Starting Seeds

I do have another post to do about the rest of the spring vegetables that I have planted out in the garden, including the potatoes. But I wanted to take time to do a little post on starting seeds inside. I'm not so sure you can gain great expertise from me b/c I don't do anything crazy, but it might help. Side-note: I do dream about the day I can have a little greenhouse off the side of our shed! Maybe someday I'll get to the point where I start all my vegetables that don't go right in the ground. Although I have to say I get great pleasure out of going to various garden centers and buying.

I mostly start my annuals inside. I like to do a combo of starting the seeds and then also planting them right in the ground. It gives me a huge variety when they start blooming. My personal favorites are zinnias - I chose 5 different varieties from Renee's Garden. I love to have every color I can - purple, pink, red, orange, yellow, striped, you name it! I also like the variety in the actual flower whether it's a cactus petal, double or single petal.

I also started a few different kinds of cosmos: double click which has a double petal, regular sensation, and then a newer variety that I've done for a few years called Candy Striped. It has a white flower with pink tips - really really pretty. I love my cosmos really get going late in the summer and just 'flit in the wind!' Last year they didn't survive the hurricane.

The last flower started are snapdragons. I will never get enough of snapdragons in the summer. They just seem so dainty and pretty to me. I often end up buying tall white & pink, but I do try to start them. It's a really tiny seed so it's hard and I'm not always successful. I sprinkle them on the little peat pots and then keep the strongest.

That brings to me how I start the seeds... I have these 2 trays that I bought a few years ago that hold the small round peat pots. Peat pots are cheap so I get new ones every year just to protect from any disease, mildew or whatever may be around from the previous year. At the beginning I didn't pay too much attention to that stuff, but I do now. Experience... I can go on and on about how the first year I just put things in and didn't listen to all the 'advice' b/c I was 'just doing it.' Oh to be that naive again... you do have to pay attention, if you hate the  scientific side as I do. There are pests and disease and it's best to learn and prevent from the beginning. I put 2 seeds per pot exc the snaps which I sprinkle and keep the strongest.

If you look closely you can see that I started the tomatillos and one tomato - green zebra. I've never started tomatoes so we'll so how this goes. I'm not sure I get enough light where I have them - which is in our big, south-facing window. You can see that I put some plastic over which acts as a loose cover to keep moisture and heat in. I only did that for the first week as the seeds germinated. I've since removed it. I water every other day - just enough to keep them moist. I rotate the trays every week and turn them around. This is the second week so hopefully over the next 10 days we'll see true leaves. As the seedlings get bigger and stronger, I'll transfer them into larger pots. I'll post that. And then start to harden them off for a few hours a day in Mid-Late May.

Asparagus!

FINALLY! It's been 3 years of waiting, but the wait is over. We have asparagus to eat!

Asparagus is one of the perennial vegetables. Once you put it in, it's there to stay. Which also means you have to select a spot that you don't mind losing. I chose an outer side of one of the vegetable plots - not along the fence. Why wait 3 years you may ask? Well you have to let it develop and grow strong - that's about as scientific as I'm going to get with it. Here is an article about growing it: http://www.gardeners.com/Growing-Asparagus/7343,default,pg.html I chose Jersey Supreme, which is a new variety. Traditional asparagus was called Mary Washington. You had to dig very deep trenches and wait for a while for it to grow. This newer variety is closer to the surface - you dig a trench about 6-12" vs. 2 feet down. You do still slowly fill the trenches as the asparagus grows in the first year. Here is a picture from the first year, 2010. By June the trenches were full and you just let the asparagus grow without cutting it.

Last year we were able to eat it for about 2 weeks. It wasn't much so we didn't really give it away. You eat the really fat ones and then let it go for the rest of the season. It does take up space as it grows tall and looks like bamboo stalks! So this is our first year of an abundance of asparagus! We can eat it until they start to be thin - I'm told once they're the width of a pencil to stop picking. I picked the first ones on Tuesday April 17. I only cut 3 down that day. I went away for a few days, had more crazy April weather - meaning warm - and came back to an asparagus plot growing crazy!

