For instance… you can put in your city / state here and it will give you the dates when you should sprout/plant common garden vegetables based on your last frost date. Neat! I put in my town — and I should probably get moving this weekend with ramping up supplies. The early plants need to go in soon.  Growing plants from seeds really helps to instill a strong feeling of ownership over my ‘crops’.

New gardeners learn by by trowel and error.

SO TRUE! Holy crap, it’s July tomorrow! Where has the time gone?

Below is a pic showing the section where he tilled, and he also put down some planks for walking, and put down mulch. On Monday of this week, everything between the last weedblock and the gate was covered in grass / weeds about 3 feet high. Now, to the top left of the pic, you can see an 8′x10′ nicely tilled area, and a nice PERIMETER (for those of you paying attention, in my graph paper drawing a few weeks ago, I wrote ‘parameter’. I’m SMRT.) of mulch against the fence, which we found is a decent control for weeds from outside our plot.

As you can also see in the pic, he put in the tomato cages, too, since the tomatoes already need a bit of extra support. Most of what is going in this weekend is beans (which usually grow super fast, I hope this year is no different) and lettuce mixes. I’ll do a full review of all the plants in the garden at some point, and I’m sure I’ll do some features as things start to mature and/or it’s time for harvest.

I found a list of 10 sure-fire deer repellents (From a Max is Back brochure, I cannot claim to have thought of these on my own). I will demonstrate the ones I have found most useful.

Implemented (sort of) at our yard/garden:

*A pack of wolves – Well, we have our 100lb dog, Eddie. He likes to patrol and chase deer off our property.

Patrolling in very early spring

Checking for intruders

*A very HIGH fence – 8FT will keep them out. We were able to do this at the community garden, but can’t really do this around our entire yard.

*Round-the-Clock Go Cart racing – We live on a 40 MPH road, and as mentioned above, 2 have already been taken out, but its sad and dangerous, and I’m not sure how the neighbors would feel about making it a sport.

*Sporatic Machine Gun Fire – Not exactly possible with NJ gun laws, but local hunters are allowed to hunt in larger yards with owners’ permission.

*A deep moat / Live on an island (in the middle of the ocean) – We live near the Rockaway River, and during Hurricane Irene, we got to test this one out. But it doesn’t help if you trap the deer in with you!

Not helpful at all:

*Live in a biosphere – As much as I’d love to make this happen, I’m a few billion (trillion?) dollars short.

*Secretly plant tasty plants at the neighbor’s house – NOPE, that will allow them to eat more, create more, and it will still come back to hurt my yard!

*Landmines – Sorry, my limbs are required to, you know, do anything. I’m not sure where you can buy landmines these days, either.

*Motion activated sprinkler system – it rains in NJ, so I’m not sure this would work after the initial spray.

Every day to & from work, I pass Condursos Garden Center. I don’t always get out from work early enough (they close at 6pm), plus, it didn’t really look THAT impressive from the road, driving past at 40+mph. A few weeks ago, I found a coupon for the Garden Center, and figured I at least had to check it out at some point.

Well, yesterday, I actually got out ‘early’, aka 5pm, and was able to stop in on my way home. WOW — it’s my new favorite place. There are rows and rows of beautiful flowers. Reasonably priced veggies are starting to fill the tables (they will be getting more as we approach final frost date in NJ). Plus, they had lots of (my favorite) interesting herbs!  (Are you surprised that is what I took pictures of?)

Of course, I forgot my coupon at home (typical), and actually maintained enough willpower not to buy anything.

I found 3 more kinds of mint — Apple, Ginger, and Corsican! I already discovered Orange and Chocolate mint here earlier this year. I’m fascinated by all the varieties of mint, and their subtle differences, but I’m actually not a huge fan of mint to cook with at this moment. Although they are nice to smell in passing (and really delicious in mojitos), I probably won’t be expanding my collection anytime soon. I currently have Orange, Spearmint, and a fuzzy kind that I’m still having trouble identifying.

What I am super excited about (and will be returning to Condursos for) is Basil ‘Lime’. It smelled ridiculously delicious and refreshing. Unfortunately, like its cousin, regular basil, its an annual plant and doesn’t like frost. For this year, I’ll spend the money on a single plant, and if I really like it that much, next year I’ll just buy some seeds so I can grow as much as I want.

Can’t wait to go back, coupon in hand!

Before

After

I also planted 2 new container of chives (1 garlic chive, 1 regular chive) because they are just so darn delicious, and I don’t think you can ever have enough. Also, I started 4 mammoth sunflowers directly in the terracotta pots, because they grow quick. I might get a few started in a few weeks, because I’m hoping to stagger them a bit.

Chives

Sunflowers

I kept all of them outside on Saturday to soak up some sun, but now they are staying in the warm and sunny porch till threat of frost passes.

Garden Gloves!

These are so adorable! Only $1 each at Christmas Tree Shops. I had to get 3.