My tomato plants are doing very well.  They started out terribly slow.  After the sprouts emerged, it seemed to take forever for real leaves to appear.  It occurred to me that a lack of heat may be the cause for this, so I took my sprouts and put them in an empty cheese-ball barrel, which served as a mini greenhouse.  Bingo- the leaves emerged, and I was able to pot up my seedlings.

The seedlings went back into the barrel and have been growing like gangbusters.  Today I had to take them out of the barrel, and I added supports to two of the plants.

Tomorrow I will trek out to the shed and see if I can find some slightly bigger pots.  They would like to be potted up I think.   The ones that I added supports to were leaning up against the sides of the barrel- with the barrel removed, they kind of want to flop over.  If I can put them in bigger pots, I can bury those stems a good four more inches.

It’s pretty exciting to see the growth on these.

In other news, today I went through my seeds.  I have 31 varieties of tomato seed to pick and choose from this year.  It will be a task to pick and choose- I have a few for certain that I want, but other than that, I will see which way the wind blows.  Of those 31 varieties, 2 I don’t care for, and 3 my brother is starting, so that reduces my total to 26 varieties.

I went through my Baker Creek catalog with my seeds today to really see what I had, and discovered that one of my favorite varieties from years past was not in this years catalog.  German Red Strawberry is missing from the red varieties of tomato, so that is one that I will be growing for absolute certain.  I will need to save seed from that one, because it is one of my favorites, and I don’t want to lose it, or not be able to find it anywhere.

Peppers and tomatoes are on my mind, as the seeds will need to be started in March and the beginning of April.  Everything else I will direct sow this year.  We will be moving during this time period, and the less plants we move, the better.   I think I have ordered everything I am going to order this year.  In the weeks to come I am hoping to make a stop by Steins to pick up random seeds that I am missing.

This year I will also be purchasing my herbs from Steins as plants.  Except maybe parsley, that one did well for me from seed.

In the weeks to come, I want to help out my fellow Wisconsin gardeners with some tips from years past.  What works here and what doesn’t seem to work- or hasn’t for me at least.  Stay tuned.  Gardening is on the brain, and I’m happy to be back.

Late in the evening, I planted 3 Sungold Select tomato seeds.

This afternoon, January 7, 2010 I found 3 tomato sprouts.

My intentions with these tomato seeds are twofold.  One- I intend to see if I can successfully grow a cherry tomato plant in a pot indoors in winter and early sring.  Purely to satisfy a desire for real tomatoes, of course.   But secondly, I intend to perform a second experiment of a more … spiritual nature.  Will blessing a plant cause it to perform differently from its mates?  I intend to find out with the first potting up of the seedlings.  Stay tuned.

Hey- I needed something to do while we’re waiting for spring.  And waiting to find a new yard to plant in of course.

I swear it was just a few weeks ago that I was staring wistfully out this very door, waiting impatiently for the snow to melt so I could start planting.

How time flies.

And how badly I’ve done at updating the garden.

This year was…well, just not a good year for the garden.  Over the fourth of July weekend this summer, we decided that we were going to move.   This meant moving before the garden finished producing, and since we need to restore the lawn when we moved out, I stopped watering and taking good care of the garden.  Basically, I harvested what was harvestable, but stopped nurturing tender sproutlings, thinking I was going to be yanking them out before they really produced.

*Sigh*

Then we changed our minds, but by then the damage had been done, and I got a really small yield out of my tomato plants and really, everything else.  The end result was that at least everything was finished being harvestable during reasonable weather, so that Andy could actually take out the gardens.  It stayed warm long enough for quite a bit of grass to grow in- not surprising at all, given how much grass tried to take over the garden this year!

So the ground is fully at rest now, thanks to a 14-inch layer of snow dumped overnight.

