Patrice's Patch Garden Journal

I REALLY need more sleep to have a fully functional brain. I returned the planters I bought yesterday and had the store ORDER the ones that are on sale, the ones I really wanted. Don't know why I didn't think to have them ordered yesterday.

I ran to Home Depot and bought 6 bags of miracle grow garden soil this morning. Then got home and realized I needed 12 bags so I'll be sending my ds back to the store for 6 more in a little while. I needed 6 bags for the planters and 6 for planting the potatoes in the grow bags. Duh! I'd be scary if I actually used my brain.

I spent several hours cleaning out leaves and dead plants from along the back and side fence planting areas. My peonies and starting to come up. I got the blackberry bed cleaned up and ready to add a few more plants. My magnolia is blooming.

I have a magnolia too, but mine is a saucer type. It is almost finished with it's bloom this year.

On Saturday I picked up some Jobes fruit tree fertilizer spikes and my ds pounded them in the ground for me yesterday. I've never used them before, I used to just feed the trees chicken manure tea but since I don't have the chickens any longer I figured I try the spikes.

I also picked up some shallot bulbs to give those a try as well.

I think I know what I want to try a do with the 55 gallon blue barrel that was used as a pool cover float. I'm going to try making one of those pocket style planters that has 45 pockets cut into the sides and you still have room to plant at the top as well.

I'm thinking of filling it with strawberries and see how they grow. It should be minimal maintenance as far as weeding goes and harvesting should be easier too.

I have to sew my landscape grow bags for my potatoes this week. I still need to figure out where I'm going to be placing the bags in my yard once I get them ready. In the past I've grown the potatoes on my gravel driveway but my neighbor's maple tree has gotten huge that they won't get enough sun in that location any longer. I'm thinking I'll have to set up a pallet or two in what is becoming very limited space behind my garage/garden area. The place I'm thinking of using will need a bit of work to get it a bit more level but it just might work out ok.

I also want to get started on the new horseshoe flower garden this week. I've got the top soil bags sitting in the space. I just need to do a bit of weeding and some leveling of the area before I can spread out the dirt and my seeds.

I saw a video of a guy making one of those. He recommended using a heat gun to soften the plastic when he cut and formed the pockets.

Please let us know how the pocket barrel turns out. I need to do something different with my strawberries. The place I have them used to be grass, and I am having trouble with the grass trying to come back.

Have you ever grown sweet potatoes in the grow bags? I have tried every trick I can find, but they just don't do any good here. I had never heard of grow bags until a few days ago, and now I am thinking they may be the way to go, or at least something else to try.

Chad I haven't grown sweet potatoes in bags before but they probably would do fine in them.

This year I'm NOT sewing the bottom of my bags closed, I'm going to use a zip tie/tie wrap for easier harvest in that Fall. Basically I'm sewing a tube out of landscape fabric.

They grow ornamental varieties of sweet potato in large planters all around the shopping area adjacent to where my hubby works. He is friends with the landscaper that is in charge of those planters and they guy says they get a huge pile of potatoes at the end of each season. They are edible, but they usually just discard them because they were only grown for ornamental purposes.

I grew sweet potatoes in containers last year. It worked quite well and was so easy to harvest them.

I weeded and planted two of my raised beds. I got all the vegetable plants that I bought yesterday put in today. I put the Brussels sprouts and cauliflower in one bed and the 2 varieties of tomatoes in the other. I put the red and yellow peppers in my buckets.

I got all the hanging baskets planted but had a disaster with one of the baskets. I had planted the seeds and went to straighten the chain when all of a sudden the chain came apart. The entire contents of the basket wound up on the ground. I was so upset, I wanted to cry.

I need to pick up some chain to loop over the canopy frame to hold the baskets, the hooks won't fit over the pipe.

I also managed to get the rest of the lawn patch stuff put down in the dog's winter potty places and the rest of the spot the wood pile occupied.

I'm beat and my back is SCREAMING. I "think" that I may have over done it just a little bit.

I forgot to post this yesterday, I bought some flowers and planted them in my old washtub out front . I put in light pink geraniums, pale yellow petunias and a spike plant. I'll have to take a picture next time I go out front.

You were busy. I hope you can take the evening and just rest.

I went back out around 5 p.m. and planted the 3 cherry bushes in their permanent home. When I received them I put them in a large planter just so they wouldn't die. They actually have started growing already.

Here's the washtub I planted on Saturday.

Very pretty!

Thanks FF

Here's the baskets hanging and ready for the vines to start growing.

That is going to look really nice when the plants get going. I can't wait!

I hope it fills in really nicely. I planted 5 moonflower and 7 morning glory seeds per basket in four baskets. In the other four baskets I planted 12 or 13 morning glory seeds, half blue and half pink. I can't wait for them to start growing.

Some of the morning glory seeds have sprouted already.


My peppers have doubled in size since I planted them last week.



My last surving rhubarb plant.

I got outside this morning before my dh gets up and transplanted my broccoli and cauliflower starts. Unfortunately I didn't get the peppers transplanted because the rain has returned.

My ds and I created 2 new 20ft long potato beds where the flower garden/burn pit is going in. I was going to grow the potatoes in landscape fabric bags but I haven't had time to sew them. We laid down cardboard, then spread bagged garden soil on the cardboard, then the potatoes and topped them with bagged top soil. I'll either add more soil and then straw to finish them as soon as they start growing. I'll have to purchase a few bales of straw for coving them. I planted Yukon Gold and Red Norland varieties, both are mid-season types.

I also transplanted my broccoli and cauliflower starts into my grow buckets this morning. I still need to transplant the peppers I started from seed.

I spent a couple hours pulling thistles/sticker bushes from all the garden beds. I had 2 (55 gallon) black contractor bags full of them. I still have other weeds that need to be pulled but I'm waiting for the rain that's coming to loosen them up.

I was out checking my fruit trees and found my apricot had a limb that cracked off. It appears that the rain/snow had been settling in the "crotch" of the limb/trunk and it rotted. The sap was rock hard so it must have been bad for some time. We had high winds last week and appears they caused the limb to twist and cracked it off. I hope the tree will survive, this is one of the new ones that I ordered last year.

Too bad about your tree. I hope that it is able to recover.

I need to go a weed whacking and digging again. I have lots in my backyard fence row that need cleaned.