Sunday, April 11, 2010

That Time Again

Well, it's that time again, planning the garden.  This shelf is a new addition this year that holds all my pots with the new seedlings and I have it filled to the brim.  My dining room window has the best lighting for the plants and for the shelves that don't reach the window I have fluorescent lighting hooked up.  This is my third year, so I still feel like a beginner, but every year I learn more and more. This year I made the mistake in getting my soil right from my raised beds to start my seedlings and it became to compacted in the containers not retaining moisture and needed frequent watering.  I should have bought potting soil and used that instead as my pepper plants had  low germination success resulting in only 6 pepper plants. The rest of the seeds, tomatoes, beets, basil, radishes, and broccoli did well.  I am trying over with the peppers, hoping for more plants for the garden in May.  Otherwise, I'll have to buy the plants as we like bell peppers.  My dining room will look like this until my planting date around May 15th and then the shelf will become handy in my storage room.  I'll also be planting different types of squash, peas, beans and cucumber, but you sow those seeds outdoors at planting time.  Looking forward to a profitable season of gardening!

4 comments:

Julie said...

I am looking forward to our garden too! So fulfilling to be a bit self sustainable. I'm going to try canning this year! Yikes!

Unknown said...

As usual it has snuck up on me again. I suppose I better re-route my brain to getting things ready. Time sure flies.

I love the handy shelf you have. Gives me some ideas.

Unknown said...

It's a fun story. Juli married Kelly and got pregnant with Aubryn shortly after. Aubryn was born in January of 2004, Kelly's mom had a baby May 2004, and I had Mary December 2004. So yes, Aubryn is almost a year older than our Mary. Aubryn, (granddaughter) is 18 months younger than our Janai. So lots of girls in a short time! I did that with my husbands mom too. When we had Juli, her youngest was 18 months, she went on to have 2 more kids after we were married. So there are lots of aunt/uncle type relationships in our family where the aunt/uncle is younger. Aren't big families great!!

Missus@ Escape to the Farm said...

I like your gardening seeding arrangement. It looks like an efficient use of space and light.

Good luck with your garden!