Seedling Update

Three weeks into my seed starting exercise and as with most gardening exploits, the results are mixed.

All varieties of tomatoes are up and growing extremely well. Shortly, I will start applying periodic wind (via a fan) to help promote strength of the young seedlings.

The broccoli and onions are also growing quite well. I had a bit of an issues with the onions, however. I am using the bottom of gallon milk jugs for my 'pots'. I did not put any drain holes in the bottom and managed to overwater them a couple times. Unfortunately that has led to one of the four pots losing almost all of it's seedlings. Another pot lost about half its seedlings. Lesson learned, be certain to include drain holes in all seedling pots. Be careful not to overwater your seedlings, they are very sensitive to 'drowning'.

I've had mixed success with herbs this year. Most of them have come up, however, I managed to kill off quite a few seedlings with careless watering. Today, I tossed in some additional seed to make up for the losses. In the end I am not as concerned about the herbs as I am the vegetables. We use some oregano and basil in our tomato sauce, but the remaining herbs (cilantro, parsley & chives) have not found a regular use yet.

Lastly, are our poor pepper seeds. I thought my light setup would warm the plantings enough to enable all the varieties of seed to germinate. It seems however, that it was not sufficient for the peppers. After 2-1/2 weeks they still showed no sign of germination (I dug up a few seeds to verify). I have replanted them and moved the trays out of the basement grow area to the solarium. There's still plenty of time for the pepper plants to grow sufficiently for a May transplantation. But it is disappointing that they weren't successful the first time around.

My Community Garden Plot

I had never heard of a community garden until a few years ago. A cube mate at work was gardening a couple small plots in Hartford and would give me the daily updates on his trials and tribulations. The idea was intriguing but I just didn't have the time to invest.

After a couple successful years of squeezing in as many vegetables as I could in the 2' x 15' strip of dirt behind my deck, I decided last year was the year to give the local community garden a try.

Our community garden is located on the side of a gently sloping hill. It receives good sun throughout the day, but the slope definitely creates some problems. The plots are big at 25' X 25'. For the 8 months or so of rental, $20 certainly seems like a decent price.

The town's park and rec department runs the program. If you are looking for a community garden in your area that might be a place to start, however I do not know how common it is for the park & rec departments to be the administrators. Looking around on the web it appears a number of community and private groups run similar programs.

The town disc's (aka harrow, aka cultivate) the land in the middle of May. Although this worked out ok last year, it really is later than I would prefer. My plot had been fallow the prior year (or more) and was covered in meadow-like grasses. Unfortunately this meant the remaining straw was half buried under 6" of soil after the harrowing and required a fair amount of work to rake off and prepare the plot for planting.

Needless to say, I am planning to request my plot not be cultivated this year to allow me to plant a few things early. In addition, I would like to maintain my planting areas to reduce the amount of prep work required.

Besides the slope, the other negative to our community garden is the lack of nearby water. You have to truck in all the water you use. From a conservation point of view, this certainly cuts down on waste. But it isn't easy carting in enough water for a 25' X 25' plot. Needless to say, there is a tendency to rely on nature for as much of the watering as possible. Last year wasn't too bad as it was a very wet summer in New England, however, I heard stories from nearby plot owners that the prior year was a real hassle. We will see what this year shall brings.

Cornell Cooperative Extension

Being somewhat of a novice gardener, I'm always on the lookout for helpful information. One site that has been invaluable to me is the Cornell Cooperative Extension. Part of me can't stand the thought of using anything from Cornell given the hockey rivalry with my alma mater, but sometimes you have to overlook such things.

Although the CCE is providing information for upstate NY, I am considering it close enough for southern New England. If anything I think I should have a couple weeks longer growing season in CT. That includes a week or two earlier planting time and maybe a couple weeks longer into the fall.

Within the CCE site I have found the Vegetable Growing Guide to be invaluable. It contains a fairly detailed overview of what is required to grow all the major vegetable types. From germination & planting times to diseases and pests, this is the best overview I have found. The only thing lacking are good pictures of diseased plants and bug infestations to help in identifying which problem you are having.

Many cooperative extensions will have similar information. Those folks located south and/or west should look for a site located closer to them to ensure applicability. In the end though, a bean is a bean and will sprout in the same amount of time regardless of where it is located.

