Month: April 2015

Constant Changes

Today I really, really wanted to go over to the community plot and do some damage with the weed removal over there.  However, after two days of working over there, my hands and forearms are feeling sore and tired, and with an upcoming conference weekend where I need my hands and arms for drumming… I have to lay off the hard garden prep until Monday.

In the meantime, I found a few things to do today.  🙂

After my brassica and celery plants spent the night outside, I decided it was time to get them in the garden.  I don’t have a ton of plants that made it to this stage, but I do have 3 cauliflower, 2 cabbages, 3 broccoli and 1 collards plant in the dirt.  I also sprinkled some lacinato kale seeds in there as well.  Here’s a close up of that bed.

The brassicas are along the front, and the celery ended up smack dab in the middle.  The radish seeds are to the right of the celery, the scallions to the left.  The dry row at that back of this bed is being saved for the cucumbers.

This morning I also decided to sow carrot seeds.  Overnight lows are going up and up, so I thought it was okay to do so now.  I planted seven varieties of carrot this year.  I have Cosmic Purple, Amarillo, Dragon, Kuroda, Imperator, Asita Black and Nantes.  The Asita Black is the darkest purple carrot I have ever seen.  I found it at Baker Creek, and the seed packet was over packed due to low germination.  I hope I get to sample a few of those!

At one point when I walked outside I spied two baby bunnies who appeared to have made a home underneath our deck.  Since my pepper patch is going to be in the bed right below the deck, I decided to spend some time adding extra fencing to keep the bunnies away from my peppers.

Overall, I got a few things done today.  I also managed to snap a closer picture of the home garden.

One day at a time.  🙂

Compost Is In!

Andy had our load of dirt delivered last Friday, and he spent the weekend filling my beds up whenever he had a few spare minutes.

We still have a pile of dirt, and Andy has lumber, so he MAY build me one more raised bed for in the garden.  If he doesn’t, I’ll just plant in the ground, so either way works for me.

The community plot is turning out to be quite the project, but on the plus side, I have found a whole bunch of hidden strawberry plants in the plot!  I’ve been digging them up and moving them to one corner of the plot- I hope they like their new spot.  Tomorrow I plan on moving the rest and then mulching around them.

Also, yesterday, April 27th, I sowed seeds.  Snap peas were put in the dirt the day before, but yesterday I sowed lettuces, spinach, radishes, scallions and Swiss chard.  I’ve also been hardening off the brassicas, so they should hit the dirt sometime Thursday.

I think this is a full two weeks earlier than I sowed last year.  Come on warm temperatures!

Growth And Excitement

When I finally sat down this year to sow seeds, I faced a serious dilemma.  I had no idea if I would have extra space to garden this year, or if I’d have what was here in the backyard.  Obviously, I have plenty of space here at home for a decent garden, but I really want to trial all kinds of new tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant this year.  In the end I decided to just go for it.  If I didn’t get in at the community garden, this year’s garden would be devoted to these plants, with just a small space for a few lettuces and carrots.

Fortunately, that desperate planning was for nothing, as I was notified last weekend that I DO get a plot at the community garden across the street.  Across the street!!! My biggest problem with the last community garden plot was that I had to physically get in the car and drive to it several miles away.  It was hard for me to find the time to do it. But across the street?  All I need is a garden cart to haul things back and forth and I’ll be set for the season.  I finally got over yesterday to look at my plot.  Oy, I have some work ahead of me to get it ready to plant in, but I’m very excited to do so.  It’s wonderful knowing that all of my plants will have a home this year.

Speaking of plants.  Check this out!

The top shelf is still my peppers, first round of eggplant and a few brassicas that want to go outside.  They are really thriving up there, and not growing too fast either.  I’ve been watering an average of once a week. The light goes off overnight, and during the day the ceiling fan is also on.  I rotate the trays every couple of days as well so they all get a turn closer to the fan.

The second two rows are my tomato plants and the second round of eggplants.  You can tell the tomatoes on the middle shelf have had an extra week in the dirt over the bottom shelf of plants.  They’re coming along nicely.  For the first few weeks I kept the lights over the tomatoes on all the time, but now that the plants are healthy and established, I am turning the lights off overnight as well.

Of all the plants I transplanted out of the starter cells, I had one pepper plant die and only one tomato didn’t make it.  I even had one tomato that the stem snapped… I carefully tipped it over and tucked the separated part in the soil, and it must have rooted from there, because it’s alive and well.  The one tomato that didn’t make it I had a duplicate of, so all is well.

Germination was spectacular this year.  Out of the 62 varieties of tomato I sowed, only 2 varieties didn’t sprout at all.  Unfortunately, in my careful mapping and crossing off, a third variety never made it to get potted up.  The sprouts were there, but for some reason I’d crossed that one off, so when I did the final potting up, I assumed I already had that plant under the lights.  I didn’t realize my error until I was rearranging plants yesterday, and by then it was too late, as I’d composted the extras.

