Start Your Seeds, Part Deux

Yes, I'm starting seeds again.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I had started all my seeds at the same time, and fortunately not all of them germinated.  Nine tomatoes and two cucumbers sprouted and have been installed in their new bed, along with several nasturtiums.  There are five little kale plants in pots just inside the fence waiting for the 'leafy' bed to be prepared.

I had tons of interruptions/distractions right after I cleared the grass and laid the paper and edging blocks down.  And during that time we had several hail storms and lots of rain.  The hail tore holes in the paper and the rain spurred the grass to grow ferociously.  As a result I had to completely redo both beds.  Yeah, move the edging stones, pull up the remaining shredded paper, weed-eat the grass down to the nubs again, and lay new paper and replace the stones.  It took me all day to repair the one bed due to the heat and humidity, but it's done, and lookin' good! 

 

The 'leafy' bed is ready for soil, and only took a half-day to repair.  Of course, there is a specific order for the next steps for this bed: soil goes in, seedlings transplanted, then fencing goes up - all on the same day.  If I put the soil in now I'd need to put the fencing up or my kitties will think I have just built them the most wonderful litter box ever.  But with the fence already up I'd end up stepping in the new soil and compacting it when it came time to plant the seedling; so I'll wait for the seedlings to be ready before moving forward on this bed.  I'm thinking about two weeks from now.  I've started iceberg lettuce, red romaine, and more kale for this bed.  I also started some rosemary, basil, and cilantro, and poblano peppers, bell peppers, chicory, and birdhouse gourds.  I'll put the peppers in with the tomatoes when they're ready to transplant and the rest will go in the leafy bed.

 

 

UPDATE:  Kale sprouting!  Just a few days after I wrote this post and before I could get it posted, some of the kale seeds have sprouted!  Nature is amazing!

I'm going shopping for tomato cages and trellises today. Should be fun!

 

Until next time, never give up, never surrender, and may all your dreams come true.



 



Progress Is Good

I started this Blog as a way to record my progress toward living on my own little homestead.  My main goal to own land and live out in the country hasn't changed, I am however taking a slightly different route than originally planned.  And until I am able to purchase any land, it makes good sense to practice homesteading where I am. 

In one of my first posts "First Steps" I mentioned a list of skills I wanted to tackle while I was still working.  These included purchasing a pressure canner and learning to can vegetables, fruits, and meats, begin to bake my own bread and make butter, cheese, and yogurt, and to put a small garden in my back yard.  I have the pressure canner now, plus a water bath canner and a dehydrator and have canned pinto beans, water bathed a dozen different types of jams and jellies, and dehydrated a ton of apple slices that my son and grandson promptly consumed.  I still need to practice making breads and cheeses from scratch. 

I put the small garden in the back yard in 2013, that's the one I resurrected last summer and learned all about tomatoes with.  It had cabbages over the winter, and I'm preparing it for 'root' crops for this year.  And of course I have the new beds in the front yard, too.

Also on the list is to make Mead (a honey wine), learn first aid, and begin saving seeds.  I saved some of the tomato seeds from last summer - (an interesting process for another post) - but those tomatoes were hybrids so I'm not sure what I'll get if I plant them.  When I buy seeds I make a point to purchase only heirloom seeds, however last year's tomato plants were gifted to me.  I marked the packet with the saved seeds 'hybrid' but since I have heirloom tomatoes I can save from in my spring/summer garden, I doubt the hybrid seeds will ever be used. 

I feel I've made some progress toward my goal and although I've had to change my route a little, I know where I want to be, and I'll get there, eventually.  (I suppose I should add 'learn patience' to my list!)  And I'm still reading everything I can find on homesteading, farming, gardening, and rural life. 

 

Until next time, never give up, never surrender, and may all your dreams come true.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your Seeds!

