Silverwood Trip
1 week ago
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
I'm a little behind on my post, because I went up to Idaho for a week to enjoy Richie, Rachel, Miles and Gwen. Before I left David and I planted the early garden: peas, onions, carrots, beets, cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, kale (the last 5 plants were starts from the green house). When getting carrots to germinate, you must water them twice a day, can even put wet newspapers over them. I also finished planting all my starts in the green house. They are slow germinating because we haven't had much sun. I'm praying for sun. We were grateful to find our lettuce plants survived the 26 degree morning we had. If things dry out enough, we will plant potatoes this weekend over conference. David is still pruning, (big job) and will soon need to spray. Dormant spray is applied right before the blossoms open. When you see the buds getting white, it is time to spray. It is a challenge in spring to catch the windows mother nature provides to get things tilled, fertilized, pruned, sprayed and planted. Make sure your soil is dried out fairly well before tilling, otherwise you will end up with clods for the rest of the year. Also, when we plant seedlings, we take out the potting soil and fill the hole with potting soil. We also purchased mycorrhizal fungi, mixed 1/8 th teaspoon with 1 quart of water and soaked the roots in it before planting. The fungi stimulates thousands of tiny roots to develop. Really helps establish healthy, strong plants. Christy
Friday, March 11, 2011
We did a few things on our garden this past week. I fertilized my perennials. This needs to be done once a year, preferably when snow will dissolve it. Mix 30-10-10 (Miracle Grow) 1/3 quart, with 1/3 quart of ammonia sulfate and 1/3 Ironite. Covers 180 square feet per 1 quart. We also started our cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and spinach inside. I used peat pellets, because these plants will be transplanted outside fairly soon. Starting these plants inside gives you a great jump start. As soon as the garden dries out we will form our rows and plant the rest of the early garden. Christy
Saturday, February 5, 2011
New Beginings
Dear Family and Friends,
I know I have not used this medium, but thought it would be a good way to share our gardening efforts through out the year. Many of you have asked about when to do things in the garden. So I thought every time we do something I will share it on the blog. This is a big stretch for me, but I thought I would make a commitment to make it happen.
Last week David and I sat down and figured out where we would be planting things in our garden. To help you with this and other home gardening questions, we highly recommend the book, Successful Home Gardening, by E. Gordon Wells, Jr. Costco carries his book at least in Utah. This is a fabulous resource for gardening. The most important factor in determining where to plant things is their water need. Cool season shallow rooted plants like lettuce, spinach, beets, carrots, peas, broccoli and berries need water twice a week. Intermediate rooting depth plants such as beans, corn peppers, eggplant zucchini cucumbers onions pumpkins need water once a week. Warm season deep rooted plants like tomatoes, watermelons butternut squash fruit trees need water every 10 days to 2 weeks. We also pulled out our seeds and took an inventory of what we had and what we wanted to order. We made our list and I will be placing the order this week. This year we will also be trying peat pellets for starting our plants in. We have never used them before, but Brother Wells suggested using them. We also learned about mycorrhizal fungi from Brother Wells. This product helps your plant develop tiny roots off of main roots so the plant can absorb more water and nutrients. It can be ordered through www.fungi.com or Cooks nursery in Lindon carries it. It doesn't require very much. Where we live the soil is very alkaline making it hard to grow somethings. We learned about adding sulfur in the fall. As the sulfur breaks down over the winter it turns into sulfuric acid and lowers the ph of the soil. Most plants grow well in soil with ph between 6 - 7. Unfortunately we range closer to 7.5 -8. If you haven't added fertilizer, now would be a good time. If you will use 16-16-8 you will need 1 quart per 180 sq. feet. In the quart jar place 4/5 16-16-8 and 1/5 Ironite. Shake the ingredients to mix and then spread evenly over the 180 sq. feet. You need to put down 2 qts of sulfur over the same area. Purchase Martin's brand sulfur, it breaks down much better. Once you fertilize you need to till it in. We also added large amounts of organic material last fall, leaves, grass clippings and composted material. If you use grass clippings they need to be free of weed and feed. I hope this helps. We plan on planting the early spring crops mid March. I will be planting by seeds in the green house in March also. Always prune stone fruit after March 1st. Seed fruit can be pruned after December. Also if you are treating trees, grapes or berries for chlorosis you need to apply the chelated iron in March. You apply fertilizer to perennials once a year. You use soluble fertilizer that you add to the snow and let in leach down into the plant. Use: 30-10-10 (Miracle Grow) 1/3 quart, mix with 1/3 quart of ammonia sulfate and 1/3 quart Ironite. Again you apply 1 quart to 180 sq. feet This is applied late Feb. or early March.
This is probably more than you wanted to know. But hopefully it will get some of you jump started with your garden. Happy Gardening Christy
I know I have not used this medium, but thought it would be a good way to share our gardening efforts through out the year. Many of you have asked about when to do things in the garden. So I thought every time we do something I will share it on the blog. This is a big stretch for me, but I thought I would make a commitment to make it happen.
