Gathering Earthbox Supplies on a Rainy Day

It was cloudy and rainy this morning, so our goal of preparing more of our above ground beds and setting up our Earthboxes today had to be put on hold. We decided to pick up the rest of the garden lime, organic plant food, and potting soil instead.

The rain turned out to be a blessing. It turned out to be our lucky day after all.

We headed out to our favorite locally owned gardening shop and quickly obtained our Epsoma Garden Lime and Fox Farm Organic Fertilizer. The shop did not have any of the Pro Mix Organic Potting Soil that worked so well for us last year, but worked in our favor big time today.

I asked one of the employees if they had any Pro Mix Organic in the back somewhere. The answer was a quick, "No." But he did say that they had some Miracle-Gro Organic Choice Potting Mix (OMRI certified).

I said, "I was hoping for some Pro Mix."

He replied, "How does $3.99 a bag sound for 1 cubic foot bags?"

Sold.

We picked up 22 bags. (I'll bet he's wishing he'd have asked how many bags we wanted first.) :-)

An early picture from last year's set-up taken in late May 2012.

Spring Gardening Peparations

It's Easter weekend and temperatures are in the mid-50's. Here in Michigan we're not out of the woods yet for an occasional morning frost, so we will have to hold off on planting anything significant that is frost sensitive. But I couldn't resist doing some garden prepping today anyway.

We added an additional above ground bed today.

These modular kits were purchased at Home Depot. They are economical and readily available, but the best part is that as your gardening efforts expand your gardening can easily expand also.

We also prepared our Earthbox gardening area with some additional leveling pedestals. These were actually recycled from our backyard. The previous owners used the pavers in the backyard, so re-purposing them was pretty easy.

In the next couple of weeks we will finish leveling the pavers and prepare our Earthboxes. The backyard deck works well because our vegetables have a practical place to "climb".

My Backyard Earthbox Garden - Jalapenos

The jalapeno harvest was tremendous this year. I planted 12 seeds in an Earthbox and ended up culling several to make room for 6 jalapeno plants.

I attribute the bountiful amount of peppers this year to the dry weather we experienced from early June to mid-August. The picture below was taken after the weekly harvests started to decline as the weather cooled here in the early fall. These covered about 1/3 of the large collander I use for harvesting. Throughout the year I lost count of how many overflowing collanders of jalapenos I actually harvested, but but it was at least 3 1/2 amounting to hundreds of peppers.

Jalapenos grown my backyard Earthbox garden

Jalapenos halved and ready for drying in the oven

We had a unique problem...what to do wtih all those jalapenos? A few Google searches later and we decided to dry them and grind them in a coffee grinder to make jalapeno powder.

It's a simple 4 step process:

•  Halve them
• Pop them on a cookie sheet
• With the oven on the lowest setting, dry them for 4 hours or so
• If they are not dry, put them back in the oven for another hour or so

These are not "exact" times. You would do best to keep an eye on them and pull them out early if they begin to develop a "burnt" look.



Homemade jalapeno powder

Caution: If you are going to handle jalapenos with your bare hands, be careful. Don't rub your eyes. Don't touch your lips, face, or other "sensitive areas". Surgical gloves make handling hot peppers much easier.

My Backyard Earthbox Garden - Cantaloupes

Cantaloupes grown in backyard Earthbox

Based on cantaloupes grown in my parents' and grandmothers' gardens growing up, these didn't look ripe enough to me. I was wrong. I harvested 5, but 2 of them were too ripe to eat.

I didn't know how the melons would turn out in the Earthbox, but the results were actually o.k. These were planted as part of the Earthbox "second season" in late July. During the last few weeks here in Southeast Michigan it's been on the cooler side and sun has been scarce. Next year I think I'll try them in the spring season and hopefully attain a little better results.

Backyard Farming (Gardening)

Whether you call it farming or gardening makes no difference to me. I rather like the sound of farming, but based on overall scale it's really probably closer to gardening than farming. Nonetheless I am growing food in my small urban backyard.

I have neighbors on all four sides and some of them are a little on the "particular" side (some might call it "picky" even). A few of them mow their yards twice per week and I have no doubt if it rained a little bit more one of them would probably go to mowing three times a week.

With that as a backdrop, I wanted to share some pictures of our small backyard food production strategy which includes 10 Earthboxes, a 4' x 4' above ground bed, a 4' x 20' in ground bed, 4 miscellaneous containers, and a canvas bag hanging from a metal pole made for holding bird feeders.

Strawberrie in a repurposed flower pot

A hanging bag laying horizontal

A "hanging" bag

An Earthbox growing peas



Above ground bed with onions, radishes, carrots, and two blackberry bushes.

 Folks in states located south of Michigan are probably harvesting produce in large quantities at this point of May, but we had two nights of hard frost no less than 2 weeks ago. I grow impatient at this point of the northern growing season, but you know what they say, "good things come to those who wait".

Earthboxes in the Backyard

We tried our first Earthbox last year and had such good results I purchased 9 more.  This weekend we planted 5 of them in the back yard. Next weekend the plan is prepare the other 5 in the side yard.



Earthbox gardening

The white cover sticks out like a sore thumb, but I was so enthusiastic about getting things planted that I already planted the cucumber seeds before making the final decision to go with black.  In Florida it's so hot we use the white covers, but it's still occasionally "nippy" during spring time in Michigan so black it is.

Preparing for Gardening Season

Cucumbers in my Earthbox last season

We just ordered 4 more Earthboxes in preparation for gardening season. Earthbox.com has a free shipping promotion right now. They are $29.95 when you order 2 or more, which is cheaper than local stores.

That makes 10 total Earthboxes, a hanging planter, 5 hydroponics tubs, and pretty soon a new 4 ft x 4 ft aquaponics system. I'm also planning to add some rhubarb, blackberry bushes, and a new type of apple tree pretty soon.

My wife thinks we might be going overboard [:-)

First Cucumber Harvest

You may recall that we planted four organic cucumber seeds in our first Earthbox on January 29th. 

Today, 65 days after planting the seeds, we harvested the first cucumber.  Measuring 8 1/2 inches, the cucumber certainly looks appetizing, but a taste test will need to wait for tomorrow since we had homemade pizza for supper tonight.  (I've tried lots of different of pizza toppings, but never cucumber.)

We're training the cumcumbers to grow vertically instead of horizontally.  We decided to use an inexpensive tomato cage available at Lowes and Home Depot.  It makes mowing and weedeating around them easier and it keeps the cucumbers off the ground.

A closer inspection of the plants revealed 4 other small cucumbers in early development.  I think we'll be rolling in cucumbers in a week or two barring too much bad luck.

A few of the leaves on the cucumber plants have developed some discoloration. :( :(  There aren't any visible bugs or infestations on the top or underside of the leaves.  It's not on all of the leaves, but it's quite visible some of he older ones.  The newest leaves appear to be untouched by whatever it is - so far. 

After a little research, I think I've identified the leaf problems as anthracnose (a fungus).  It's very common in cucumbers, squash, melons, and other cucurbits. 

The weather in West Central Florida has been pretty wet, humid, and hot.  Apparently those are perfect conditions for anthracnose fungus. Darn the luck.