I am so excited… I’m embarking on a new adventure – veggie gardening.
For the first time ever, I’m now able to start a veggie garden since I now have a usable backyard (more on that later). I’ve been waiting for this for over a year now…
I wasn’t able to get it started last year in time, so I had to wait a whole year since it just made more sense. I’m doing a modest start – modest but huge. heh
My mom is moving and she wasn’t able to give me a lot of the herbs and flowers that she generally starts in her basement for the spring – so in addition to starting some vegetable plants inside, I’m also undertaking starting flowers for my yard. What is a benefit of her move, is that she’s letting me use a bunch of her growing supplies: trays, cells, planter boxes, and even a grow light shelf thingie.
This is my first time ever starting any kind of plants from seeds. And to be completely honest, I’m kind of a black thumb – plants get hardy in my presence since I toughen them up with lack of water. lol Plants generally do die in my presence, so this is all very new to me. Complete newbie and having fun!
I’ve ordered the bulk of my vegetables from Baker Creek seed company – all non GMO and organic of course. Thanks Michelle! And a lot of the flower seeds come from Park Seed – thank you mom. :D
Some of these seeds are so small! I mean it makes sense, I just never really thought about it before.
This is a begonia seed – it comes in the mail in this capsule that you open:
The seed is then encased to make it larger:
I don’t exactly call that larger – but how small are they really is what I want to know!
I’ve already made my first rookie mistake – I didn’t pack the cells enough with seed starting mix. In my attempts to keep things nice and loose, I didn’t add enough soil & lightly pack it down. It’s not kept seedlings from starting (lucky me!) but I will be fixing that for next year. Like I said – rookie mistake. But now I know. I imagine I’ll be making a lot of these types of mistakes – but it’s okay.
Cilantro seeds:
I planted the first round of seedlings on Monday, March 14th (top shelf) & the the second round was planted on Thursday the 17th (bottom shelf). I should have started these a couple weeks ago, but I just wasn’t ready yet.
And just one week later, look!
The long greens is bunny-tail grass and right in front is my oh-so-happy Basil.
Yay – I didn’t kill anything, it’s actually growing!
Okay – it’s really small, but the cell in the upper section is my first little petunia coming through.
Another petunia coming through in the middle cell below:
Isn’t it so mini?!
As you can see I have quite the collection of plantings.
What’s on the docket for Flowers:
- Phlox (mix of colors)
- Bunny Tails Grass
- Begonias (reds mix)
- Bells of Ireland (which I found out are not Irish but are from Indonesia)
- Petunias (blue/purple mix)
- Zinnias (pink)
- Marigold (white)
- Dianthus (B&W)
- Chrysanthemum (golden ball yellow)
What’s on my veggie list:
- Green Peas
- Green Beans (bush variety)
- Yellow Beans (bush variety)
- Scallions (aka bunching onions)
- Summer Squash & Zucchini
- Spaghetti Squash
- Bell Pepper (red or yellow – can’t remember which off hand)
- Herbs: Parsley, Basil, Cilantro
- Lettuce: Butter lettuce, Beleah Rose lettuce, a romaine called Little Gem lettuce, and micro spring greens
Its a lot of stuff – but at the same time not exactly a ton of veggies. I’m hoping that this will be my learning year – well of course it will be. But I’m hoping to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and how to maximize space. I’m also hoping to start supplementing my bunnies’ lettuces and herbs from what we get from the grocery store. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully feed them from my garden, but supplementing it at the least while eating some yummy greens myself is what I’m aiming for.
Since I’m a researcher by trade, I have a notebook going of all of my planting info for each vegetable/flower and a section for my notes. It’s going well so far & I continue to find new information to add. My mom just laughs at me but at the same time I think she’s excited for me that I’m doing this – as she is a mega gardener and is always happy to help me.
Where is all of this going??
Felix (and I will help) are going to make raised Sub-Irrigated Planter beds this coming weekend.
We settled on this design via the Family Handyman (Click on image for the source)- after extensive searching on my part. This look and sub-irrigating design will hopefully work very nicely for us.
This is also very new for us – going to the store to build something on our very own without the assistance of Bob, my step-dad. It will be a good challenge for us but hopefully a do-able challenge.
Yay gardening! My new adventure is just beginning.
In: Gardening
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