Courtney's Content: Farming, 2010 Style

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Farming, 2010 Style

Remember how I was a farmer last summer?

Sadly, we never had a chance to eat any of the produce I grew.

Earlier in the summer on the left, later in the summer on the right.

Between moving, vacationing, and moving, the plants were shuttled to Shawna’s for babysitting, and I never had a chance to get them back.

And I had such nice peppers and tomatoes to look forward to!

MMMMMM.... such fresh veggies!

Anyway, I’m determined to be a farmer this summer. I even laid out a gardening area in the back of our house, with drip lines to make sure farming is as painless as possible.

It is incomplete right now, but in the works! The blue lines are the drip system, which is better for preventing diseased plants as well as water evaporation.

And I started buying seeds in January, pretty much as soon as they came out. I also bought starter flats, starting peat/ dirt, and this tray with a clear plastic lid to keep them warm. Can you say spring fever?

In addition to not harvesting the veggies, I also failed to clean out the pots before we moved, twice. So a nice sunny Sunday in February is a good time to clean out pots, right?

Seed starters and snow.

So far, I’ve got sweet corn, sweet peas, zucchini (yikes), summer squash, winter squash, pumpkin, onions, and a bunch of herbs. And I’ve been working on a garden layout for the garden.

Now, I know that it’s WAY too early to start plants inside right now for transplant later. The last average frost in Bozeman is in late May, which means that I’ve still got three long months to go before real gardening.

But I couldn’t help myself on Valentine’s Day. I planted rosemary, thyme, oregano, chives and cilantro because I’m desperate to see something green grow. I justified planting the herbs by reasoning that my plan is to plant them into pots to grow indoors year round, so even if the seeds germinated, they’d be bound for indoor growing anyway.