March 31, 2007

*sigh* Frustrations abound.

Every time I try to start seeds I learn something new. The first year I learned to start far more seeds than I ever plan to plant, because they will not all make it. I'm glad I've taken that lesson with me through the years, as this season has proved to be no different. I've lost at least one tomato seedling, a pumpkin of Gayle's, a cucumber plant and possibly three various squash.

This year I was so excited, although also a touch confused, at the massive length my seedlings have taken on - except the tomatoes which seem to have simply stopped growing. I repotted the larger plants, staked them, and watered them to keep the soil "moist, but not dripping" Some of the squash plants have started to develop their first true leaves, the cucumbers seem to be stationary in their growing efforts, and the tomato vines... well, as I said, they sprouted and haven't seemed to budge a bit.

I've discovered that the length of my plants is actually not a good thing. They are "leggy" due to lack of proper light, and now I'm afraid that all their growing efforts have gone into length to reach the sun instead of width to grow true leaves. The cotyledons (first leaves) are supposed to store food for the plant, then as it grows true leaves they shrivel up. Problem is, one of Gayle's pumpkins has already shriveled prior to getting true leaves, and as the squash plants develop their true leaves it seems to me the cotyledons are drying up too quickly. I have scooted my table to be directly in front of the window in the dining room to see if additional sunlight will help them out.

As to the stunted tomato plants... I've also discovered that peat pots will evaporate moisture off the sides, so I need to keep a closer eye on those and keep them "moist but not dripping" (does anyone know exactly what that means anyway?!?)

In the end, it's not a great loss. I love the idea of growing stuff from seeds and having the end plant be taller than I am, but if the seedlings don't make it to the garden, I can always buy plants at the nursary like I have done every year prior.

Photo Fun...now that my new spiffy scanner is up and running I can scan my slides from last year. Here are my neighbor's raspberries (eventually we'll have our own! but first we need the fence)

March 28th, 2007

My seedlings just before re-potting a couple weeks ago:


My seedlings this morning:


The little buggers on the right are all tomato vines, and they seem to have somewhat stopped growing, or they are going really, really slow. But, as they haven't shriveled up yet, I'm going to keep them around to see what happens.

The squash seeds are growing like crazy and I had to repot them because the roots were coming out of the bottoms of the little peat pots. I had intended to only grow one zucchini and two bush squash, so I gave one of each plant to my mom, along with one of Gayle's pumpkins (only wanted one of those, and we had 4 going well) So at the very least I'll have squash that I grew from seed this year. I'm hesitant to rely on my tomato seeds as the only source for plantlife in the garden mainly because they look so wee and plants at the store are so much larger. I'll keep them going, but I may have to buy tomato plants once I get the garden in place (which will be April this year, instead of May. I'm determined I tell you!)

March 23, 2007

Photos coming soon, I'm just posting an entry to test the new template and say that my seedlings are going like gangbusters.

Update... since this new Blogger template insists on cutting off the photos I realize that the panoramas won't work. Which is fine, because they're a pain in the ass to remember to make anyway - so... I put a shrunk down version at the bottom, squint and enjoy.. and further garden updates will include photos that actually fit on the page. What a concept!

March 12, 2007

As of today, nearly all my seed starts have sprouted! Woo hoo!

I decided to start 10 pods of each of the tomatoes, cucumbers and bush squash (the ones that look like white space ships) The tomato starts look really weeny compared to the others, but I have about 9 Brandywine and 9 Supersweets going. For the cucumbers, there are 9 very strong looking starts (yeah pickles!) The bush squash have 5 that have cleared the surface and this morning there are 3 more that are just coming up. I only started 5 zucchini and 5 tomatillos, because I only wanted one plant of each anyway. Of course, I have 5 perfectly happy zucchini starts and no tomatillos so far. Oh well, I wasn't sure they'd work well anyway.

Gayle started pumpkin seeds and flower seed a couple days after I started mine. Her flowers are sprouting wee little plants, but I didn't see anything from the pumpkins so I dug into the dirt on one a little just to check it out, and saw the beginnings of a root. Another pot shows signs of a full blown sprout breaking ground, so maybe in another day or two we'll have something.

I'm determined to get these plants to keep going this year... in years past I've planted seeds only to find that I'd overwatered them and they died as soon as they broke ground. This time around I'm using a mister and spraying them daily with water instead of pouring from a can, but pretty soon I'll need to scoot them from these little pods into larger containers.

According to the instructions I'm supposed to let them stay as they are for two weeks, then transplant them either into larger containers, or into the garden. I don't think the garden will be ready that soon, but I have room for larger containers on my project table, so I'll probably just move them into larger pots until we get past the last frost.

March 6, 2007

It has been a while, hasn't it?

I'm sitting outside on the deck on what has to be the first most perfect sunny day we've had since my last blog update... last summer. The winter has been harsh, with the "storm of the century" wind attack, massive amounts of snow and ice (for us anyway) and the wettest November in recorded history. From an outside point of view, given the circumstances of the weather, I'm told our yard doesn't look "that bad"... however I know better. I see all the fall cleanup I didn't get to last year, the branches we never picked up from the wind storm, and the weeds! Oh the weeds!

Dan has been itching to get out of the house, so last Saturday we headed off to a nursary just to get some fresh air and find inspiration for spring. With the shit winter, and Dan's surgery, we both have cabin fever pretty bad. There we found blueberry bushes, and since we've talked about getting some for a couple of years (but always at the wrong time of the year) we decided to take the plunge and pick some up.

Sunday was mostly spent prepping the area and planting the bushes, along with multiple conversations with the neighbors about their garden plans. Every year she gets her vegetables going far sooner than I do... my plans are perpetually thwarted by unforseen circumstances beyond my control. This year I hope it will be different. Getting the blueberries planted gave a huge boost to my inspiration and I'm now excited to get to the next step.

Last night I started seeds for the vegetable garden. I plan to expand the beds out into the yard, where we get actual sunshine, and also rotate the beds from years past. I'll also be putting the tomatoes up on a trellis instead of in cages... it'll be more work, but I've discovered that since we are in a cold climate, this is supposed to give more fruit exposure to the sun, and give the plants a chance to ripen. I'm hoping that, plus getting the veggies in the ground in April instead of May, will give me better results. Last year I got some romas to ripen at the tail end of summer, enough to can 4 pints, but that was it.

March, however, will likely be All Clean Up. The deer have paid particular attention to our yard this year, eating down quite a lot of our bulbs and (to Dan's dismay) the white flowers at the base of our cedars. These are Dan's favorites... the white blossoms that welcomed us our first week in the house are something he looks forward to every spring, but they haven't been the same since we first moved in. Today I'm getting quotes on fencing across the back of the yard... we'll likely need a company to come in and do it, and I can block the side entrances myself to keep the deer out. Lovely though they are, they need to find a new grazing ground.