Buckwheat self-sprouting up all over -- yay!

From last year's plantings!  Neat.

2 broccoli moved to north bed

Lesson learned:  I don't have big enough pieces of tulle/cover for 4x2 of broccoli.  So, I moved 2 broccolis to the NW corner of the north bed.  Amended with some of the wild rabbit poop, plus all of the usual other things (alfalfa, kelp, mrp, azomite). Not sure how they'll grow so close to the roof overhang, or how much wear and tear the rain will cause on the tulle/cover.

Forget-me-nots transplanted

In front beds.  Didn't amend with anything.

Dill transplanted -- hopefully real soil will remove their terrible wimpy/leggyness

Amended the soil with mrp, azomite, kelp, and myke.  (No alfalfa.)

"Tendersweet" carrots sowed in grey containers

Both containers have the Tendersweet carrots, a new-to-me variety.  The container with the orange clip is a richer soil with leaf matter (though I didn't anything fresh at all -- zero amendments added to either container); the other container I removed the richer soil and used a more basic-looking soil from other parts of the garden.

Carrots and beets appearing, but hoping a lot more appear soon because gappy

Will wait another week or so before filling in the gaps with more seeds.

Tulled all transplanted broccoli, kale, and chard

I'll still need to add a second layer of floating row cover for at attempt at full protection against the moth, but for now at least there's a barrier in place.

I gave what seems now while the plants are small a generous buffer from the tulle/cover, but we shall see.  Inside the broccoli enclosures I put some green onions and some barese chards that I'll keep very small / remove if they get too big re: touching the tulle.  Adding those in makes me feel a lot less annoyed at how much space I need to give the broccoli/kale/chard in order for them to not touch the tulle.

Radishes sown: Avignon and Daikon

Avignon is supposed to be a milder one, so I'll give it a try.

Daikon out of curiosity re: the amendment aspect.

Dills starting to be hardened off (need to free up space under the lights)

Will do the "inside at night while cold, outside during day when +~3 degrees" dance with the dills.  Need to get them out to free up room under the lights.

Up-potted tomatoes -- wimpy root systems! Dills also looking similarly lanky and somewhat floppy

With the tomatoes' lanky upper growth and wimpy root systems, my best guess is too much nitrogen and enough of whatever the thing that roots want.  Anyway, repotted them today nice and deep, so hopefully the stems will grow lot of roots.

I think the similar thing is happening with the dills... hopefully they'll be ok though.

Tomatoes are all really lanky and floppy! So weird

So weird because I don't remember this ever happening in past years... Maybe something off in my home-made potting mix?  Well, I'll just repot them sooner than later to get them in deepers.

Broccoli, chard, kale, celery, parsley, lettuce transplanted (some still left in pots for now)

The broccoli's soil was amended with the following into each plant's hole:  1 tbsp kelp, 1/2 tbsp mrp, 1/2 tbsp az, and a generous sprinkling of alfalfa.  Forgot to add myc.

All the others were amended with a bit of each and some myc.

Haven't installed the tulle/cover yet.

Beets uncovered from plastic because they're appearing; carrots not appearing yet so still under plastic

^^^

Peas transplanted, with some amendments but no alfalfa

Planted the pea peat pots.

Sprinkled a tablespoon each of kelp meal, mrp, and azomite under each tray essentially.  No alfalfa pellets added since I heard peas like to take care of their own nitrogen, thank you very much.

Also scraped/tore at the pots to give more room for the roots to come out.  

Everything brought inside for tonight (0 degress) and tomorrow night (-5)

Will just keep them inside tomorrow during the day and put them back out on Thursday.

Bought "Superior" seed potatoes

$1.49 a pound, in the bulk section at Ritchie's.  Bought 2 pounds.  Wayyyyy cheaper than the "gourmet" packages.  

So, this year will plant the sprouted left overs from last year's harvest (Banana fingerling), plus these.

All cold-hardies have been outside 24/7 as of a few days ago

(Still in pots)

-3 forecasted for Wednesday night, so holding off transplanting most things

Only translated one pot of green onions so far.  The rest I'll wait until after Wednesday night.

Transplanted some green onions into pot -- the only transplants so far

I put quite a few of them into one pot.  The only thing I added was some alfalfa pellets, which of course I forgot until after I had transplanted them, so the alfalfa were added as an afterthought tucked in here and there.

That's the only thing I've transplanted so far.  I'm holding off from most things until Wednesday night's potential -3.

