GA: More beets sowed where pulled wilted zuke

I mixed in a bucket of condo soil, then placed beet seeds here and there (not pre-soaked / not pre-germinated), then covered with condo soil, then put burlap.  [A few days later I realized I forgot to add amendments, so lifted the burlap and sprinkled kelp, mrp, and az, then put the burlap back on.]

[I'm writing this on July 28th as back-fill -- not sure exactly which day I sowed them, but it was less than a week ago.]

GA: Beets R2 started -- this time in paper towels

^^^

GA: Carrots, beets, and popcorn update

Will preface this by saying there has been tons of rain/showers, and when there hasn't been I've gone to water, so I'm pretty sure no seeds have dried out.

Carrots:  See earlier post for sowing method.  Have been under burlap until today.  Today I fully removed the burlap because I think I see some carrot seedlings.  However, I'm not seeing a lot of carrot seedlings......  So I'll probably have to go back and fill in gaps.  My theory is that the corn starch gel was too thick and they got stuck inside.

Beets:  Quite a few have appeared, so removed the burlap.  Hopeful it will be a good showing.

Corn:  No sign of the popcorn yet.  (Haven't sowed the sweet corn yet.)

GA: Planted Carrots (readme for technique used), beets, rest of the red onions

CARROTS!  After the utter flop in my backyard from the May 4th sowing that yielded TWO seedlings, I changed my method.  Here's what I did:

- The usual breaking up of the soil.

- Raked it flatish.

- Used hand to break up little chunks on the surface.

- Used spacing square tool, used its orange "stick" to mark out 16 holes per square foot.

- Used finger to deepen/widen the holes.  (At first used the dowel, but it compressed the soil too much so I stopped and used finger instead.)

- Sprinkled amendments into each hole:  A mix of ~3 parts mrp, ~2 parts kelp, and ~1 part azomite (zero alfalfa).

- Put some vermiculite into each hole to leave a shorter hole and provide an easy-to-grow-through medium.

- Used corn starch gel method to place a few seeds in each hole.  I really liked this -- with a nice small cut in the bag and a nice firm gel it was easy to control the amount.

- Covered up with more vermiculite.

- COVERED WITH BURLAP (one layer) before watering.  Used bricks/rocks to hold down the burlap.

- After covering with burlap, then watered.  Do not water without the burlap because then soil ends up covering over the vermiculite which ruins the whole thing.  (I did it that way for the first bit at the east end of the bed before realizing it works way better with burlap on top before watering.)

That's it.  I used only one layer of burlap because (a) the forecast is very cloudy and rainy so not much sun to dry things up and (b) I didn't have a lot of burlap on hand.

So here's hoping this works!!!!  A one-and-done for carrot sowing is my goal!

BEETS:  This is another challenge for germination in recent years, so I used almost the same carrow-sowing technique noted above.  The exception is I didn't have the beet seeds in the gel (also didn't pre-soak them because they become annoyingly hard to handle when wet).  For some of them I put a dollop of plain gel and then put the seed on or in the gel; for others I didn't.  But for all I used vermiculate under and over.

And today I put in the rest of the red onions to fill out the east part of the leek bed.

GA: Beet harvest (wimpy)

Harvested all of the beets sown July 18th.  They never bulked up -- a lot are quite small, a few are a bit bigger, but no really good nice big ones.

The yard beets never did great this year either other than a few big ones.

GA: Started fall beets, bush beans, radishes, and lettuce

Didn't pre-prepare anything, just plunked them in the ground.

Beets round 2 -- part 2 -- soaked today, will sow indoors tomorrow

(To fill in the remaining gaps.)

Results of experiment with beets round 2: Indoor starts a clear winner

Wow, the beets I started inside 6 days ago have now mostly germinated and popped up a cm or two or three, whereas the beets I started outside 6 days ago and are under row cover are mostly nowhere to be seen.

Today I transplanted the indoor beets.  The ones that had multiple split apart easily, so I split them up.  We'll see how they take.

Beets -- round 2 (round 1 was a TOTAL FLOP)

Wow, this is the absolute worst beet germination situation I've ever had, like, ever, I'm pretty sure.  There were MAYBE 3 or 4 max that germinated.  No idea why.  I had covered them with a light mix of vermiculate and soil, and watered frequently.  

So, today I started round 2.  I did them a couple of different ways.

Both ways I started by soaking the seeds overnight.

Then, one batch I put directly into the garden, sprinkled around rather than measured/spaced out, and placed a piece of floating row cover over top.

The other batch, I sowed inside, in my homemade potting mix, using the tray that has .... 36? little compartments (that I use for lettuce for example_).  These I'll wait until they pop up and have grown a wee bit, then will transplant them the typical way.  I put 2 seeds per compartment.

Where are the beets!? Carrots are appearing

The carrots sowed a few weeks ago started appearing a few days ago.  

The beets on the other hand are very few and very far between!

The beds look so compacted.

I hadn't covered with anything -- no cardboard, no burlap, no plastic, etc.

Next year I realllllllly need to use an alternate approach and cover them with something.  I think the multi-times-a-day of watering them really compacts the soil.  And, if I miss out and they dry out, wah-wah.

Carrots and beets sowed

Beets:

- The home-collected seeds from a few years ago.

- Presoaked in a bowl for ~24 hours.

- Covered with a mix of vermiculite and garden soil.

Carrots:

- Bolero.

- Straight into the ground as dry seeds, with 2 or more per "hole".

- Covered with a mix of vermiculite and garden soil.

All into the ground, none in containers.

Last carrots and beets harvested (have been several heavy frosts)

There have been several heavy frosts in recent weeks, so I harvested the rest of the carrots and beets.

I tried a carrot and can't say it seems any sweeter than the ones harvested through the summer.  Haven't had one of these beets yet.

But anyway, a very decent harvest of carrots and beets, though ~15% of the carrots seem to have had some kind of insect damage, so I'll have those carrots first.

Last of last year's beets eaten (great shape); carrots still in fridge

The beets lasted super well in the fridge.  Had the last two today.

There's still a big bag of carrots in the fridge.  They've been slowly starting to sprout, so I'll need to eat them soon.

Tulled beets

Used the tall garden fencing as the supports.

Hardly any beets sprouted!!! Sowed round 2 beets. Carrots more sprouted but sowed round 2 carrots too.

What the heck!  Why such low germination, especially for the beets?!?  My only guess is they cooked under the plastic on the hot sunny days a while ago.  Both kinds of sowed beets were equally low germination.  So, poked in some round 2 beets today, mishmash of the two kinds.

For filling in the carrots (in the bed, not the container that I sowed more recently), I had no patience to carefully poke so many new holes, so I just scattered the rest of the bolero seed package over top.

Watered them all in.

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.

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

^^^

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.

Rest of tulle removed

It was just the beets and one pair of zucchinis that still had tulle.  Removed it today, just because.

2 more beets harvested

I love these beautiful miner-free leaves!  And the roots look gorgeous too.