here's the beet sprouts...

As promised, here are the beets coming up. This picture gives a real good look at my soil too - full of little rocks and not yet decayed, dead vegetative matter. Lovely, it is not. But I will say in its defense that I have never lifted a shovel full of dirt out there that didn't have an earthworm or two in it....

Turnips, Radishes and Beets...

Well, it looks like I've gotten some action from everything I put in theground on 18 April - except the potatoes. Not sure what's up with them. I have set the six seed potatoes I have left out in a bowl under the aerogarden light to get them to sprout. Then I'll try again with them if I haven't seen anything coming up out of the ground. It's been 10 days, so I suspect that if they were going to do well I would have seen something come up by now. I have stopped short of digging one of them up to see what's going on! One of these pictures is of radish sprouts and one of turnip sprouts, but I can't tell which is which in the pictures. I think the radishes are in the picture on the left. I haven't taken pictures of the red beet sprouts yet. It took me a little longer to realize that they had come up, plus they're a lot smaller right now.

I also put the zucchini and cucumber sprouts under the aerogarden light and they are no longer getting taller. They're starting to put out new leaves in the center of the original two leaves, so I suspect that's a good sign. I think I'll try the eggplant again in the good organic potting soil I have. I really wanted to have some of those miniature hansel eggplants!

Leggy sprouts

I ended up with just bush baby zucchini and cucumbers, and wow, these things have gotten so leggy so fast it is unbelievable. I think that if I sat in front of them and watched for an hour I could see them growing. You can see in this picture how they're straining towards the sun. It's my understanding they look like this because they're not getting enough light. I don't have an indoor place where they will get enough natural light. I set them outside yesterday during the day in the sun and that seems to have killed off two of the cucumber sprouts. The other thing I can try is to set them under the grow lights in the currently unused aerogarden. Other than that I may have to take my lessons learned and get some transplants next month. Sigh.

The good thing though is I think I can give this a better shot next year - or for fall??? It's sort of like my in-ground garden was last year - an afterthought that was started too late, without any prior research or planning. But who knows? I met yet end up with my own zucchni.

The tomato and pepper transplants are sitting out in the garden, not in the ground, just inside the fencing out there. They still look great. I think I'm looking at about 2 more weeks before I can put them in the ground. It looks like my radish seeds came up in abundance (picture is forthcoming). I'll have to check out the back of the seed packet to see at what point I need to thin those. Although I didn't thin anything last year and those doggone Daikon got HUGE, growing right next to each other, so big that they were pushing themselves up out of the ground, some of them with about a 2" daimeter at the top. The problem with the Daikon is that I'm not sure what to do with it. I put it on salads, but I haven't discovered a good way to use it in recipes and I end up with more than I can eat. I need to put some effort into that.

Over the coming week I'll take stock of what's going on out there and in spots where seeds didn't come up I'll try again, either sow seeds again or decide on something else to put there. I think I'll mix in some of the good organic potting soil into the mounds before planting anything else out there. It's the closest thing I have to finished compost. Can you buy finished compost? Something else on my ever-growing list of things to figure out. I may get some more red beet seeds and give them another shot out there because I know from the fall that they will grow in my yard.

Babying tomatoes...

Well, I just saw Cindy's comment about not bringing the transplants inside unless there's a chance of frost, so I'd better get those babies back outside and just keep my eye on the weather forecast!!!!!! Thanks Cindy!

Successful Sprouts!

Well, it turns out that that thing I thought was a tap root wasn't a tap root at all, but the sprout itself! Some things I thought were seeds sprouting were just weeds from the back yard soil. The final verdict is in - I have had quite successful sproutings of the bush baby zucchinni and the pickling cucumbers! They're unbelievably delicate and beautiful. I'll try again with the eggplant this weekend. Yippee!

I want to say too, to The Tasteful Garden, that I continue to be amazed, daily, at how beautiful and robust the heirloom tomatos and "pick of peppers" plants are. I've been carrying them outside for hours of sun every day, and bringing them in at night, and giving them water if they start to look wilty. I topped off the soil in the pots with good organic potting soil the other day. I look forward to getting them in the ground, but I don't feel impatient about it because I feel like I'm developing a relationship with these plants! I wouldn't want a late frost to kill them. Just last Thursday there was an overnight frost warning for areas not too far from me.