It's still very early in the season and they're just starting to come up. I think it's safe to say that we'll get our fill of asparagus and we'll be sharing lots! So come one, come all and get your asparagus! I can't wait to eat it.

One last little thing... look at what else I came back to:

Peonies gone crazy! This is a good 3 weeks ahead of any other year. It's a good thing I didn't plan a party in June with the peonies blooming!

First day in the vegetable garden

FINALLY! The day has come to start planting for the 2012 vegetable garden! I never did a post about ordering seeds so what I'm going to do is talk a little about the seeds as I put them in. It was a different experience for me this year as I had to order seeds online. For the first few years of my vegetable garden, my Mom worked at a seed 'store' at the Philadelphia Flower Show where she picked out seeds for me from a wide variety! From that I had a pretty good idea of what companies I liked and what varieties I liked. As always wanting to add new stuff in or try a new variety. I've had my issues so I did make some changes. Also in the interest of not ordering from 10 different places, I didn't use all the companies I have in the past - most notably Seed Savers, I company I did like.

I do a garden plan. I have started using this site, that completely satisfies the anal retentive planner that I am! http://www.growveg.com/growguides.aspx It's a planner that allows me to measure out fairly precisely and include the exact variety that I'm using. Over the season it will tell me when to plant the next batch, what is done, when to plant for fall harvest, etc. I do not have the final plan done yet so I'm not going to post it quite yet. I do have the general idea and I started with that yesterday. My Plots are simply named A-D, maybe someday I'll be inspired to name them something else.

The plots were rototilled last week. Last fall we put down straw with the hopes that it would break down into the soil over the winter. Well, our winter didn't allow that! No snow or much precipitation. It did make the rototill a bit more challenging along with rain that came along towards the end. That is just going to make a little extra work for me to prep each bed. Typically I go around and edge to define each plot and weed along the fence. Here is what it looked like to start:

This is Plot D which has the asparagus - you can see the dead stuff standing up there. I needed to clean that up and level off the bed. My plan for this plot along with the asparagus is peas along the back fence there, the summer squash - 3 varieties - and beets - also 3 varieties.

Here it is looking all pretty ready for me to start measuring out! I put down black gardeners fabric along the paths 1) to control the weeds 2) so that people know where to walk. I actually had some leftover from last year so I started to put it down - it's never too soon to control those weeds!

I was finally able to put in the peas and beets. I did plan out where the summer squash is going to go and may end up just covering the area with fabric to control the weeds this spring, then cut out the areas where those mounds are going to go. I am going to need to control vine borer so I have some ideas of what I'm going to do when I actually plant the summer squash later in May, early June.

Here are the beets! I have had a lot of trouble growing beets so I'm moving them away from a lot of other items to see if that helps. I've had them grow alongside carrots, which shouldn't be a problem with nutrients, but you never know. I'm trying to pay special attention to my PH levels this year and give each vegetable the attention it needs to grow fully. Every year I've focused on one thing particularly so this year it's the beets - I'm determined to have lots! You will see that I have 3 kinds... 2 were ordered from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds - Golden & Chioggia. The third kind is from High Mowing, a brand I've had success with in the carrots. I chose their Boro F1 Hybrid, which is supposed to be somewhat disease resistant.
I have 2 different kinds of peas - I was excited to find a brand that Mom & I have used in the past, Franchi, which is Italian. I grew their small pea pods last year so this year I chose a more prolific one, called the Wrinkle Pea. I then reused my sugar snaps from Botanical Interests.
Finally I saw some asparagus poking thru the ground!!! I can only hope that we'll be eating it by the end of the month!

Not to be outdone, I have a new addition to my garden! Steps and a walkway that our landscaper, Mike Shafer, put in on Friday! I laboriously dug out a section of my garden last fall that housed 2500 daffodil bulbs, and a variety of other goodies - well, not all goodies. This was an area in my garden that was a thorn in my side. I am very much looking forward to how it will look as the summer progresses and the plantings around it enclose it for a secret little path!

 Here are some shots of how it used to look! A year ago with all the daffodils and then as the summer progressed and it would become an overgrown nightmare, that housed a beautiful hibiscus!