Planting Journal - Carrots & Broccoli

Well, the past few weeks have been might crazy busy and the poor little seedlings on the porch have been growing the best they can but the need to get in the ground so badly!! Yesterday (or was it the day before?) I fluffed up the rest of the row that has the beans in it and we prepped it with newspaper and straw.

Today Tommy had fluffed up half a row with the fork and we prepped that one with newspaper and straw and then while Tommy continued fluffing the rest of the row I planted the carrots in that row and some broccoli in the row with the beans and peas - And the beans have some beans on them already!!

Part of my procrastination with planting, other than it takes darn longer to prep the beds than I was expecting, is that I'm quite sure there is an ideal way to lay out the garden, certain plants that should go next to each other and such, but I haven't had time to research that. And then it's gotten to the point where I know these poor little seedlings just need to get in the ground because I don't know how many times they can take the stress of their little peat pots drying out, even though so far they always seem to bounce back within minutes of being watered. So I kind of half remember some things that we did last year on the farm and kind of just guess and figure that if nothing else they have a better chance in the ground than in the seed pots. But they look so tasty and luscious and like little miniature versions of themselves - the kale especially - I can't bear to think of them just drying/dying out. :(

So a wing and a prayer it is, we'll see what happens. We never even got to planting the lettuce and some of the herbs and I'm thinking it might be too late, although you can totally do a fall crop of lettuce!

Transplanting: Peas, Beans, Cherry Tomatoes & Peppers

So behind on the transplanting but I've been sooo busy the past weekend! Just doing what we can I guess.

Tommy has been fluffing up the tilled land with a fork and I put the peas, beans, jalepenos and a few more tomatoes and some cherry tomatoes. I had really been hoping to put some more stuff in the ground and brought all the seedling trays out to the garden plot but I ran out of time and light.

Was disappointed to find out the mosquitos were already out, but seeing the fireflies at dusk as I put the tools back in the garage made up for it!

First Plants in the Ground - Eggplant

We were both so eager to get SOMETHING in the ground that even though I've been crazy swamped we put 4 little eggplant seedlings in the first row with a big handful of earthworm castings and covered them with the row cover cloth. There's room for another 4 or 5 plants in that row still.

The beans/peas are SO ready to be in the ground but I don't want to put them in till we get the rest of the fence up because I really don't want them to get eaten by rabbits. I don't know what the rabbit population is this year, but a few years ago when I was hoping to plant flowers for my wedding, the rabbits ate all the flower sprouts, so I don't trust them one bit...

Also really ready are all the squash and melons, but they are going to need a lot of space I think, so I need to actually figure those out too. The eggplants were just the most brainless in terms of figuring out the spacing, thus they got to be first.

Garden Bed Prep - Two Rows Ready!

Today Tommy and I got two rows ready for planting. We forked the soil into narrow rows about the width of a Weekly Reader newspaper, then covered those rows up with said papers and put a layer of straw on top. The idea is that this double layer will help keep the moisture in and the weeds down.

I had originally wanted to double dig the garden, but that takes a long time and it's really getting late to get these plants in the ground, so we settled for a quick tilling and then fluffing up the rows with a fork. Maybe next year...

While I was digging with the fork I turned over SO MANY WORMS! I kept trying to pick them up and move them over to the dirt I had just previously forked to avoid cutting any of them, and once I suddenly felt a cold slimy thing sliding over my flip-flop clad foot and looked down to see a HUGE worm about a foot long! After my initial freak out and placing him over in the already forked dirt I was pretty happy because worms are a great sign that the earth is going to be well aerated and fertilized.

After we got our two rows all done we were pretty eager to plant something in them, but I didn't want to put in anything before we put up our rabbit fence, and I also needed to figure out how many and what kind of plants we wanted to put where. Then I remembered that the row cover cloth had come so we could put some seedlings in the ground without too much worry of getting eaten by critters, but then I also remembered I had to do my online music class chat so I really had run out of time to work on the garden for today. Still, it felt like great progress, and we are SO close to getting plants in the ground. According to the online moon calendar I found with suggested planting cycles, this is a good time for for transplanting until Monday, so I want to get as many of our sproutlings as are ready in the ground as we can by then.

We'll see how our garden does with these half-assed attempts at biodynamics. I figure if people can grow stuff without using biodynamics at all, even our little attempts have to count for something. We won't use any chemical fertilizers or weed killers. I don't think we'll do any of the preparations or that kind of stuff this year, but so far we've been trying to plant our seeds at the appropriate moon times. Absolutely everything has come up and is looking great except for the cucumbers, I think we might have to do those over because they didn't sprout at all...

Plant Progress - Kale

I think I'm seeing the very just barely beginnings of the Kale already! No way! whoo-hoo!

Got the row covers today, so now I can feel more confident to put the seedlings in the ground. Maybe tomorrow...

Plant Progress - Chard & Sunflowers

Got home from Chicago today to find the Chard and the Sunflowers had sprouted. The chard is so beautiful, teeny tiny little bright red stems. yay.

Plant Progress - Broccoli

Broccoli seeds have sprouted!

Hoping that Tommy can do some tilling today or it's going to start getting late to plant...

Planting Journal - Kale

Planted some Russian Kale from the Seed Savers packet I got from the At Home Store. Was happy to find some locally. Planted 3 rows of it in the starter tray.