More Seeds Started

Early this morning I started Viroflay spinach, May Queen lettuce, dill, lime genovese and thai basil. I also started purple sprouting broccoli and arrowhead cabbage. Some of these should have probably been started earlier. All tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and friends have been transplanted to larger containers with some worm compost.

The A-frame grow light contraption is finally upstairs and boy, is it big! Pictures coming soon.

We are still eating daily salads from our bed of baby greens (Rocky Top mix from Baker's Creek).

Learning from Mistakes

Last fall, K and I planted a bed of garlic. We also planted salad greens, radishes and beets from seed. We bought a few plants -- broccoli, mustard, and collards and stuck them in. We knew that, except for the garlic, we were planting too late, but we felt like mucking around in the dirt, so we thought we'd give it a try. I pretty much ignored everything all winter. I weeded the garlic bed a couple times. K religiously watered all the plants with worm tea all winter.

The beets and radishes sprouted, but never, ever developed into anything worth even talking about. The salad mix came up, but then seemed to just kind of hold its breath all winter. The collards, broccoli and mustard did nothing all winter. They neither grew nor died. Until we started having some warm February days. By the end of February, we had a lush 3 X 4 ft bed of baby salad greens (and reds) and strong, healthy looking collards and mustard. The broccoli budded in early March -- nothing spectacular, but we had omelets with broccoli one night.

Now, every day, I walk out to the garden and cut a salad. But, you know what? It's hard. Something in my nature makes me want to conserve, to be careful with this bed of greens. Last summer's garden produced a moderate amount of potatoes: Peruvian purple fingerlings and Yukon Golds. We ate sparingly all late summer and fall. However, we don't have a root cellar here. We had no way of storing those potatoes for winter, yet we tried. The result was a big mess in the potato bin. We missed out on the glory of our summer potatoes. We should have been reveling in those potatoes all summer and fall.

I read once that in France, when asparagus begins to be in season, they have festivals celebrating it and eat very little besides asparagus at every meal. I'm trying to celebrate my salad with that spirit.

Transplanting update:

Tomatoes, artichokes and tomatillos have been transplanted into larger pots with a mixture of coir, worm compost and potting soil. K has finished the A frame growing light contraption, but has yet to bring it up from the basement.

I ordered Yukon Gold potatoes and a red potato from Seeds of Change. Also, I ordered sweet potato slips from Henry Field (Bush Porto Rico) and That's Delicious corn. Usually I grow mostly heirlooms, but I thought a super sweet corn would be fun.