With the eggplants I had four varieties that never came up- and two of those were brand new seed, so that was disappointing, but I have high hopes for the 13 eggplants I do have.  I cannot wait to come up with new ways to use this vegetable.  It’s become a favorite of mine, and I’m especially hoping to figure out a way to freeze it to use year round.

Anyway, later today my dirt is arriving to fill the beds here at home, and then it gets really real!  I’m about to go put the brassicas on the deck for a few hours to start hardening off.  I’m hoping to find time this weekend to get some lettuce seeds in the dirt, but first we have to get the dirt IN the gardens.

Tomato Explosion

Just four days after tucking the seeds into the dirt, the tomatoes are exploding all over the place!

I may be starting to get a little concerned about space… I maybe shouldn’t have tucked 3-4 seeds into most of the cells, as it looks like they ALL want to come out to play.   Time to get the next shelf ready on the grow rack!

Not Quite A Week Later

And my plants are thriving!

Just two pepper plants decided they didn’t like being moved from the starter tray.  I lost a Bulgarian Carrot Pepper and a Serrano, both of which I have more of, so it’s no big loss.

Last Friday I pulled a few last pepper plants out of the starter flat and then started over with the tomato seeds.  I sowed early Friday afternoon, and just after lunch today I was shocked as all get out to look over at the tray and see sprouts!

Several of the varieties that I received over the winter from a friend in France have popped right up! I am sure this week will be full of popping seeds.  The first varieties up are Perle de Lait, Glam Eve and Klujka V Sahare.

I’m really loving having all the plants growing in the same rooms that I live in.  I can see my plants all the time, and all I have to do is give them a glance and they make me smile.

Start Your Engines!

Just over two weeks ago, I tucked my first garden seeds into the dirt.  Specifically, I sowed pepper and eggplant seeds, and then as long as I was sowing, I added some brassicas- some broccoli, cabbage and kale.

For Christmas this past year, I was gifted with a heat mat for starting seeds.  I couldn’t wait to use it!  I put my seeds in my seed starting mix and set it on top of the mat. About four days later I discovered my first sprouts.  The brassicas were popping up all over, but it quickly became clear that just using the heat mat was not going to cut it.  The sprouts were a sickly yellow color, and every single one was reaching towards the window way on the other side of the room.  I needed a light.  Andy quickly dug one out and we added an overhead light to the seed starting set up.  Here it is in action, tucked onto my storage shelves in the laundry room.

This is working perfectly!  The heat from below is encouraging the seeds to pop, and the light above is giving them something to reach towards.  Once the seeds were sprouting, my thoughts quickly turned to panic, as I realized I had no where to put my potted up seedlings.  We’d been talking for months about where the seedlings were going to be pampered, but hadn’t really decided on a spot, nor had we purchased any shelving to utilize any of these spots.

One day, on a whim, I surveyed my tiny house and decided that there was a corner of the kitchen that could be repurposed.  I shuffled stuff around all afternoon, but when all was said and done, I had a rather large spot that could house a set of shelves.  Since my other spot was carpeted, and I’ve dealt with escaping plants before, having my plants growing on a hard floor seemed the better idea.  So I cleared my spot, showed my husband, and then left for a weekend away with the kids.

Upon my return, I found that Andy had purchased a massive set of shelves and found some lights to put on it.  This was definitely a bigger shelving unit than I’d been planning, but honestly, it made me excited to fill it with plants! I quickly assessed my sprouting shelf and discovered that I’d actually waited too long.  Most of the brassicas had keeled over while we were away, but there were some Mammoth Giant Jalapeno sprouts curling under the plastic dome and wanting out.  Here’s my shelf in action.

To give you an idea of scale, there are about 70 plants on that top shelf, and there is still room for more!  I love these shelves!

Over the course of this week, I’ve potted up a good many of my peppers and eggplant.  Yesterday I did the bulk of them, and today I see just how happy my plants are to be out of confinement.  I only have one Bulgarian Carrot pepper this morning that looks like its not going to make it.    Here’s a close up of the top shelf:

A beautiful bonus about putting this shelf where we did is that we do not need to worry about air circulation.  I’ve had years in the past where I’ve lost a good deal of my plants to damping off.  Not this year!  I have a ceiling fan right by the shelves!  I turned it on yesterday and watched my sproutlings move ever-so-gently in the breeze.  Here is the side view of my shelves, you can see the light fixture attached to the fan:

My plants are very happy!

I still have about 20 or so peppers that need to be potted up after they’ve had a bit of growth, and then we move on the tomatoes.  I’ve been playing around this year with following the recommendations for moon planting for my seeds.  After several years of dismal gardening, THIS is the year, and I’ll take any nudge towards excellence that I can get.  The moon calendar says that this coming Friday and Saturday is great for sowing tomato seeds- Friday more than Saturday, so that’s what I plan to do.

I am hoping the remaining pepper sprouts will have grown by then, because I’d like to use my little heat mat/light set up for the tomatoes and a second round of eggplants.

I’m making my list and checking it twice, because I’m very limited in my space and need to make the best possible decisions.  Lists and varieties to come.  And hopefully a lot of details as I work to make this year the best garden yet.