Getting Ready for Placing Plants Outside

At the moment there are only a couple of plants that are able to withstand the cool temperatures that have arrived.  It is still a little bit early to put all my plants outside.  With these temperatures only my spinach and lettuce can bear it right now.  I also have broccoli which I started inside that loves cool weather and I will probably be putting them outside soon as well.  For now I will be keeping my lettuce and spinach outside.  I am hoping by the end of the month to be putting them in the ground as long as they can get some sunshine.

I have been planting more seeds inside this season and have recently planted some cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon, and even carrots.  My melons and cucumbers are sitting underneath fluorescent lights to get them sprouting quickly. 

I have also used larger peat pots this season for these seeds.  Using larger peat pots will allow for more time for the plants to develop without having to put them in the ground too soon.  If they sit in the peat pots for too long the containers may begin to dissolve and I would have to put them in the garden soil right away when it may not be time to do so.  That is why I chose to use larger ones for my melons.

Carrots on the other hand are not normally put into peat pots and I usually just plant some seeds directly into the garden soil.  Unfortunately this is not very efficient to say the least and I needed to try a different approach to planting this vegetable. 

Using small peat pots for carrots seemed like the obvious and best solution to this problem.  Planting them in plastic containers is something that should not be done because of transplanting problems.  Many times when transplanting carrots from a plastic container into the garden may cause the roots to not grow straight and might crack easily.  This is why I avoided planting them in plastic containers and chose to use small peat pots.

 
I also have tomatoes and broccoli sprouting that have grown beyond the trays that I placed them in and had to move them into larger pots.  I moved all my tomatoes and broccoli and placed them into large cups that I had saved up and this should last them until it is time to transplant them into the garden in the next couple of months or so

A Look at My Garden Progress and First Pea Harvest

I just wanted to get you up to speed with what has been going on in the garden for this season.   I actually picked the first harvest of strawberries last week and had another harvest a couple of days ago.  It looks like only two harvests will come from these plants, but I will be adding many more plants this year for more berries next season.

Today was a good day because I had a second harvest from my pea plants.  This was just the first harvest from my pea plants and it was a small, but successful one.  Although there were not many that were ready for harvesting there still was enough to get a small yield.  I would say that this will last just one meal.  There are plenty of more peas on the plants which I plan on picking in the coming days.



Blueberries are looking good and I can’t wait to start picking them which happens at the end of this month.  July is when I get the bulk of these berries, but getting a little early would definitely be small taste of what is to come hopefully.



If I were to take a guess I would say that the next harvest will come from my lettuce plants.  Many of them are ready for picking and cutting, but I have held off for the moment.  My king crimson red lettuce is the best out of all of them for the moment.  I do have green lettuce that looks good as well and even a broccoli plant that is producing a head.  I would say real soon I will be cutting many of the leaves from my lettuce plants.



I also just wanted to mention my tomatoes have flowers on them and should be seeing tomatoes coming from them real soon.  I have staked them and all I need to do is tie my plants to the stakes to prevent them from falling over.  I will have to do this sometime this week at the latest or at least before tomatoes start to come through.

Weather is Right for Planting Onions Outside

It seems like the weather is just about right to get onions planted outside into large totes.  I love planting them in totes and is the best way for me to get good sized onions.  This year I have decided on two types of onions to place into my growing totes. 

I chose the usual yellow onions and I also picked some red onions which will be added to the garden.  I am only using a couple of totes for red onions and the rest will be filled with the yellow ones.  For now I am only going to use two since these onions are new for me to grow.

Now that my onions are planted it will soon be time to get some other spring seeds planted as well.  I plan to plant seeds such as spinach, snow peas, lettuce, and others in the garden real soon.  I am just waiting for a little bit warmer weather before I start tilling the soil.

I also will be removing the straw from my strawberry plants real soon as well.  I took a peak underneath the straw and it looks like many of the plants did survive over the cold winter.  As long as you put a thick layer of straw they should come back every year bigger and hopefully with more fruit.  It does take a couple of years before you get a significant crop.

For now I am focusing on what I have already planted indoors.  This includes many flower, fruit, and vegetable seeds at the moment.  Almost all of them have begun sprouting one way or another. 

The best plants right now are my flowers which are some of the first things that I planted this season.  Dill and alyssum have been growing for the past month and a half and will be ready to go outside with some warmer weather coming around.  I will probably start planting more alyssum real soon because I like to have at least three containers or more of these flowers.



I also have all three tomato seeds beginning to sprout along with melons.  I will keep them under the lights for a short time and then soon place them in the windowsill for some natural light.  Right now my tomato plants are in the windowsill getting as much sun as possible.

What Plants Are Next for Transplanting?

It looks like this weekend has been quite productive with adding three types of plants into the garden.  This doesn't sound like much, but with over twenty tomato plants, twelve squash plants, and a dozen melon plants it makes for a long weekend.  Today I was able to finish the melons and squash transplanting.

A couple of days ago when I had finished tilling I wanted to get as many tomato plants into the ground as possible.  Since I had many tomato plants to add to the garden I wanted to get the hardest plants over with.  It only took about four hours to plant all my tomato plants into the ground.

My melons had been in peat pots for quite a long time and they probably wouldn't have last that much longer in these containers.  That is when I decided to plant them right after my tomatoes.  This includes all my
melons such as watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew.

Right after doing my melon plants squash plants were next.  The two squash plants that I grew this season were pumpkins and zucchini.  These are the only two squash plants worth growing.

Three More Seeds Planted This Week

More plants were added this week and  I thought starting them a week or two earlier than last season would be a great way to increase harvest yields.  I don't normally plant tomatoes this early and they have done great when planted later, but this season I wanted to get them a much needed head start.

Instead of planting just a few of each cherry, steakhouse, and super sauce tomato I decided to grow three cherry, four steakhouse, and all twenty five seeds of super sauce.  Making sauce is what I will be focusing on this year and getting many Roma tomatoes will be my goal.  A head start for these plants makes perfect sense.

I planted one super sauce seed per pot as seen below.

I planted two cherry tomato seeds per pot.

I also had some more room underneath the fluorescent light that I am using and decided to plant three eggplants in plastic pots and six peppers in medium sized peat pots.  I still have more planting to do and once my spinach starts sprouting I will then use that light for more flowers, herbs, fruits, and vegetable plantings.