Week 5 (03/31/2011)

 

Today is nice and warm.  I placed my seedlings outside to harden them.  The biggest ones are my Soy beans.  The leaves look great but the stems are not very strong.  This worries me and I hope they will still be good plants as long as I make sure they are well supported.  This week my okra seedlings died :(.  I guess they didn't like the seed starting pellets.  I noticed today that the seeds I planted with compost in my egg carton are starting to grow.  I didn't take any pictures because they were just too small but I'm sure next week I will be able to get some good pictures.  The pepper plants that I planted next to my okra in the same egg carton are also starting to grow.  They are sprouting much faster than the ones in the seed pellets but I'm not sure that is because it has gotten warmer and the soil is warmer or the compost just germinated them faster.

This is a picture of a little bell pepper which has popped out.  It still hasn't grown any leaves yet and I just noticed it today.  My Jalapeno seedlings were the first to sprout and have already grown there first true leaves.  The Habanero, and Cayenne still haven't made an appearance.

I planted basil in this pot with compost and soil a couple of weeks ago and the seedlings look so cute!  I pulled out a few that were just way to close together.  Last year my basil seedlings did not make it so I am really hoping these little guys pull through...fingers crossed!

This week I also started some lettuce, mesclun, ceasar, and Kale.  After just a couple of days I am already seeing little seedlings coming out.  I was going to just start these outside, but I then decided I wanted an earlier harvest so I decided to plant them inside.  These will be the first to go out, probably in a couple of weeks.  Speaking of planting outside....I have planted my sugar snap peas.  Yesterday a light rain started right after I planted them so they are off to a good start.

The lettuce, and snap peas are going to be in the same bed as my rhubarb.  I am so excited about this little guy because I love to use rhubarb in my cooking.  If you look closely a third leaf is starting to grow from the center.  The bigger leaf on the left is as big as my palm.  I planted this last year and it never got this big so I'm hoping it has a good year and I may be able to harvest from it towards the end of the summer.

 As I walked around the garden today I noticed more sprouts.  This is why I love spring because every week I go out, there is something new to find.

Peppermint

Magnolia (hopefully I will have flowers in about two weeks!)

This week I also placed both of my agave plants outside.  

This is my biggest one, it is a blue agave I'm not sure what kind the one on top is.  I got both of these plants from my husbands uncle who lives in El Paso. 

week 4 (03/24/2011)

 

I know this post is a couple of days late.  I have been in training all week and it was a bit exhausting so I put off writing this post until the weekend.  This week I planted my tomatoes.  My peppers have not come up yet but I can see very tiny sprouts coming up.

This is a picture of my okra which is looking very sad.  I bought these pellets at Home Depot that you can just add water too and they turn into a seed starter for your seedlings.  I haven't been really happy with them.  This picture at the top of this blog is a picture of my soybeans.  The leaves are looking great but the stems are extremely weak, and I worry that they wont be able to hold the beans up.  

My eggplant looks like it is really the only one that seems to enjoy these seed starter pellets.  This week they have all sprouted a third leaf and look green and healthy.

I re-planted some okra, soybeans, and some peppers in this home made seed starter.  It is just an egg carton with holes poked in the bottom filled with compost and dirt.  I wanted to plant the same seeds that I had used in the seed starter pellets so I could really compare which one worked the best.  Of course the egg carton isn't very deep so I will have to transplant the seedlings sooner than I would with the seed pellets but hopefully the seedlings will be healthier.

On Sunday I will be planting some pea seeds directly into the ground if the snow has completely melted.  It has been warm here but yesterday we had a small snowstorm and today the temperature is about 38 degrees F.  It is supposed to warm up by the end of this week to the 50s.  If not I will probably wait until next week to plant my seeds.  

Still no tulip blooms yet but they are getting close!  I have buds on all of my trees and both honeysuckle plants.  I can't wait for spring flowers!

week 3 (03/17/11) compost!