My Amaryllis is in Bloom

Three years ago I picked up an amaryllis bulb at an after Christmas clearance sale. Amaryllis' are great presents for younger kids and people who are less than plant friendly. Typically they come in a kit with a bulb, pot & soil. All you have to do is put the bulb in the pot with the dirt, water well, and in a few weeks you'll have a nice big flower.

Over the years I have tried a few times to get one to bloom a second time, always to no avail. Until this one!

This month's bloom marks the third time this bulb has bloomed for me. This year's bloom is even more spectacular than the last couple years as it has a double stalk, each of which has a full set of four blossoms.

So what do I do to make it re-bloom? After it blooms I keep it well watered (well, as well watered as I can manage to remember) through the year. I add some fertilizer in the early summer to give it a good boost at rebuilding the bulb. I don't get fancy with lots of miracle-grow, I often just use the same granular type that I use in the garden.

In late October/early November I cut the leaves back to the top of the bulb and taper off the watering. I try not to let it go completely dry, but I also don't want to encourage leaf growth just yet. This combination puts the bulb into the same dormant state they are sold in. Beginning in January I increase the amount of water I give it to a normal, almost saturated amount. That's it, by the end of February the blossom starts pushing up.

The only trick I may have is that the solarium where the plants are located stays a couple degrees cooler than the rest of the house. Are those couple degrees enough to convince the bulb to flower? Not sure, but this is the only location I've had luck with. As a side note, my Christmas cactus' also seem to really like the solarium.

After the first flowering of the bulb, it formed a 'daughter bulb'. I planted it in it's own pot and have been growing it the last few years. Thus far it has refused to flower. Maybe next year!

Seedlings are up!

In just over a week's time about 70% of my seedlings are up. Almost all the tomatoes, onions, broccoli and basil have sprouted. The peppers, both green and jalapeno varieties are lagging. But that is to be expected. What is unknown is if the green peppers will come up at all.

I had a bunch of seeds given to me that dated as old as 2002. So I planted several of them in each cell, we'll see how many actually come up. A year or two isn't a big deal, but 7 is asking a lot. I probably should have done a germination test in some wet paper towel, but I didn't think of it in time.

If they aren't up by next weekend I'll throw in some of the seeds from last year that I had left over.

I had also started some lettuce that is beginning to pop up. Lettuce and I have a long and tortured relationship. I had one awesome crop 3 years ago, I've tried every year since, sometimes both spring and fall to repeat that success. I might have succeeded last year but I seeded the window planter too heavily and never thinned them so they crowded each other out and died off.

I'm not exactly doing myself any favors this year. I threw the seeds into a window planter full of garden dirt from last year. Needless to say I have about as many weeds coming up as lettuce. But, I didn't want to waste a lot of effort on something that will probably fail once again.

Time to Start the Veggies!

The time to plant is upon us!

At least in my part of the world, (Connecticuit) that is. Last year I started my seedlings the first weekend of April. Unfortunately, only the onions thrived and the rest weren't ready when I wanted to transplant them. So this year I decided to move them up to the second weekend of March.

It might be a little early, but I'm willing to take that chance. The worst that can happen is I buy plants, again.

That adds nearly 3 weeks of growing time to the peppers and tomatoes. I snuck the onions in even a few days earlier. They can use all the time I can give them and more in our cold climate.

Some day I will try store bought sets. For this year I had some left over onions from last year, some of which had started sprouting, that I am giving a shot as stand in sets. My onions got cut short last year, I think due to thrips. They stopped growing between dime and quarter size. They tasted good, but were small. So some of them *should* work as sets, we will see. I suspect many of them will bolt, but they were inedible anyways.

For now I have planted them in a window planter to give them an early start. I am hoping they can provide an early harvest. If so, maybe I'll give intentional sets a try in the fall.

I'm also giving broccoli from seed a start for the first time. We did plants last year and they did ok, although we got mini-heads instead of nice big heads.

Plant counts:

Green Peppers - 12
Jalapeno Peppers - 12
Roma Tomatoes - 12
Orange Tomatoes - 3
Cherry Tomatoes - 3
Broccoli - 6

Herbs:
Oregano
Chives
Cilantro
Parsley
Basil

Red Burgundy Onions - one package