End of Week 12

Week 12 ends with things greening up both outside and in. Last weekend Kali and I planted over 700 tiny seeds in left over nursery flats. Before we did this I need to share that we spent a good portion of the day putting together some shelving and disinfecting the sun room. This is where I tell you how vital working with clean supplies is when starting seeds. It is fine to re-use old plant flats and containers, but you must bleach and disinfect them before putting new plants in them, especially seeds. Also, using straight dirt from your garden isn't the best for seed starting. Most garden soils compact and can suffocate your seeds. If you're going to the trouble of starting seeds, give yourself the best chance possible at success. We bought a specially mixed seed starting blend from Home Depot and mixed in some peat moss. Peat moss is great, as long as you make sure your mix doesn't dry out. Peat is the first thing to soak up the moisture.

I don't have to tell you how fun it was to share this experience with Kali. Of course, she wanted to do everything herself, and wanted her name on every label (she just learned how to spell K-A-L-I). We both stretched our patience levels with each other to the max, but it was worth every moment! I let her use the spray bottle to moisten the soil, and she helped plant the bigger seeds. Because I only brought from Kalispell a handful of planting containers, I intermingled different species in the same flat. I am now doubting the intelligence behind this space-saving idea. Different plants germinate at different rates, duh! If I had ample supplies I could have avoided this mistake, but we'll survive. Here's the problem: once seeds germinate, you should take the cover plastic off so you don't end up with 3-inch 2-leaved seedlings. The seedlings have to stretch for sunlight under the cover. The purpose of the cover is two-fold: to retain moisture and to keep it warm. On a nice sunny day, it can be a few degrees warmer under the cover than in the room itself. Like I said, our situation isn't perfect, but we'll survive.

Here's what we planted from seeds on March 20:

Gill's All-Purpose Tomato (early, organic)
Amish Paste Tomato (heirloom)
Blondkopfchen Tomato (heirloom, yellow cherry)
California Wonder 300 Sweet Pepper (red)
Gourmet Sweet Pepper (orange)
Red Bull Hybrid Onion (red, storage)
Montana Jack Pumpkin
Cilantro
Basil
Evening Sun Sunflower
Mixed Petunia
Mixed African Daisy (osteospurmum)

We will start these seeds in April:

Snow Crown Hybrid Cauliflower
Mesa Queen Hybrid Acorn Squash
Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Squash (heirloom)
Charantais Melon (heirloom)

We will plant straight into the garden in May:

Cascadia Snap Pea
Canoe Shelling Pea
Wild Garden Lettuce Mix (organic)
Regatta Hybrid Spinach
Baltimore Hybrid Carrot
Nantes Carrot
Luscious Hybrid Corn (se, organic)
Envy Soybean (heirloom)
Misono Green Soybean

Again, I tried curbing my enthusiasm for buying seeds this winter. I bought what I know we enjoy and will eat. I splurged at Home Depot for the flowers and herbs. At $1.25 a packet, we can make things look pretty too! The pumpkins and sunflowers will be fun, and there's nothing better than fresh basil and cilantro. I am excited to try the winter squashes and melon. I tried them a couple years ago, and they didn't work out...our season wasn't long enough. I read this winter that you can start them as seeds about 3 weeks before planting, so I'm hoping that will help. My dad can get acorn squash to grow like crazy among his corn. I may try that this year too. I also plan to build some cold frames for the early fall frosts we sometimes get. Ryan invented a very easy design/way to cover crops, which we used for when we potted our perennial plugs and bareroot roses in early March with snow still on the ground. We had a very high success rate with these cold frames, and I'm sure they will work for extending the growing season a couple of weeks. Will share the design when we get to that point!

To my surprise, Kali's daisies were the first to pop! This shocked me, as I had terrible luck with Osteospurmum plugs years ago. Granted this was before I knew the importance of pinching and proper annual etiquette. Hopefully we can keep these babies growing! I also read that you can start sunflowers with mixed success. We planted only a few, and saved the rest for direct sowing into the garden. They popped yesterday. We'll see what works best. One week after planting, the daisies, sunflowers, and herbs have started popping through. We move the tomatoes inside at night, as I fear the 50 degree weather the sunroom drops to at night will be detrimental. We may have to do this for the peppers too. Problem is, the peppers share the daisy flat. Daisies are up, peppers are not. If need be, the daisies were cheaper than the peppers! Plus, we eat peppers.

We also started digging and cleaning up our future garden area. We're lucky that a portion of our property has an 8-foot chainlink fence surrounding it (one a dog run). Perfect guard from all the deer! Now if we can fix the ground squirrel issue by May, we'll be okay. We ran some basic soil tests and we will have some ammending to do. High alkaline and virtually no potash. So, our season of slumber is over and it's time to get our hands dirty again. My back already aches from the first week outside, but it will loosen up. It's just good to see green again!