Garden Plans 2013

Ok, I'm going to try to keep everything on this post.

1. ZUCCHINI Plant fewer zucchini. 3-4 instead of 7. 2012 had way to much zucchini. I also made enough zucchini relish to feed a small army and I'm the only one who eats it...

2. JUST SAY NO No pole beans, no corn, no cherry tomatoes, no banana peppers, no pumpkins.

3. TOMATOES Space tomatoes better. Keep to 2-3 varieties only. Black Krim are a must. Maybe do a beefsteak or other slicer. It doesn't make sense to can sauce when it's so cheap to buy.

4. JALAPENOS Plant fewer jalapenos. The Cowboy Candy was a hit, but only a few of us eat it. Cage jalapenos when they are little.

5. PEPPERS Look into other varieties of bell peppers, like orange.

6. MULCH Can't do cocoa mulch this year. It worked well, but now we have a puppy who will eat mulch and cocoa mulch is dangerous to dogs. Maybe newspaper?

7. BERRIES Figure out a place to put blueberry bushes and maybe a blackberry bush that will be out of the way if we ever get horses again. I don't want to have to relocate 5 year old berry bushes.

8. RHUBARB See Berries

Snow!

5 inches of snow last night.

The chickens said "Heck No" and sat inside clucking at me.

Sprinkles peeked out.

And still said "Heck NO!"

They did come out later, after it stopped snowing and the sun came out :)

Garden 2012 Recap

We tore the garden out two weeks ago. I need to figure out the totals and then I'll get them posted.

The cocoa mulch I added at the beginning of the year has broken down nicely. It will add nutrients etc when it's tilled in. Due to the cost though, maybe do straw for rows next year.

All in all, I think the garden was successful this year. Not bad for the first time having a real garden here and hard as a rock, heavily compacted soil.

Next year -

Add a least one more plot
Maybe put pink pumpkins in the 3 Sisters Plot after/with zucchini
Spread out tomatoes, this year they were way too crowded
Black Krim tomatoes are a must
Cherry tomatoes are a NO

Update: 

Zucchini: 151.51 lbs

Pumpkin: 0.65 lbs

Jalapenos: 5.8 lbs

Green Bell Pepper: 2.25 lbs

Red Bell Pepper: 0 lbs

Sweet Banana Pepper: 3.73 lbs

Beefmaster Tomato: 0 lbs

Plum Tomato: 0 lbs

Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato: 0 lbs

Black Krim Tomato: 0 lbs

Rutgers Tomato: 0 lbs

Carbon Tomato: 0 lbs

Pantano Romanesco Tomato: 0 lbs

Unfortunately I did not get a good measurement of my tomatoes. I had tons and tons though.

Fishy Ishy pt 2

My local Petsmart got a fish delivery today, so we picked up some more male guppies. They got more Blue Wag platys but I didn't care for their color. I'll check back in a week or so. The $1 sale is on until 9/23.

Added 3 yellow guppies ($1 sale, Petsmart)

2 Tequila Sunrise guppies ($1 sale, Petsmart)

3 Turquoise guppies ($1 sale, Petsmart)

Fishy Ishy

I've had a 55 gallon fish tank for about 7 years.

Currently we have:

1 pleco ("Mr Clean", about 5-6 years old, it's about 7 inches long)

1 upside down catfish ("Upsie", about 5-6 years old, has been missing fins/barbs for years)

6 homebred Sunset platys

I don't have pictures of these yet... it's very hard to photograph a moving school of fish!

Today we added:

2 Blue Wag platys ($1.99, Petsmart)
2 Blonde Delta fancy guppies (male, $1 sale, Petsmart)

I will be adding more fancy guppy males and different colored platys soon. I'm considering a small school of Julii or albino corydoras too.

Wordless Wednesday - We Adopted!

Tomatoes are Ready!

The purplish ones are Black Krim. They are heirloom and very tasty! Also shown are Beefsteak, Rutgers, Roma and Sweet 100 Cherry. Oh, and ever-present zucchini :)