Garden Notes - March 8, 2014

I started my seeds on March 5: bell peppers, cabbage, chives, thyme, head lettuce (Romaine and Bibb), Rudbeckia, verbena, and ageratum.  It only took 2 days for the little, tiny plants to appear - all except the verbena, chives and peppers. 

Unfortunately, I left most of my purchased "greenhouses" in my shed, and I don't feel like trudging through the snow to get to them.  All of the plastic lettuce containers that I have been collecting have been coming in as handy replacements! I fill them up with the water-saturated peat moss plugs, sow the seeds and label the containers with a sharpie. Done. I put them on the heating mats and under the lights. After the seedlings appear, I simply cut off the lids.

I learned to put the pepper seeds in the little peat moss plugs to avoid "damping off". However, the plugs where I sowed chive seeds seems to have grown webby.  I'm not sure what that's all about.

Also, the verbena seeds need a little extra attention.  They require the heat mat during the day for warm temperatures and at night I have to move them so they can have cooler temps (60 degrees fahrenheit). They could take as many as 28 days to germinate.  I don't mind:

Rapid Growth in Containers After Just One Week

Just some pictures to show how fast everything's growing! First, the heirloom tomato plant that I just couldn't bring myself to toss because my Mom gave it to me:

 

Next, the sweet pepper that struggled in the beginning, "Carmen":

 

 

Now, the cabbage:

 



 



Everything's doing really well, and the best part is that I don't have to worry about animals eating them!

Container Garden

After I set up the vegetable garden and finished planting all of my seeds, I worked on the container garden.  I bought a top-quality potting soil by Fafard (5 giant bags) and I pulled out every single pot I own  - in addition to the 4 new self-watering containers I bought at Target ($9.99 a piece).

I planted as many of the seedlings as I could before I just had to accept the fact that some would have to be thrown out.  I had too many tomato seedlings and cucumber seedlings.  Next year, I won't grow so many.

These photos were taken on June 2, and today is June 9th.  Already I can see that these plants have grown so much in one week!  I will have to post more pictures just to show the difference one week made!

Another Day of Yard Work, Hard Work

Today I set out the rest of my seedlings and mulched the front gardens.  Michael painted the rose trellises and I put them out today.  I had to string the rose canes to the trellis so they wouldn't fall.

I also put in my dahlia bulbs, zinnias and bachelor's button plants.  I'm very excited to see what they bring! 

Before I called it quits for the day, I dug up my remaining three basil plants and stuck them in a pot.  We're definitely putting up that fence in the fall!

I was very excited to see tiny yellow flowers on my cucumber plants!  Now, if I could just keep the pests away from everything...  And Shadow is turning out to be a major pest. He keeps trampling through my garden beds, as well as lying down in the cool dirt. The fence will have to keep him out, too!