Seed Starting Success

The tomatoes are off and running!  This picture was taken 2 days ago.  The seedlings have their first set of real leaves and are ready to be thinned and more dirt added to their cups.  The cool thing about tomatoes is that they will develop roots along their stems, so if you add dirt to the seedlings while they're growing, you'll end up with transplants with stronger and more developed root systems.  When you plant them out, you can plant them deeper than you normally would (so that only the leaves are showing above ground) for an even better chance for growing more roots and doing better in the garden. 

On Thursday, I watered the seedlings with a shot of seaweed and fish emulsion, diluted in a lot of water of course, and this is what the seedlings looked like this morning.

Yikes!  They grew like crazy in just a matter of days!  On the agenda today is thinning the seedlings and adding more soil to the cups.  I will actually pot up the seedlings I thin out, so I'll have double the number of most varieties.  Some of these are already over the top of their cups and it's almost time to adjust the lights up so they don't touch the bulbs.  I will continue to fertilize them with the seaweed & fish emulsion mixture weekly.  I also need to sow my peppers and a few herbs.

I received my order of onion sets from Dixondale Farms this past Wednesday!  I ordered a short-day sampler (1015Y, Texas Early White, and Red Creole) and a bunch of Texas Legend onions.  Those also need to get planted today.  This year, I ordered their organic fertilizer and plan to use that to see if it helps my onion harvest.  I've had less than stellar results with onions the past 3 years and I'm determined to have success this year.  I absolutely LOVE onions and would plant that exclusively if my husband didn't think we needed other veggies and such in the garden. 

Harvests

It seems like so much has been happening in the garden lately! I'm so tired of the hot temps already. We usually have these temps in July, not in June. We're also lacking precipitation. We're 5" behind on the rainfall totals for the year. However, there's good news in the garden! We've been harvesting for the past week or so.

Today's harvest of a handful of cherry tomatoes from our volunteer cherry tomato plants, a few okra that are now in the freezer, and a lemon cucumber.

The other night, I went out and picked about a pound of Contender bush beans, a few strawberries, and a couple of okra. This was our first harvest of beans and they were really tasty! Husband put the okra somewhere, supposedly in the freezer, but I've not found them yet! LOL

This is the first year I've grown lemon cucumbers. I didn't really know what to expect, but I thought I'd give them a try. I'm in love!! What a tasty little thing and perfect for just one or two people! It's about the size of a medium sized apple, grows green, and then turns a light shade of yellow and gets stripes from the top down when it's ripe. There are little spiny things on the outside of the skin, but if you use a vegetable scrubber on them, they'll come off. The skin is tasty and the inside is nice and crisp!


Here's the inside. It's so pretty, I think!



We pulled the garlic up on Sunday. It hadn't fallen over, but it was all brown and dead looking, so out it came. This is elephant garlic passed along to me from a gardening friend who's been growing and passing it along for about 20 years now. All I can say is that the fully mature bulb is HUGE! It's about the size of a softball.

Here's my haul. The smaller bulb on the left is a 2-year bulb. I'll let it cure, then plant it again in the fall. Next year at harvest time, it'll be the size of the larger bulbs on the right. The 2 bulbs on the right were grown from full size pods last fall. They are full size cloves of garlic. We'll use one of the bulbs for cooking and one of them we'll plant in late September-early October so we'll have more full-grown garlic bulbs next June.

If you'll look at the picture of the garlic on the right, you'll notice that the outer paper husk of the garlic is not there. That's because we waited too long to harvest. These cloves are still viable, but without the paper, they are more susceptible to disease and pests. We'll have to use these first. They need to dry for about a month where it's not too dry and out of the sun. We've brushed the dirt off them, but not used water on them. Right now, they're on my washing machine, but we'll soon hang them outside under the carport where they'll be out of the sun, but can take advantage of the warmth and high humidity.

These are the small bulbules that grow on the bottom of the larger bulb of garlic. These are 2-year pods and this is what we planted most of last fall. They have a very hard outer shell that takes awhile to break down and germinate. The smaller bulb in the previous picture is what was grown out of one of these bulbules. I need to clean these up, let them cure, then they'll be ready for sharing and planting!

Until next time, I'll leave you with a pic of one of my garden visitors.

What's Going on in the Garden

Things are finally picking up in the veggie garden. We've finally gotten some steady warm weather and the veggies are thriving. I think I can safely say that spring is here and summer's on our doorstep.

