Challenge Accepted - Sunflower Challenge 2019

As if one garden challenge wasn't enough this year, here is another. It involves sunflowers, which I love, so of course I jumped at the opportunity to invite a variety of sunflower into my garden! This challenge was presented by Nick's Allotment Diary and contains three categories, all of which I plan to get involved in:

1. Tallest Sunflower
2. Biggest Seed Head
3. Most Unusual

By using #SunflowerChallenge2019, you can search other entrants. I planted my seeds on April 30 and have until October 1 to let these beauties bloom.

My entries for most unusual will be Velvet Queen, Italian White and Autumn Beauty Mix. Entries for biggest seed head and possibly tallest will be American Giant Hybrid, Pike's Peak and Mammoth.

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Challenge Accepted - The Great Garden Experiment 2019

I spend a lot of time on YouTube and came across a new garden challenge posted by Cara Grandle that I was grabbed by. The Great Garden Experiment 2019 has three parts, with a question associated to each.

1. What are you doing for the first time?
2. What frustration/challenge are you determined to conquer?
3. What are you growing into or is there a new skill you're bringing to your garden journey?

The Three Sister's method of planting is a first for me as well as corn, which is an integral part of the method. As mentioned before, I spend a lot of time on YouTube and a lot of it is watching videos of other gardeners. Many use the Three Sister's method which, upon doing some research, has been a method used by Native Americans for a very long time. You can read more from The Farmer's Almanac. This combination of corn, beans and squash will be seeded in my front flower bed that I'm sacrificing for the food garden expansion. It's not a real sacrifice considering I couldn't win the battle with weeds in that area - I just can't understand why that area gives me the most trouble with weeds!

Now on to the carrots. The first time I tried to grow carrots from seeds, they came up very tiny and had a small yield. Within the last year I went forward with a second attempt - it was a complete fail. Needless to say, carrots absolutely fill the requirement for question number two; a frustration I'm determined to conquer. This time I plan to plant a few different types of carrots, each in the ground and in a container. I want no room for error!

The third question was addressed with my new raised bed, but I think it can be addressed better with another new addition to my garden that I will reveal in a future post. Stay tuned!

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Food Garden - Fall/Winter 2018

(L-R) Dragon Tongue beans, Green Arrow peas, Blue Lake beans, Oregon Sugar Pod peas.

Blue Lake bean being planted.

Left: Dragon Tongue began to sprout a week later. I also planted Royal Burgundy beans to the right of them but they weren't showing signs of growth. I decided to pop in a few more seeds, this time I disregarded the instructions that said to soak them before planting. Whether that was the factor that caused them to grow, I do not know, but they finally showed growth a week later.

You can see a bean sprout popping up on the bottom here. These popped up in less than a week and I didn't soak these beans before planting, so I think I'm not going to worry about that step with beans in the future.

And here is the newest photo of the Burgundy bean sprout taken this morning. Quite a start.

Oregon Sugar Pod peas have done quite well. They look very similar to snow peas in the photo on the seed package so I'm hoping they taste similar because I love those.

Top row: Bibb lettuce, looseleaf lettuce blend, red and green Romain blend. Bottom row: Brussel sprouts, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce and Buttercrunch. I also purchased some garden labels to help keep track of what is where and they've proven to be very helpful.

I planted my Gold Mighty Mustard in this container which was already housing a sweet Lilac bell pepper which I purchased as a tiny plant at the Green Scene Expo back in April.

This is how the purple bell pepper looked in April. I've read on the internet that many people have had problems with bell peppers coming through this year, so at least I know I'm not alone. 

Not long after planting the mustard, I noticed tons of plants popping up. I was so surprised and confused until I thought on it a bit and realized these are not all mustard sprouts. After a little more time (and a bit of a taste), I could tell the difference between the mustard seedlings and what I've determined are radish sprouts, reviving themselves from Spring. A tiny snail managed to sneak into this photo, on the right  rim of the container.

I've also put these seeds in a container but they're slow to grow, so no progress pictures yet.

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Sweet Pea Teepee - Origins

I've been working on this project for half a year and am finally ready to introduce it to My Fairy Folks. I was inspired by a YouTube video from Away With The Fairy channel where she formed a teepee shape out of garden canes in a container and transplanted sweet peas that would climb up. With that inspiration, I decided to go bigger and start from seeds.

I cleared out a large area in Rosemary Park to start my project. This was September 28, 2017.

I brought out this wicker basket as a guideline to the base of the teepee.

These sticks were gathered from my yard and plucked of all their leaves. They will serve as the height guideline and support for the growing sweet peas that came in this seed packet.

With the area and height set in place (and tied with a pretty purple ribbon), I watered the area and waited.

This photo was taken in October, 2017. There's life!

Also from October, a few more sweet peas sprout from the base of the teepee.

This photo was taken in December 2017. Three months of growth, each of the stakes have sweet peas ready to climb. On the stick in the rear left, you can see the sweet pea is very eager to be first to the top.

In February, 2018, I added some string between the sticks to help the sweet peas fill in the empty spaces. In retrospect, I think I should have added more sticks to help fill in the base of the teepee, but I think this alteration has helped to aid their growth.

From this angle you can see where I plan to have the opening of the teepee. I've also planted some ferns to the left and right of the entrance to make it stand out more. Once this teepee is complete, I'll clean out the center for some great photo opportunities for my fairies. We had some heavy winds during the last six months so I'm very surprised this teepee withstood the elements!

I plan to have some more updated photos of this area by April. This project has made some wonderful progress in the last month and I'm so excited to share! Do you have any projects you're currently working on that you'd like to share with us? Feel free to email me your story and some photos so we can add them to the blog.

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Return of the Pigweed

The Mystery Plant from November that was identified in January (read previous post) as Amaranthus (aka Pigweed) has made a new appearance in my yard. I loved the look of it and seeded along my back fence line, hoping it would provide a full, beautiful way to block out my neighbor's yard. Well, here's an update.

None of the seeds that I planted took, despite all my efforts. However, you can see that the plant did bloom in an unconventional place; between the pavers of my nice seating area. So, I sacrificed my seating area so that these plants could take it over, only in the hopes of harvesting more seeds to try the fence line again. 

They've absolutely taken over this portion of my yard. See that fence back there? The original plant was in one of the cement blocks that isn't even in the picture (off to the left). I'm thankful that this is as far as they got, and really hope that my second attempt at the fence line will go better.

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