It FINALLY feels like my garden! (So much garden progress) | VLOG

Y'all, I think I had grown in like party cups for two full years when Jeremiah came in to my greenhouse and saw me poking holes individually in the bottom of each one and I was like, hold on, came back in and saved me a heck of a lot of time by bringing efficiency. I like to think that I have a solid dose of common sense but there are plenty of times in my life where the most obvious way forward right in front of me eludes me entirely. Unfortunately that is reality for me. So I am working on potting up some plants. I've got some cups that I scrounged, I've got a couple other piles of party cups in my pantry that I have been saving and I've not really used them much. I've been using my same old seed sorting stuff for at least, I don't know, some of that stuff that's like five plus years old because it's from before I moved here and it's all actually still in pretty good shape except my numbers have gone down a lot because I give things away. Some of my tomato plants are actually starting to get kind of big. The ones that I potted up a couple weeks ago, these are going to have to catch up. I've only got a handful of varieties left to separate out. So I got these metal trays on Amazon, thought I would give them a try. They just popped up in my suggested products and they got me. I'm just curious to see how long they last and how they hold up. All of my heavy duty plastic 10-20 trays are in pretty good shape but I store my stuff in the off season here in this greenhouse which obviously gets really hot in here and that does wear it down after time. We're talking about potentially building a garden shed, something that's not a greenhouse and would be better for storing things long term without damaging them. But when I saw these metal trays, they were pretty affordable. I think I bought a 10 pack and I think it worked out to being about $4 a tray. Now they only hold 12 cups but they would hold a lot more of like my smaller containers. It does look like I'm going to bring drinks around at a party. Nope, just tomatoes. I mean honestly, if I went to a party and there was somebody walking around with a tray of tomato plants and handing them to people, I would feel like I have found the kind of party that I want to be at, am I right? Don't get me lost. So I separated these out. It's been less than two weeks ago but close probably to two weeks. And they are like really big, healthy, looking very good. I've got a few more varieties here that need to be separated. Weirdly, I saved my favorites. I don't know why I do that. I just did Dr. Ritchie's the other day. Here's Paul Robeson, an Italian heirloom. And here, I did these, I don't know, a few days ago. They've finally gotten over the shock. When you separate your tomato plants out, they'll just lay there so pathetically at first and you're like, oh god, have I killed them? They come back. So these are all my little micro drawers, you can see how much smaller they are. Even though I just separated these, those are just really compact plants. These are all more normal ones. They look good. I already came out this morning and watered so everything's level. It's pretty nice. I burned my arm the other day. I had two pans of buns in the oven for pulled pork night and I was trying to rotate them and grabbed my arm. It's fine. All right, so I'm just pulling these apart. Not fancy or particularly gently. This is Paul Robeson. I'm going to try to send some plants to my dad, see if I can mail him some. I've had people mail me plants before, but if I've sent them any, I can't remember doing it. I don't think that I have. These are some serious roots. This variety is called Italian heirloom and it is regular foliage, as you can see, but that is potato leaf foliage, so I don't know if that's the wrong seed or if it's just an anomaly in this variety. Of course, I'm going to let it grow because I, oh gosh, while I rip it out, don't do that. All right, tags. The other day, it was so windy and I had intended on coming out here and filming, but it was so windy, it was just rattling the greenhouse so bad, and so I ended up just leaving the camera off and just sat here in not silence, it was not silent, but in the quiet with no input for probably at least a couple of hours, just like pottering around with plants. It was so good. That is just my happy place if I can just sit quietly and play in the dirt. I was looking at my phone, at the photos, because I was trying to figure out the dates of whenever I did everything, and man, let me encourage you, you should be taking photos of your garden. If you're starting seeds, if you're transplanting things, the day you plant anything, take a picture. The day you start seeds, take a picture. You think, oh, this is nothing that I need to see, it's just empty cups, but it is just such a great way to keep records in your garden, because, you know, you probably have your phone handy and it keeps the date on it, the time, and it's so nice to be able to look back and figure out when you did things, because I was really thinking I had started all of these seeds earlier than I did. I started them in the middle of February and, you know, the beginning of March they were all coming up and then I separated them pretty early. A lot of times I wait until they're at this stage, which, these will be big and ready to move out in like two weeks. They will have grown quite a lot. And that's about what I aim for. So right now, if I were to Google my estimated last frost date, it would say late March, but it has frozen since I've lived in South Carolina as late as like April 20th, so I am hesitant to put out things that I started from seed before like mid-April. I'm still really kind of ahead as far as I'm concerned. Now, I'll plant seeds out in the garden before then, because if they die, I just replant them. But with started plants, I mean, this just represents a lot of work and a lot of care and I don't want to gamble with them. I had the fans off because it would be so loud, but listen, it's too hot for that. It was like pushing 100 in here at the temperature steadily climbing while I talked to you guys and I was starting to sweat and I'm like, can't do it. Now it is time to plant something very special. Here's my Lady Banks. She's looking a little, little puny, not too bad, but she's definitely ready to get out of the spot. All right, let's give her a new home. So as you can see here, we've extended this cottage garden area out. What this is, um, Maya is doing the garden fence in this like four board situation and this little walkway here, which this will eventually be covered by that Lady Banks rose. If you're not familiar with what a Lady Banks rose is, I came across this plant at our botanical garden at Riverbanks Zoo and Botanical Garden. I think it was last year, year before that, I think it was last year. Um, and it