Filed under: Austin, food, Garden, go green, Heath + Beauty, landscape architecture, lifestyle, outdoors | Tags: backyard gardens, boggy creek farm, east austin, eating locally, fresh produce, growing from seed, linkedin, local food, localvore, locavore, nasturtium, square foot gardening, the natural gardener, vegetable gardens
Rain and cool temps couldn’t keep us from another weekend of more gardening adventures on the East side.
It started Saturday morning, when Tyler and I opted to skip Boggy Creek. Instead we decided to head back out towards the Hill Country to pay a visit to our new favorite nursery & garden supply shop, The Natural Gardener. I had fallen victim to some impulse starter plant purchases at Whole Foods the previous week and my bamboo garden was in need of more soil before those plants could get a chance at life. Besides, it was just nice to get the heck out of Austin proper for a bit. It’s been nutty and depressing around here lately.
The warm spirit of the gardens must have loosened my wallet and my buying mood, because I left the store with a wallet $50 lighter, a copy of Texas Organic Vegetable Gardening, and a few more seed packets. I also got a few bags of mulch to dress up my pretty landscape beds. I don’t want my vines and shrubs and grasses and things to feel jealous of all the attention my garden is getting.
We topped off the bamboo bed & I planted spinach, a strawberry plant (we’ll see…), some arugula (sorry Boggy Creek, but I’m so addicted to your greens that I can’t afford to support the habit anymore!), Italian oregano, Mint Julep & a few more edamame plants. They’re nitrogen fixing - the edamame (soybeans), that is – so they’re good to have around for the soil’s sake.
the bamboo garden, planted!
And then, since I went and bought cantaloupe and summer squash, Tyler cut me a new bed around an old tree stump in the front yard. We amended it with some of the Hill Country soil mix from The Natural Gardener, though I have a feeling this soil is alerady incredibly rich with the decay of that old tree stump. I also threw in some nasturtium seeds, which should be beautiferous when it blooms (and is completely, totally edible!). While Tyler prepared the new bed, I raked up the front 1/4 of the yard to prepare for a splash of wildflower seeds that he had brought home from Austin Parks Foundation’s “It’s My Park!” Day. I’m excited to see what, if anything, pops up in another week or two!
New bed & native seed area
Filed under: Austin, food, Garden, go green, Heath + Beauty | Tags: backyard gardens, bamboo, eastside cafe, linkedin, raised bed gardens, raised planter, square foot garden, the natural gardener, vegetable gardens, vegetables
I am exhausted, and ravenous. This promises to be a short post. But I wanted to fill you all in on the latest development in my wee bitty garden – the addition of a bamboo planter!
Last week I transplanted some tomatoes and peppers seedlings to the square bed and planted 6 gladiolus bulbs that my kind, green-thumbed neighbor shared with me. Suddenly, my 4′ square was full.
The lure of exotic seeds found at Eastside Cafe’s garden shop this morning coupled with my desire to start some herbs motivated Tyler and I to take on a quick garden-building project this afternoon. I was torn about spending more $ on another bed. But then I remembered the crazy amount of bamboo that exists in some secret pockets over here on the East side. Tyler was on-board with the idea, so we jumped into his Jetta and went to harvest one of the many thriving bamboo patches nearby.
The garden still needs about 2 more bags of the Hill Country soil mix from the Natural Gardener, but I was glad that we were able to use the leftover 3 bags from our first build. We packed sticks & limbs behind the bamboo to help with soil & moisture retention. Hopefully it works! Check out the pictures below for our process and the final result.
Filed under: Austin, food, Garden, go green, Heath + Beauty, lifestyle | Tags: backyard gardens, eating locally, fresh produce, gardening, Johnson's Backyard Garden, local food, locavore, raised bed gardens, square foot gardening, urban farming, vegetable gardens
March is going to be an exciting month in the garden.
In the next two weeks I’ll be transplanting my tomato and pepper seedlings from their cozy window sill to the great outdoors. As long as our nights continue to stay above the 32 degree mark, I think they’ll be thrilled with the change of location. They’re getting large enough now that I’ve had to add (4) 4″ pots to my original two sill planters. This was mainly for the benefit of the tomatoes – the peppers have been slow-growing and are nowhere near crowding each other out for sunlight.
In the front yard my winter-weary lettuce, onions & edamame are thriving. After our morning at Johnson’s Backyard Garden, I came home and harvested the mature leaves off two of the lettuce plants (which yielded one ginormous bowl of salad that Tyler and I munched on for dinner last night). Here are a few pics of the garden and it’s offerings this weekend – stay tuned later in March for an update on the transplant process and to see what other veggies I’ve added to the menu! :)
Happy Edamame
The garden after harvesting.
The freshest salad you'll ever eat!
To see the garden’s full progression, check out these past posts:
Filed under: Austin, food, Garden, go green, Heath + Beauty, lifestyle, outdoors, personal | Tags: austin gardening, backyard gardens, CSA, Johnson's Backyard Garden, locavore, raised planter gardening, square foot gardening, vegetable gardens, vegetable seeds, work-share program
It’s been 2 weeks since my last update, and a full month since we first planted the garden back in January. I am pleased (and shocked) to report that everything is still alive and growing.
The last week has been pretty exciting. Since I left for Mexico, Austin hasn’t had any freezing temperatures overnight and my lettuce has been pretty happy about that. They’ve finally started to fill out a bit and I was able to pluck some leaves off of my green babies to use on tacos last night. The onion springs have really taken off, and in no time I expect them to be big enough to declare them as edible green onions. The REALLY big surprise this week was that my edamame seeds have sprouted. I’d given them up for dead. The package said that they like it hot – 60-90 degree temps to germinate. For kicks I threw a few seeds in the garden when we planted it in January. And of course, nothing happened. This week, something happened. Soy beans with legs are popping up all over the place. They look like dinosaur relics. It’s strange, and it’s beautiful. I’m amazed that this spring I could be eating edemame from a garden and not from a freezer bag. I’m not totally comfortable with this idea yet.
My indoors tomato and pepper seedlings are taking off too. I think I’m going to have to pot these up soon, they’re starting to look claustrophobic in their little window planter. The lower set of leaves are beginning to yellow as though they’re about to fall off, but I think this is okay considering they look nothing like tomato leaves and I’m pretty sure they served some sort of seedling function they don’t need anymore. Sort of like baby teeth. In any case, I’m going to pot them up sometime within the next week, just to make sure I don’t kill them.
In other gardening news, I came across another local urban farming discovery this week that I am totally, completely excited about: Johnson’s Backyard Garden. This is a 20-acre organic farm not far from my house (I love that all of these places are turning out to be right in my backyard!). They started out in central East Austin a few years ago with a 30′ x 50′ backyard garden that supported 20 CSA (community supported agriculture) subscriptions. In 2006 they moved out to their 20 acre farm and now support 450 weekly CSA boxes. Can you believe that? 450 CSA subscribers to this one little farm. I contacted the farm this week about participating in their work-share program on the weekends. I’m signed up to go out there for the first time on February 28th. I’ll be helping the Johnsons and their farm hands harvest & pack CSA boxes from 9am – 1pm, and in return for the work I’ll receive a share of the day’s vegetable takings. I’m really excited to see their operation and take part in the day’s activities. Who knows, maybe someday I will turn all of this knowledge into my own urban farm… 