Last week David and I sat down and figured out where we would be planting things in our garden. To help you with this and other home gardening questions, we highly recommend the book, Successful Home Gardening, by E. Gordon Wells, Jr. Costco carries his book at least in Utah. This is a fabulous resource for gardening. The most important factor in determining where to plant things is their water need. Cool season shallow rooted plants like lettuce, spinach, beets, carrots, peas, broccoli and berries need water twice a week. Intermediate rooting depth plants such as beans, corn peppers, eggplant zucchini cucumbers onions pumpkins need water once a week. Warm season deep rooted plants like tomatoes, watermelons butternut squash fruit trees need water every 10 days to 2 weeks. We also pulled out our seeds and took an inventory of what we had and what we wanted to order. We made our list and I will be placing the order this week. This year we will also be trying peat pellets for starting our plants in. We have never used them before, but Brother Wells suggested using them. We also learned about mycorrhizal fungi from Brother Wells. This product helps your plant develop tiny roots off of main roots so the plant can absorb more water and nutrients. It can be ordered through www.fungi.com or Cooks nursery in Lindon carries it. It doesn't require very much. Where we live the soil is very alkaline making it hard to grow somethings. We learned about adding sulfur in the fall. As the sulfur breaks down over the winter it turns into sulfuric acid and lowers the ph of the soil. Most plants grow well in soil with ph between 6 - 7. Unfortunately we range closer to 7.5 -8. If you haven't added fertilizer, now would be a good time. If you will use 16-16-8 you will need 1 quart per 180 sq. feet. In the quart jar place 4/5 16-16-8 and 1/5 Ironite. Shake the ingredients to mix and then spread evenly over the 180 sq. feet. You need to put down 2 qts of sulfur over the same area. Purchase Martin's brand sulfur, it breaks down much better. Once you fertilize you need to till it in. We also added large amounts of organic material last fall, leaves, grass clippings and composted material. If you use grass clippings they need to be free of weed and feed. I hope this helps. We plan on planting the early spring crops mid March. I will be planting by seeds in the green house in March also. Always prune stone fruit after March 1st. Seed fruit can be pruned after December. Also if you are treating trees, grapes or berries for chlorosis you need to apply the chelated iron in March. You apply fertilizer to perennials once a year. You use soluble fertilizer that you add to the snow and let in leach down into the plant. Use: 30-10-10 (Miracle Grow) 1/3 quart, mix with 1/3 quart of ammonia sulfate and 1/3 quart Ironite. Again you apply 1 quart to 180 sq. feet This is applied late Feb. or early March.
This is probably more than you wanted to know. But hopefully it will get some of you jump started with your garden. Happy Gardening Christy
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Ok, I guess we are not making a very good effort at this blog thing. Who has time? Every step to get information and pictures loaded just requires a lot of time. Too many big event have happened over the past month or so, so I am pushing myself to do it.
On April 10th and 11th Richie graduated from BYU I. On Sunday Richie blessed Miles. It was a fun weekend with Rachel's family hunting for eggs, decorating cookies and getting lots of kisses from Miles. I kept telling Miles he was born to be kissed. The boys got in a game of frisbee golf which made Richie happy. Jacob did a lot of driving up in Idaho working on his driving hours. I love drivers ed time. It is so unstressful!
Ross came home the next weekend and we made a trip up to Nampa to see family there. We spent time with Grandpa and Grandma Ewing on work projects, lunch at Golden Corral and Grandpa sharing his life history with us. It was a wonderful weekend.
During the rest of that week we worked hard to finish up purchasing all the items Ross needed for his mission. It seemed like a never ending list to me. Somehow Ross managed to fit everything into the two suitcases and stay under the weight limits. I thought that was a miracle.
Saturday, April 25th we had family pictures taken in the morning, Jeffery's Eagle court of honor was in the afternoon. The rest of the day was spent playing and visiting with family and friends.
Sunday, April 26th, Ross spoke in sacrament meeting. There were three other wonderful speakers and an absolutely gorgeous violin/piano number. The spirit abounded in the meeting and we were all enriched. Lots of family and friends came over afterwards. It was a bit tricky feeding them all in the house since it was raining, but somehow we managed (another one of those miracles).
Wednesday, April 29th, we headed to the MTC before noon. Right as we got there the fire alarms went off, so we were outside for a short bit. Then we headed into the room to watch the Mormon ads before the meeting started. I think Ross was ready for the meeting to be over with, so he could get going. Parting hugs were soon made and Ross hurriedly made for the exit door with a grin from ear to ear on his face. How can parents be sad when their child is so happy? It was a good day.
Life just keeps going no matter how many grand events you have going on. School still has to be done and the lawns mowed. We just keep working at life every day. It is good.
We are enjoying having Jason, David's nephew live with us for the summer. You can never have too many boys around. I guesss this catches us up on events. Some day maybe I'll take time to write some of my thoughts.
Friday, March 13, 2009
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