We Have Babies!

It's been a while since I last posted here - sorry about that!  March has been an incredibly busy time for me.  Besides the every day hectic pace of working, I've also been busy attending horse shows and craft fairs!  It's amazing I even remembered to plant anything!

One thing I found that has been pretty darn cool to use, and it's FREE, is an online program to help you plan out your garden and figure out when to plant things and it has all sorts of cool tools, is www.smartgardener.com

The website is free and there's so much information on there, from germination information to garden pests, to tips and tricks.  You can even set it up to send you e-mail reminders of what needs to be done that week.  I used it to plan out my garden.  This year's garden will be 23' x 23' in size.  Last year's garden was 14' x 13' - so we're going a bit bigger :P  The main reason for this is that I want to grow double the corn I did last year (100+ plants this year) and we're trying a bunch of other new veggies this year.

Another new thing I tried this year was a seedling heating mat.  I mentioned the one I got in a previous post.  Using this seedling heating mat has DEFINITELY sped up the process of germination, especially for the peppers!  My peppers, which include california wonder, thai chilis, jalapenos, and habaneros, all germinated in about a week with the mat.  Without the mat, it took almost 3 to 4 weeks since my house is kept at about 60-62 degrees F in the winter.  The other good news is the pepper seeds I bought last year, the california wonder, all germinated this year!  A testiment to mypatriotsupply.com's packaging.

I planted all my peppers, as well as the oregano, basil, and parsely on 2/15/2014.  They were removed from the heating mat about a week after the peppers came up.  The parsley and oregano took quite a bit longer to germinate, and only about half came up, so I have replanted more.

Here's what that tray looks like as of today, about a month later.

On Tuesday, 3/18/2014, I planted my tomatoes (four varieties - homestead, brandywine, cherry, and ace 55), cucumbers (two varieties - wisconsin (pickling) and marketmore), summer squash (yellow and black beauty), pumpkins, broccoli, cauliflower, and a little more basil, oregano, and parsley.

To my amazement, there were two pickling cucumbers and one yellow squash that had already germinated in less then 36 hours on the mat!!!  And today, less than 3 days later, ALL of my cucumbers and yellow squash have germinated, two of the three broccoli plants have germinated, one of the three cauliflowers have germinated, and one of the two basils has also come up!!  It's so exciting to see how well the mat works!  Here's a photo of that tray today.  The cucumbers are the really tall ones.  The row to the left contains the broccoli and cauliflower.  The row to the right of the cukes has the yellow squash.  Still waiting to see the tomatoes make an appearance.

For any of those struggling with seed germination, I highly recommend using one.

I will also be planting corn, carrots, and lettuce, but those I will direct sow.  Stay tuned for more pictures!

New Things to Try!

Last summer was the first time I ever had my own garden.  Between Mike and myself, we learned A LOT!  This year, there are several things I want to try.  One of them is a seedling heat mat.  We keep our house between 60-62 degrees in the winter.  For the most part, that doesn't "agree" with germinating seeds - especially peppers!  Pepper seeds require much warmer temperatures to germinate quicker.  It took my peppers (green bell) almost a MONTH to germinate at the 60-62 degrees our house is at (and when seeds stay moist for that long, you risk losing them to fungal infections).  One of the tricks you can do is put the seed tray on the top of the refrigerator, however, we have no room up there, and I know I'd forget about them up there.  So, my plan this year is to use a seedling heat mat.  I really should be using a thermostat with the mat, but I'm going to try it without the thermostat and see what happens.  This is the model I'm thinking of getting.  It's supposed to keep the seeds 10-20 degrees warmer than ambient temperature.  Once the seeds germinate, they'll no longer need the heat mat.

The other thing I will be trying this year is a small indoor greenhouse in front of a South facing window.  Last year, I put the seed tray (with the clear lid - I got the tray at Home Depot for less than $6) on my dining room table in a South facing window, and I gave up a place to eat for almost two and a half months (and it was just a pain to keep moving the plants so I would have a place to eat, plus it increased the chances of breaking/damaging the plants).  So, I was thinking the greenhouse would get the seeds/plants out of my way, and in a safer, possibly warmer place.  I picked this greenhouse up at Harbor Freight, with a coupon, for around $20.  It's about 5 feet tall, 2 feet wide, and about a foot and a half deep.  It was incredibly easy to assemble - literally no tools required!

