I began seeding this weekend. I started Lettuce, Celery, Chives, Spinach and Onions. To spread out the harvest I planted only about a quarter of my intended crop. I'll keep the seeds indoors until they get their second set of leaves.
I used starter soil. I don't expect it to hurt but I hope it helps.
Apparently avocados are fairly simple to grow. The process is a lot like starting a potato. Place the pit pointy side up, submerge the lower inch in water, holding the rest of it up with toothpicks.
I have done this and placed it in my south facing window.
It looks like I scored the side of the pit when cutting it out of the fruit. I'll have to see if this causes a problem.
As with the cotton, I am growing another popular North Carolina crop, tobacco. There are more varieties of tobacco than I realized. I chose Orinoco as the description calls it a “tobacco with thick textured, crinkly leaves that produces a rich brown pipe tobacco that is a favorite of pipe smokers worldwide.” Since I enjoy pipe smoking this seems like a good choice.
I've never cured tobacco either. Traditionally it is air dried which takes a long time. A newer method used my industry now is to dry by means of heaters. Since I'm in no rush and I have such a small amount if I attempt to cure any (and lets be honest, I probably will) I'll do it the slow way.
Someday if I'm really industrious I may try to roll cigars but that's complicated, I think I'll stick to my pipe for now.
I am starting the seeds indoors like I'm supposed to. The seeds are so small I used tweezers with place them on the soil. I have chosen to grow nine plants this year, to ensure growth I extra seeds. I'll thin once things have grown some.
I felt that with my garden this year I should plant some retro crops. What is more North Carolina than Cotton and Tobacco?
Did you know that cotton comes in more colors than just white? I understand there are green, blue, yellow, brown and even pink varieties. This year I chose a green variety, Erlene's Green.
Even if I can't actually do anything with the cotton the experience of growing it should be fun.
If you've looked at the pages for my two garden beds you have a pretty good idea where I'm planning to plant things.
I received my package of seeds this week. Thankfully, each packet has instructions on it for seeding guidelines. I will try to update and adjust my calendar as required. Below is a list of whatI purchased this year. I should have enough to plant this year and still plant roughly the same amount next year (if I can store them properly).
I was looking to find a rain barrel at a decent price, but it was proving difficult. I don't really want to pay $80-120.
This past Saturday I was playing paintball over at a friends house and happened upon a barrel in his woods. I brought it up to him and before I could ask he offered it to me.
There was some patching required, notably almost the entire base was cut out and in the top was missing its screw in plug.
To fix the missing plug I used a disc cut from a plastic paint can lid on each side and silicone gel to hold it all together. I filed in the whole gap with silicon, I'm not certain that was necessary.
I also added a faucet. I filled the barrel up 1/4 of the way and all the seals on that end seem to be holding.
I will finish the rain barrel by covering the hole in the top with some mesh to keep out mosquitoes and other debris. I'll place the whole thing on a few blocks and after I install gutters I'll run the downspout into the barrel. I have a fairly large surface area on my roof so I should fill the barrel with less than an inch of rain.
On Friday I purchased some landscape bricks for the front garden. Using the diagram I had created in AutoCAD I decided that I only needed to buy 55 bricks to go with the 12 I already had. I loaded up with my allotment of gray 12″ landscape bricks, nearly crushing my suspension in the process, and brought them home. Unfortunately the 12 bricks I already had were brown. Oh well, I'll just put the brown ones in the back, maybe nobody will notice.
As usually happens, real life is different than the virtual world. Luckily it worked out in my favor, after laying everything out I ended up with three extra bricks.
I had originally intended to lay them out to find their proper positions then level the ground and lay plastic sheets down and relay the bricks. After finally getting the bricks where I wanted them I decided that it would be too much work to take them all up and try to level first. Instead I found the bricks that seemed to be most un-even and leveled them out. I abandoned the plastic sheet altogether.
To combat weeds between the bricks I used the power of my terrible clay soil. I dug up some wet clay and proceeded to pack it in between the bricks. Forty-five minutes later, with my hands caked in mud I had finished. I think it will hold and hopefully nothing will ever grow there. Ever.
Between the beds I am laying a path. I will fill the area, a couple inches thick, with white pebbles. I don't want to have grass growing up here either. I removed the good grass in small sod pieces and planted them in the yard where needed. The rest of the top soil I shoveled over into the beds. Again, I'm hoping the quality of clay will prevent weeds from growing there as well. This leads to one concern though, puddling. My solution is to slope the path slightly towards the yard and a sump (composed of a bucket with holes in the bottom, filled with rocks) that I'm putting right where the two paths intersect.
I got the Lowes coupon I had been expecting on Saturday. In a few days I'll use it to purchase top soil and a few other odds and ends I need. I plan to add 2 inches of top soil to the beds and roto-til it in.