Transplanting Seedlings

So we thinned out and transplanted some of the seedlings to larger containers. 

The corn in its new container:

 The corn, sunflower, and peas were transplanted to new containers, the other plants we are waiting until they are a little bit larger so that the "best" can become more obvious and they get more stable to transplant.  After the transplanting:

Berry Plants

We bought a blueberry and raspberry plants.  We planted them by the Leonard shed (if you are looking from the house into the backyard it is on the right side) opposite of where we plan to do the garden.  We didn't have to get as extensive as the bushes because there was no major root problem so we just dug and placed a top soil/peat moss combination into the hole.  The bushes:

Bushes

We got some bushes from Merrifield Garden Center to place in the corner of our patio to add some privacy between us and the neighbors.  The euonymous silver king will grow to 6' tall and 3' wide.  We got younger versions of the bush save money since they are fast growers it hopefully won't take to long to get some good privacy.  We had to get seven plants to fill the space we needed so we cleared them out of this plant.  First we had to dig almost a trench where we wanted to place the bushes to put in some good top soil and peat moss combination in the hole to give the bushes a good root environment to grow in.  The trench digging:

 One large argument and seven bushes later:

Cat Proofing the Seedlings - FAIL #2

So we already had one cat beat our attempt to cat proof.  We thought removing the shelf beneath the bay window would solve our problem.  As we are laying down to go to bed for the night we hear a paper rip and noticed we were missing a cat.  We ran upstairs and noticed callie wag in the window with only a small tear in the paper.  We took the following photos but with poor picture quality I'll give you all the pictures so get an idea of what happened.

Callie-wag (also known as Callie, Callie-wag-wizzly, Skiddily-wag, jiggity-wiggity, etc.) behind the contractor paper curtain (no flash so it looks kinda dark and hard to see):

With flash results in a demon-wag look:

 Callie-wag looking for a way out through the tear that Meow made earlier in the day (see earlier blog post for pictures):

 Callie-wag looking for way out in the bottom of the paper:

 You can almost see Callie at the bottom left hand corner after she hopped out of the paper in the hole at the top left, she flew out quickly so it was hard to get a photo.  The lower left hand corner you can see the white shelf that she used to hope above the contractor paper.  So the shelf was about a foot and a half tall, about three feet away from the contractor paper that goes about five feet tall, in other words it was an amazing leap over the contractor paper with minimal damage.

The hole Callie-wag left behind:

We moved the shelf even further away from the contractor paper and hope to make it through the night without anymore damage or mischief.  While Callie was in the bay window she didn't seem interested in the plants, more concerned with finding a way out and not having one.  Hopefully all the kitties have learned their lesson.  I view this incident as funny as hell, John is more concerned about how the plants will fair over night.  Will update if anything else interesting happens.

Cat Proofing the Seedlings

This week we struggled with a way to protect the seedlings from the cats.  Originally we just had the plastic covers on the seedlings planters which kept the cats from getting to them.  This worked for awhile until the plants got to tall to keep the plastic cover on.  Then came the cat proofing plan.  We placed the containers in the bay window and then put up some contractor paper over the bay window to prevent the cats from hopping in the bay window and eating them.

Bay window with contractor paper to protect the plants from the cats:

Thirty minutes later:

Oh well there goes that plan.

After patching up the hole we decided to move a shelf below the window that gave her a starting point to hop into the bay window so we will see how long the second version of this plan lasts.

Garden - End of Week 1

Earlier this week we took a picture of the overall planter, we have everything growing now except the peppers.

 In order from left to right is: tomatoes, peppers, corn, peppers, peas, and sunflowers.  The sunflowers seem to grow pretty quickly and in a span of days the tray planter looks like this (all the way on the left)

 Pretty soon we are going to have to take the sunflowers out and plant them in individual containers to allow them to grow a little bit before putting them outside.  We did get a few carrots to appear; they are thin and tiny so it was hard to take pictures of them.