JoeSoChallenges Update: The Month of May

Hooray for sunshine!

For the month of May -- perhaps the greatest month of the year, what with its flowers abloom and sunshine aplenty -- I decided to challenge myself to not watch any non-sports television. This choice made sense for several reasons. I have kickball and softball games 2 or 3 nights a week, the NHL and NBA playoffs kick into high gear, baseball season lazily rolls into Summer, my yarden needs lots of work, travel season opens, and people start cooking out on the regular. What a month! What a perfect time to ditch the TV! No crime documentaries, no stoned South Park marathons, no random Netflix browsing. I also had a chance to re-up on all my favorite podcasts, so I can fall asleep listening to 99% Invisible or Science Friday instead of Disappeared or Family Guy. What a great month! I violated my challenge once (because I had a bunch of Bob's Burgers episodes in my Hulu cue about to expire) and I felt like I had earned it after driving back and forth from the Hipster Capital of the World.

Juicy Mornings

I've had fresh juice every morning this week! I've used various combinations of apples, grapes, tangelos, mangoes, and an orange or two.

Planted 10 Onions Today

little baby onion bulb

I got a bunch of little onion plant starters but didn't put them in the ground the other day when I planted the broccoli, carrots, and cilantro. But they're probably heartier than anything so I went ahead and got them in today after work.  I just did one row beside the carrots, about  8-10 onions.  Basically, as they grow, layer after layer keeps adding up until they get big enough to eat. You can help them grow by keeping the soil around the bulb as loose as possible. I did grow these same onions once back at Beeler, so I think they'll turn out well! And I use onions in, like, everything I ever cook, so, awesome. On a related note, how come my camera gets all "blueish" when I use digital macro mode? It takes great close-up pictures in that mode, but it gets a blue tint. Hmmm

I put a row of about 10 onions in the garden today.

JoeSoGarden, Bloomfield Edition, in the Ground

I moved into a first floor apartment last Fall, and this will be my first Spring and Summer here. I'm the only one who uses the backyard -- the upstairs neighbors don't even have a back door, so it's all mine. There's a nice planter box on the left side along the fence. Until today it had a few weeds and about a dozen 2 year old onions scattered across one side. But I cleared that sucker out and started my Garden 2013, Bloomfield Edition!!

A week ago I went to Home Depot and bought several seedlings and seed packets:

• 3 (4-packs) of broccoli (so, 12 plants)
• a red pepper plant
• a banana pepper plant
• a cilantro plant
• a basil plant
• a tomato plant
• cilantro seeds
• broccoli seeds
• carrot seeds
• and a bunch of onions

So today I cleared out the planter box, plus this other triangular area that had these old, 2 foot tall, dead plants in it. The soil in the box seemed really nice. I planted the broccoli plants in 3 rows of 4. It should be hearty enough to withstand a frost. I also put in the cilantro plant -- maybe a little early, but I think it should be fine. Then I planted one row of carrot seeds. They're also hearty enough to survive a light frost. Getting the broccoli and carrots in this early miiight allow me to do a second harvest of each. 

When I used to do a garden on Beeler I would always end up with too much of one thing at the same time. All the tomatoes would be ready at once. I remember playing cucumber dodge with dozens of these fat round cukes. When I grew zuchini, I had like 3 dozen huge zuchini all at the same time. So I want to try and stagger things this time. Do less of each item, or half-and-half a month apart.  Also, for the broccoli and cilantro I got seeds in addition to the seedlings, so those will be separate crops if I end up doing both.

cleared out this planter box

broccoli, cilantro, carrot seeds ... planted April 16

2 kinds of broccoli plants

triangular section ... cleared out!
(tried to save these tulips I dug up from the box)

cilantro is in the ground ... maybe too early?
(plus an herb that was leftover ... see that? what is it?)

digital macro mode on camera for close up of cilantro!