The great news about this- the snow will insulate the ground, and provided it stays, the frost line should be very, very shallow this year.  We really only had a few days of hard cold before the snow hit- this means great things for the spring to come.  This means that when spring does announce it’s arrival, the snow will melt and have a ground to sink into instead of rolling about creating muck. It means my husband will be able to go to work early, and well, as much as I dislike the snow- this is a great thing for next spring.

Next spring will be a whole new adventure, as it is our intention to move at the end of this winter.  I’m looking forward to our new yard and making plans.  Right now, all I can do is plan varieties, as we don’t know the where part of moving yet.  But oh, those seed catalogs will start rolling in any day now, and I can dream.

I can dream of spring, and I can dream of digging in the dirt and nurturing seeds- and somewhere in here, I’ll get to actually start some seeds.

But I will be patient this year, and next year I expect I’ll be rewarded with the garden I’ve been striving for the past four years.  I can’t wait to share.

Wow, has it really been nearly a month since I updated? Shame on me!  The garden is slowly coming to life a bit at a time.  The weather kind of foiled us here as the temperatures have been inconsistent, and the wind has really been something this year.  I’ve been trying to harden off my tomatoes and peppers for several weeks now, and every time I get a few hours of sunlight in, the next day the wind is just way beyond what my tender plants can handle.  The hardening process is not going so well this year… I’ve sunburned a few leaves here and there, and my plants are just ready to be in the ground size-wise, so I’m really having to stay on top of keeping them watered.  If all goes according to plan, Thursday I’ll get some of these plants actually in the dirt. Here are some of the plants, the rest are on the balcony upstairs- which is a great unused space, so it’s perfect for the plants right now.

Let’s see, the spinach has come up, and while we could certainly pick and eat it right now, I’m letting it get just a little larger before we start indulging- we can’t wait for fresh spinach.  I’m trying to figure out where I can start a second succession of seeds.  I just don’t have enough room! Oh- the spinach I did in rows here, and I think if I figured it out, I have more spinach plants than if I’d done them in squares.  Go figure.  I had planned the first two feet for spinach, but then when I actually measured after planting, discovered I barely used one foot- so just behind the spinach is this year’s chard, which is slow to grow.  I can’t wait for that either!

My sage plant is taking over! It’s full of flowers too, which concerned me at first, but I guess it will be okay to use, even though it’s flowering.  The thyme is flowering too.   I may have to trim back the sage  a bit though, it’s really expanding into the surrounding squares.

Beans are up.  I decided on bush beans this year, and I’ve also got a few varieties that are meant for drying.  I’m very curious if we have enough warm weather here to dry beans.  I only planted a few of those ones.  Along the trellis here are the winter squash- I’m planning on training them up the trellis, we’ll see how they do there.  This morning I was pleased to see the first squash sprout digging out from the dirt.  I haven’t had luck yet with winter squash- but I sure am hoping this works this year!

The peas are still growing steadily… I guess there’s not much more to say about them.  Except you’ll notice all the weeds in front of them.  I have about 12 squares in the whole garden that are not planted or designated for tomatoes.  Yikes.  I am going to have to squish and squeeze and see just how many peppers, eggplants, and celery plants will fit.   Again, if the plan holds, this will be done Thursday morning.

Ah, my pride and joy so far.  THIS is the way to do the cole crops.  I started them way early- some as early as February, and they are loving this weather.  The kale could be picked as young kale, and I’m seriously regretting not planting more.  The cabbages are curling up beautifully, the broccoli look like they are going to start putting up heads any day now, and the brussels sprouts are growing like gangbusters.  The cauliflower doesn’t look near as robust, but I have hopes.  I’m really hoping most of these will be ready before the cabbage moths are out in full force- I’d love to be able to avoid the row cover if at all possible.

And that’s about it so far.  This barrel below is where I am trying some container zucchini.  I just don’t have room in the beds for it- but I would like to have just a few to make ratatouille and zucchini bread with.  I’ve also seeded in the lettuces and the asian greens.  I have to say- starting lettuce in the house just was a waste of time.  I may try again next year as a windowsill garden for cutting and eating, but starting the seeds indoors…. just didn’t work so well.