This is the last radish of the ones I planted in March. I'm letting it go to seed. The radish itself is HUGE!

The broccoli is also going to seed. From the looks of it, I'm going to have TONS of seeds!

Both of the larger garlic plants have thrown up bloom stalks. I have cut them off so that the energy goes to the bulb and produces larger bulbs.


The companion planted bed is growing well. This bed has cucumbers, which you can't see well, onions, carrots, and volunteer tomatoes in it. We finally got it all mulched with oak leaves from our front yard.

Lookie what I found on one of the maters?!? How exciting is this?!?

I planted out my little orange bell peppers last week. Some are doing well and others have bit the dust.

The cukes have finally come up and are doing well. The squirrels kept digging up the little hills where I'd planted the seeds. Everyday I was having to stick seeds back down in the ground. It's one of the few times I wish I'd had a pea shooter or bb gun!


We have black-eyed peas! They only took 3 days to germinate and we didn't pre-soak them.

A few of the okra seeds have also started germinating.

The bush beans are also starting to germinate.

My lone jalapeno plant went into the ground last week, too. I traded 2 away at the plant swap and I'm giving 3 away to friends.


The dill is doing great! One of my plants has set a flower pod. I think this is called a "crown", but I'm not sure. I expect flowers soon and then some seeds! It's really been a nice plant and a wonderful scent to have in the garden this spring.

Lastly, I scored 3 blackberry bushes for my berry lovin' husband at the plant swap. One of the guys in the group was digging his berry bushes up to get rid of them, so I told him I'd take them They came with some young fruit. I know nothing about growing blackberries, so this is strictly the husband's project.

I Hilled

Some of my potato plants were getting tall enough to progress to the next stage, hilling. This helps the potatoes produce more potatoes. I'm using leaves as my hilling medium, but you can use compost, soil, straw, or mulch. Basically, you pile your hilling medium up the stems of the plants, leaving only about 2" or so of leaves showing.

Hilling has many purposes. One, it cools the soil, which here in Texas is very much needed. Second, it creates space for tuber development. All tubers (spuds) form at the same level as the seed piece and higher, so you are also creating more growing space. Third, it keeps the sun's rays from the tubers. Exposure to the sun causes 'greening' of the potatoes, which often taste bitter when eaten. Fourth, it gives you something to do with all those leaves and dried grass clippings in your yard. Fifth, it helps with drainage and prevents weed growth. Lastly, it makes harvesting easier since the tubers are in the leaves, straw, dead grass clippings, compost or whatever you use.

Here are the first containers with leaves. I only hilled around the plants that were 6"-8" tall. I covered the stems and any leaves at the lower level. If you're overly zealous, you can clip off the lower leaves. I am lazy, so I didn't do that.

We already need to add either another layer of sides or some kind of wire caging to the box so we can add more leaves!

Same planter, different angle. In this pic, you can see that I have too much plant showing and need to add more leaves. I know what I'll be doing on Easter Sunday! LOL

The big blue planter. One of these plants is growing like it's on steroids! Couldn't completely cover the bottom with leaves because of the new little shoot poking its head out.

Junior sprout!

This plant is appropriately hilled--for now.

I'll continue hilling until the plants start blooming and stop growing. Then they'll start making tubers!!

For more information on potato growing, check out the growing guide on Ronningers Potato Farm's website. Scroll down the page to the *.pdf documents under the form for the paper catalog.

An Update

I planted my first winter sown container out on Sunday. I could hardly walk on Monday because of it, but it's nice to be planting and playing in the dirt again. Sweet Pea "Matucana" planted on a trellis in the back flower bed. The soil in the bed was so wet it wasn't even funny! We have very heavy clay soil and when I dug a hole for the transplant my trowel, the dirt just came up in a big glob. Then, getting the plants out of my jug in one piece complete with roots was a challenge. I ended up filling the holes with some dirt from the veggie bed that has had some amendments added into it.

The potatoes are doing great! With the warmer temps we've been having the past couple of weeks, they're really starting to take off. Some of the containers are continuing to sprout, but they've all got wonderful growth going on.

Red Norlands They are some of the bigger sprouts, but they also had the most growth on them when I planted them out.

Banana FingerlingsThey are the most numerous since I had so many pieces. If I grow them again next year, I'll only plant 1/4 lb. in a container since they produced the most pieces.

