Update on all things Vegetable…

Posted: April 3, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Growing Tomatoes, Growing Vegetables, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Your faithful blogger!

Hi Readers,
Here’s an update on all of the veggies.  I’m also happy to report that with my last show (for a while) over and out of the way, I’ll be gardening and blogging a lot more.  With temperatures on the rise & sales at the nursery on the horizon I’m sure I’ll have a lot to talk about too!!

RADISHES

The Radishes: The good news is that they adjusted to the “thinning” just fine and even the rows I planted in the trenches recovered well and are growing just fine.  The bad news is the birds ran out of olives after we raked last weekend and took out the first row of seedlings.  I think we’re about 10 days away from our first harvest!!

CARROTS

The Carrots: As it turns out, the carrots seeds I thought I killed with my watering by osmosis experiment, came up!  Just as the package would have suggested too, If you know me its not a surprise… patience is not something I excel at.  We still have a while to go, I haven’t even thinned them yet…  But I was pleasantly surprised to see that this method of watering worked even with seeds.

EGGPLANT & ONION

NEW!!  Eggplant & Onions: Just this weekend my sweet nice husband surprised me with $60 to do what I wanted with in the garden!  I took (his) hard earned money to STAR Nursery this time, to see if the prices were any cheaper (they were).  I picked up a bunch of veggies… ‘Black Beauty’ Eggplant and some Green Onions are what I planted here.

TOMATOES, LETTUCE & CORN

Tomatoes, Lettuce & NEW!! Corn: Well you can see that planting the tomatoes the 2nd weekend in March didn’t do them any harm… even though we did get a little freeze after they were in the ground.  All varieties are thriving, the only one that seems to be struggling is the Roma (my hound dog got at it), but even it’s still doing well.

Also, I added some ‘Yellow Pear’ Tomatoes this weekend and ‘White’ Corn stalks against the wall… more for Gadzuki’s amusement than anything.

PEPPERS, CUCUMBERS & ZUCCHINI

NEW!!  Squash, Zucchini & Peppers: Last weekend we removed a HUGE planter from the patio and moved it over by the tomatoes.  This weekend I cleaned it out and planted. Thats why the majority of my budget at STAR Nursery went to mulch & soil.  But I did manage to pick up some ‘Yellow’ Squash, ‘Italian’ Zucchini, ‘Japanese’ Cucumbers, and ‘Armenian’ Cucumbers for the bottom level.  My idea is that they can climb over the edge and down to the ground.  And on top we have ‘Yellow’ Bells, ‘Anaheim’ Chiles, ‘Green’ Bells and Jalapenos.

Some exciting news!! One of my gardens is going to be photographed for a local magazine this week AND one of the students from Mrs Henderson’s Science class got so excited about my compost that she’s started her very own!!

Next:  We’ll check in on the seedlings I started in the garage and later in the week we’ll get an official temperature on the compost!

She who walks between the rows…

Posted: March 25, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: garden, Growing Vegetables, Seedlings, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

LEFT: Radishes - RIGHT: Carrots

So here’s the verdict on the watering by osmosis vs. watering overhead experiment.

Before Thinning

Watering by osmosis (i.e the carrot seeds) didn’t work for me.  The seeds never came up.  Its because either the seeds dried out, were planted too deep, or blew away (we did have some heavy winds).  In any case, we will have radishes and LOTS of them!
The radishes sprouted exactly as the package said, about 5 days after they were planted.  I put them in the ground, created shallow trenches on either side and watered them with a fine mist overhead everyday until they came up.
(see photo at LEFT).

 

TOOL

On the 9th day they were 1/2″ -1″ tall and it was definitely time to “thin” the rows… But I just couldn’t see the point in aborting all of those “would be” radishes so I got creative.  These were the tools I set out with:  One little Rake, My trusty gardening gloves and a pencil (see photo at RIGHT).

Originally I intended on maybe planting them where the carrot seeds had been (Right Side), but after getting down and dirty I decided to take advantage of the rows in between.  Since watering by osmosis clearly wasn’t something I was going to continue doing.

 

SPROUT

When I put the seeds in the ground I basically just drew a line in the soil and sprinkled the seeds along that line.  BOY was that the WRONG thing to do.  When the sprouts came up they were only about an 1/8 of an inch apart at best.  I needed to thin them to roughly 1″ apart.

To do this I had to be careful to pull up each sprout individually by one of the 4 little leaves.  Easier than is sounds, but still time consuming, all the while being careful not to touch the trunk.  Then with my pencil I created shallow holes all along the little trenches on either side of the row.  I then transplanted as many seedlings as I could.

AFTER

 

If things go well we should get 300 radishes all together from this modest 3’x3′ planting area.  Not bad!  Considering we’re about 10 days from when they went in the ground we should be feasting like rabbits in about 15 more days!

So we’ll see in a few days if the “trench seedlings” live through the water collecting in them.  But if it works, it’ll be a great way of taking advantage of a small space.

Next:  We’ll explore propagating some Ivy for my friend Hank’s yard!