Jane & Ken's Patio Plantation

It's been a while since I wrote anything for this blog, on the one hand. On the other hand, not that much has happened. We had set out tomato seeds and corn in the little Burpee starter trays. A couple of weeks ago, Jane put them out. The plants did not survive. She also put some pepper plants in a couple of the small containers where we had some peas and carrots that weren't doing well. June was kind of cool and rainy, so I didn't get out there that much. It wasn't gonna be that much fun. Went out today to see how things are going, and it's not too bad. It's been very hot and not terribly rainy, so everything was kind of dry. The onions are wilted and probably need to be pulled, but I'm going to see if they green up with some watering. The potatoes planted alongside the onions in the raised bed are doing pretty well. The scallions in one of the small containers were thriving, but now they are looking pretty wilted and may need to be pulled too. But again, I...

Well, a little time has passed.Last week, several days ago, anyway, Jane put the tomatoes and corn into the Burpee seed starter. Yesterday comma I started a new mushroom kit. Here's what the garden looks like now. Waiting for the seed starter kit for the corn and tomatoes to be ready to transplant it outside. Corn and tomato starter Potatoes and onions Cucumbers Peas, carrots, scallions

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      

  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

Getting started with a patio garden for vegetables Don't know why Jane decided she wanted this, but one day she sent me a picture of some planters that can be used for a vegetable garden on a patio or other small apartment dweller space. I liked the idea and told her to get at these planters. One was a raised bed and the other was more like an outdoor cabinet for plants. The idea of that one was to make it safe from deer. It's not likely we're going to have any deer on ouir patio, but we might have geese, raccoons, or other varmints so I thought that getting one of each would be a good place to start. Where to plant a patio garden Our apartment is on ground level with a walkout patio that faces the west. That seemed like the best place to put planters as it probably gets more sunlight than our eastern exposure. We are surrounded on north and south sides by other apartments so there was no opportunity there. What to plant in a patio garden Our eastern face is really just a l...