I’m slowly nurturing the herbs.  My chive pot of seven years is empty this year, sadly.  There is one lonely shoot- despite the mass quantity of flowers I had last year.  All the herbs I’ve started have me disappointed so far, and I’m contemplating just heading to the garden center next week and starting over with larger, established plants.

And that’s it to date, I think.  My succession planted cilantro in the windowsill is still going too… two weeks wasn’t enough time between starts though- next time I think four weeks would be better.  The first pot is going to seed and the second one isn’t far behind it.  Overall though, I think I may just try to keep a few going this summer to see if I can keep fresh cilantro on hand.

Time for a small update.  🙂  Saturday I planted the peas.  I used innoculent, and this was my first time using it.  What the innoculent is supposed to do is help the peas and beans fixate more nitrogen to their roots.  This will result in prolific beans or peas, and also will be a nice boost to the soil.  I decided to omit the shelling peas this year.  As much as I raved about them last year, it really takes a lot to make a mouthful, and with my square foot space… well, I just decided not to allocate the space.  I did divide my space between snow peas and sugar snap peas- both the kids favorites, and I know they will be thrilled when we finally see some results there.

Currently, the peas are in the spaces where the cucumbers will be.  I planted them along the fence line and left the rest of the square foot space empty.  Te reason for this is that the peas will grow and be finished growing by the end of June, early July.  The cucumbers won’t even get planted until early June.  I will plant these as seeds in the square foot space not occupied by pea plants, and by the time the cukes are really ready to grow vigorously, the peas will have been picked and the plants removed.  If all goes according to plan, of course.

The cole crops are still looking good.  I snapped a couple of pictures today, as I went out and planted four squares of romaine.  I just can’t wait to harvest some romaine from the garden!  Here in the first photo you can see my cabbage plants doing quite well.  The row next to them are cauliflower.

Then here is a wider view of the cole patch as a whole.  Look in the far back left, you can see the scallions that wintered over.  I’ve heard it said that these really will just go to seed, but in the meantime, hello? Green onions- anything fresh from the garden is a wonderful thing! You can’t see the thyme behind the onions which is doing beautifully as well!

The sage plant in the other garden bed is finally beginning to show signs of life.  We snapped off some of the dried branches for Andy to use on the grill, but for the most part, it looks like the sage successfully made it through the winter.   The spinach and radishes I planted a few weeks ago are finally sprouting as well- that’s very exciting!   I was sorely tempted to plant more lettuces today, as well as some chard and beets, but the garden those are going in is still in need of some manure.  I’ll get that in by the end of this week, so then I can plant away.  Oddly enough, as much as I couldn’t wait for spring, now that it’s sprung, I have a rather calm patience about getting the garden planted.

The tomatoes and peppers and eggplants are still doing well inside, and many of the herbs as well.  I’m debating what to do with the herbs- I had originally planned for them to go in the gardens proper, but now I’m leaning more towards pots.  Only because then maybe I can squeeze a few extra months out of them by bringing them inside.

Overall, I’m a happy vegetable gardener.  The chard still hasn’t come back, so I’m going to write it off and just plant new- it grows so fast, it seems silly to keep waiting for what looks like is never going to happen.

I keep meaning to update here, and then I get sidetracked… it’s important for me to get accurate notes down to help for future planning, and just now I was thinking that I should post, so here it is, so that any more time doesn’t get away from me…

So well over a week ago, I was tripping on my cabbage plants in the house, and looking at the fact that the center leaves were starting to curl up, and I just knew they needed to go into the ground.  So the first thing I did was go out and stir up the dirt in the garden again, temp it, and found that it only raised a few degrees.  So I decided to give it a few more days, but while I was waiting, the bin of cabbages went to the back porch to harden.  After two days, they seemed just fine, so they went into the ground the Wednesday before last.  (I reserved four cabbage plants in the house, in case the first six tanked.)  After those were in, I sorted out the rest of the cole crops from my burgeoning plant propagation station, and set those outside to harden- thinking that I would get them into the ground that Friday.

