more sprouts

The seeds are still starting!

The lettuces are really doing nicely. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to resist these sweet little greens – I may have to sneak a few leaves into a salad pretty soon.

lettuces

This cracked me up – apparently I dropped a seed or two into the bottom of the tray and they’re growing right from there, just in the water and the few grains of soil that spilled in there as well.

a seed escaped and is growing in the bottom of the tray

This Emerald Giant Pepper is the coolest shape! Gorgeous.

Emerald Giant Pepper

The Bloomsdale Long-Standing Spinach that sprouted first is getting to look like a real plant. How cool is the contrast between the different types of leaves?

Bloomsdale Long-Standing Spinach

I had a bunch of seeds for Bellflower Tussock that I meant to spread around outside directly in the garden last fall, but forgot. So I thought, why not try starting some? It’s sprouting like crazy! Note: these seeds are tiny, so I was pretty liberal in how many I put in each container.

Bellflower Tussock

The Sugar Baby Watermelon is sprouting, too! I wasn’t sure how these would do, but they seem to be doing just fine.

Sugar Baby Watermelon

I sowed more seeds last week, so I’m now using five out of the six trays and all three tiers of the shelving unit. This leaves me one tray left to fill as we get closer to the last frost date, and then I’ll have more room in the tray that currently contains lettuce, when I move that out. Overall I have to say that I’m very pleased with this whole set-up. It is working even better than I had hoped!

seed starting setup aglow -now using all three tiers

Veg bed plans for 2011

Okay! As promised, here are my plans for the veg beds this year. I saw a post the other day that recommended a (new?) site called Olioboard for putting together garden beds. I tried it and it works pretty well. It was easy to use and worked like I expected it would – and it’s free!

This is the first raised bed (the one that lives on the left side of the back garden):

Raised Bed - left - plan 2011From back to front, left to right, we have:

True Gold Sweet Corn (all the way across)

Emerald Giant Sweet Pepper x2   Anaheim Hot PepperPurple Beauty Sweet Pepper x2

Rocky Top Lettuce Mix .      Iceberg Lettuce .     Bloomsdale Spinach .    Calabrese Broccoli

 

I’m hoping that I haven’t squished too much into the bed – I have definitely done that before. I think I’m okay on this one, though. The bed is approximately 8′x4′ (I think), and I think I’ve allowed for enough room. Not entirely sure I’ve done that on this next one, which lives on the right side of the back garden:

Raised Bed - right - plan 2011Here we have, from back to front, left to right:

Tom Thumb Popcorn (across half)                     Strawberry Popcorn (across the other half)

Early Russian Cucumber .          Chadwick Cherry Tomato .        Marketmore 76 Cucumber

.                                   Mule Team Tomato .                Brandywine Tomato

Atomic Red Carrot (across half)                                  Muscade Carrot (across the other half)

 

I think this will be not too crowded, as long as I keep the tomato and cucumber vines in check. I also have the long veg bed along the fence. I’m switching up the spots where I’ve grown some of the same stuff in past years, so no part of the soil gets drained of something that a particular plant really likes. Here’s the long bed along the fence:

long fence veg bed - plan 2011The left column, which will be on the fence side of this bed, has, from top to bottom:

Golden Sweet Snow Peas

Contender Bush Beans

Blue Lake Bush Beans

Fin de Bagnol Beans

 

The right side column has, from top to bottom:

Black Beauty Zucchini

Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin

Sugar Baby Watermelon

Early Prolific Straightneck Squash

Charentais Melon

Oxheart Tomato

Blacktail Mountain Watermelon

Buttercup Squash

Zucchini Cocozelle

 

I just threw these into this plan, no reason for the order, because they all get the same relative amount of sun and nothing will be shading them, and I’m not sure if there’s any benefit to growing them in a particular order. Hints and tips appreciated, if anyone has any.

So that’s the plan! Roughly, anyway. I’ll also be planting some pretty red lettuce and cabbage in the front garden, hopefully, although last year I tried that and they never came to much. Here’s hoping they’ll turn out better this year. I’m going to make an updated map of the front garden using this software – keep an eye out for that here soon.

sun=productivity

It was gorgeous, warm and sunny, yesterday and I got out in the garden and spend almost all day out there. I put the first veg seeds in the ground, and in the process amended my plan for the veggie garden to better make use of the space (I think I do this every time – I never quite plan for the space quite right).

back veg garden

So far, in the back row there are trellises with Sugar Snap Sweet Peas, Golden Sweet Snow Peas, Fin de Bagnol Beans, and Blue Lake Bush Beans. In the row in front of that, there are (tomato) cages marking Early Russian Cucumbers, Buttercup Squash, Baby Pam Squash, Sugar Baby Watermelon, Charentais European Melon, Anaheim Hot Pepper, Purple Beauty Sweet Pepper, Fox Cherry Red Tomato, and Black Krim Tomato. I’ll be putting more things in, too, once we’re a little further into the warm weather.

I also removed the rusty old metal fence from in front of this garden bed and replaced it with metal fence posts and plastic netting (AKA plastic chicken wire), so it matches what we have protecting the fence-side bed.

view from the back of the back yard/veg bed

view from the back of the back yard/veg bed

I had meant to do that last year but never got around to it. I’d still like to install a mowing edge around the back of the lawn, but haven’t gotten around to that yet. Removing sod is one of my least favorite yard tasks.

While I was working out there, I noticed that the asparagus I planted last year is actually coming up again! I was getting worried that I hadn’t seen any sprouts yet, but it was there, just hiding as it is so very tiny.

asparagus, year 2

Finally, I’m wondering if I can split this hyssop which has gotten pretty sizable over the past few years. I wouldn’t mind having a few patches of it around the garden beds, as it does such a lovely job of attracting the bees. If anyone knows how to go about splitting it, I’m all ears.

hyssop

More photos on Flickr.