Is it totally weird how excited I am that today I got a composter! I spent the day today shopping for tomatoe cages, garden supplies, and than cole and i went with the truck to get a composter at home depo. It was 62 dollars before taxes and I am so happy to finally have one.

The idea has been there for a while , but it was not until my walk with Rae-Anne the other night when I finally decided. I want to be able to make my own fertilizer for our soil , flowers, fruit and veggies. I did some research and learnt about how it works and what you need to do.

We just got it home an hour ago and I have already started using it!  I read the booklet that came with it , on the way home in the truck. We already have a huge pile of dry lawn and garden trimmings in the back yard so that we can use as a our “brown” material. I placed the new composter beside it and lined the bottom with twigs and sticks like the book says. I brought a pale inside to put by our garbage and recycling in the kitchen. Since I made cole a salad for dinner tonight it already has scrapes in it!

It shall be an interesting process. You have to layer the composter with green material ( organic) like kitchen and produce scraps. With Brown material. Such as lawn and garden stuff.  Then you stir it or rotate it every 3 days or so. The composter is black and attracts, adsorbs and keeps very warm. Done right it should not smell or attract rodents which is what I was most worried about. I am just learning about the chemical reactions that take place, and what is produced. I am happy we have finally taken this step , to not only cut back on waste, but for our gardens.

Now I have to organize the kitchen to make it easier to sort through recycling, compost and garbage.

Let’s see what else did I do today? It was 30 degrees today and gorgeous out so I started my day off with a walk with a new friend. Then I ran to walmart and picked up 10 tomatoe cages. As my tomatoes sprouts are getting to big for the kits. I will have to pull off the weaker sprouts this weekend and thin out the ones I am keeping. I am not to sure when I will be able to transplant them outside though.

I also picked up 4 cages from a lady online and then cole found even more old ones at home.

After I got home from that I started digging out flower beds in the front yard in front of the house. I have decided that I don’t want to miss out on flowers this year but I do not want them in the back yard. So I am going to make some raised garden beds, and plant my sun flowers there. Last year they grew to be about 9 ft tall and reached our bathroom windows and kitchen.  The bed that I have begun digging is approx 16 feet long and I am going to dig it 3 ft out and line it with rocks. So I started that but had to stop when cole got home to get the composter. Now it smells and looks like rain is on the way.

Tomorrow Rae-Anne and I are going to go pick popular tree buds, then go to the garden swap and shop . Followed by the farmers market! So of course another very busy day and I feel very happy with the progress.

I really truly am enjoying myself and the work on the garden!

Here are some photo of my first tulips that bloomed today to end us off! Enjoy!

I had been holding off for over a week , debating what I was going to write for my 200th blog post. I wanted it to be something significant to mark the occasion and special for this milestone. Yet hear I am sitting here beginning to write yet another post regarding my garden!

I woke up this morning, with a plan in my mind on just what I was going to do today. This was the top of my list. I knew I had all these pots and containers in the back yard that last year did not do so well. I needed to get them new soil, clean them out and give them new life.

So off I went to Art Kapps. Planning only to get soil, but then the out door garden centre was open and who could resist? certainly not I ! I browsed for a while, initially looking for colour to add to my vegetables , thinking that I was going to use the garden beds this year souly for fruit and veggies , my plan was to use my pots and containers for flowers.

Then I walked past the herbs and my plan drifted away! Now I do have an established herb garden beside the vegetable garden , however I have yet to identify what each of them are. They are quit grown over. I have identified the sage. The others are questionable. They smell like licorice. In the year and the half that we have lived here, we have not used them and have been buying the herbs we do use.

I have never really used many fresh herbs until last fall when I started making my own soups, and then this year when I joined epicure. Now I see how truly essential they are!

So of course I had to grab a few. I walked away with many. I first picked up a curry plant, followed by :

Oregano, Thyme, Rosemary, basil, and mint! I could have kept going but was trying to be responsible with my funds.

I did however manage to grab a few seed packs of flowers, after realizing since buying the herbs , it was probably best not to by to many more plants on my budget.

So I checked out with my herbs, seeds and 4 40 lb bags of Art Knapps container soil.

