My Garden!

    This is my semi - homemade greenhouse. I bought the shelves at Wal-Mart for about $20 and just simply wrapped it with left over plastic I had from plastic bags and some tape to secure it.

    I am experimenting with starting seedlings in regular potting soil or in vermiculite. So far, I planted cabbage, leeks, nicotiana, calendula, crooked neck yellow squash, and Texas yellow grano onion in the vermiculite. The cabbage and the onions sprouted in just 5 days. The leeks and squash took about 8 days.

    I planted some dill, banana and jalapeno peppers in potting soil on January 6th. Only 1 dill seedling has sprouted and it took 2 weeks. I am still waiting for the rest to sprout. I got the vermiculite idea from the "All New Square Foot Gardening," by: Mel Bartholomew.

    This is a picture of the second shelf containing the squash, avocado, cabbage, and oregano seedlings.
The oregano seedling was actually found growing next to my only dill sprout. I think it was a seed that did not sprout last growing season.

    To make more room for my plants, I decided to make an earth box. I found directions on the internet. If you have power tools, this can be an easy weekend task to take up. I made mine out of a storage box, yogurt containers, plastic ties. The tools I used were a hand power saw, hand saw, a drill, and a vise. This is what it looks like below.

    According to the directions, you need to use potting mix and not potting soil. I made the mistake of putting potting soil in the earth box yesterday. So, I will just shovel it out and put in the recommended mix. The potting mix itself was somewhat expensive. 2 1 cubic foot bags were about $7.00 each. It is a mixture of peat moss, compost, perlite, and dolomite. The instructions provide a mix you can make for yourself in the question and answer part. I am thinking about planting some All Star strawberry plants in my earth box. I should be able to grow 10 of them in this self-watering container.

I will make sure to talk about my garden at least once a week. I have also made a journal for my garden this season and it is making a difference. If you do not want to make you own earth box, you can just click on the links below. Every thing just takes time and patience!