Tomato

It's been a while since I took any pictures of my tomato seedlings, but they are coming right along. They have been thriving on the kitchen windowsill for the last few weeks, although they recently outgrew that particular piece of real estate.

Now I have them in this big metal bin so they can be easily carried outside for the daytime, and brought back inside during the night. Next weekend is supposed to be a warm one so that is my projected date to get these guys in the ground.

April Progress

Despite infrequent posting here on the blog, things have been humming along in the garden with the growing season well underway.

One cool project I am trying this year for the first time is a super-DIY, super-cheap seed starting technique. Since I am noticably lacking a nice, warm greenhouse for giving my seeds a head start while the weather is still cool, I decided to substitute in lots of mini-greenhouses and hopefully accomplish the same goal. These "greenhouses" are just old plastic milk jugs and 2 liter soda bottles (cut in half) with a little bit of potting soil in the bottom.

The plastic walls of the bottles work their greenhouse magic, retaining heat and moisture, allowing the seeds to grow even as night time temperatures dip down into the 30s and 40s. The picture below is of two Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon seedlings. So far so good!

I finally built the trellis/ fence that I have been wishing for for such a long time. The added privacy is great, and the extra growing space is a nice bonus too.

My first planting of mixed lettuces is coming in nicely. I did a second planting about 2 weeks later and those are just starting to pop up as well.

Peas also are looking good, getting taller and tucked safely behind their rabbit-proof mini fence.

One of bigger recent plantings is one that I have been looking forward to for quite a while: asparagus. For those who've never seen it (I hadn't) this is what asparagus crowns look like when they arrive in a box from the seed catalog. When you take them out they look like small octopus, with lots of thin roots dangling down from a central head.

Here is the asaparagus bed, first in it's pristine "before" state, and then also prepped with the asparagus crowns ready to be covered with soil.

Seedling Jungle

The tomato seedlings are getting a bit leggy so I'll be moving them on into their plastic pots sometime this week. Lettuce and peas are nosing their way through the soil out in the garden. It feels like mid- June outside, but I think that the reality of April weather can't be far off...

Compost

On Saturday I got my first load of Phoenixville Borough compost delivered to my garden by my Dad (thanks Dad). It was first piled all into one of the raised beds, but I spent a few hours on Sunday spreading it out between the two new beds. You can see that it is pretty rough stuff, with lots of sticks and woody pieces mixed in.

As I moved it around though I tried to sift through it and remove most of the woody chunks while leaving the good stuff behind.

In the picture below you can see the other raised bed filled out with compost. Behind that, on an angle, you can see another small, new bed that I have set aside for the rhubarb plants when they arrive.

My last project of Sunday involved this forlorn little weedy/ grassy patch back near the compost pile. I planted a few blackberry plants here 2 years back, they have to take off- but I'm still holding out hope.

It's a big space and I'm hoping to plant some winter squash here this year, but the soil is a bit to shallow and root-filled to dig much compost into. So I am trying a technique that I've read about but never tried myself.

The area that I going to plant I covered with a thick layer of old cardboard. Later on I'll use chopped leaves and more compost to cover the cardboard with a good 5--6 inches of organic material. The idea is that the cardboard will block out any weeds that are present, and then eventually just break down into the soil. Thats the idea anyway. The logs on top of the cardboard are just there to hold it down until I get the compost to cover it up.

Tomato Seeds Started

I used this afternoon to get my tomato seeds going in my little peat-plug seed starting kit. I didn't take many pictures this time because I documented the process pretty well last year, and this went pretty much the same. I am trying seven varieties this year, and they are: Aunt Ruby's German Green, San Marzano, Amish Paste, Cherokee Purple, Sungold, Red Brandywine, and Flamme.

2010 Season Underway

This past weekend brought on the start of a new growing season. Even though the weather was unusualy warm for this early in the spring (70+ and sunny), I went by the traditional Saint Patricks day planting date to get my first seeds in the ground. This year in addition to peas I used my first planting date to also get Lettuce, Chard and Potatoes in the ground. All of these seeds are able to be planted "as soon as the ground can be worked" and should have no problem with the cooler, wetter weather during the next few weeks.

The peas I planted into two of the new raised beds in the background of this picture.

Instead of making a more formal trellis structure for the peas to grow on, this year I just stuck some sticks into the ground in a loose tipi shape.

I took a few pictures of my potato planting technique this year. Not because I know what I am doing, but this way if things don't go wellI can look back and see where it all went terribly wrong.

I try to avoid the temptation to clean the beds off and tidy things up too much and instead allow the leaves to be worked into the soil over time. This is the potato bed prepped and ready to go.

Trench dug about 6 inches deep.

Seed potatoes placed in the trench with most of the "eyes" facing up.

The trench filled over with the potatoes safely tucked in for the season. Happy growing!

A Real Spring Day

Many of the seeds that I ordered have arrived, with more showing up in the mail just today. I spent some time today continuing to frame out the new raised beds and added some composted manure to the soil in preparation for pea planting- hopefully next weekend.

Incidentally, it was sunny and 65 today. Summer can't come soon enough.