Up-potted the broccoli instead of transplanting; it doesn't look great but I think will survive

There are 9 broccoli, all piracicaba.  About half of them are decent sizes, the others look pretty wimpy.  All of them I think I hardened off too quickly -- looks like leaf burn / leaves shrivelling up.  But the newer leaves look good, and my guess is that all of them will make it.

But given Wednesday night might go down to -3, I decided to hold off from transplanting until after that.

Beets started in ground (after soaking overnight)

Westmost foot is exclusively my home-collected cylindrical seeds; the eastmost foot is a mix of package detroit dart red seeds and my home-collected cylindrical seeds.

Method I followed this year:

Method followed this year:

- Lightly-ish loosed soil, mostly without fully flipping.

- Sprinkled in enough kelp meal, MRP, azomite, and myccorhizae to cover the area.  (i.e. completely unscientific amounts)  Didn't add any alfalfa.  Swooshed it all around with my hands to mix it in to the top layer.

- Marked/poked holes.

- Put vermiculite.

- Wetted vermiculite.

- Placed seeds:  Two per hole.

- Put vermulite over the holes.

- Watered it all.

- Put clear plastic sheet, anchored with rocks allllll along the border to help keep out any critters.

No rain in the forecast, so hopefully the plastic sheet will keep things nice and moist.

Carrots started in ground

All bolero, all the time!

Method followed this year:

- lightly-ish loosed soil, mostly without fully flipping.

- Marked/poked holes.

- Wetted soil.

- Put vermiculite.

- Wetted vermiculite.

- Placed seeds:  One per actual hole (or more where I accidentally dropped more than one), but also as spares I put some in the aisles, as backups.  (I used up all bolero seeds doing this... had I had more I might have put two in each hole.)

- Put vermulite over all, including the aisles.

- Watered it all.

- Put clear plastic sheet, anchored with rocks allllll along the border to help keep out any critters.

No rain in the forecast, so hopefully the plastic sheet will keep things nice and moist.

Lesson learned: Start/grow all kale and chard inside -- WS not needed

The WS ones are wayyyyyyyyyy smaller than the indoor-raised ones, and all were started in PT the same day.  As long as I don't start the seeds too early, the kale can spend days outside on warmer days and come in at night.

And start kale and chard earlier -- curious to see if the Vates kale can tolerate the warm indoors.

Organic alfalfa pellets bought

From Kinburn Farm Supply.  $34 total (there's no tax) for 55 pounds.  So, I'll use up the last few cups of my non-organic alfalfa pellets, then will be happy to shift to these.  Should last a good long while!

Dill round 2 started in PT -- so far only 2 of first round have germinated

... and one of those two was on the edge of the PT and dried up.  So, only one dill potted up so far.  Though I'm still hopeful, as for one thing apparently dill can take a while to germinate, and also I hadn't realized they need light.

Left-over potatoes (Banana fingerling) harvested last year have eyes -- will use them for seed potatoes

Too bad I didn't get to eat them, but on the bright side I might not need to buy any seed potatoes this year!

All snow now gone from yard

The last teency patches of snow melted away and the yard is now officially now-free.

First lettuce harvest -- from indoor-sown/raised on March 12th! Kale slow and didn't start enough?

Wow!!  Less than one month from sowing to first harvest!  I'll definitely do indoor-started/raised lettuce in future, instead of just the outdoor sowings.

Good thing this lettuce is on the go, as the kale might be a semi-bust this year... The only indoor-raised kale is looking a bit slow and wimpy (Barese)... and the WS kales are all only barely starting to show hints of their first true leaves.

First day of direct sun for hardening-off plants

40 minutes today.  (In the shade for the rest of the day, and in at night because nights still going below zero.)

Started in PT (bowl for peas): Peas, zinnias, callaloo(/amaranth), basil, tomatox3

Peas:  Sugar Snap

Zinnias:  My usual mix -- this time all from 2018-collected seeds (to start using up the older seeds)

Basil:  Prospera (same as last year)

Tomato:  Mortgage Lifter (my first time growing this -- from La Ferme de l'Aube), Big Tofu Plus, and Jasper

Callaloo(/amaranth):  From the person at work.

Dill started in PT (later will start some outside too)

^^^

Barese round 2 in PT (because didn't start enough first round)

And because the outdoor WS ones are so far behind, might as well start an indoor round 2.