Planting Tomatoes

Before the plant sale I took out the plants that I wanted to keep.

The week after the plant sale was beautiful - sunny, 75F - perfect spring/summer.

So, silly me I planted all my plants.

Two days after I planted everything, we had freezing temps. For. The. Whole. Next. Week.

I covered everything, but the peppers aren't looking so great.

These pictures will probably be the peppers memorial service. Remember those beautiful peppers? Oh, yes they were just starting to live, so sad....taken in the prime of life.

This is how I plant my indeterminate tomatoes.

Dig a nice deep trench and amend with kelp (fertilizer) and crushed crab shells (calcium).
Put the tomato to bed in the trench and pull the soil covers up to its leafy chin.


Water deeply.

This is how close I plant my tomatoes.

Remember I grow my tomatoes up not out - so it works.

These are the covered beds I made - I'll show you how in my next post.

In these beds I planted the peppers -poor frosted peppers :(

In this bed the cabbage and broccoli are nestled. On the far right of the covered bed I have Golden shallots.

The bed in front of that has peas and onions.

More tomatoes.

More tomatoes!

The dearly departed peppers.

Really I am sad about this!

Broccoli and cabbage.

My Egg-celent Seed Planter

I planted some Lincoln shell peas. The seeds are from last year, so I put in some extra seeds. If they all sprout - Yay! If half sprout - Yay! Either way I will get some peas - Yay!

I covered the peas with some straw to hold in the moisture.
Moisture = good germination = more peas!
The straw was free! From the brush site. It's amazing what people will throw away.


This is my egg-celent seed planter. It's the egg holder that came with my refrigerator.
I put a few seeds in each opening, removed the seed spacer and lightly covered the seeds with soil. Hopefully, this way the seeds will be spaced and I won't have to thin the seedlings. I always promise to thin them, but then I forget about it until it's too late.

Garden Redo - Totally New!

I changed the garden!

Now, there are 12 beds in the veggie half with 3 foot paths between each bed.

I LOVE the 3 foot paths. It is so much easier to get a wheelbarrow in between the beds. Also, the layout is much easier to navigate.

Finally - FINALLY! I have the pond exactly the way I want it. No more moving- I promise.

This will be a little patio area, as soon as I can move the tulips.

I still have a lot to do. There are some interesting projects I have in mind.

Re-a-lly interesting.

If you speak Minnesotan, you know interesting has a different meaning here.

It is a polite way to say- gross, disgusting, never-do-that-again, but this time it means strange, unusual, weird.

Wa-ha! Stay tuned!

Potato Starts From the USDA

Last year I followed a link to a USDA web site. They requested your name, address, e-mail, ect. and in return you could request seeds, bulbs or starts.

Then they requested that you collect growth information about the items that they sent you and report back to them at the end of the growing season.

They didn't have to send me the seeds!

But they did

And they sent little letters with the "germplasms".

~

"It is the policy of the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) to provide available materials in small quantities for research and education purposes, not for home gardening use. Please understand that this is a one time distribution because it is not our function to provide seed for home use gardening uses. We encourage you to save seeds for your own use. Standard easy to grow types are available from commercial sources. Within one year we will send you our standard forms asking for information about the performance of material you have received. The information you provide will help us better serve our mission."

~

"It is the policy of the NPGS to provide available materials in small quantities for research, education and genetic improvement purposes, not for home gardening or personal hobby type use. The material in the US NPGS is maintained to support research. While "research" can sometimes be defined loosely, our policy is not to distribute seed to homeowners "for their veggie gardens". The reason being that government agencies are not allowed to maintain programs that would be considered competing with private industry."

~

So.....they don't want to send their stuff to homeowners?

Only renters? How unfair!

Naw, I'm just being sarcastic.

I do have a hard time imagining someone (who? a scientist?) carefully tracking the growth of 10 seeds or 2 potato starts and then reporting to the government.

Of course, maybe if they have a grant......but hey! I'm saving the government money! They don't have to pay me to test and report - I'm doing it for free.

Really, if they didn't want to they didn't have to send the seeds to me.

~

Another thing - they sent the potatoes to me at the end of August. I live in Minnesota, so the potatoes had to live in my fridge for 6 months. Finally, on March 1st I took them out, because they weren't getting any better looking.