 

Spring is definantley right around the corner, It has been in the 50s all week and the temperature is steadily climbing.  Since I am in Utah I do expect another snow storm or two but I will welcome the moisture as long as we don't have any out of control windstorms like last year!  My favorite part about spring is watching all of the plants come start to come back from last year.  My Crocus' have come up, I have yellow, white, and purple.  The tulips and daffodils are starting to break through as well but no blooms yet and probably not for another couple of weeks.

My bleeding hearts are starting to come through.  Last year they were doing great until we had a huge hail storm in April and a bad wind storm in May.  I am hoping the fare better throughout this summer, hopefully they are stronger plants because of the ordeal they went through last year.  I have three plants along the edge of my house by my door and all of them are starting to peep through the leaves and dirt.

My favorite poppy plants are also starting to show there green color.  Last year they were only a year old.  I had about three to four blooms, from six plants.  My goal is to fill the whole bed with Oriental Poppys.  At the end of April I plan to go to the nursery and pick up a couple more Poppys.  Last year this plant produced one blossom, and it was as big as my hand!  

My little Rhubarb has also made an appearance, since I took this picture another stem and leaf has grown.  This rhubarb is a year old, I'm not sure how quickly rhubarb grows but I hope I can get a good harvest out of this one soon and make some rhubarb pie.

This week I prepared all of the vegetable beds by tilling them and adding compost.  I found worms in all of the beds but one, so I also dug up some worms from the other beds to add to the worm-less patch.  I bought compost this year from my cities landfill.  It was only $25.00 for a whole truck load!  My own compost pile wont be ready until the fall so I'm hoping I can use that for next years harvest.

This is the newest patch, my husband dug this grass out for me in exchange for dinner at Red Lobster.  Last year in the fall I planted four Russian Sages.  Last year I had a problem attracting bees to my pumpkins and squash so this year I thought I would attract them by mixing flowers with my pumpkins.  In this patch I plan on growing pumpkins, sunflowers, and corn.

This patch is on the South side of my house.  If you look carefully you can see my little rhubarb on the left side.  I set up netting for my sugar snap peas, and I will also be planting leafy greens, like Romain, Blue Kale, and Green salad.  Since all of these plants do well in a cooler soil This patch will probably be the first to be planted.

This patch is also on the south side of my house.  I built teepees yesterday for my pole beans.  I also have three raspberry bushes to the left of the teepees that are starting to bud.  This patch will also have potatoes, carrots, corn, and sugar pumpkins.  To the right of the stones I have planted garlic which is starting to look really good.  I planted them in November of last year and they started coming up a couple of weeks ago.

My three raised beds on the north side of my house were the easiest to prepare with only a couple of weeds.  I set up my orange tomato trellis I made last year.  Having the tomatoes grow up a thick rope worked really well.  In the bed farthest away I will have all of my pepper plants.  This year I am taking it easy on the Habanero and I will probably only have one plant.  I am also planting cayenne, jalapeno, Poblano, and a sweet bell pepper.  If there is room between the rows I am also planning on planting carrots.  In the middle box I will plant all of my tomatoes, mostly Roma cause they are my favorite.  and in the last box I am planting egg plant, soy beans, and basil.  I have more room in this last box so when things start coming in I may move them over to this one.  Possibly my okra...but I'm not sure yet.  I also heard that planting marigolds next to your tomatoes protects them from insects so I am planning on experimenting with that as well.

There is no update on my seedlings thus far, except I have planted a pot of basil.  My peppers still haven't sprouted but I'm not suprised, I have been keeping the soil warm and hopefully I will see some sprouts next week.  I have been having some problems with my okra seedlings.  They looked great last week, but this week the leaves are turning brown and they are slowly dying one by one.  I still have four plants so I'm hoping I can keep those alive.  If not, I still have time to try something different with them.

