Pruning Tomatoes

This week we harvested more carrots, onions, and some beans. We also began to prune our tomato plants to keep them from turning into a jungle!

the finished product

This past weekend we finally finished our greenhouse. As has become custom in our home, the final assembly was filmed:

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.

now that Christmas is over, its gardening thyme (haha)!

For the past few years, we have cultivated a small backyard garden. Although it usually becomes a jungle by mid-July, we have steadily honed our gardening techniques. One of the greatest lessons we have learned is that gardening is a year round process that includes soil preparation, seed selection, planting, transplanting, dog-proofing, staking, trimming, weeding, watering, fertilizing, harvesting, freezing, canning, and finally, eating! In anticipation of the last frost of 2009 (usually April 15th in Tulsa, OK), we are going to chronicle our efforts from seed to table in this blog.

Jon and Erin