I would hate to kill them and have the USDA track me down!

I cut each potato into pieces. Some were bigger, so I cut them into 3 pieces with 2 eyes on each piece. Then I let them 'cure' overnight, exposed to the air.

I carefully marked each planting square with a number, letter and sign.
Then I wrote down the information in my planting book.

Planting the starts.







Four days later - we have green shoots!

I usually plant my potato starts outside, but these little babies couldn't wait another 2 months.

It will be interesting to see how this experiment works out.

Varieties started: Fortuna - Granola - Gladstone - Ottar - Bernadette - Iris

Tomato Starts Growing

The seeds' babies are still growing!

Starting Seeds - Spring 2010

It's time to start seeds!

Last week I went over to my Mom's house and we started peppers, eggplants, geraniums and petunias.

The propagation unit showing off its wicking layer.

Spreading in the starter soil.

Pressing the soil into each cell.

Seeds ready to be covered (except for the petunias - they need light to germinate).

Everything written out in the planting book.

The grow lab.


Fast forward ONE WEEK..........................................

Bing!

We have sprouts!

These are almost ready for transplanting.

They are so tiny!

Just to show you how we position the light over the propagation unit.

Spring Will Soon Be Here

This is a list of some of the seeds/plants I have ordered for the 2010 season.

I say some, because I ordered a bunch of tomato/pepper/herb seeds from Baker's Creek that aren't in this list.

Some of the seeds I ordered are for my Mom and Dad.

I buy the seeds and my Mom starts the plants for both of us.

It's a win/win!

The ones in italics are varieties I planted last year and liked so much I'm planting them again.

~
Stock Harmony Mix
Stock Princess Pink
Ornamental Kale Nagoya Hybrid Mix
Golden Shallots
Super Giant Zinnia Mix
Yukon Gold Potato Sets
Margarets Pepper
Parris Island Romaine Lettuce
Gooseberry Offer
Golden Crown Hybrid Watermelon
Oregon Giant Pea
Planet Hybrid Pepper
Early Butternut Winter Squash
Miss Oklahoma Canna
Red Lake Currant
Super Blend Hybrid Broccoli
Dusky Hybrid Eggplant
Copra Hybrid Onion Plants
Candy Hybrid Onion Plants
Tiede Lettuce
Mixture Inca 11 Hybrid Marigolds
Burpee Golden Beet
Zavory Pepper
Tidal Wave Petunia Offer
Gourmet Sweet Pepper
Ribbon Hybrid Snapdragon
Heavenly Blue Morning Glory
Canesi Hybrid Winter Squash
Hot Pink Orbit Hybrid Geranium
Sweeter Yet Hybrid Cucumber
Magellan Coral Hybrid Zinnia
Hansel Hybrid Eggplant
Savoy Express Hybrid Cabbage
Twinny Peach Hybrid Snapdragon
Delicata Winter Squash
Redskin Hybrid Sweet Pepper
Ailsa Craig Exhibition Onion Plants
Majestic Giants 11 Hybrid Mix Pansies
Forget Me Not Gladiolus
Blue Giant Hosta
Fireworks Cornflower
Mixture Antigua Hybrid Marigold
Blue Lake S-7 Stringless Pole Bean
Sugar Baby Watermelon

~

My Baker's Creek order arrived yesterday and for the first time ever - I got everything I ordered!

Usually they have to refund part of my order, because they are sold out.

Well, thinking that at least some of my order wouldn't be in stock - I ordered extras!

We will not be short on tomatoes this next year!

Have you ordered your seeds yet?

Seed Box

I saw this great idea on another blog My Tiny Plot.

She organized her seed box by month, but because my growing season is so short here, I didn't think that would work for me, so I used plant names.

I also used a bright neon orange box, so I can't lose it in my garden.

Before.

My "seed box".

Very unorganized! I just put all my seed packets in this cardboard box and when I wanted to plant something I would dig through all of them.

Not the best system.

In fact, last year I forgot to plant shell beans, because I didn't see the 2 packets until August.

Whoops! Too late!

Now.

Nice and organized.

Now, I can see what seeds I need to order for this year - mostly peppers, flowers and one or two new tomatoes, but I have lots of seeds to use from last year.

I also like this box, because it has a cover.

(It's a shoe box.)