Well, things happened, a quick weekend getaway was planned, and the plants came back into the house, because I just wasn’t going to have time to get them in the ground.   When we arrived home that Sunday, it was to an impending snow arrival, so Andy headed to the shop to construct me a rough cold frame for the cabbages in the ground.  How glad I was that the rest of the plants didn’t make it in!!

The cabbages survived, and this past Friday it hit 80 degrees, so the rest of the coles went in.  I have cauliflower, broccoli, kale and brussels sprouts in, and I also sprinkled just a few spinach and radish seeds.   Before I can do anymore planting, I MUST get some amending done.  I also need to properly mark out my square foot grids so that I’m doing things evenly.

Still no sign yet of the Swiss Chard coming back, and I also still can’t tell in the sage plant survived.  The thyme is greening up nicely, and the most surprising thing is the scallions that never got picked last year are looking great! I thought they were going to have to be ripped out, it will be interesting to see what they do.

That was the temperature reading of the garden soil yesterday before I stirred it up.  I am so itching to plant something… but I thought it best to do some preliminary stuff.  The first thing I did was take the temperature of all three beds. They all read the same, and when I pulled the probe out of the ground and touched it, it was definitely cold to the touch.  Seeds are not going to germinate nicely at 41 degrees.

Then I decided to grab the hoe and go to town, stirring up the dirt and checking things out.  It quickly became apparent that I need to add some compost this year, so in the next few weeks I’ll be keeping an eye out for some composted manure, as I think that will be ideal.   I ended up pulling out a lot of the herb plants- they just didn’t survive.  The two lone survivors are the thyme and the sage so far- they didn’t want to pull up, but it will be a few weeks yet before they show signs of growth.  I was also quite surprised when I was working the dirt where the celery and fennel had been- WOW! Those were some major roots!

In other news, I potted up the tomatoes this week.  The paper cups ended up not being such a great idea as they were rotting, and all the cups had mold on the bottom of them.  My original intention had been to pot up some of my paper cup plants, but I ended up having to move them all.  We’ll see how they do.  So far, though, the tomatoes look fantastic!

I also decided to give up with sprouting onions from seed, and this week I bought some basic yellow sets from the garden center.  I got 100 onions for less than two dollars, so I consider that a good way to go.  It’s not quite the heirlooms I wanted, but I think I’ll live.  My onions were just looking terrible, and for the record, last years leek seeds had terrible germination.  I pretty liberally sprinkled leek seeds in the dirt, and ended up with maybe 8 leeks.   The onions ended up with about 50% germination, so there is some truth to onion seeds not being viable from year to year if you save them.

I’ll be keeping my eye on the soil temps now.  The Weather Channels 10-Day forecast has our lows finally moving up into the 30’s starting Sunday, so that will help move things along very nicely.

Gotta keep this place updated so that next year, I can look back and see dates and pictures and such!

First, here is the cabbage patch.

Good gravy, these plants are thriving… and really desiring to go into the ground.  It’s just not time yet… By Friday our lows are supposed to finally move up into the 30’s, and I hope it swiftly goes up from there.   I really would like to get the peas in the ground and some cabbages out by the 15th, I’m just not sure that’s going to happen.

Here are the tomato seedlings.

Most of them are sprouting their first true leaves already , so that’s cool.  The only tomato that I had poor germination on was the Roman Candle.  But since I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to plant those again, I can live with that.  Other than that, I had one variety where only one sprout came up of the two planted.  Since it’s new to me, I’m fine with just the one. (I don’t remember which it is off the top of my head though…)But  I have my first concern.  On all of the plants, the cotyledons are looking a bit droopy.  Apparently, I need to pot up, so a trip to the garden center tomorrow is a must for the pots, as I am completely out.  Now, I just need to figure out where I’m going to put all the potted up tomatoes! Yikes!