My Carmen pepper plant already has a pepper on it about 3/4 of an inch long! I'll get a picture next chance I get.

Try Again!

Well, it turns out that seeds will sprout! This seems silly and self evident, but I have a hard time with that period of time between dropping a seed in the dirt and seeing something green poke up its head. It fills me with anxiety not to be able to see progress. What’s happening down there? Is it working? When I see that first tiny speck of green poking up out of the soil it’s always a great relief to me.

With regard to starting seeds inside, here’s a few things I’ve already learned:

1. Use better soil. This is also self evident, and not waiting to do this until I had better soil was just anxiousness and laziness.
2. The seedmat seems to work.
3. Having now used the 4-3-3 I won’t be afraid of it anymore.
4. I think the plastic bag “domes” are okay, but I think that I crowded everything – too many little pots too close together in too small of a space.
5. Don’t put the bag too tightly around the pots – the seeds in some pots didn’t sprout and the soil grew mold.

I pulled out something a few days ago then realized it was a seed with a tap root, so I poked it back down in (tap root down) and brushed a little more dirt over top. This morning there are two of them clearly visible, white Black Beauty Zucchini seeds sitting at the top of the soil line, with beautiful and delicately curved tap roots curving up out of them and then down. They look like swan’s necks. I got some good organic potting soil yesterday and will add some to the top. (I need to top off the tomato and pepper transplants too).

I think now that they’ve sprouted I can leave the domes off. I moved the ones that didn’t sprout and now have only those that did. I do have to say that because I used soil from the garden, rather than potting soil, I’m not one hundred percent sure that what is sprouting are seeds I planted, or if it’s not something in the soil (grass, clover, etc.) that is sprouting. I may start some more this weekend in potting soil that I picked up last night. I have a few more seeds. It looks like I got sprouts from zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant and one habanero. Most of the habanero seeds just ended up laying on top of the dirt with no action.

It’s still too soon to know if I’ll end up with any plants out of this, but I have conquered my fear and discomfort about doing it, and have learned a few things the hard way.

But what I most want to say this morning is that the unlikely occurrence of seeing anything sprout in these little pots at all spurs me towards philosophical reflection.

Every step taken at all – even those taken in hesitation and ignorance – become part of a body of knowledge, and every mistake becomes understanding, so that the most important thing to do is to take some step, any step at all. I think I saw starting seeds inside as too complicated because it’s easy to become overwhelmed by research, by information and advice. Eventually you have to just take a stab at something because it’s only by doing this that you start really learning and that the learning sticks with you.

I will probably start some more seeds in some better soil on Sunday, and continue to try to get a few plants out of my first experiment. This try again principle is certainly familiar to me – pop philosophy, inspirational books, biographies of those who accomplished great things with their lives resound with the battle cry to try again. As an aspiring novelist I certainly understand the cycle of submission, rejection, try again, and the fact that success is usually not the outcome of submission, but the outcome of try again. I always remember a quote from Thomas Edison about how he discovered how many ways that a light bulb wouldn’t work. But it wasn’t until this morning that I realized that try again is a principle of nature.

Try again is built into the very concept of rebirth – the multitude of seeds produced by a plant, the multitude of eggs produced by animals – nature understands that there’s a good chance you won’t succeed on your first shot, but there’s every chance that you’ll succeed eventually – that some attempts will make it, and some won’t. Our mantra to try again is a fundamental law of nature in our modern lives that we are scarcely aware of. Perhaps thinking of it this way in our moments of hesitation and discouragement can be a consolation that we haven’t failed, but are only ever in process.

Status on the beets, radishes, turnips and potatoes...

I’ve gotten out to the garden for a few minutes the past few days to look for any evidence that my seeds out there are coming up. It looks like they are, though not exactly where I put them. We’ve had SO much rain since I put them in on Saturday that they kind of ran off the mounds and are clustered together in places rather than where I actually put them. I didn’t have the camera with me when I was out there today and then it started raining so I don’t have a picture to post yet. But by Friday, when I’ll have the next opportunity to inspect, what has come up ought to be even more obvious.

