Gardening - The Fruits (Veggies) of Life

The day Heidi and I were first introduced to our P-Patch garden in the Roosevelt P-Patch!

Inherited rainbow chard plants! 

Inherited beets (see Jason's Journal)...

I can't say that Heidi or I have a fondness for beets... yet. :-)

Heidi and I set off to work and meticulously laid our plans for different seeds that we would order and plant within which month and which month we are expecting to harvest them: 

Preplanning how the two gardens are going to be layed out.

Books that we consulted in order to make our decisions:

The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide - Seattle Tilth's
Sunset's Western Garden Book (large book, and often seen at used book stores).

What we ended up with for both the Roosevelt P-Patch and the 12th Ave NE home garden:

Carrot, Parmex (516 - 1 Pkt. ( 2 grams))	516	Super Sweet -- Kids Love 'em! Great for containers and coldframes, and extra useful for cooking.	1	$3.95	$3.95
Radish, Cook's Custom Mix(614 - Pkt. (3 grams))	614	Our favorite colors to add to any dish.	1	$3.95	$3.95
Spinach, Double Choice (026 - 1 Packet (2 grams))	026	Perfect for baby spinach and mature harvest.	1	$3.95	$3.95
Squash, Boston Marrow (963 - 1 Pkt. (15 seeds))	963	An extremely unusual New England heirloom.	2	$3.95	$7.90
Pea, Sugar Snap (480 - 1 Pkt. (2 oz.))	480	Super Vigorous and Super Productive Snap Pea Good fresh and whole, or shucked and steamed!	2	$3.95	$7.90
Squash, Summer, Mix (742 - 1 Pkt. (15 seeds))	742	Unique bush-type Squash for small space gardens	1	$3.95	$3.95
Gourmet Organic Arugula(E027 - 1 Pkt.)	E027	Zesty, peppery flavor. Certified Organic.	1	$4.95	$4.95
Cauliflower, Rainbow Mix (296 - Pkt. (30 seeds))	296	Our own blend of brightly colored cauliflowers.	1	$4.95	$4.95
				Sub Total $41.50

All our seeds came from The Cooks Garden catalog.

(Tomato starts are still yet to be purchased, most likely from Seattle Tilth plant sale. 

Follow along with our actual planting and harvesting schedule (Google Doc)! 

What I've made so far:

Beets from the P-patch boiled and then added to the mixture +

Beet greens diced up and sauteed +

Chard from the P-patch sauteed +

Small peppers +

Butternut squash, cubed +

Chirzo = 

Classes we've taken so far:

Class 1 - “How to get Started – Garden Planning”

                Now is the time to begin preparing your garden for a bountiful spring, summer and beyond. Experienced gardeners know that careful planning now will bring big yields later. This class is geared towards the beginning gardener and will show you how to decide the best crops to grow, select the appropriate seed and design your plot for optimum benefit. You will also learn how to rotate your crops and things you can do now to prepare your soil for planting in the next few weeks. This class will be held indoors.

Location:  Bradner Gardens Park, Tuesday April 3, 2012 6:00 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Some of our snap pea seedlings are starting to come up in early April!

Thanks for reading,

Dr. Alex

Mom's Helper

Living in the St. Theodore provides this great sense of community. One evening after parking my truck in our garage, the community message board (which usually just has a smiley face made from thumbtacks) had a great hand made posting for a "Moms Helper."

Now, I wasn't sure what a Mom's Helper was, but Ema did a great job explaining it:

"A moms helper is someone that watches your kid while you are doing something important or just don't want to be bothered (with you in your apartment). "

And at $1.50 per hour it's a great bargain!!!! She even comes with a great personal recommendation:

"Ema is a very responsible, kind and mature 9 year old. She loves to play with babies & young children. Thank you, Nana Cooney"

Better hurry though! She's got limited hours and dates still available!

Thanks for reading,

Alex

Living in the Roosevelt

My first adventure, since flying to Seattle, was finding my new apartment in the St. Theodore (#2), in the Roosevelt area of Seattle.

Not too much of a challenge after hopping in my rental car and finding the cargo section of Northwest to pick up Midnight from SEA. With my trusty GPS in hand we made it to I-5 without any trouble, and then down to the St. Theodore. The management here has been super easy going and allowed me entrance to my place late on a Saturday night without issues.

The apartment is great, and now it also has all my stuff! It was a bit strange living with just an inflatable bed, t-shirt like sheets, and no real pillow for about a week. :-(

My movers were slow to get back to me, but I was lucky enough to have my mom come out at the right time to help open boxes and get her opinion on Goodwill furniture and necessities.

So far, I've explored the area around me on foot and found the Safeway and QFC grocery stores, a few bars, and great little coffee shop with wireless (it has a bit too load music to make it a good study location, but the people there are friendly) and then I wondered around downtown after meeting up with some people from Seattle's meetup.com's New In Town Meetup Group.

My next challenge was to spend the day running around changing over the electric meter into my name. I stumbeled upon a branch of the Seattle Public Library with free wifi, and picked up way too much stuff for myself from Best Buy and for Midnight from Petsmart by the time my outing was over and done with.

Also on this trip, I picked up some shade plants from Lowe's. The change of address envelopes from the Post Office, have a 10% off your entire purchase, FYI. I still need to find more/new soil and a larger pot to replant them into and then they will be off and ready to display in front of my door.

Thanks for reading,

Alex