My Spinach Plants are Ready for Garden Transplanting

I was definitely a little bit late this year in placing my spinach plants into the garden and it was mainly due to the strange weather we had.  It was beginning to get warm with signs of spring in the air and then a sharp cold blast along with rain came through and messed up my schedule.

I had originally planned on putting my plants in the ground this past weekend and would have been perfect timing.  I knew I had to get them in the ground as quick as possible because they were starting to get a little bit pot bound.  A few of them have actually started bolting and are now useless plants that will no longer grow any leaves.

Thankfully that was only a couple of plants at the most and hopefully I placed them in the garden before they all start to bolt.  Today it is supposed to rain so that might help the roots to start spreading in all directions.  Once we get some good days of full sun then the leaves should start growing quite well and I can then harvest them for as long as possible.

Here is one of the plants that actually started bolting this year.

I still transplanted it into the ground regardless because I had already created a hole for it and I did not want it to go to waste.  Once these plants bolt that is when you know the cold plant season is over.  Hopefully I will get some good harvests from my other plants that are still in good shape.

Planting Tomato Seeds Indoors at the Right Time

One of the most important elements in gardening is time and that is something that will be different in whatever region you happen to live.  For me March is the month when I need to start tomatoes indoors and they should be ready to go into the soil by May to June.  Most of the time I will the garden in May and by the middle of the month I will be placing many of my indoor plants into the soil.

This includes not only fruits like my tomatoes, but others such as flowers and vegetables.  Right now I only planted my steakhouse, Roma, and cherry tomato seeds.  I won't be planting vegetables until a couple of weeks or so.  I still have one fluorescent light that I can use once my spinach plants no longer need it for growing.

I have been putting spinach outside since last week and after the rain over the past couple of days the sun finally showed itself this afternoon.  I made sure that I put them outside and right now they are doing good and I want to get them into the soil very soon before they become pot bound and might start going to seed or bolting.

At the moment I have just planted tomato seeds that were able to fit under the lights with no more room for any other pots or containers.  This means I can't plant anymore because the windowsills are all filled along with my fluorescent lights.

You can see that they fit perfectly under the lights and is mainly due to the appropriate containers that I only use for tomatoes.  They are just the perfect size for these plants and as long as they sprout they will last in the soil that I gave them and the space they will have in these pots.

Had Some Weeding To Accomplish Today

Today was just as busy with all my spinach plants that are starting to be taken over by thick thriving weeds.  Weeds come just about everywhere in any type of form.  They can damage and easily take over the garden if you don't stay on top of them.

That is what I did this afternoon and made sure that they will not come back for at least a couple of weeks.  They can easily come back as long as a good heavy rain came.  Since we haven't received much rain in the past couple of months they will not grow back as fast as usual.  It will probably take them an extra week in order for them to be a factor.

You can see from the two pictures above that weeding your plants can help them out and makes them look professional with not weeds or grass around them.

Harvesting of Spinach for 2015 Completed Today

Although I picked my spinach leaves today I still have plenty of more harvests to come.  I pick my spinach leaves at intervals rather than all at once.  I find that I can enjoy my spinach leaves for so much longer and I won't be overwhelmed with all the leaves that I collect. 

This is a little bit different than with lettuce because with lettuce you can choose to pick them all at once or at intervals.  It is all your preference and what type of lettuce you grew as well.

I am going to have some of my spinach for dinner tonight and throw them in a salad that I am going to make.  I took some off the plants before picking them in order to make sure that they were ready and were not bitter.  This can happen with leafy plants such as lettuce, celery, and even spinach.  They were not bitter and were not going to get any bigger so I picked them today.

So far the plants are looking good and I hope to continue picking them throughout the season as long as they don't get any insect or animal pests attacking them.

Almost Time to Harvest Spinach Leaves

It has been about a week or so since I planted my spinach into the ground and most of them have been growing quite well especially with some of the rain and cool weather that we have been having.  The daytime temperatures have been a little warm, but at night it has been in the low 40's.  This is perfect for dark green spinach leaves.

I also had some more that needed to be placed into the ground and that is what I did yesterday afternoon.  I wanted to get the last of the spinach in the ground so that I can have two separate batches of spinach that I can pick at different times.  This means double the amount of spinach leaves because when one is picked the other one is continuing to grow and vice versa.

Check out the spinach I transplanted yesterday.

It is still somewhat small but in a couple of weeks it will look full and be ready for harvesting and then consumption.

I decided to grow some more flowers that will attract bees and other important insects because I believe you can never have enough flowers.  I try to plant as many flowers as possible every season and that is what I did yesterday as well.  Dill and alyssum were my first choices since they are easy to grow and I also threw in their some cilantro.

I also wanted to plants some more vegetables as well and I decided on peppers and eggplant.

Onions Sprouting and Spinach Transplanted

Busy day yesterday with the transplanting of spinach occurring.  The roots of my spinach plants were starting to get a little root bound especially the ones that had a few sets of leaves growing.  I put the strongest ones into the soil first and the others I will do very shortly.  Next week is the latest that I want to have them into the soil.

I tilled a couple of rows of soil for my spinach plants.  Twenty of them should be able to fit into the space that I provided for them.

I also discovered that some of my onions are growing bright green stems for the first time this season.  Granted it is only the early ones, but in another week or two more and more of them should be growing stems.  By the end of the month a majority of them will be sprouting and growing in their respective soils.

Garden soil onions.

Tote onions.

The Weather is Beginning to Heat Up

Now that spring weather is starting to appear and trees are beggining to show signs of budding along with grass starting to grow it is time to work in the garden.  My plants are still in containers from starting them inside and they will be placed outside to get used to the weather.  This is just something that the plants need to go through in order to be placed in the garden without getting a shock to their system.

