Spring Storms

With Spring comes storms. With storms comes injured and uprooted plants. With injured plants comes sadness to the Kratz family.

After spending months gently tending to our seedlings, we can be a little obsessive about protecting our crop. But fear not for we have a plan:

grass FAIL

This past weekend we prepared the soil in two of our garden beds for this year's crop. Crab grass has proven a worthy foe in our gardening endeavors and every year we promise ourselves that we won't let it get out of control. Obviously, this easier said than done - especially when attempting to grow a quasi-organic garden. After removing the grass roots from each bed, we added vermiculite, peat moss, manure and compost. Hopefully this will provide a lasting foundation for healthy soil for years to come.


vlog 2 from jonathan kratz on Vimeo.

the first vlog

Earlier this year, we began the extensive project that will be this year's garden. For the second year we have ordered all of our seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange catalog. Growing a garden from seed is something that we have found to be very enjoyable; however, it does require a lot of planning. In late January, Erin planted our first seeds (indoors, of course!). Until the weather permits, we have been growing our plants indoors using several techniques.

To begin, we used the "poor-man's greenhouse" to germinate the seeds by placing the plants in small plastic pots and then enclosing them in a ziplock bag. All of the bagged pots were then kept on a heating pad on the lowest heat setting. As the seedlings sprout, we transfer them to our temporary garden "lab" on the kitchen table.

Next week we plan on beginning the process of preparing our garden soil and transplanting some of our plants.