I'm also going to try floating row covers.  This is essentially a fabric that you drape over the plants to keep out bugs or to protect from a *light* frost or a heavy rain.  My main purpose of the row covers is to deal with bugs in a more organic, and chemical-free way.  The thing is though, you have to make sure the fabric is sealed off so bugs can't enter (so covering the ends with soil or something).  Also, if you're putting it over plants that require insects for pollination, you have to take off the fabric.  I think I'll be using it mainly during the first few weeks after transplanting - bugs seem to REALLY love the tender plants and when the plants are that young, they're more susceptible to bug attacks and can be killed easier (stupid flea beetles attacking my "baby" tomato plants!)

I think I'm going to use hoops though to elevate the fabric and keep it off the delicate "baby" leaves.  Something like this - with the fabric already built in:

And I think I'll get bigger hoops just in case.  I'm not sure which method I'll like better - setting up my own fabric over the hoops, or the one with them built in already, so I figured I'd try both and see which one I liked best.

For my corn, lodging (or falling over even with the slightest breeze or rain) was a big problem.  We ended up having to use stakes and twine to keep the plants from falling over.  I think we'll still do the stakes and twine this year, but I'm going to try something I read online.  Where, you take a small, plastic dixie cup and cut the bottom out.  You dig a small hole, where you want the seed to go, and insert the dixie cup.  At the bottom of the hole (and cup) is where you plant the corn seed.  Then, as the plant grows, you fill in the dixie cup, eventually taking out the plastic cup altogether.  The point of this is to get the corn's roots down a bit deeper, sooner.  I'm thinking this might help, even just a little, with the lodging issue.

I'm also planning on growing my pumpkins on a vertical trellis this year.  The plants are just ridiculous space hogs and I can't have them growing throughout the yard this year.  It was a real pain for Mike to mow around the pumpkin obstacle course - lol.  I do know I'll need heavy duty rope to hold the plants up, and something (probably nylons or a t-shirt-like material) to sling the growing pumpkins and hold them up/support them.  It should be interesting!  But I think the pumpkins will "like" the trellis - like, A LOT!  They kept trying to grow up my corn plants last year - lol.

Anyway - I'm sure there will be more new things that I'll want to try, but these are the biggies this year!  Stay tuned!

It begins!

It's only January 20th, and I've already got my new seeds in, and have begun the planning phase of the garden for this year!  I thought this photo was quite appropriate - with the snow on the ground in the background.

That photo has all the seeds I plan on planting this year.  Last year was a year of experimentation.  I have never had a garden of my own.  I did have one when I was growing up, but as a kid, I didn't really pay attention to what was going on.  I just knew we got food from the garden after lots and lots of work (and weeding - I hate weeding - lol).

This is what's on "tap" to be planted this year - broccolli, carrots, lettuce, cauliflower, peppers (four varieties - green bell, habanero, jalapeno, and thai chili), pumpkins, tomatoes (four varieties - ace 55, homestead, cherry, and brandywine), cucumbers (two varieties - marketmore 76 and wisconsin smr58 pickling), zucchini, summer squash, oregano, basil, parsley, and my absolute favorite - CORN!!  About half of this is stuff I've never grown before, so this year will also be full of experimentation!  The corn was what started this whole thing last year.  That, and I was tired of getting bruised and beat up veggies for top price at the grocery store.

All of my seeds are from two companies - mypatriotsupply.com and rareseeds.com - both of which are part of the Safe Seed Pledge and sell only non-GMO seeds.

A few friends asked me to blog about my experiences this year, so I plan to try and do just that.  For now, the planning stages continue.  Last year, the garden was 14' x 13' and I do think it'll have to almost triple that size for this year.

This was one of the last photos from last year's garden, taken on 7/18/2013. The goal was to get at least one veggie from every species/variety in the garden, and I did that, and then some (we froze some peppers, corn, and canned some tomatoes and cucumbers).  It was a HUGE learning experience though, which will definitely continue this year.

I intend to share my trials and tribulations (lol) as this year's garden grows.  I also intend to share what I learned from last year, what I plan to do this year about it (stupid cucumber beetles and powdery mildew), and let you know if it works or not.