sprouts

It's only been three days and I already have - count em - SEVEN sprouts.

They grow up so fast *wipes misty eye*

planting seeds

I'm already a week behind schedule but my seeds are now planted. I've not had good luck with seeds before, but since this year I decided to plan everything out right I thought I'd give it another shot. To help me along, I bought this nifty little greenhouse contraption from Jiffy.

I put it together by putting the black plastic stacking piece on the bottom and then folding this felt-like sheet over it so both edges are touching the bottom. Then another plastic tray, this one with round holes in it, sits on top of the felt sheet. Inserted in each hole is a coin shaped piece of peet wrapped in very thin gardening material.  

After I put it together I filled the bottom area with 12 cups of warm water and waited while it was absorbed by the peet. I was hoping it would be like one of those magic expanding alien toys from when you were a kid that blimps up instantly, but this one took a lot longer (by a lot I mean probably 10 minutes). 

Some of them rose unevenlly and a couple didn't actually rise at all, so those I helped along by pouring water on top.

Then I pulled the material back a bit and planted some seeds. Here's how they're laid out:

I'm so excited so see them sprout! Riveting Friday night, I know.

garden planning

Even though there’s a fresh foot of snow on the ground I’m already excited to get back out to my garden and see what I can grow this year. I learned my lesson from last season that it’s important to plan exactly what you’d like to grow and when each of those things need to be planted, so I’ve done just that.

Here’s what I’m looking forward to this season, in the form of a planting schedule (dates follow the Friday of each week based on predicted first and last frost dates):

Feb 14 – plant lettuce, arugula, and pepper seeds indoors

Feb 21 – plan tomato seeds indoors

March 28 – plant bok choi, spinach seedlings

March 28 – April 11 – plant beet seeds and swiss chard seedlings (one plant per week)

March 28 – May 16 – plant lettuce, arugula, seedlings (one plant per week)

April 4 – plant basil seeds indoors

May 2 – plant summer squash and tomato seedlings, final beet seeds

May 16 – plant eggplant, peppers, winter squash, and basil seedlings

July 25 – pull up and replant bok choi and summer squash seedlings, beet seeds

August 8 – pull up and replant spinach, lettuce, arugula seedlings
 

 

And when I’ll be enjoying this food, via harvest schedule:

May 2 – July 11 – harvest lettuce, arugula

May 16 – June 13 – harvest spinach

May 30 – July 11 – harvest bok choi, beets, summer squash

May 16 – frost – harvest swiss chard

July 18 – frost – harvest winter squash, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant

 

And here’s how I plan to lay everything out:

Until then, this is what I'll be looking at...

strawberries! herbs! tomatoes!

Everything is starting to grow!

beautiful berries

tasty parsley and pathetic cilantro. also a garden gnome.

oregano, lavender

cherry tomatoes

cherry tomatoes obstructing the growth of bell peppers

raspberries

my tomatoes grow like bushes. weird.

tomato bush

I should find some way to sell this local, organic, non-GMO stuff to some hipsters and make BANK. hand picked in small batches! if you pay double what it's worth it makes it even cooler!

cant stop wont stop

Even though my landlord didn't want me to mess with the yard, I couldn't shake the urge to have some plants at my own place. The solution? Pots! Lots of pots. Lots and lots of pots.

I started with a few I "rescued" from my parent's shed. Mint and basil, done! Then I bought a pretty massive pot from Target to plant some of the runners I stole from Twig's raspberry plant. His plant turned into a huge bush last summer that produced tons of fruit, and I had read that raspberry plants don't fruit until their second year, so I chose to take some of his plant rather than buy a new one. It looked really sad for a long time in its new pot and I was sure it might die, but it was a trooper!

Then I was on such a role, I got a box to sit on the porch railing for some parsley and the cilantro I started from seed.

To continue with my can'tstopwon'tstop, I put in a shepherd's hook on the porch. It's sitting in a pot with a pepper, and it hangs two used five gallon food tubs: one with strawberry plans and one with an upside-down cherry tomato plant. Boom.

To round it out, I have some potted oregano and lavender, too. I'm like a cat lady, but with plants. #cantstopwontstop

here we go

I kind of thought that once I built the garden that the plants would go in the ground and start growing. And by growing I mean producing vegetables. Did I mention I'm new at this?

In reality it took me about a week to get plants in the box once it was built. Here's what I put in for a spring crop:

And here's what it looked like:

To start the garden I used seedlings from the coop. At the same time I started some of my own seeds indoors just to see what happened. For seeds I started tomatoes, cilantro, spinach, and peppers. I didn't take any early pictures of these guys, but here are some terrible pictures of what they looked like after a few weeks:

tomatoes and cilantro

tomatoes, cilantro, peppers and spinach