When I arrived home I gathered up all my pots and containers, dumped out the old soil, hooked up the hose and washed them all thoroughly and spaced them out to to dry on the front lawn.

Kicked off my shoes, sat myself down on the lawn and cranked up my music and went to soiling, fertilizing and planning what would go where!

I ended up planting my flower seeds. I settled on the St. Johns fire, some morning glory, pansies, and 2 others that names escape me. I planted my herbs, and then I grabbed my strawberry plants from inside, separated them and re potted them in the hanging baskets with new fresh soil and fertilizer. So hopefully they will start to come back. When all was said and done, I had one lonely pot left. So I grabbed a tulip bulb from the garden, re potted it and am going to sit it inside on the dining room table to add some colour!

I still have so much to do and so many big plans but am learning to divide my time, task manage and spread out the work.  I have had to leave it for now. The pots are not to heavy for myself to bring in to the sun room, so they are set outside waiting for cole to come home .

I am making a low protein pasta salad, getting cleaned up and off to run some errands for the PKU event in June.  When I get home I have 3 more pots to do, make dinner and off to our next ball game tonight!

Busy busy! Hope everyone is doing well. Glad its finally warm outside. Its been over cast for a few weeks , even rained in one our games at the ice breaker tournament we had this weekend. Today is suppose to reach 23 degrees! I shall not waste it !

Apperntly watering with the mister was not good enough for the onions and beets in the one seedling starter kit. So this week I have been watering each section with the lid off the mister getting it good and wet and with in 2 days the onions and beets are spouting through the soil.

on our second kit, the tomatoes are 3 to 4 inches tall now, the peppers are about 1 inch tall and this morning more are breaking through including the asparagus and remaining peppers. Very exciting indeed!

The one strawberry is taking off quit nicely to. However the other pot is not doing so well. I think that it is because it is only soil from last year. I went to Art Knapps today and got new soil so am re potting the reaming strawberries and a hole new inventory I picked up this morning.

so more to come later!!

My little tomatoe sprouts have broken ground this morning. Very exciting!

Last year I didn’t grow any tomatoes and this year I am trying a few different types. I don’t eat a lot of raw tomatoes since Cole is not a tomatoe lover , but I do love to snack on cherry tomatoes, and I use them in some cooking, as well as my low protein pizza.

This year I am looking forward to canning my own tomato sauces, pizza sauce, spaghetti and  pasta sauces. There is just so much you can use tomatoes for. Even for soup bases and salad dressings and my low protein chilli recipe. So it just makes sense to grow my own this year.

I hope they succeed and do well. I am have so much I want to do with them!

did you know 1 cherry tomatoe has 4 mg of phe? and only 3 calories?

a raw hole medium  tomatoe such as Italian or beef, has 16 mg phe and 11 calories!

So I say the more tomatoes the better!

My beets are already sprouting! I cant believe it. So awesome to see there progress. I didn’t expect to see anything for at least another week.

I never use to be such a fan of beets. But Cole’s mom grows them and many years ago when I had knee surgery Cole had received a few cans of his mom’s and he friends them up for dinner for me, He fried them in olive oil and garlic. I fell in love!

Last year Cole’s mom Tracy showed me how to boil them, skin them and preserve them. We just recently ate the last of our beets from summer 2013. I don’t cook them quiet as well as Cole but I still find them as a good vegetable to eat with my mashed potatoes. I really like the taste of them.

cooked or canned beets have 49 mg of phe for 1/2 cup and 20 calories.

Beets are also used shredded in salad or in Malathy’s recipe from taste connections for “vegetable meat balls” that I fell in love with a few weeks ago at BC PKU Day 2014!

Going to have to hurry up getting the vegetable garden outside set up!!

I haven’t done any work in the garden the past 2 days. While I was waiting for our friends and family to arrive for the BBQ on Sunday I did get the back yard rose bushes pruned. As well as the flower beds pulled, cleared and raked. I also pruned the raspberry canes. I didn’t think any where still alive. I thought I would be pulling them all out. However there are many that are still doing well and beginning to bloom.

It is raining tonight so when it clears up and is warm again I will get back at it.

So much fun to watch my seedlings grow and sprout knowing what they will grow into becoming!