And the Saga Continues...

The seedlings indoors are doing well! I transplanted all of the seedlings from the vermiculite into a container that contains actual soil so the seedlings can start getting nutrients from the soil to grow! I think I should have done this a bit earlier especially for the broccoli...because it seems stunned and wont grow. The tomatoes stopped growing for about a week and i was like DUH! They need food! So now they are starting to do much better. The broccoli is hanging in there...I hope they do ok.


Almost all of the lettuce outside is doing great too, they are still very small I think I may be watering them too often to I'm laying off on that a bit so they can grow. A few of them havn't sprouted, so I may plant some more seeds in there a few weeks from now if I don't see anything.

The carrots are starting to sprout too! They are cute.

And the cucumber is doing great! However, one of my cucumber seedlings didn't make it :( You win some you lose some right? My spinach is still in the ground...not sure how thats gonna go, we'll see.


I decided to germinate some more broccoli seeds indoors because I'm not sure if the ones in the containers inside are going to do well. I used just a sour cream cup with vermiculite since there were only 4 seeds.


Also, the container I moved near the house is sprouting two large unknown seedlings! They are the biggest thing growing out back right now! I think they may be some sort of squach...but for now, they are dubbed..........THE MYSTERY SEEDS!!


More to come later! Thanks for stopping by!

Slow and Steady Wins the Race!

So after this little hellion stomped on a few of my seedlings inside, they still decided to keep on growing. Some of them tragically didn't make it...but there are still plenty for the garden! See how they've grown!


But never fear! My garden seeds are growing near! This is a cucumber that is sprouting outside. There are also many lettuce seeds that are sprouting as well. How exciting!


Thats all for this update. Just lots of growing and growing. I will post pictures when I get closer to transplanting my indoor seedlings. Bye for now!

Up Up and Away!

Today was a gardening day! It has been 6 days since I planted my indoor seeds. Some of the sprouts have grown tall enough to touch the top of the plastic cover of the planting tray! Tomorrow, I will be setting up an area next to the window in our bedroom for them to receive natural light while they grow. I have counted a total of 22 seedlings that have sprouted out of 40 total!! Here is a close up of my broccoli! I also have 7 tomato sprouts...i actually have 2 growing in one square...I must have accidentally dropped two seeds in there :)


I also planted some seeds outdoors today! I planted some lettuce, carrots, spinach, cucumber, and a marigold flower. The rest of the squares are for the transplants that are growing inside right now. In about 6-8 weeks, or as soon as the seedling sprouts grow their first set of real leaves, I will transplant them into the garden. Today was a hot day and the soil in the garden seemed to dry out significantly at the top, so I'm positive that I will need to water at LEAST 2 times a day if not more (especially on those scorching days of summer) I will probably also have to provide some shade for the garden by building a screen or something similar to help shade the plants while I'm away at work. We'll see how that goes. Here is what my garden looks like so far!


More to come!

Rise Seedlings...RISE

A few little tomato and onion guys started poking their heads out...but I will take another picture when a majority of them emerge from the SOIL OF DOOM! Wait...no my soil is the bringer of LIFE AND BREATH! BREATHE SEEDLINGS BREATHE!!!

Seedlings!

Hooray! My first Seedlings sprouted today! So far its only the broccoli seeds that have poked their leaves out, but the rest should follow shortly!

Also, I've been tending to my soil throughout the week and it is starting to become usable! It's not quite ready yet, it's still a bit dryer than I'd like, but it should be ready by the weekend if I continue my watering patterns.

Preperation

Lots of yard work today!

The first thing I did was remove all of the dirt from a container that was in the yard when I moved in, moved the container to a new location, and filled it back up with the dirt minus any crap that had accumulated in there over time. I'm guessing whoever lived in the house before me bought and used this container to grow some things. It is now positioned underneath our bedroom window against the house. I'm probably going to plant some shady flowers or something in there later on.


THEN I began removing old grass and leveling out the area where my new garden is going to go! It was tough, but a few blisters later it was in place! The next step was fastening the PVC piping to the sides of the container to hold it in place. It is just slightly wobbly near the top so I may end up securing it to the ground with some hemp and stakes if necessary. Then in went the soil! My mixture and the amounts fit perfectly and Steve helped me out with the mixing. TA DA!!!


After getting all the soil in i wet the top with some mist to help the soil settle and retain a bit of moisture. I'm probably going to do this every other day or so throughout the week until next weekend...or until the soil has a good consistency for seed planting.

After some lunch I began prepping the mini seedling cups for my indoor seeds. I filled all the cups with vermiculite, then put seeds in them near the top, then topped them off with a little more vermiculite. Then I let them sit in a pan with 2 inches of water so the vermiculite could soak in the water, returned them to their original dry pan, labeled my seeds, then covered and sat them under a lamp! I know the seeds don't need light for germination, but the lamp will hopefully help retain some heat and moisture inside the lidded pan until they start to sprout. Then I will put them in a windowsill for some direct sunlight.



Thats all for today, my legs are sore, but I'm totally excited about my new garden. Here we go!!!

Trip to the Nursery

Today I ventured to a really neat nursery center near my home to gather the soil ingredients for my square foot garden. Bill, who owns the nursery was VERY knowledgeable about gardening. I asked him about sweet potatoes, garlic, and some other things I had on my mind and he was able to answer them honestly and thoroughly. His website is at City Farmers Nursery. I'm pretty positive that this will be my nursery of choice whenever I have questions, concerns, or am in need of some new gardening material or seeds.

So I picked up compost, peat moss, and vermiculite for my soil. I used the recipe from Mel's book.

1/3 Vermiculite
1/3 Peat Moss
1/3 Compost


A total of 16 cubic feet of soil is needed for my 4'x4' garden

(hopefully in the future I will be able to create my own compost as soon as I build my own compost bin...stay tuned for that)

I also gathered some 4'x4'x12" wood planks and PVC piping to create the actual container for the garden at my local home improvement store.


Aaaaand just because I have to be creative...I bought some blue plastic spray paint so I could paint the PVC to look nicer :) I'm also going to include orange marigolds in my garden to compliment the blue poles because I'm artsy fartsy. I might paint the outside of the wood...we'll see.


Tomorrow I will be mixing the soil and getting it prepared for some seed planting next weekend. Since I am not able to plant all of my seeds in the garden right off the bat, I will be planting those indoors to prepare them for transplanting weeks from now. Here is a list of the seeds I will be planting nest weekend straight into my garden:

Lettuce
Carrots
Spinach
Cucumbers
Marigolds (a natural pest repellent)

And these are the seeds I'm growing indoors to transplant later:

Tomatoes
Onions
Peppers
Broccoli

All I have to do for the garlic is buy an organic bulb of garlic at my grocery store then plant the individual cloves. And for sweet potatoes, Bill will have some root strips available in the first few weeks of May so I can call ahead and pick some up then.

Thats it for this update...Stay tuned for more gardening awesomeness!

My Journey Begins...

Well hello thar! I have been wanting to grow a small garden for quite some time now. I decided to ask my mom for some advice on growing vegetables. She sent me a book called Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew and I began reading!

My preconceived notions of gardening were that it would be easy...but the more I read the more I realized that there seemed to be much more to growing a successful garden than meets the eye!

My adventure begins tomorrow when I go to the local garden center and lumber store to purchase supplies to build a container for my square foot garden. This blog will be a documentation of my progress, success, failure, and anything in between!

Here is my plan, take a gander!