Plants: Day 41

Even with all of the excitement over the offer on the house and all, we still have the responsibility of getting our urban-garden going.  Plants do not wait!!!

In the past couple of weeks, we have been transferring more and more seedlings from their seed starting homes to bigger pots to let them grow and expand their wonderful root systems.  As time has gone on, the first batch of seed transfers are now big enough to get transplanted into their final homes.  You might have noticed, but throughout this process we have been researching the heck out of everything; it's always nicer to learn from everybody else's mistakes before yours!

The main thing that we have learned about tomatoes is that they are not a fan of wet and dry cycles; so water once every couple of days does not produce the best tomatoes.  Well, how do we provide water for them on a consistent, as-they-need-it type of schedule?  Well, that is where the idea of self-watering containers come in.  Now, don't confuse the idea of self-watering, with self-regulating containers (like I did at first....).  We still have to put water into the containers on an almost daily basis (especially once the hot, humid weather starts), but what these devices do is to provide water as they plants use them.  How, you ask?  How much would this amazing device cost, you ask?

Three letters: DIY (Do-It-Yourself!).  Thamara found a brewing place in town that was willing to sell us 5-gallon buckets for $1 a piece; sweet!!  And, so it was time to start the process of  creating some self-watering containers.  The following pictures will show the basic requirements we started off with for the containers.

First, a wick to let the water up to the dirt

All of the needed material

A pipe to transport water to the well

Next, a false bottom with two holes

So, that is a complete one-bucket self-watering container.  You then fill it with potting mix (pre-moistened), and you're all set to go with planting the seedlings into the buckets.  Again, with tomato plants, we bury the seedling past the first set of leaves.  Then we add a bit of fertilizer, and bam!, a self-watering tomato planter.  Lots of room for the roots to grow, and the plants can draw water up through the soil form the well under it.  You just keep adding water through the pipe, and it keeps drinking as it needs it.

The setup so far....it's getting a little crowded.....

Why the big Delay??

So, okay, you might be asking, why has there been such a silence our end here?  Well, the past month has been a crazy, hectic, crazy month of planning and organizing a major life-step:

Thamara and I have decided to purchase our first home!!  (insert stunned silence, then thunderous applause...)

Isn't it amazing!!!








Okay, seriously, we did, though.  That picture is the garden shed on the property.  Hahaha, sorry, I couldn't help it.

That is a picture the front of the house.  It is an amazing, cute, house that is newer, and is sitting on a great little piece of property that is just short of 2.5 acres.  We are really quite excited about the adventure of going into house ownership together!  Here's a couple more of the front of the house (just click on them to make them bigger):

So, it's a great, well-build house that right now is a perfect size for the two of us to start with.  It is beautifully laid out with a nice open concept kitchen/living room, and a nice big master bedroom.  The main living space has absolutely amazing wide-planking wood floors, and the kitchen has an great new cork floor.  That is something to see!  There is even a fantastic garden door off of the master bedroom that has a little "deck" for enjoying the sunlight/peace that is out there.  It was a perfect combination of house/property that we were looking for to get out into the rural area outside of Orillia (you wouldn't believe the cost of property tax in Orillia!!).  For the price ranges that we were looking for, this house was the perfect find.

As mentioned before, it is a perfect house for us right now.  But, in the future, it might prove to be a bit on the small side.  So, our "big picture" plan is to expand the livable space into the big two-car garage and add a more bedrooms and another bathroom into the house.  It will be a great project that will let us expand the house, and increase the value of it.  Why would we do it this way, instead of just looking for a bigger house?  Well, that is a great question?  First of course, looking at a particular price bracket, if you increase the size of the house, then you would obviously decrease the size of the land; and we wanted to have a little property.  Secondly, by buying smaller and expanding later, we decrease the financial shock that usually happens when you go into home ownership.  It not only allows us to grow gradually in space, but also in financial responsibility; we wanted to avoid the 'house-poor' syndrome where you buy a house, but can't enjoy life outside of it....

Plus, we have some big plans to get even more onto the sustainable life-track.  We are very, very excited for it, and we are even more excited for the possibilities of what the renovations could add to the already great house we'll have!!

More details to follow......

Plants: Day 21

Okay, so it's been a little while since the last post.  Lots to catch up on.  Let's get it going with a quick one here....

A week after the last starting of seeds, we were ready to transfer some of the bigger seedlings into some pots that would allow their roots to expand. As we researched and got ready, we discovered that when you are transferring tomato seedlings into a bigger pot, you are supposed to bury them up past the first couple sets of leaves.  This allows the plants to form a bigger root structure.  The leaves you buried will break apart, and the stem will grow roots out from those points.  So, even if you buy tomato seedlings from the local greenhouse, you should bury the plant deep enough to cover a couple of sets of leaves.

Plants: Day 14

Whoo-Hoo!

Everything is growing at a great pace here!  About half of the tomato plants have sprouted, and all of our peppers and eggplants have come out; there is a caveat though, we tried planting some seeds that Thamara had from hot peppers from a long, long time ago.  They haven't come out to play, yet......

Almost everybody is growing great!

The harvest potential is looking better and better!  In the next couple of weeks, we are going to have to transfer the pellets and rolls into their permanent homes.  Now, the container planning begins!



      

Our setup

Oh, and yes, those are egg shells on the shelf.  We are saving our egg shells to use as fertilizer for the plants when they get transplanted.  Egg shells are a great source of calcium for those little plants!

Plants: Day 12

Only 5 days!!!

Wow!  After only 5 days, we got our first tomato seedling!!  Crazy!  It seems that those pellets really do the trick.  On the other side, almost all of our seeds have sprouted and are growing healthy and strong.  Some of the little guys even have both seeds sprouting out.  Once we transplant them into their permanent homes, we will have to decide which of them is the strongest, and then cut out the weakling; there is no sympathy in the quest for container vegetables!  (I have a strong believe that Thamara might not be able to just callously cut them out; I think we will be replanting those seedlings....)

Peppers and Eggplants, oh my!

Grow little seedlings, grow!!

Can't wait for the harvest....yum.....