No sign of anything where the seed potatoes are. It's probably too soon. But I'm also wondering if I should have let them sprout before putting them in the ground. I followed the directions that I got, so I don't know. I did pull the remaining six out of the bag and out of the fridge though to see if they will sprout in the kitchen before trying them in pots (or in the ground if the others don't come up....).

As A Learning Experience...

Before I start telling you this, I want to remind everyone that the words at the top of this page say “novice gardener”.

I started some seeds inside today.

I have never done this before, and the whole idea kind of intimidates me, but I figured, what the heck? The worst that could happen is that nothing will come up and I’ll go to the garden center in a month or so and buy transplants. The best that can happen is that I’ll get a few plants out of it. Either way, I would have learned something.

I used the small black plastic pots from the marigolds and other flowers I bought last weekend, and I used soil from the back yard, the same soil that I will ultimately be putting the transplants in (admittedly probably not the best choice, but I don’t have anything else on hand and no time to get out to buy organic potting soil, which is my preference). I did water them with a mixture of AgGrand Natural Fertilizer 4-3-3 (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) so I’m hoping that they will get the nutrients they need and be okay. They are sitting on a seedling mat which warms the root area about 10 degrees or so (or will, when they start to develop roots) and I have put “domes” made of Ziploc bags over the pots.

This is pretty low tech.

I figure in 7 – 10 days I’ll know whether or not I’m going to get anything out of them. I put in seeds for Habanero peppers, Hansel Eggplants, Bush baby zucchini (all miniatures that will be transplanted to pots on the deck), Hybrid pickling cucumbers and black beauty zucchini that will go into the ground. I’m not sure where I’m going to put the black beauty zucchini. If I could end up with just one good plant to put in the ground I would be satisfied. I don’t think I need more than one of them anyway. We’ll see. If I get enough eggplant plants I will put two of those Hansels in the ground. Or maybe one Hansel Eggplant and one Zucchini, as I had originally planned for two eggplants. I did find out that the Zucchinni should be on the potato side of the garden and not with the tomatoes. Also, I think that in my empty squares on the tomato side of the garden I’m going to plant nasturtiums, as good companion plants for the tomatoes and cucumbers.

The tomato and pepper transplants are still doing well. They started getting a little yellow, so we watered them with the AgGrand Natural Fertilizer 4-3-3 and hope they’ll look perkier tomorrow.

My husband also took a peaked-looked basil plant which has been sitting in a disconnected aerogarden for a few days, and got that into a pot outside. We will bring it in at night till it gets permanently warm outside. It may perk up. I poked a few more basil seeds in there along with it – from the same seed packet that the basil plant came from. I grew these seeds last year and they came up like crazy with no problem, so I would expect them to do well. If not now, then I’ll put them in a pot with organic potting soil in another month or so and they’ll come up well then.

Got a few things in the ground this weekend

The georgeous weather this weekend motivated me to get a ton of work done. I've got the whole garden plot ready to recieve, and put in a dozen marigolds. You have to really look closely at this picture to see them. I planted seeds for red beets, turnips and Daikon radish. All of these seed packets said to sow them 3 - 4 weeks before the last frost date, so I think they should be okay. All three of these crops just went nuts in my back yard last year. Case in point, while preparing the garden this year I pulled out a four inch long radish (about a week or 2 ago) that had started growing of its own accord from seed left from last fall. It had apparently been growing quite happily while we were still getting quite cold nights, so I think all three of these things will come up and be okay. I was going to plant the Touchstone Gold beets too, but those seed packets say to say to wait until after any chance of frost, which surprised me. I had thought that I could put all the beets in at one time but I guess not. It's probably just as well. This should give me a good supply over a longer period.

I also put in the banana fingerling seed potatos, which also say to sow 3 - 4 weeks before the last frost. I've had these in my refidgerator for several weeks now. I guess I expected them to have green sprouts coming out of them, but they pretty much just looked like little potatos. I did see a small white sprout coming out of one of them. I have six more than I had allotted space for - there were more than I expected - so I think I might try the last half a dozen in pots.

That's everything that can go into the ground right now, I think, for another 3 weeks at least.

