Time to start the seedlings

Happy New Year everyone!!! Hope everyone had a Happy Holidays. It was definitely a quiet one for me. Anyhow, its that time of year when I start my seedlings. My general plan is to start seedlings in the first week of each month from now till May, then, cross your fingers, I can start planting everything out. Here is my general seedling plan (not my direct sow plan, that is very dependent on the weather):

• January: onions and leeks
• February: eggplant and basil
• March: tomatoes and peppers 
• April: Beans, Melons, cucumbers, various annual herbs, maybe spinach and maybe okra.

I used this plan last year and it worked out really well. Planting in the first week of the month takes the guess work as to how old the seedlings are when you go to plant them out (I am horrible about dating my seedlings, they are lucky to have a name and sometimes have the specific type on them). 

This year I am ordering most of my seed from High Mowing Organic Seed. Last year, I had bought a few packets of their seed from Wegmans (it was much cheaper than the Burpee seed) and I have been following them on Facebook for a while so lets see how it goes. I was a little late in ordering them though (I ordered them New years eve), so I am not sure if I will have it in time to be able to plant my onions and leeks by the end of next week (i.e. the first week of January).

 I am starting all of my indoor seedlings (except onions and leeks) in these coconut coir pellets from Burpee. This will be my third year using these. I love them. I find pellets to be a lot less messy and less hassle. I like using the coconut coir for several reasons 1) it is much more sustainable to use coconut coir than peat moss 2) most of the coconut coir comes from southeast asia so in a very small way I am supporting their economy and lastly 3) it has a neutral pH (compared to peat moss which tends to be more acidic). I have found that onions and leeks are not easy to grow in single cells or single pellets. Last year I densely sowed them in a large tray filled with soiless medium (last year I used a Scotts mix, this year I will probably just use regular coconut coir). I have held on to these take out containers (pictured below) which I am hoping will work for the indoor seedlings. 

So that is about all for now with the seedlings. I will leave you with a few pictures I took on New Years eve.... some volunteer cilantro (left) and mache (right) that showed up in the garden. I should have planted a winter garden this year!!

First tomato of the season....

The first tomato of the season is always such a big deal to me. I guess its because most of my tomatoes are indeterminate so I know that I will have tomatoes from this point till the frost really sets in. Of course the first tomato is my sungold cherry tomato. Its always the sungold. This is not even the first tomato I planted. I love these tomatoes.  The are really sweet, they are always the first to ripen, are absolutely prolific plant, and will produce till the frost.  I even make sauce with these tomatoes (my son likes having pasta with orange sauce). 

So this year grew all of my tomatoes from seed. I finally figured out how to grow them properly from seed. My Dad gave me this file cart (pictured below) and I attached two shoplights to them. This year I also remembered to collect 2lb plastic yogurt containers. I started the tomatoes in coco coir pellets and then transferred them straight to these yogurt containers (you can see them under the shoplights in the picture). It really worked out well.

Of course I can't go a season with my Mighty Sweet Hybrid Grape Tomatoes from Burpee. My daughter's favorite.

Last year all my large tomatoes were heirlooms, which were difficult to grow. So this year I decided to try some hybrids.  The SuperTasty Hybrid tomato from Burpee, is the first new hybrid I am trying (I bought these seeds on sale at the end of last season). So far so good... this is my first cluster of tomatoes and no sign of blossom end rot or anything.  I am hoping it tastes good.

Indigo rose!!! I had some of these cherry tomatoes last year and I saved the seeds from them (they are open pollinated). These are so cool. It is really neat to see them turn blue.

Two years ago I grew a Burpee Black Cherry tomatoes and I didn't like it. This year I bought TGS's Black Cherry, which is the original Black Cherry variety. I am hoping that it is as tasty for me as it is for others.

I have two other large tomatoes.... neither have set fruit yet and pretty much look like the picture below. First is the Red rose tomato.  Which is a cross between brandywine and Rutgers tomatoes. I have grown both of these with luck so I am hopeful this will be disease free and tasty.

The other large tomato I am growing is Kellogs breakfast potato leaf, which I grew last year. This year I am keeping it pruned to a single stem. My hope is that this keeps it relatively disease free and lets the plant really focus on the fruit.

What's Growing On....

This years grow season was interupted by this little cutey.  He is a 9 week old German Shepard and by most accounts is a pretty mellow puppy (anyone who knows my husband knows she's probably following his lead). I had all these great visions of hanging out in the garden while the dog wanders about doing his business. Well this guy is obsessed with eating the dirt from my garden and since he can't seem to discriminate from my onion transplants from the fresh compost, my poor red onions are really taking a beating. So I will be trying to find new ways to get through to this dog that no he can't eat dirt from my garden.  Any advice or tips I am all ears!!!

Seedlings... I tried to grow almost everything from seed this year. Everything has pretty much been started and I am now in hardening off mode.  My general plan this year was to start new seedlings the first week of each month, according to this schedule: 1) January: Onions and Basil 2) February: Eggplant and Peppers 3) March: Tomatoes  4) April:  Cucumbers, melons (watermelon and cantaloupe), sugar pumpkin, peas, and cilantro.  This tent has been great for hardening off my seedling. I have no patience for carrying plants in and out of the house. So this has worked out great. April and May can be very windy here so I have had to weigh it down and tie it to the deck to prevent it from flying off

 I decided not to grow okra this year... last year I just didn't pick it in time, they were always too big and fibrous. The kids ate the small ones. Just not a great use of space. I am trying a few more things this year maybe I will come back to okra next year.                                                                       . 