is freaking magical. This is going to be like a pergola. So he's going to put some boards going the other way. And this area here is the end of what will be that chicken yard. So it, it looks, you can't quite see it yet, but once this is all grown up, the structure is going to be awesome. And the fence is going to go here to the arbor. So this is a new addition that Maya has been working on. Um, but we decided to go ahead and extend the cottage garden here since this isn't going to be like a walkway. And he scraped off the top layer and laid down some soil. So there's going to be a panel. He's going to do like a cattle panel or something down here on the end so that that rose can climb up and get up on top of this thing. And then I'm going to plant some more stuff around here. I'm still weeding. Of course, the mint has come back with a vengeance. And every year I mistake this for something that I want and it's not, it's horseweed. And every year I let it grow and get to a point that it's like big like this. One year it got really big when I realized, oh, that's not intentional, I got to tear that out. But yeah, look at this. We're on our way. So we've got this, this arbor, which he's going to do some boxes and then the connect the fence to it. And I'm thinking we're going to do some sort of gate on here. And then down here, there's another one just like it, but wider. And the fence will connect through to this as well. Oh gosh, there was a chicken in the bed. And she startled and I startled. Here we go. It's going to be pretty cool. I put a couple of seedlings in here and I put them in and I thought, okay, I'm going to go get that sluggo and come back and put it around them, which the sluggo stuff is what the roly polies hopefully will be disturbed by. And yeah, while I, like within the afternoon, they had completely decimated one of the seedlings, but hopefully the others pull through. These are cucamelon. The battle with the roly polies is intense. And I've talked to a lot of people who are dealing with it also. I mean, it's been, it's been bad for like the last few years. Before that, I don't remember ever dealing with such an issue with them. The clematis is beautiful. And all the Jerusalem artichokes are waking up. And oh my gosh, the weeds. I was out here this morning just plugging away at it. This is as far as I got. And this represents, I mean, a while. I'm trying to be thorough. It's slow, slow work. When it comes to like weeding this cottage garden, it is like a slow and steady task. It's one thing that I can't really delegate easily because there's a lot of stuff coming up in here that I don't want to get pulled out. And you really do have to kind of wait for things to start coming up to pull out the stuff that you don't want so that the things you do want can have a chance. But I don't know, I'm just plugging away at it. I'm feeling really good about this gardening year. Just already with, you know, this year Maya's planning on finishing the fences and the arbors and obviously he's getting that done. Getting the chicken coop in here and finishing the structure. We still have to roof our pavilion. We got the irrigation done. We gotta do a few tweaks to that. But yeah, I mean like it's kind of the finishing, but is a garden ever really done? I don't think it really is, but yeah, it feels more done than it's been. It feels really good. It's weird when you go to a new place because obviously it's my garden. It's been my garden from the beginning. This is my fifth season growing in this garden. But it's really starting to like feel like me. It's starting to feel like my space and my garden. And having my roses right over my entry is definitely going to attribute to that. We are going to, I think I said that, he is going to build some boxes. I just want to get them up to give them a chance. But I'm going to put the arbor roses on here. The orange tangerine ones that I had in my old garden. I would say of all the plants and the features of my old garden that I have missed. And I have missed a lot of them. There are several factors of that space I really loved. But the thing I have missed the most is the arbor roses. And then I've got arbor roses also at the entry point of my herb garden too. So we're going to do a little arch in there. I don't think he's going to do it. These were kits that he got. He bought them a while ago. He just hasn't set them up because he wanted to do it in conjunction with the fence. Being able to have like a distinct point where the space starts. I just think that just does something great. I need to do something here. So the fence is going to come this way. And this is where we had the asparagus bed that we moved. And so it's this big open space. And we talked about just adding a couple more little square beds. I thought about doing like a low like one board bed. And potentially putting like more strawberries in. I would like to do something cool. What do you guys think? Help me. Help me with garden design, would you? Because I need something to fill this space that's useful too. I don't want to just do something that's just redundant. And that's it. That's why I kind of lean against the little square beds. I do like them. And they are nice. Like I have my established chamomile bed. The Nanking cherries. That's mint. This one rotates year to year. And so I'm sure if I did two more square beds I could find things to put in them. And just let them be kind of established. And that might be what I end up doing. But if anybody has any like great ideas that I should absolutely try. Throw them at me because I am all ears for that. Chamomile time. Smells like bedtime. Like that. I love bedtime. Does anybody else like feel an over abundance of joy when it's time to get in bed at night? Like I like do a little happy dance before I lay down because I'm just so happy. A lot of times chamomile tea is involved in that. So this space right here that's kind of big and open. Which the creeping jenny is kind of making its way down. And I don't know what I'm going to do there. We are planning on doing some sod in the walkways. And I think we're going to sod this area and just make it like a really lush grass. And we're just going to set up a hammock stand right here. So I can lounge. I'll have my ladybanks roses. My tomatoes. I'll shade cloth over it. And then here if you need me that is probably where I will be. I was actually joking the other day that I really do just like come out of dormancy. I think I've said that but it's true. It's it's literally like I'm watching all these things send up shoots of new life. And be like oh you looked dead all winter but there you are ready to bloom again. And I'm like same. Exactly the same. That is just how I feel. All right y'all that's all the time I had. I wanted to bring you with me a little pop in. Thank you for hanging out with me today. God bless you. Until next time.