, a tiller and my ride-on lawnmower.

Here's how it looks now...

A bit better, I have 2 piles of old crap to pick up and the back has quite a bit of broken glass still.

I used the rake to rake up any debris (wire mesh, plaster, insulation, wood, nails) and then I used the tiller to till down the hills of old fox pooh down into the ground. Next I was looking around to figure out how to flatten it. I used my ride-on mower, set the blade down to 1 and let the mower deck do the leveling for me (no, I didn't run the blades on it).

Decent job for now. I just need to fix up the perimeters and then start the boxes.

Looks can be deceiving

I'm wondering why the lettuce is not germinating like the tomatoes are, the germination times are pretty much the same. I open the lid to the greenhouse and inspect the peat pellets, they look nice and such so I touch it.... DRY!!! The middle of the tray dried out while the sides stayed moist.

That was a nice lesson for me. Better to touch the goods.

*POOF* Here we are! Look at us!!!

This tray was setup on Saturday using a heat mat; the sprouts were not there last night, I swear! This morning I thought I'd take a look and there they were; like watching little veggie-zombies crawling out of the dirt. So weird!

From left to right: 2 rows cherry tomatoes, 2 rows buttercrunch lettuce, 2 rows hybrid tomatoes.

I think the cherry tomatoes will be put in some upside-down planters and the hybrids will have a home in my SFG. I suspect I'll be giving and selling many of the tomatoes when they come to harvest. But then there's always spaghetti sauce.

Only one of the lettuce seeds germinated, I suspect that in a couple of days it will be up to 6 or 7.

Seeds and makeshift growlights.

I started some seeds a few weeks back and they are coming along quite nicely. Mind you that the first 2 weeks of growing were on a air hockey table with a south facing window. The poor seedlings were just stretching to get the most sunlight they could. Here are a few photos after I created a light growing station with a metal shelf and a few fluorescent fixtures.

Marigolds (about 3 weeks old)

And 2 days ago I started some Tomatoes (cherry and early hybrid) and some Buttercrunch Lettuce. Mmmmmmmmm.

Herbs (Oregano, Parsley, Thyme, Basil, Rosemary) and Strawberries (this one I regret to have done, I should have bought plants instead)

All in good time, all good eats in time.

That's one small crop for a man... one giant harvest for mankind.

I know, it's a cheesy title but it is quite true.

(Please, do NOT press the F5 key when you create a blog entry, this is the 2nd time I'm doing the first post *sigh*)

So what is this blog about? Two things, really: 1: I love food! 2: I'll be growing my own.

This is not just about gardening, this is about transforming an old fox barn from the previous owner into a wonderful vegetation oasis that you can eat off of. Literally. So let's begin:

Method: Square foot Gardening (by Mel Bartholomew)

You may remember him from his past PBS and other channel shows. He has to be the greatest "WTF is that all about" thinker of all time. He took row gardening and transformed the drudgery into a cakewalk. Well, at least from what I can tell. You see, I have not started my new Square Foot Garden (SFG) yet. It's in the works. Let me show you what I have to work with.

The area:

An old fox barn, very stinky and useless. This is the after photo from last years demolition of the barn (which incidentally gave me severe carpal tunnel and I had to get surgery 2 months ago.) It used to be very smelly and had all sorts of junk in it. Since the rains and winter washed away and stomped the old fox poop into the ground, now it's just a half junk filled space. So this is my official 'before' photo.

Mel said in his book and videos, "The best wood, is free wood." Well, I agree with that. So here is the material that I will be using to create the SFG boxes and fix the perimeter so deer don't come for a late night snack.

Yep, that's a ton of wood... well, maybe 1/2 a ton or so but that will be used for:

a: the planters

b: the perimeter fence

c: any other project that needs wood.

And if the deer are really hungry, they could just much on the leftovers in the compost bin.

That used to be full! But since the warm weather started, the bin finally started doing it's work. Creating the best dang compost I ever had.

So, that's it for my first post. I'll show you my seeds and the veg that I am about to grow in the next post. This will be quite the summer.