March 23rd, 2013 - Prepped Bed 1, 2, and 4

On Saturday and Sunday I turned over the beds. I had no idea how thick the rye/vetch roots would be, but it was rough to dig through them. After using the hoe for a few minutes, I quickly gave up and resorted to the shovel (so I could use my weight. I chopped with the shovel first, and then eventually turned over and broke up the clumps.

A tiller would have been nice, but it was a good workout.

I also dumped the entire compost bin into the beds. I would say I put about 20 gallons of compost (2 tubtrugs) into the newest bed, about the same into bed #2, and another 10 gallons into the first bed.

Almost everything was fully composted, except some egg shells, some avocado peels, and there was plenty of straw and roots that were not fully composted.

 

Before:

 After:

 

March 22nd, 2013 - Hardened off two trays

Last weekend (March 23rd and 24th) I hardened out the tray of Broccoli/Kale/Lettuce/Parsley and the tray of leeks. They were outside for about 2 hours on Saturday, and maybe 4 hours on Sunday. On Sunday night it snowed, so it was a good thing I took everything inside.

I decided to leave the broccoli/kale/etc tray upstairs by the window this week. I brought the leeks back downstairs under the lights.

I am definitely going to transplant this broccoli/kale/Lettuce and Parsley this weekend, but I’m not sure about the leeks. I might wait another two weeks on them.

One note — I did notice that the leaves got super soft after I had them outside. I can’t really remember what they felt like before, but I was a little worried that they spend too much time outside.

 

 

March 18th, 2013 - Fertilized some plants

Fertilized the Broccoli and the leeks with fish emulsion. Container said 2T per gallon, so I used 1T per half gallon. The veg gardeners bible said to fertilize at half strength, so hopefully this won’t mess with things.

March 17th, 2013 - Hardened off 3 of the 6 biggest cosmos

Some of cosmos were too tall for the florescent lights, so I tried to harden them off this weekend, to get them ready for transplant next week. I think it is definitely too cold still, because on the second day, by nightfall the leaves looked really droopy. I might just try to grow these inside for a while to see what happens.

March 16th, 2013 - Prepped the back left corner of the garden

I added about 10 gallons of mostly finished compost to the back left corner bed, and prepped it for the carrots and leeks. There were 1 bibb lettuce plants and one chard plant that somehow stayed alive all winter. I took them out of the bed first, turned the bed over (tried to only mess with the top 6 inches), and then added them back in a row.

I think I’ll transplant the leeks, and sow the carrots next weekend.

March 15th, 2013 - Moved the peppers and eggplants downstairs under the lights.

Read that the eggplants can take 3 weeks to germinate, so I’m a little less worried about things now. A few more peppers germinated, so I’m feeling a little better.

March 11th, 2013 - Peppers and Eggplants

I can’t remember where I started my peppers last year, but the germination rate was great. This year I kept them in the dining room at 70 degrees for about 5-6 days, but I started to get antsy that nothing was happening, so I moved them on top of the radiator in the dining room. It certainly get’s warmer, but it fluctuates when the radiator comes on and off, so I’m not sure if I’m helping or hurting.

After a few days on the radiator, two of the Carolina wonders sprouted, and one of the numex is just barely sprotuing, but the rest are not doing much of anything. After looking closely on the bakers creek pages, it says that the peppers and eggplants benifit from light when germinating, something I don’t think I knew. About 2 days ago I dug up each cell to find at least 1 or 2 seeds in the mix, and moved it to the surface of the planting mix. A few of the pepper varieties had just begun to germinate, so hopefully they are close. For good measure, I added two new seeds to each cell. I’m keeping the plastic cap on to keep everything moist, so we’ll see. I’m 90% sure I am just being way too antsy and if I just let it go for a little longer, everything would have come up on its own. But what can I say. Now I have seeds everywhere (on the surface, under the surface, etc), so unless the radiator is doing more harm than good, I should be OK.