Hip Chick Digs

City girl gets her hands dirty planting an edible garden and raising urban chickens

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When to Plant

February 18th, 2010 · 8 Comments

There are a few rule-of-thumb planting dates among the gardening community that we enjoy repeating every year. One is to sow your peas on President’s Day. Another is to plant potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day. These are general rules though which will not apply to you if you happen to live in sunny southern California [...]

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Tags: gardening · row covers · seeds · tips · vegetables

Season Race

August 5th, 2009 · 2 Comments

The race is on to turn my half barren vegetable plot into a success before the season ends. My transplanted tomatoes and peppers are doing very well. Of the seeds I planted, only about half actually survived. Partly that was probably due to a lack of consistent watering, or perhaps it was just related to [...]

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Tags: seeds · urban farm · vegetables

Vegetable Beds Planted

May 22nd, 2009 · 3 Comments

The raised vegetables beds have been planted periodically since early March. The cold weather spinach and kale went in first and I used thick plastic as row covers to keep them toasty. A few weeks later I added carrots, lettuces, beets and parsnips. The plastic have given all those vegetables a great start and they [...]

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Tags: design · row covers · seeds · vegetables · victory garden

Spring Seedlings

April 7th, 2009 · No Comments

This is only the second year I have tried growing vegetables from seed, and I have a long way to go before I feel like an expert. Things seem to be doing well though for early April. The tomatoes and peppers have a couple sets of real leaves. The brussel sprouts and other cold-weather plants [...]

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Tags: seeds · vegetables

Starting Seeds

February 23rd, 2009 · 3 Comments

This weekend I spent a couple hours having a craft party with myself, getting the newspaper seed pots formed and filled with organic potting soil. They have been planted and are neatly resting on my beautiful, old record player. I enjoyed the last of Joni Mitchell’s Blue album before closing up the record player until [...]

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Tags: newspaper seed pots · seeds