May 31, 2012: Planting of the rose bushes.

Here’s the new workspace for my rose bushes.  I will plant them alongside the fence so that when it matures, it will create a nice border of various colored roses.  The hardest part of planting these roses is the arduous task of digging into the ground.  You MUST dig at least 1.5-2 feet into the ground to allow for proper water drainage.  It was somewhat difficult, as I kept hitting large stones which I needed to clean out.  Basically, I dug 2 feet deep and about 1.5 feet in square dimensions for each rose bush.  Then I took the soil and tilled it until it showed the same consistency as store-bought garden soil.  I dropped in the rose bushes and filled in the holes.  I also purchased 7 bags of cheap top-soil from Home Depot (on sale for 0.98 cents for a 40 lb. bag!).  I split each bag to cover the top portions of each rose bush hole and created a nice mound on top for each plant.  I watered in heavily for the first watering (about 2 gallons per rose bush).  Check out the pictures below!

The workspace.

It’s not a joke digging these holes!

Planted and topped with soil.

1 of the 14 rose plants.

May 30, 2012: Rose bushes (part 1 of 2).

I went to Home Depot and guess what I saw?  The entire rose bush section was on sale!  It was $5.98 per bush, and all of them seemed established with a few flowers.  All I have to do is dig a deep hole and plant.  Sounds easy enough, right?  I immediately thought of my backyard and the unlimited potential for these rose bushes.  I pulled the trigger and purchased 14 rose plants (all in different varieties).  Check out the following pictures for the list of roses!

May 27, 2012: Vegetable garden photo update (part 1 of 2).

Hello everyone!  I took a few shots of my garden to show you guys how well it’s coming along.  I use 4-6 gallons of water every morning for my vegetable plants.  I also added these bamboo stakes to provide support for the plants (I believe they are about $2 from Home Depot for a pack of 6).

Tomatoes.

Eggplants.

Peppers.

Strawberries.

May 27, 2012 overall snapshot.

May 1, 2012: Buying vegetable plants – seed packets.

I purchased a few Burpee seed packets from Home Depot and decided to plant them along my walkway in my backyard.  I simply wanted to utilize the free space (previously used for annuals).  I turned the soil as before and added 1 bag of Sta Green garden soil (2 cubic feet).  Here’s the list of plants:

• Summer squash 49er hybrid
• Summer squash early golden crookneck
• Summer squash hybrid zucchini
• Summer squash green gourmet hybrid
• Tomato super beefsteak
• Tomato super sweet 100 hybrid
• Tomato sweet salad hybrid
• Tomato super steak hybrid
• Okra Clemson spineless
• Pea sugar snap
• Cucumber salad slicer
• Sweet corn sweet sunshine hybrid

Walkway mini garden, started from seeds.

April 29, 2012: Buying vegetable plants – starter plants in peat pots.

I went to Home Depot and purchased a few Bonnie vegetable starter plants (already in peat pots for easy planting).  I also bought two bags of Sta-Green garden soil (2 cubic feet) and mixed it into my tilled area (it was the cheapest garden soil bag per cubic feet).  I immediately transplanted the Bonnie plants into my garden.  Here’s the list:

• Red beefsteak tomato
• Parks whopper hybrid tomato Atkinson tomato
• Early girl hybrid tomato
• Better bush hybrid tomato
• Beef master hybrid tomato
• Cherokee purple heirloom tomato
• Big beef hybrid tomato
• Eggplant black beauty
• Ichiban egg Japanese eggplant
• White eggplant
• Giant Marconi sweet pepper
• Big Bertha bell pepper
• Bonnie green bell sweet hybrid pepper
• Yellow bell sweet pepper
• Cayenne hot pepper
• Sweet banana hybrid pepper
• Mammoth jalapeño giant jalapeño pepper
• Yummy bell petite bell pepper
• Arden salsa hot pepper
• Yummy snacking sweet pepper
• Hot banana hybrid pepper
• Allstate strawberries
• Quinalt strawberries
• Sequoia strawberries

Bonnie plants in peat pots, planted.

Side view.

I added 6 plant cages around the eggplants.

Another side view (with plant cages).

April 19, 2012: Making a border for the vegetable garden.

I let 10 days pass so that the grass roots from the turned and tilled soil could die off in the sun.  There were a few rainy days in between, so that helped to fertilize my space as well.  I also found some left over bricks which I used to make a wall around my garden.  It’s important to have a border not only to keep out any unwanted pests, but to also add beauty to the area.  Looks good so far…

The brick wall.

April 9, 2012: Preparing the land for a vegetable garden.

Well, it’s finally that time again.  Preparing and cultivating the land is probably one of the hardest tasks of starting a garden (especially under the beating sun).  Personally, I consider manual labor to be a good workout (yes, I love to workout and exercise daily). So it’s a win-win.

Take your time with this part.  The soil needs to be tilled thoroughly for proper root development and water drainage plus aeration.  Yes, it will take a lot out of you, but once this part is done, you will be well on your way to doing the fun stuff (like picking your crops and planting them in a nice fashion).  Also, remember that when turning over your lawn patches, leave the roots exposed to the sun so that any weeds and grass can die.

I removed the border bricks and used my lawn mower to trim down the weeds and grass.

Standard gardening tools. I used the square-shaped shovel to cut out square patches from the lawn (about 6″ deep).

I simply flipped the square patches over so that the grass is on the bottom and the roots are on top.

I used the “claw” and a regular shovel to repeatedly till the earth. Final product.

Done for the day!