Jane & Ken's Patio Plantation

4/17 I started the mushroom kit. It’s pretty simple to do. Open the package, soak in water, then put aside. Moisten twice daily for ten days. 4/26 Here is what it looks like. Theoretically, the mushroom should be ready to eat tomorrow. Have to be washed and cooked. I’ll give it a try. In the future, I think I’ll try something a little more adventurous like growing them in a pot on the front porch.  

  Created by Copilot Last week, we started some vegetable seeds in a starter tray. We planted snow peas and cucumbers. They started sprouting promptly, maybe just a few days, but when we took the cover off, some of the cells had hairy-looking fungus in it. We wanted to eliminate the fungus, and I proposed using a small amount of spray mold killer in the cell. However, the mold killer we possessed was not food-safe, and Jane was anxious about proceeding with that approach. She searched online and discovered an unexpected and interesting treatment, which we decided to try. Here is a link that describes the use of chamomile tea to treat fungus in the garden How to Use Chamomile Fungicide to Stop Plant Diseases in Their Tracks Jane tried it, and it worked. On doing some of my own research online, I discovered other methods for treating mold on seedlings. Unsurprisingly, a dilute bleach solution was one of the suggested treatments, though I wondered whether it might pose a risk of t...

  Onion

 Today we did our first serious Patio garden work. We planted potatoes and onions in the raised bed and carrots and scallions in a couple of containers. Later in the day, we planted peas and cucumbers in the starter beds . Here’s what it looked like. Getting the soil ready A row of seed potatoes Planting seed onions Seed onions Done out The deer proof planter Finishing up for the day: peas and cukes WYSIWYG      

Made a list of what to plant and when. This is what I came up with: ·         ToTomatoes o    plant in May? o    Any time indoors or 5/4 outdoors o    In cabinet ·        Corn o    plant in containers o    3 rd week of May ·        Potatoes o    Plant in raised bed o    Any time now ·        Onions o    Plant in raised bed o    Any time now ·        Scallions o    Back porch o    Container o    Any time ·        snow peas o    back yard o    container w trellis o    May 1  ·        mushrooms o    indoors o    any time ·         cucumbers. o    Cabinet o ...

  Jane ordered this on Facebook from a local craftsman. He delivered it, and we paid $250.00 plus $40.00 for delivery. 

  Got a lot more stuff in      o    Seed potato, these came in the mail, already paid      o    Seed onion. These came in the mail, already paid      o    Containers. Six of these cost $19.99 at Amazon      o    Burpee plant starters (72 cells each). Two of these cost $37.34 at Amazon For the day, paid $57.33

  We went home depot today and picked up some supplies. We got four  bags of Miracle Gro raised bed soil, some tools for working the soil, gloves and some other odds and ends. Spent $56.17

 Preparing the patio and getting the first planter. Today, we started getting the patio ready for the warm season and garden. We set out a couple of buckets to collect rain water, and arranged the furniture. Jane  bought a raised bed for the potatoes and onions. Got it on Facebook Marketplace for $65.00 including delivery. 

What to plant. Started looking around the Internet for information on what kind of produce we would be interested in and what kind of sunlight would be necessary to have to grow this produce. Currently, (and this is subject to change as time goes on), we have selected the following produce that we want to grow. Tomatoes of some sort. Potatoes, onions, scallions, snow peas, mushrooms, sweet corn, carrots, and cucumbers. I decided to go ahead and order some of what would be needed for these from Amazon now. Some of them will take a week to receive, and some a few days. Specifically, the products I ordered from Amazon are: Mushrooms growing kit 14.93 Seeds for: 23.38 sugar snap peas cucumbers carrots scallions Onions bulbs and red potatoes 23.63 Will wait until later for the tomatoes and corn. It's probably too cool for these yet.  Total cost: $61.94