Garden Update #2 – Go away “tweet tweets!”

Posted By: Ashley

I haven’t spent as much time in my garden as I would like, just enough to check on my seedlings a few times during the week. This past weekend, however, we were able to get a lot done. My partner expanded the bed by about 2 feet which is really helpful because the vegetables we've decided to grow need a lot of space. I also got most of my seeds in the ground and did some weeding.

My dilemma now is how to keep the darn birds (or as my son Elonzo calls them, “tweet tweets”) from picking at my seedlings. Elonzo calls the seedlings “babies” because I told him not to touch the baby plants, it’s hilarious. Anyways,  I’ve been spending too much time reading garden blogs about how to keep pestering critters at bay and this weekend I’m going to try a few of their suggestions. The first is to hang something shiny and moving nearby, like stringing up some old CDs or those silver pinwheels we used to love as kids (where in the world can I buy those nowadays?). I may also buy a couple rubber snakes to put around. I need to do something soon though because almost all of my seeds have been planted and I've started to see some little sprouts! I also need to buy several more garden fences from the Dollar Tree.

If you look closely, my okra plants have started to sprout!

So far I’ve planted tomatoes, okra, bell peppers and onions. I heard read that onions like to be on the edge of gardens so I’ve planted them in one long row. You can see the row, as I’ve separated the onions from the rest of the garden using rocks I dug out of the bed.

My tomato seedlings aren’t doing as well as I would like. I transplanted them way too early and a lot of them experienced root shock and are struggling to survive. I’ve been trying to nurse them back to life and planted a few more seeds to make up for the ones I’ve lost. This whole garden adventure actually started with one of those grow your own mini pot of tomatoes from the Target dollar section (love it!). So my tomato plants were actually started in one of those tiny pots. In the future, I’ll invest in a seedling starter kit and give each plant its own space to grow. It was a disaster trying to separate all the roots of the plants growing in that tiny pot.

Growing tomatoes in a tiny pot

One of my stronger tomato seedlings

I still have to plant my hot peppers. They needed to be started indoors 8 weeks early. So I should have started them months ago, oops. I still have about 5 more weeks with them inside then I’ll transplant them outside. They thrive in hot weather though, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem if I plant them in June. My goal is to produce enough that we’ll have plenty to freeze for the months to come. My partner LOOOOOVES spicy food (me, not so much). You can also freeze okra, so we’ll be doing a lot of that.

Frozen hot peppers.

I’m really enjoying my first gardening attempt. My muscles are sore after spending a few hours digging and weeding and it has been a really peaceful and quiet activity for me (unless Elonzo is “helping me” by collecting clumps of dirt and rocks in my watering can or pulling out my garden fences). It’s given me some time to reflect and appreciate nature a little more. Not to mention, it sparks my creativity and I'm now thinking about my next project. There’s still so much I want to do to our beautiful and HUGE backyard, like add a play section for the little man, some outdoor furniture so we can host some backyard BBQs and some lighting (although there’s only so much we can do with a rental). Who knows…there may even be a backyard wedding here someday ;) I’ll keep you posted.

Backyard facing the house.

Backyard looking away from house.

Don't you love how Elonzo always seems to be in my pictures? lol.

How’s your garden growing? Do you have any suggestions for keeping birds and other critters away?