It's a Sprout!

Every day I gaze at my trays of planted tomato seeds, hoping to see those first signs of life. I diligently water the soil, and keep the grow-lights on. Then one day, something different catches my eye. Could it be? A sprout? YES!


Within four days, the new green growths are appearing in "pot" after "pot" (each tray has eight sets of four "pot" sections).


Usually I start my seeds in tiny cell trays, and once they get their first true leaves, I transplant them to the larger cell "pots". This year I thought I'd save myself a step and planted directly into the larger pots. Unfortuntely, I tended to over plant each one - more than one seed (hey, you never know, some of those seeds might be duds). So, now I will still have to either weed out the extras, or fill up more pots and transplant the spares. I'll have plenty of tomatoes for surplus this year.

Do you want to try some interesting varieties? Then stop by in May and I will surplus some of my seedlings your way!

Getting Started

We've had some beautiful sunny and mild weather this month. In fact, today the temps are soaring upwards towards 60*F! The snow is melting away like fat on a hot skillet (we are down to about 7", with LOTS of bare spots). So, of course, one's thoughts turn to the garden, which, although still under snow and suffering from ground freeze, will "soon" be ready to dig and plant.

So, yesterday I purchased a new bucket/tub (the old one is frozen to the ground by the compost bins, and now sports several holes and cracks, thanks to my efforts to unstick it), and mixed up a batch of seed starting "soil."

Why do I make my own? In the long run, it is a lot cheaper. I used to order seed starter mix from one of my gardening catalogues, but when gas prices started to skyrocket, the shipping became more expensive than the bag of mix. So, now I purchase a bag of perlite, a bag of vermiculite and a bag of peat moss. Bring 'em all indoors to warm up (have towels ready for that peat moss, which will pee all over your kitchen floor as it thaws). Then, take your handy bucket/tub and mix up up with a 1:1:4 ration (perlite:vermiculite:peat moss). Stir it up well. Add water to make it uniformly moist. Then start filling your seed trays.

I've finally started to refine my seed starting. I've given up on onions, broccoli and cauliflower, so this year the only veg I needed to start by seed was tomatoes. Of course, I have several varieties, about 33 last count:

In the past I've planted about 10 of each type, but this year I only went with about 8, although some of the "pots" got more than one seed.

Why so many? Well, I can't resist the names! Orange banana. Orange Flesh Purple Smudge. Al-kuffa (a rare Middle Eastern variety). Dad's Sunset. Garden Peach. Let's hope that late blight doesn't show up again this year - I really want to see what the OFPS looks like!

And just to prove that the sun is out and warm, here's Idefix doing what he does most of the time: snoozing in a sunbeam:

It's Seed Time

I started some tomato seeds last week! And then I ran out of seed-starter mix. I've been in four "garden shops" so far today and all I can find are small tiny wee bags of mix. Grrr. Not very helpful when one starts as many plants from seed as I do. So...I must find a recipe to make my own mix!

In the meantime, here are some images from last year's garden (for some reason they work on this computer and none of the ones I tried last year).

This is the view down the back yard, where I have my six small "island" beds. To the right you can see part of the BIG BED that goes around the shed.

This is looking straight down the eastside fence - those two beds by the wheelbarrow became my sunflower plot - what lovely sunflowers I had!

This is the veggie garden in late spring. Those are peas to the left, with broccoli under the row cover. Potatoes are just beyond that, and then the beds of tomatoes.

Here's another view looking the other way!

The Garden in Winter & Worms

Not much is going on in the garden - at least not on the surface.




Soon it will be time to start seeds indoors. Since I'm not doing onions and leeks from seeds this year (disaster two years running), I can put it off a little bit longer. Tomatoes, eggplants, cauliflower, broccoli, squash, peppers, and assorted flowers and herbs will be this year's seedlings.


Although, if one is to follow the Biointensive technique, everything should be started as seedlings indoors. Of course, if one has a greenhouse this is feasible. If one has four grow lights and limited counter and table space, it isn't. Still, I can't quite fathom starting lettuce and wheat indoors, can you? To me, starting stuff inside is for plants that need a longer growing season, or plants that are not cold hardy. Beans, peas, greens, corn - they all do well as seeds in the ground.


And yes, you did read "wheat" up there. I am going to attempt growing some of my own grains this summer: wheat and oats. Of course, that will entail having to get a grain mill, if things work out, but I figure I can cross that bridge if and when I ever reach it.


I got my worms a couple weeks ago. Vermicomposting - the latest thing. Compost indoors with worms. Why? Because this is what my compost bin looks like this time of year:




The birds and squirrels might be enjoying it, but I don't compost to keep them fed! So, I bought a plastic bin (on sale at Home Depot for $4), drilled some holes in it, filled it partway with potting soil and newspaper, and placed an order for 1000 worms. They arrived in bone dry peat moss (so they wouldn't freeze in shipping) and I dumped them in the bin, along with food scraps. So far I haven't seen much action. Haven't seen many worms, either. I'm having my doubts that there were really 1000 worms in that bag! I've never seen more than one worm at a time, and the food scraps are not disappearing. And mold is growing. HM...vermicomposting isn't as easy as I thought it would be. It could be I'm overwatering (keep as wet as a squeezed out sponge, they say...maybe I don't squeeze my sponges dry enough). I will have to monitor it more carefully this week and see what happens.