Kennebecs and Purple VikingsThese had the fewest pieces planted and some of the Kennebecs didn't even have growth on them, just eyes formed. I noticed a new sprout on one side of the container today. It's hard to see it in this pic, but I'm excited to see another sprout. I don't remember which variety I planted on which side of the container, so it's going to be fun come harvest time! LOL

Sprout(It's in the dark portion of the pic on the left and you can hardly see it. LOL)

The Wando Peas aren't doing so hot. I think the birds are feasting on the sprouts once the seeds germinate. DH planted more seeds yesterday, so we'll see if we get more sprouts. I'm thinking of putting down some tulle or bird netting over them to deter the birds and squirrels, too. Here are a couple of sprouts that have survived.


Notice the wilted, dead-looking sprout in the upper left hand corner of this pic? This is what's been happening to them.

The onions are doing okay. All but 4 or 5 of the purple onions I planted have died. The 1015s are doing great, though! Their bed is being taken over by henbit, so it's going to be my evening weeding project for the next couple of nights.

The carrots have finally started germinating. Not sure what the problem has been with them, but the packages do say it could take as many as 3 weeks to germinate. I think it's been about that long.

The winter sowing project continues. Almost all of the earliest sown jugs have sprouted. The latter ones have not, except for 1 or 2. There's also some really warm weather plants in those, though, so they may not sprout til it really warms up.

The lettuces are starting to bolt. It's just about past their time, but they've done great since last fall!

The Great Potato Project

It's finally stopped snowing and freezing enough during the day that I have been able to get out in the garden and PLANT! If you've read some of my previous posts regarding potatoes, you'll remember that this year, I'm growing potatoes for the first time. Because we have such icky soil here, I decided to grow them in containers after watching this video from the Farmer's Almanac website.



While I'm not using a trash can, I am using some large containers.



You can clearly see the smaller of the containers in this pic. The big blue square thing at the top of the pic is the 2nd container. It has 2 varieties of potatoes planted in it. The smaller containers each have one variety.

DH made the "sides" on the smaller containers, then we'll add chicken wire (poultry wire) to the top as we start going up with growth of the plant and the potatoes. Because the blue thing on the bottom has these HUGE indentations in the bottom where the legs are formed, we placed a layer of leaves on the bottom of the container to fill up the holes and to keep the subsequent dirt from falling through the vent/drainage holes. We then put about 6" of ammended soil in the container. I lined up my taters that I'd cut and dipped in wood ash over the weekend.



We then shoveled another 4" or so of dirt on top of the potato pieces and topped it all off with a very thin layer of leaves, just to help keep insulated against the still cool temps at night and to keep the soil from drying out too quickly during the day.



One of the really stupid things I did several weeks ago was move the potatoes from labeled containers to the egg cartons without labeling them. I just knew I'd be able to remember which variety of potato was which! Ummm....not so much! So now, I've planted my potatoes and the only ones I'm really sure about are the Kennebecs and the fingerlings. I have no idea which are the Reds and which are the Purple Vikings. The Kennebecs are planted on one side of the big container with what I think are the Purple Vikings. There's Reds in this small container (I think) and the fingerlings are in the other small container. Should provide some excitement come harvest time!

Potato Update and Onions

The potatoes are flourishing in their new settings. I check them occasionally to make sure they're not getting soggy or rotting. So far, so good!

Red Norland

Kennebecs and Purple Vikings

Banana Fingerlings

My "walrus" banana fingerling

But, apparently, the best place for potatoes to start budding out is in the basket where I keep the potatoes from the grocery store!



Another new veggie in the garden this year is onions. We tried, very unsuccessfully last year to grow them. We planted them wayyyyyyyy too late and they gave up the ghost before we really even got started. Here are the onions waiting to go out. I have 2 bunches of red burgundy and 3 bunches of 1015Ys, "the" sweet Texas onion. Their packed in some dirt and I water them about every other day. Didn't want to leave them without water as they'd die. Still a few weeks away from planting time, so I gotta keep them babies alive!



In other news, the seeds are sorted and my catalog of what we're growing is made. I'm still looking for a few things, like a different okra variety and possibly another variety of pole beans. Other than that, I think we're set! To see my spreadsheet, you can visit it on Google docs. Stephanie's Spring 2010 Plant List Once you get there, just click on the blue links at the bottom to go to either herbs, flowers, or veggies.