If I used an Aerogarden seed starter kit for my fall garden, is that cheating?  My friend would whole heartedly say “YES”, but she also works from home, has a flexible schedule and is able to devote time every day to her garden.  She also has a huge back yard and has turned a good amount of it into a garden; she even built raised garden beds and irrigation systems! (I’m green with envy :))

Maybe it’s cheating, maybe it’s not.  It’s not like I’m talking about making homemade spaghetti and then opening a jar of sauce.  Kidding – Ha Ha; who hasn’t done this at least once??? 🙂  Regardless of if it’s cheating or not, I love my Aerogarden!  It is so easy to do the seedlings and they grow so fast.  This is 4 days after starting the seedlings in my AeroGarden…

Aerogarden seedlings

This fall I am trying to grow Kale, Lettuce, Beets, Tomatoes, Carrots, Squash and Cantaloupe!  I’m pretty sure this is the wrong season for growing some of these (maybe most of them) LOL.  But I have little lights and a plastic cover which will turn the raised gardens into a kind of greenhouses – at least in my mind it will; I may be making this idea up in my head .  I sometimes do that.   The only seeds I planted directly into the soil are the carrots.

Two weeks after starting the seeds in the Aerogarden…transplanting time!  Mr. E. in all his fantastic-ness threw out all of that poop dirt in my raised gardens and replaced it with good soil.  (Thanks Mr. E.!)

Tomatoes, Beets & Carrots

Lettuce, Kale & Beets

I think I read somewhere that carrots love tomatoes… or maybe that was a title of a book that talked about companion gardening.  The author wrote two books and I think the other one was Roses Love Garlic?  Sound familiar? Anyway I planted carrots all around the tomatoes and just 3 weeks or so later…

Tomatoes & Lots of Carrots

I’m really excited for all of these, but realistically I think I only have a good chance of ‘enjoying the veggies of my labor’ (such a nerd) with the carrots, kale and maybe the beets. One of my squash plants is going crazy so maybe we’ll get something out of that!

Happy Fall!!

Our summer garden did not go well this year. 😦 The Pak Choy, 1 green bean and 1 baby carrot is all we got.  I blame it on 3 things (4 if I count myself).  Horrible brand of soil, white flies and the rain. (Really you could combine the white flies and rain into one because they are linked.

First the soil…this soil had so much ‘fertilizer’ aka chicken poop that it poisoned my beautiful tomato plants – killing them within 4 days! (Supposedly, the owl makes the birds nervous…I’m not sure I’m believe that)

It also killed my kale and one cauliflower plant.  Not to mention the stink!  I could smell it from my front yard and the SWARM of flies was so disgusting Mr. E when out there with one of those sticky bug traps and was swiping it over the soil.  I am not even exaggerating when I say he caught 20!

So a little background on the white fly problem, in the summer I can’t get lady bugs because it’s too hot to ship them so I usually use this organic, soap type spray, but I ran out and when I went back to the store they didn’t have it and sold me this other product.  Which I used and it did help, but I wouldn’t say eliminated the problem.  And then it rained, and then rained some more and then some more.  I couldn’t believe how wet it was this summer; which would normally be a good thing except, it washed all of that white fly b-gone spray off the leaves and into the soil.  BAM the rest of my plants drooped and died within a few days.

The only plan that didn’t die was the Chernobyl Swiss Chard – this plant was out of control!  (That beast of a plant in the picture is the Swiss Chard!) It survived an entire growing season, a transplant, white fly b-gone spray, 2 Arizona summers and a forgetful gardener (that me 🙂 ).  I ended up just pulling it out because the leaves were bitter from being old.  Check out this root system – CRAZY!

So, now Mr. E and I are prepping the garden for this fall.  I have my AeroGarden seed starter kit, which just arrived – I’m so excited.  (Yes, I’m a garden cheater)  So now we are in the process of replacing all of that poo saturated soil and deciding what to plant and where.  I think the vote is squash, some leafy things like lettuce and spinach, green beans, herbs and I think beets.