 

Week 2: March 10, 2011

Week 2:  The above picture is of my soy bean plants.  Some of the true leaves have crept out of the bean shell so I have started to weed them out.  After all of the soybeans have been thinned I will have four plants.  I was a little worried about the stems because the grew so fast in such a short time but they are staying strong.  Sometimes in the morning I will blow on them to similate a gentle breeze so the stems know they have to be strong.  Since it has been warm outside (about 50 degrees F)  I have been setting them out in the sun for about an hour just to harden them off a bit.

My okra is doing also starting to show it's first true leaves.  The little seedlings are a pale yellow and a little fuzzy.  If you look closely you can see the little hairs on this one.  So far I will still have five plants after I thin these guys out.

Last week my egg plant still hadn't come up and I was getting a bit worried but this week they all came up!  I planted about three seeds per pod and on average only one came up so I have at least one plant per pod making it a total of five plants!  They are still pretty small but they have plenty of time to grow.  As I stated in last weeks blog, these egg plants are a fairy tale hybrid so they will be ready to harvest earlier then there normal counterparts.  They are also a bit smaller which is great for me because I prefer the smaller kind.  The bigger ones can be a bit overwhelming and I just can't make enough food with them to keep up.  My favorite thing about egg plants is the blossoms..can't wait!

This week I started my peppers.  I have two pods for Habaneros, three for Cayenne, three for Ancho Poblano, four for the bell peppers and four pods for Jalapenos.  In each pod I have about four seeds.  Peppers need a lot of heat to germinate so in this tray I put warm water around my containers to heat things up a bit.  I am really trying to save money as you can see so my containers are made out of drink containers I collected this winter.  Kind of ghetto looking but it didn't cost me a thing.....and if some of my seedlings don't work I will have a little extra money to go and buy a plant from the green house ha ha!

This week end I am going to construct my bean towers and set up my netting for my peas.  I also need to get some good soil from the city dump.  My compost I worked on last summer wont be ready until this fall so I am reserving that for next years crops.

Week one 2011 (03/03/2011)

I planted three different seedlings last week (02/24/2011) using Jiffy Tomato greenhouse pellets.  I saved money by just buying the refill pack and using milk cartons to hold the pellets.  I placed the milk cartons in a mini green house I had bought last year.

I left the seedlings in here and used warm water to encourage the a warm moist atmosphere for the seeds.  As soon as the seeds started to sprout I took them out.  One thing to watch out for is a white mold called "Damping off" that can grow on the top of your seed pellets and effect germination.  To prevent this you can lift the lid off of your seedlings and allow circulation.

These are my pellets for the Fairy Tale eggplant from Johnny's seed company.  No action yet, I read that eggplant can be a bit finicky and can take longer to germinate so I am being patient with it.  The pellets are still in my little green house, and hopefully keeping warm.  Eggplant likes to be extremely warm (about 80 degrees F).  I'm afraid it is hard to get that warm in my house so I may be waiting awhile till these seedlings pop out.

These are my Green pearl Soybeans from Johnny's seed company.  I planted two seeds per pellet and all of them germinated except for two in one of the pellets due to that little white mold I explained earlier.  I am going to plant two more seeds in there and see if they germinate.  In my garden I am planning for four plants.  Right now I have eight seedlings, but I will be pulling four of them as soon as the true leaves come out in order to give more space to one plant.  Because that leaves me with exactly four plants I am hoping I can get some seeds to germinate in the failed seed pellet in case one of the plants dies.

These are my Clemson Spineless Okra from Johnny's seed company.  I planted three seeds per pellet, a total of 18 seeds.  A total of 15 have germinated, 83% germination rate isn't bad!  When the true leaves show I will take the weaker plants out to give more room for the stronger ones leaving me a total of six okra plants.




I also took a walk around my garden and noticed little sprouts everywhere.  I have crocus, and tulip sprouts coming out.  My roses, trees, and shrubs all of buds.  I also noticed a little rhubarb poking through the cold mud. 

Spring is around the corner!