As far as the plan, my garden is divided into 78 squares, 6X13. 54 of them on one side will grow potatoes, sweet potatoes, radish, red and yellow beets, eggplant, peppers and bush beans. The remaining 24 squares at the other end of the garden are for turnips, melon, tomatoes and cucumbers. The radish and marigolds which seem to do well with everything are planted throughout the entire garden. My main goal here was to keep the potatoes and tomatoes as far apart as possible - potatoes on one end and tomatoes on the other. At the moment I have a few squares on the tomato end that I'm not sure what to do with. I had originally allotted them for radish and turnip, but they're not my favorite vegetables and I was afraid I'd end up with too many of them both, so I stopped planting them yesterday. I may plant another round of beets at a later date, or maybe something else, I'm not sure. I'm going to try growing the melons UP like the tomatos, so that they don't take over everything, which I know that they will do.

As I suspected...

The tomatoes look great this morning, and the tops that were bowed down from being packaged have risen upright again. I understand that they're sent to me ready to be left outside, but I just need to keep an eye on the weather because it's still getting cold outside. For the next couple of days I'll put them outside for a few hours a day and then bring them in overnight.

Transplants arrived today!

I was excited to see a big box from The Tasteful Garden on my front porch this evening. I have ordered 6 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and 6 varieties of peppers. I wish now that I had selected a later ship date, as I realize that I'm probably going to have to keep them in my kitchen for the next few weeks and rotate them outside for a few hours every day since it's too early to plant them.

The plants are all a lot bigger than I thought they would be. The peppers look great, and some even already have buds and blooms on them. The tomatoes are quite big, but are bowed and a little wilted from travel. I gave them each a little water and I suspect they will look perkier in the morning.

I have been working over the past few weeks getting the garden set up in the 3'X3' sections and mounding up the dirt in the middle of each section as I described in my last post. It's been slow going, both because I can only do so much at a time, and because we've had so much rain! I started off as organized as the picture below, but started kind of "eyeballing" it after that. I'm about 2/3 of the way done.

It's supposed to be sunny and 70 tomorrow and Saturday so I hope to get the rest of the squares done so that I can get a few things in the ground this weekend - radishes, beets and the banana fingerling potatoes that I ordered from Johnny's Seeds.

I also hope to figure out some way to turn my hand-drawn garden plan into an image that I can upload this weekend.

I’m excited to be beginning this garden diary. I’m hoping that in addition to being helpful to other beginners, that the responsibility of these postings will help to keep me both vigilant and organized.

The garden I am planning for this spring is my third gardening attempt. Last spring, gardening was something of an afterthought, begun after 1 June. Despite making some beginner’s mistakes, I had some success with tomatoes, zucchini, okra and particularly cantaloupe, and produced some great kale and broccoli in the fall. This spring I have dug up almost 800 square feet to work with, surrounded it with rabbit guard, and made a plan. My objectives for this Spring are as follows:

1. Produce more food than I did last year; ideally so much that I am forced to freeze, can or dehydrate food to preserve it.
2. Not make the same mistakes I made last year.

I am only planning to grow things that I have a reasonable assurance will do well, based on my past garden experiences, and the research that I have done over the winter.

Because over planting (along with failure to thin) was a big problem for me last year, I want to make sure that all of my plants have enough space. In order to do that, I am dividing my space into 3’x3’ squares, with the goal of having one strong, healthy and heavily-producing plant on a mound in the center of each square. The exception to this will be a few things like the Daikon, turnip and beets, which can be a little closer together. For those I think I’ll shoot for three good plants per square.

I am as yet undecided about what I will do with the soil if anything, but I am thinking of mulching with hay.

I have done some research on companion planting. This is the practice of planting things together that do well together, and not planting things together that don’t. My understanding is that this also has to do with what insects each type of plant attracts – that things that do well together do so partly (or sometimes) because they act as trap plants for one another to keep unwanted pests away. I found a number of charts listing good and bad companions by googling “companion planting charts”. It may be that I shouldn’t have some plants in the same garden at all, but we’ll see. I’m hoping that keeping them separated as far as possible will help. I will also be inter-planting marigolds with the vegetables, as marigolds are supposed to be good companions for a number of different vegetables.

I think that’s enough for today. I’ll talk about what I’m planting, and where, next time.