And finally from the great outdoors, here are my chives, which is pretty indicative of how the rest of the garden looks.

Brown, brown, brown.  It’s just too cold yet.  I see that the very hints of beginnings of buds are beginning on some of the shrubs, and my mom has some tulips coming up, as well as her crocuses, so surely, warmer days are on the horizon.

Today I also gave all of the more established veggie plants in the house a good dose of fertilizer.  It looks like it’s going to be awhile before we can even begin the hardening off process, so I want to make sure they stay healthy.  After looking at a few brands of fertilizer, I settled on a simple one from Scotts that is a balanced 10-10-10 fertilizer, meaning it provides a little bit of everything, as far as nutrients goes.  Depending on how it performs, I may also use it in the gardens this year.

Just a quick update today.  My tomatoes are sprouting like mad and making me a very happy tomato mommy.  Just one week old, and I am very close to 100% germination on all the maters.  I’m still waiting on one green zebra, one German red strawberry, one golden monarch and one other one I’m forgetting.  I do have one interesting specimen- one of the heirlooms, where I’d planted three seeds sent up four sprouts.  Hmm.

I also spent time this weekend potting up some other seedlings, because they just were growing like gangbusters.

Plus, I thought that it was about time to get the seedlings out of the greenhouse, now that they had some true leaves going.  So now they are in their own comfy pots, sitting in the sunshine.

It seems like every day I’m finding something new to discover.  I expect I’ll be potting up a few more sprouts by the end of the week here.  Now it just needs to get warm outside…

Well, my seedlings that I planted 20 days ago are doing very well.  So well, in fact, that I needed to do some potting up.  I had broccoli, nasturtiums and romaine that had some true leaves and were really outgrowing their little cell.

So I assembled my tools and then wondered how on earth to get the little seedling out of their cells.  I kind of squeezed the bottom of one broccoli and tried to very gingerly pull up on the stem.  Sadly, my biggest broccoli bit the dust.  S’all right though because I planted more than I want. So then I eyed those cells and reached into my utensil draw and pulled out a fork.  Voila! Instant success! The fork fit perfectly in the cells and transfered the seedling without disturbing the roots much at all.

Last night I had to make a stop at the garden center for a few more pots, it didn’t occur to me that starting all these different seeds early this year meant that I would need that many more pots!  I also picked up a small ceramic pot to start a second round of cilantro on my windowsill. The first sowing is three weeks old and doing well, but one thing I have learned about cilantro is that if you want it longer, you have to do several continuous sowings.  In a few weeks I’ll pick up another pot and do it again- I figure all told, I’ll end up with four pots on my windowsill, and that ought to keep me in cilantro for a while anyway.

Here is also a picture of my cabbages-started February 23rd.  They are doing very well, and seem to be happy so far.  Yesterday that got a watering of some fishwater from my fish tanks.  I have no idea what the spindly thing is on the far upper right, and on the left side there are three of my Di Cecco Broccoli plants.

If  you remember, when I planted my cabbages last month, I also started some Green Goliath Broccoli.  Well, a few weeks ago I sort-of stepped on the broccoli.  I was a little annoyed with myself, but decided it was for the better anyways since it wasn’t a variety of broccoli I wanted to plant.  So I picked up some organic Di Cecco broccoli, which is a much smaller plant, which produces a small 3-inch head to begin, but really excels with the side shoots it continuously pushes out.  We’ll see, but I’m really hoping this variety does well in my square foot garden.  As it is, I wanted to plant 3 cabbages and I  have 10.  Anyone need some cabbage?

Anyway, it has warmed up a bit, but not enough yet.  The lows are still in the upper twenties, so it needs to get a bit warmer in order to plant anything in the dirt.  I may have to revise my plans a bit, as part of my garden plan this year relied on getting some things into the dirt pretty early.    I’m already thinking that a lot of the herbs that I had planned to put in the garden might go into some nice pots instead.  We’ll see…