Now that my plants are outside and it is warm enough to work with the soil and is beginning to dry I thought yesterday was a perfect time to work on my blueberries.  I didn't do much except for weeding them and removing many leaves that had collect during the fall months.  It was mostly maple leaves and trees around the area that happen to get collected here.

As you can see from the picture below of all the fall debris that had collect along with some grass that was beginning to grow as well.  I got rid of all of it in order to give them a good head start to the summer season.

Along with warmer weather comes transplanting of some plants mainly my spinach which has been growing quite well.  It is still too early to till the entire garden as well as placing any other plants in the soil so I will just focus on spinach for the time being.  Later on I will be working on my other plants.

They are beginning to grow their second set of leaves and the roots have almost reached the bottom and this is how you know when it is time to place them in the soil.

The Garden Season Starts with Spinach

Every year I begin the season with growing spinach indoors in order to give them a good head start to the new season.  I have found that this is a good way to begin because it is always the same for the most part.  This year I am trying something new with my spinach plants that I think will be very beneficial in the long run.

One of the best strategies that you can use when growing spinach indoors or outdoors is to soak them in water for 24 hours and then try planting them.  I never did this before because I didn't think that this would help in germination.

I decided that this season I would try it and see what would happen.  The theory is that these seeds have a tough shell and in order to soften the shell you would soak them in water.  This will allow for better and increased germination.  This is only a theory and one that I am going to test this season.  I have 24 pots that I will be using for growing spinach.  This means that I should have 24 plants to transplant into the garden.

I planted spinach seeds in 12 containers today and placed them under the lights for faster germination.  The other seeds are in a container being soaked and I will plant them tomorrow in the afternoon.  Noon time is when I placed them in a container of water.  You should soak them for 24 hours.  I will see if this simple technique helps with germination.  I like to put at least four to five seeds in each container as this will increase the chances of getting at least one of the five to sprout.

This year I am also going to be using sifted soil that I created from my worm composting.  I used this last year, but instead of sifting it I just placed them in the pots.  This year I worked out a way to sift all the good soil without getting of the worms into the soil.  Hopefully all the good nutrients and worm castings got through.  I will know in a couple of weeks whether or not the sifting was a good idea.

I will also be starting to grow flowers pretty soon such as alyssum, dill, sunflowers, cosmos, calendula, and many more.  Make sure to check back to this blog and find out what is happening with my garden plants.

My Onions and Spinach are Growing Like They Should

Every gardener likes to see positive results from their work that they have put into this hobby.  It is always a sigh of relief when you are not experiencing any difficulties such as diseases, pests problems, or any other type of situation that can occur.  For the most part my onions and spinach leaves are doing quite well.

Even though the temperature has risen over the past week or so they are still thriving with dark green leaves.  A week ago I added some wood ash around my plants to see what would happen when I put them around the weakest plants.  So far the wood ash has proven to be a good supplement for these plants.

A week ago not all the onion bulbs were growing yet.  Only some of them have been sprouting and growing stems.  Now that they have had time to sprout and with the past rain that we received they have been sprouting on a consistent basis.  I would say at least 99% of them have begun to grow stems while only a couple have not.  This is the usual percentage that you should be getting when planting onion bulbs.

As you know I also added some pelleted lime to the onions that will last throughout the rest of their season.  I added them before the rain came because this type of lime is activated whenever rain or water is placed on these pellets.  You can see below that they turned into a fine powder that will be absorbed slowly by all the plants.

Most of the totes look like this but I am not worried because when I start watering them the lime will be pushed down into the soil where the roots can use it.

Harvesting of Spinach Leaves Has Begun

If you thought that I forget about my spinach plants, then you though wrong because I have been keeping an eye on them for the right time for harvesting.  I took a look at them recently and I saw that many of the outer leaves have stopped growing.  This is the first sign that I look for when it is time to cut them as soon as possible.

I love eating larger spinach leaves rather than cutting them when they are small.  I think they are more healthier when they are at their peak size and color.  This is just my own opinion, but this is exactly what I do when it comes to picking spinach leaves.

Now that I have picked my first spinach leaves I find that it is a good idea to weed around the plants and get the soil loosened.  This provides the plant with air that it had been restricted from due to the dirt becoming compacted.

I also wanted to give them some lime that I thought would be necessary to facilitate delicious foliage for the rest of the season.  I also decided on using some wood ash I had collected this year and give it to five of my plants.  This is used by most gardeners and I thought that it might be a good way to help them stay healthy and strong throughout the rest of the season.

Here is what the soil should look like if you have weeded them properly.

Placing Your Spinach Outside Beginning Today

I have recently described the important process of hardening your spinach plants and acclimating them to the weather in your area.  Today I want to let you know that I have placed all of them outside to get them ready for living outside in the garden until the harvest is over. 

Placing them outside is very easy and it doesn't take that much time as long as you have the proper temperatures that they can thrive in.  Luckily this entire week is supposed to get warmer which will allow the spinach plants to thrive in.  Temperatures at night hit a low that is just above 30 degrees Fahrenheit which is still within the threshold that these plants can tolerate.

If you are concerned about a quick freeze or a frost then you can easily bring them inside for the night and protect them from these temperatures.  A frost will easily wipe out your entire spinach harvest if they are exposed to it for any length of time.  Luckily for us spinach is very tolerant of low temperatures and can be placed outside earlier than what most people would think.

This is what I did to get them exposed to the outside environment:

Half of them are small while the other half look like they are ready to be placed into the garden.  This is because I had an additional planting that needed to be completed shortly after initially planting them.  I thought I had enough seeds that would have sprouted successfully, but this was not the case.  Instead I had to use the pots that did not sprout any spinach for another set.  Other than that I have had no set backs so far.