I planted out my first tomato last week and another two tomatoes this weekend (it would have been more but the kids had birthday parties this weekend). I hope to have the last five planted out by mothers day. I am not going to be planting to many large heirloom tomatoes this year, and will try to stick to small varieties or hybrids. I decided that I will try growing one large heirloom and will keep it pruned to a single stem.  I have two large pine trees which put out bags and bags of these pine needles and after watching this video I decided to try mulching with it as well. 

Overwintered plants.....This rosemary plant was my star this winter. My lemongrass stalks, turmeric and curry leaf plant are doing fine, not as healthy and stellar as this rosemary though.  My lime, ginger, and two chillis died (I didn't have a good plant stand till the end of the winter and so they weren't getting sun).  I have decided to give up on trying to grow a lime tree for a while. I just seem to keep killing them over winter. I am bummed about that but maybe I just need to take a break from them for a bit (either that or convince my husband to let me build a permanent green house :) )

Garlics are going strong. I thought for sure they were going to be goners because the deer trampled through my raised beds this winter (for what I don't know they don't eat the garlic). So this spring I filled up the deer tracks with fresh compost, gave them some blood meal and they are taking off. This bed is completely dedicated to my alliums so you can see my onions transplants which are still settling in. The square in the front left corner of the bed is the one my puppy keeps eating out of.

I tried growing cauliflower and cabbage from seed and didn't have any  luck. So this year I bought some transplants from Home Depots spring Black Friday sale ($2 for a 6 pack you can't go wrong). Not sure whether it is just that the weather gets to hot too quickly for cauliflower. We'll see.

I have very little patience when it comes to hardening off plants, for these peas I decided to see what would happen if I just planted them straight out.... well they are still here and still growing. No signs of sun or wind damage so I consider this a success. I'd never do this to my tomatoes or other warm weather crops (I've learned that the hard way).









Anyway well thats about it for now. Hopefully the warm weather is hear to stay so I can plant out more things.

Lessons on growing seedlings

So everything is pretty much planted out. So I'll reflect a little bit on what worked this year for growing seedlings and what didn't work.  This year I grew all my vegetable plants from seed except for onions and a bhut jolokia plant. I find it very therapeutic to grow from seed, especially when it is below zero and there is a foot of snow on the ground.

1) Not to overwater- last year was a total mess I watered everyday and had fungus gnats galore. This year practically NONE in my seedlings... yahoo! I consider that success! Where I could I watered from the bottom up (i.e. filling the bottom tray with water and letting the cells wick up the water). I basically watered every 3-5 days.

2) How to use coir/peat pellets- This worked our really great.  First things first... this discussion on peat pellets is incredibly helpful to anyone using peat pellets. The key points of this article are

• When transplanting out take off the netting
• Not all pellets are made the same... they may not be absorbing water in the middle, if you suspect this toss out and use a new one.

I got this really handy tray at the end of last season on clearance. Its a Burpee coco coir pellet tray. It is conveniently labeled with letters along each side and comes with a handy grid so you can easily keep track of what you started.

The simplicity of it made this a huge success... of course the alternative was that I have always made my own potting mix. My logic is if I am buying nice amendments for my garden why should I buy a separate potting mix. At one point I was even sterilizing it (my husband LOVED that ... NOT... ha ha I was essentially cooking dirt in the oven... I think he would have preferred it if it was banana bread). I still need potting mix to transplant up but I think the pellets are here to stay!

3) I did not have adequate lighting for my seedlings- I rely mostly on natural light coming through a southfacing window in my house but supplemented this year with a CFL grow light bulb in a cheap reflector. Definitely helped with the seedlings but it was not enough. I still got leggy tomato seedlings. This is probably just a mental block for me... at some point I'll invest the mental energy to find a economical solution for this... now is just not the time.

4) Even seedlings need some sort of fertilizer- I always make my own potting mix for seedlings and I thought that if I used one part compost I wouldn't have to worry about fertilizer, but this year in effort to battle leggy tomatoes I used a dilute combination of fish emulsion and Kelp fertilizer. It helped the seedlings however more than the seedlings I used it outside to kick start dormant plants outside and I think there it was more useful.

5) Timing- This year I was much more organized as to when I started my seeds but I think I can still use some tweaking for next year. This was my schedule this year:
February 1- my cool weather crops, basil and eggplants
March 1- tomatoes, and chilli/pepper plants
April 1- everything else (cukes, melons, okra, etc).

 I think generally my timing was fine. I am debating starting cauliflower, cabbage, eggplants and chillis earlier next year but not sure whether the poor growth was more a timing issue as much as a inadequate lighting issue.

6) Transplanting up vs planting out- I always seem to have problems with this... especially with tomatoes but this year I grew more things so it was more of a problem. I know your not supposed to transplant certain things like okra but if you live in a temperate climate like mine where weather is unpredictable it ends up being a balancing act between:

• planting out in the garden but keeping them covered
• transplanting to a bigger container and leaving them indoors for an extended period
• keeping them in the smaller container/pellet b/c it may only be one more week

Anyway I just could not manage all 20 tomato plants that I started... they started off fine and well but I just didn't have room to transplant them all up.