It's been an exciting few weeks here as I've been very anxious to get the spring garden going. First I started some seeds indoors using seed starting trays which I put in large aluminum pans and placed in our upstairs window. They were covered with plastic lids as protection from our cats who love to dig in the dirt and eat any seedlings that appear. Unfortunately, we had a week of very cold, freezing weather making it almost impossible for any of the seeds to germinate. Out of desperation, I purchased a couple of seed heating mats from Amazon.com and the seeds started to sprout...... Later that week I had to also purchase a thermostat to control the temperature as the mats were getting too hot, it really worked well. After moving the trays to 3 different locations, including the tub in our spare bathroom, I decided I needed a better solution and researched small greenhouses. I found this one on Amazon and was pleasantly surprised as to the quality and size. I moved the trays out, closed it up and the very next day, almost all of the seeds had sprouted. YES! I absolutely love this thing! Well worth the investment of 50.00.
You can see how happy the seedlings are
here in this picture. I am growing a variety of tomatoes including Beefsteak, Brandywine, Roma. The only eggplant I am growing this year is the Japanese type. Had very good luck with them last year.
In this tray, there is broccoli, spinach, nasturtium, kale, sunflowers and Saliva. Kale is a first for me as well as the sunflowers.
I am also trying Zinnias by seed this year, they look so pretty in the garden and are very good companion plants for many types of vegetables.
Cucumbers and Jalapenos are also in this tray. I had so much luck with peppers last year but have never tried the Jalapenos so hopefully they will do well.
Last year, none of the spinach came up but I am giving it another go this year. I just love spinach and it would great to eat some fresh out of the garden. "fingers crossed".
Another first for me are Red Potatoes. I've done lots of research and found growing them in large pots can be very successful. Again, being a bit ambitious, I planted them a bit early but to my surprise, they survived the hard frost and are now sprouting in every pot! How cool would it be to harvest potatoes!! really looking forward to that!
I purchased a wide variety of onion sets, Red, Sweet, Shallots and garlic and planted them in the Square Foot garden bed. So far they are coming up and looking really healthy. I think they really thrive in the cooler weather.
The Kale and Lettuce are starting to sprout also.
Last year, my second planting of lettuce didn't produce at all so I'm hoping to have more luck this time around.
I planted carrots late in the Fall and they seem to have gone into hibernation but are now coming to life.
These are sugar snap peas which again I tried last year with no luck. These seedlings have survived hard frost and are now looking like they might actually start growing.
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