More planting

So as most of my garden plans do, mine have changed slightly. Just moved a few things around....added a new variety of carrot :D simple things.

I am finding that I am running out of space quick. I am trying to find the things I want to plant, garlic to name one, while struggling not to plant every thing I have seeds for :P

so far so goo on my Broccoli starts, I have one that is just starting to show it's first true leaves. still no action on the bell peppers or egg plant. I probably won't see any for a while since i don't have a seed mat (they are expensive) so I might just have to steal my daughters room heater and heat up the area around the seeds and see if I can tease them out. I do have a few coming up in my class room, May be I should start a few more there since they have this really kick ass grow light set up :D

So to day I planted 16 Parisienne Carrot, I got these as a free gift from the folks over at Rareseeds.com. I can't wait to pull one of these round things our of the ground.

the other day I came across some shallots that I had stored from last season failure of a try. So I though I would try again :D didn't cost me anything this year....I think no matter what that next year I will bite the bullet and drop the $20 for a pound of great shallot sets, the red kind B-).

Oh yeah, nearly forgot. I ordered more seeds on Sunday. I ordered a yellow variety for a co worker of my wife and a purple variety for my wife. She had a Cherokee purple last year and she said she liked it. I believe that both of of these are indeterminate varieties so i can expect tomatoes all summer long.

Next I am going to have to go out and buy some dirt and compost for my containers i am going to have. two of them will be a determinate paste style tomato and one will be for potatoes. I should then be set for the summer.

So this was so short but I am at work and have been interrupted several times.

Until next time, Happy Gardening!

Bring on the Peas!!!

So I got home last night and decided that it was high time to plant some peas! I had been considering it for a while and thought "what the hell, why not!" So when I got home I made some homemade pancakes for the family and got busy planting.

A few weeks ago my wife, whom I love dearly for enabling this addiction of mine, bought me two 40 cell seed starting kits, they came with it's own seed starting medium. Since I didn't have any Mel's Mix left from creating my newest box, Yardy (because it sits in my yard duh!), I was stuck using the provided seed starting mix.

This is my first attempt at starting seeds for my garden, I have read on the SFG forums MANY different ways to start seeds. some use soil plugs others use egg cartons. Most use Mel's Mix (see All New Square Foot Gardening to find out more about Mel's Mix) and some even use vermiculite. Then there is the transplanting that needs to happen. I was very intimidated to say the least. A little while back I started De Cicco Broccoli in those seed cells I mentioned earlier. I now have baby broccoli coming up in 10 of the 12 cells I planted. If this tells you my confidence level I also have broccoli starts sitting right next to my seedlings. Either I am going to have a bumper crop this year of broccoli or I am going to be very happy that I bought broccoli starts :P lets hope for the former and not the later.

And coming back to last night, sorry for the side track there. While eating my pancakes in the kitchen and staring at my mini grow light operation I realized that I needed to plant some other seeds. It just came over me that I had empty cells and seeds that needed planting, welcome to my life, I can be very ADHD sometimes. so I pulled out my seeds and thought about my plans that I had sort of drawn up and went to town. I planted some saved seeds from red and yellow bell peppers, unknown variety and some Black Beauty Eggplant I went ahead and filled the rest of the cells with seeds. I can't wait to see them start popping their little heads out of the soil. I then soaked my peas and gave them a dose of inoculant and planted 32 peas :D 

although not elegant looking here is what my garden plans are as of today:

Shady in the Spring

arugula, (16)	arugula, (16)	arugula, (16)	arugula, (16)
Parris Cos, (16)	Parris Cos, (16)	spinach, (9)	spinach, (9)
Red Romaine, (16)	sylvestra, (16)	Butterhead, (4)	Butterhead, (4)
Red Romaine, (16)	Red Romaine, (16)	Black Seeded Simpson, (16)	Black Seeded Simpson, (16)

Shady in the Summer

peas, (8)	peas, (8)	peas, (8)	peas, (8)
eggplants, (1)	eggplants, (1)	eggplants, (1)	eggplants, (1)
broccoli, (1)	broccoli, (1)	broccoli, (1)	broccoli, (1)
broccoli, (1)	broccoli, (1)	broccoli, (1)	broccoli, (1)

Sunny

Haricot Verts, (4)	Haricot Verts, (4)	Haricot Verts, (4)	Haricot Verts, (4)
peppers, (1)	peppers, (1)	peppers, (1)	peppers, (1)
Not Planted	Not Planted	Not Planted	Not Planted
Italian Flat Leaf Parsley, (2)	garlic, (4)	garlic, (4)	Italian Flat Leaf Parsley, (2)

Yardy

tomatoes, (1)	tomatoes, (1)	tomatoes, (1)	tomatoes, (1)
Opal Basil, (2)	Shallots, (4)	Shallots, (4)	Opal Basil, (2)
Red Onions, (9)	Red Onions, (9)	Yellow Onions, (9)	Yellow Onions, (9)
Nantes Carrots, (16)	Nantes Carrots, (16)	Hollow Crown Parsnips, (9)	Hollow Crown Parsnips, (9)

I will see if I can come up with a better way of displaying this information.

Some things of note in Shady. I have already told you that I basically carpet bombed it with leafy greens what I haven't mentioned, I don't think is that I am planting concurrent crops for the most part. I have planted peas in with the arugula, even before it has sprouted :P hope it works. I did read that you can plant these two together, arugula being nitrogen loving and peas being nitrogen fixing it seems a match made in heaven :D

Until next time, Happy Gardening!