Update on the Garden

We are growing things here, and it's a lot of fun. Container gardening is not nearly as labor intensive as traditional methods, so it's also been a lot of sitting around and waiting, but we are starting to see results:

Remember these? They have been thriving in the bokashi. Only one thyme plant survived, but it's growing gangbusters, so that's ok. I'll probably plant another one at some point. The stuff around the plants is actually dead flowers and leaves from the tree near our trailer that has been the bane of my existence lately. I went out to clean it up again several weeks ago, and it struck me that the stuff would make great mulch. So, I piled it up outside our shed, and have been using it to great success.

The below picture shows off my biggest excitement about these plants:

That little flower is hopefully going to turn into a jalapeno in the coming weeks. There are about ten more little buds growing on both plants, so I'm crossing my fingers we will be enjoying them in chili this summer.

The basil is also looking great. These two plants having been providing enough of the herb for a meal or two a week. One of them keeps trying to flower, so that's been a pain to keep up with, but it's worth it. Wyatt likes eating the leaves right off the plant, so I let him have it every so often. Number 10 cans work really well for stuff like this. I'm using another one in the house to grow lettuce, and it's a perfect size for that. I think I do need to put these on a tarp or move them into the grass, however, as they are leaving rust marks on the concrete. The one inside isn't rusting out like this. We have very high humidity here.

This next picture is of the raised bed I built. I brought some wood over on the plane back in January to do this. I had to do it in two foot lengths so it would fit in our bags, so it's smaller than I want, but I have enough to build another onto it when I have enough bokashi to start it. The back piece was actually one we found in our shed when we moved in. I think it was leftover from when they built the stairs.

What's growing in the box are two bell pepper plants in front, a recently transplanted tomato in the back left (I started it long before I had a place to plant it outside, so it's a little worse for wear right now), and a couple squash seeds just starting out in the top right. Wyatt planted those, and was very excited to see them sprouting this morning. I plan on making some kind of support with rope attached to the back of that tall piece of wood and the stairs behind it, then draping the vines and tomato plant over it when they are big enough to need support. The box on the left are our chive plants, which are coming along nicely. They are finally getting big enough to harvest in greater quantities, so we'll be doing potato salad soon, I think.

Inside the box is mostly bokashi, with a layer of manure compost on top. The store had some for sale about a month ago, and when I discovered it was only two dollars, I bought two bags. It's been a pain to find enough decent dirt to cover the bokashi like you are supposed to. Now I don't have to do that anymore, plus it gives the plants a little extra nutrition. The bokashi seems to be breaking down really well. I left it for two weeks after putting it in there before planting the tomato and seeds. When I dug into it, I almost couldn't tell it had once been a bunch of food scraps.

Finally, to show I don't always grow just for eating, we have the flower seeds I won at a baby shower soon after moving here. I let Wyatt plant them, and we've called this plant his ever since. I had thrown out the packaging right after we planted them, and quickly forgot what they were called. When they came up and tried to climb all through our blinds, I looked them up and discovered we were raising a black eyed susan plant. It's having fun on our front porch, also in a number 10 can: