Onions went into the ground today

Like the title says :-)

Peas round one in the ground

The peas had been sitting outside since Wednesday.  They look good.  Put the peat pots in the ground today. 

Sowed beets and carrots (round 1)

Sowed the first round of beets and carrots in the new beet/carrot bed.

Growing two kinds of each this year:

- Beets:  Cylindra Formanova (west square) and Detroit Dark Red (leftover package seeds from before) (square east of the Cylindra)

- Carrots:  Nantes Scarlet (west square) and Touchon (square east of the Nantes) (both are from new seed packets -- didn't use any older seeds due to bad / poor tasting results last year)

Put several seeds into each hole of the square foot spacing so will need thinning if everything takes.

Started more peas

Started 12 more peas today.  Mostly the last of the Aster Lane packet, plus a couple of sugar snap.

Tomorrow will start hardening onions and round-1-peas

Tomorrow I'll set out the onions and the round one peas.  Forecast is for above 0 days and nights.  Sunny tomorrow, then lots of cloud/showers/rain.  But the round one peas are several inches tall now, so time to get them out, and the onions are looking great too.

Started round 3 of peas

Started 12 more pre-soaked peas into peat.  These are the ones from Aster Edibles bought last year.  (The others this year were store-bought typical snap peas.)

Ate the last of last year's garlic today

Had the last two cloves from last year's harvest.  They stored perfectly well just sitting on the counter. 

(I didn't have a huge harvest last year -- just the usual procrastination in finishing it up)

Onions seem to tolerate small pots

The onions are in various size pots, including the smallest little four-packs.  All seem to be happy, doing well.

Pea update, and started more peas

The peas sowed April 7th have mostly come up now, so they're under the lights.  The only room for them is under the old lights.  Still very short, just barely up.  The peat/soil looks good and healthy.  Dug around looking for the no-shows, and they're all actually started, just slow.  So poked a few replacements in those, just in case.

Started another peat flat of peas today, on the bathroom counter again.  Would have started a second flat, but ran out of soil.

(All peas are in peat flats (6x2 type), same as the last year or two due to suspected mole issues)

Indoor over-wintered thyme and oregano doing well

Knock on wood, but the thyme and oregano that I overwintered inside by bringing in their planter and putting it on the table at the window, and that had only natural sunlight until the last few weeks when I started using the grow lights for the other plants, are doing well.  Especially the thyme, looks very happy and smells so nice.

Interestingly I don't seem to have tags for thyme or oregano until this post.  So for the record, these plants are from seeds I started last winter (winter 2018).

Begonias both doing well

Both of the begonias are looking great.  The pink one, which appeared first, has even started having flower buds.  The yellow one, which appeared substantially later, is catching up quickly, great healthy leaves.

Asparagus nowhere to be seen...

No sign of any of last year's asparagus plantings yet, in any of the three beds.  I would have thought they'd be coming up by now... hopefully soon.

New beet/carrot bed prepped; garlic and onions are up, moved some of them

Sunny warm day today, and all the snow in the yard has been melted for a few weeks.  So, got my hands dirty today.

- Prepped the new beet/carrot bed.  Didn't sow anything yet though -- will wait a couple more weeks.

- Garlics are up!  Including not only the ones bought/sowed last fall (of which five are speedy growers whereas most are just little tips), but also -- a bonus one near the hydro meter!  It must be one I accidentally missed last year.  It had four big, healthy looking cloves , each with big, healthy looking green shoots!  So I split up the four cloves and planted them elsewhere since zukes will be going in that bed this year.

- Several onions appearing as well.  Two or three look like grannies that I would think will have seed heads this year.  So, I moved them into a better place.  Some smaller ones here and there throughout the yard, which I also moved.

Favourite zinnias have appeared!

Yay!  How strange that the very day after I dug around finding no signs of life, all of a sudden there are 3-4-5 that sprung up.  But I'll take it!

Oh, and several of the seed-packet zinnias spring up too -- they seem to have better and quicker germination.  Still I prefer my own collected seeds.

Sowed the nice orange-red flower (unknown)

Sowed the nice orange-red flower that was growing in front of the fence last year, from my collected seeds. Not sure what kind of plant it is.

Sowed last year's store-bought zinnia

Given the dreadful germination rate this year from my collected-seed experiment, went ahead today and sowed a bunch of seeds from the "Zinnia Lilliput" packed I had bought last year.  Wonder if these will take better than my collected seeds.

Sowed peas and Malabar spinach

Sowed 10 Malabar spinach (on heat mat -- they're sure to love that)
and 20 peas (on bathroom counter, in case last year's stunting could have been related to dampness of the peat pots / disease).

Favourite zinnias not doing anything :-(

Dug around in my tub of favourite orangey/red zinnias, and no sign of action from any of them.  Sigh.  Will keep them on the heat mat for a few more weeks.

Translated the zinnias that have appeared and will keep those tubs also, hoping for more germination. 

Zinnia germination is slow/sporadic

Not a particularly impressive germination among the zinnias.  None of my favourite red/orange colour have germinated yet... hopefully soon.  Most of the other tubs have only a few sprouts so far.  Oh, they seem to like the heated map (I turned it on for them a few days ago).

Ground cherries appeared

Ah good, the ground cherries have started to appear.  They had me worried there for a bit!