A Few Projects and More Plants

With my SFG up and running, it only took me a day or two before I became bored, and needed more projects to work on hehehe... I thought I'd share a few things I've done. The first thing I did was construct a shade cover for my broccoli. I had an extra dowel left over from creating a shade cover for my salad table, so I cut it into 3rds and stuck in the soil behind the broccoli's. Next I took leftover hardware mesh, leftover bed sheet fabric (I'm so glad I saved this!), and zip ties. Used the zip ties to attach the fabric to the mesh, and made a "lean to" shade cover. Not the prettiest thing, but I was able to make it at no additional cost, and it does great for shading my broccoli babies. The only problem I've run into is on breezy days (um, most afternoons) it occasionally gets blown over, but always onto the concrete and not the plants. I had been doing some reading on composting when my brain was too full of content on growing plants, and decided to attempt composting. There is a perfect spot in the back right corner of the yard, and is partally hidden by the orange tree/bush. The biggest problem with this spot was the existing dirt pile I had to remove. I was hoping it was an old compost heap and I could use to get my pile going, but it turned out to be one big dense clay mass. On Mother's Day, one of my "presents" was being able to spend a couple hours digging in the dirt while Daddy played inside with the boys. The picture below is after I already started chopping away at it. For some reason I always forget to take pictures before I start doing things... Taking a break... Finally! Three hours of digging, and a few blisters later, here is the result. This weekend (ie tomorrow) Hubby will saw the other free pallets I got off of craigslist for the walls of the bin, and attach them for me. This was The Husband's project last Saturday. The deck was looking pretty ragged, so he took the sheers off of the side of the canopy,removed a few non-working strands of white lights, trimmed the pear and plum trees in the back, and swept the deck and pillars. It's finally a nice spot to go and relax! I was at OSH getting blood meal for my pepper plants, and although I knew I shouldn't have, I went to look at the veggies they had... I ended up bringing home 3 canetloupe babies. LOL I don't know *what* I'm going to do with these guys, but I couldn't resist! If they make it long enough, I will either find one heck of a creative way to trellis, or I'll move the container to a dirt spot on the west side of the yard. I haven't done any reading on canteloupe, so I don't know if I have them too close. Hopefully this 15" pot will suffice... We shall see! Lastly, my sweet potatoes... Ok. Again, my green thumb impulses and boredom got the better of me. I couldn't help it! I love sweet potatoes, it's the perfect time to get them a' growin', and I have a big clay pot that was here when we moved in. So. I decided to conduct a sweet potato experiment. I bought 2 Beauregard sweet potatoes from the grocery store and stuck one in the pot using Mel's mix with sand/pea pebbles added to help with drainage. I stuck the second potato with two corn cob holders and put in a container of water. HAHAHA! After looking at my soaking potato, it felt like it wanted to be looking back at me, so I gave it some eyes. Oh, and Boy Wonder #1 gave it some ears. teehee Few! Another long updating post... Almost up-to-date! My next post I'll be showing a few current pictures of my SF and container garden. Ciao!