The thought of finally starting my seeds was intoxicating.  The more I thought about it, the more excited I got, and the faster reason went out the window.  I started all of my seeds at the same time.....the tomatoes with a 6-8 day germination time, the cucumbers with a 4-6 day germination time, and lettuce, needing only 2-3 days to germinate.

I used a 72-cell tray and had grow lights overhead.  I suppose it was fortunate that not all of the seeds germinated.  My Rutgers and Burbank tomatoes (both determinates) sprouted, as did the cucumbers and kale.  A few of the lettuces sprouted, but had keeled over within 3 days.  Suffice to say I will be starting more seeds in the next weeks.  Most of my seed packets have germination times on them, but not all do.  For those that don't, I should have researched.  I've made a list of the seeds I need to re-start, and each one's time-to-germinate.  When I start them I'll do it based on longest to shortest. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please note I'm not complaining since I didn't have the beds ready for them to go into anyway.  My front yard gets lots of sun needed for a veggie garden so that's where I'm putting them.  I have a beautiful Mexican Olive tree in a small bed on one side of the yard and decided to extend that bed all the way across the yard to the driveway.

 

 

 

 

I used my weed-eater to outline the beds, then went over the entire area with it cutting the grass down to the nubs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, I laid down kraft paper to block the grass and prevent it from growing back, then set the edging stones around it.

I bought the edging stones from a Craigslist ad and got the flagstone from a friend who had them leftover from a project he did.  The beds are 9'x7' and 9'x9' interior dimensions.  I have wooden stakes that I'll paint to match the house; they'll support the chicken wire fence I'll need to put up to keep my kitties out. 

 

 

Next post hopefully will have seedlings in the bed.

Till then, never give up, never surrender, and may all your dreams come true.

 

Hope Springs Eternal for my Spring Garden

Because I am an eternal optimist, I have great hopes for my spring garden.  I expect to harvest a lot of veggies but I also expect to learn a lot.  Last year's gardening venture taught me about tomatoes.  I also had a small bed of sweet potatoes which, as it turned out, reaped more learning than sweet potatoes.  But I am not discouraged.  As long as I learn something, it's not a complete failure.  What I learned about the sweet potatoes is that...uh...they need fertilizer.  This year I'll have four beds full of veggies to learn from. 

And speaking of learning, some of my reading over the past couple months has covered crop rotation.  To keep it simple, you don't plant the same vegetables in the same bed from one year to the next.  The diseases and pests that liked your tomatoes last year, for instance, will still be there waiting for your new tomato plants this year.  So you'll want to plant something from a different plant 'family' in that bed instead, and plant your tomatoes in another bed.  Also, planting the same vegetable in the same bed year after year will deplete the soil of the nutrients that that vegetable needs, resulting in lower yields.  Finally, moving your vegetables from one bed to another each year will benefit them even more if  you move them in a specific order.  Leafy vegetables, such as lettuce, spinach and corn, need nitrogen. Planting them in the bed where your peas and beans grew last season will give them the nutrients they need without your having to amend the soil, since legumes 'fix' or leave nitrogen in the soil.

Subsequently, to be sure I was putting the right veggies together, and to be sure I rotated them in the right order, I needed to identify the different families into which plants are grouped and the significance of each.   My research turned up more than a dozen 'family' charts and lists with plant groups numbering as few as four to as many as nine.  However some of the groups didn't agree with each other.  One of the 'four family group' charts didn't include leafy vegetables; another had the Legumes going into the bed after the  Brassicas (leafy crops).  After sorting through them, I came to the conclusion that many if not all of these crop rotation/family group charts were drawn specifically for it's author's garden/farm.  Thus, I've created my own also.  With my limited space I'll use the smaller group of four rotating crops: leafy, root, fruiting, and legumes.  The nitrogen fixing legumes will follow the root crops which have loosened the soil as they grew deep.  Leafy crops will suck up the nitrogen left by the legumes, and fruiting crops will move in where the leafy crops were previously. 

 

My next post will cover seed starting.

Till then, never give up, never surrender, and may all your dreams come true.