Carrots round 2: soaking in water inside for several days, then will sow with gel

Going to try this as an easier way to sow, and with quicker germination:

https://youtu.be/qZo4GpjswhU

Basil harvest while pruning! Yum

Quite a nice basil harvest while pruning!  The plants are doing quite well so far, looking vigorous, knock on wood.

Pruned most of the basils, but left a few unpruned for comparison.

Lettuce and turnips very slow growing outside -- next time consider plastic cage

They're only just starting to get their first true leaves and are all still itty bitty.

Swiss chard: I prefer Fordhook over the italian seed package

Fordhook looks strong and healthy, whereas the variety in the Italian seed package looks wimpy.

That said, the fordhook looked hungry for transplanting, or, thirsty for water -- I think it will be happy to be in the ground now.

Parsley: I prefer the Single Hardy Italian (flat) over Forest Green (curly)

They both look strong and good, but Forest Green is definitely curly (great for hiding insects) whereas Single Hardy Italian is nice and flat.

Transplanted onions, chard, celery, and broccoli

Everything is in front of the two pea/squash vertical structures.

The broccoli all look horrible but put then in the ground anyway just in case.

Brought everything back inside under the lights

So all those plants I was going to just start hardening off, read up on the internet and decided against it, just not warm enough and I feel the cold temps would be worse than the potential insect thing.  Fingers crossed.

Flying insect in kitchen today!!! (UFO)

Hoping it's only because I've had the doors open often for extended times carrying things in/out of the yard etc.

Plucked a few suspicious looking (thripsy) seedlings

Just a few small ones that looked a tad suspicious... I think they were all various zinnias.

Started round 2 of Scotia tomatoes and sunflowers today

Since round 1 was in the blue soil which might be suspect.

Started hardening off almost everything else today -- to avoid insect issue

Today was a nice sunny warm day and the forecast is somewhat decent, so I decided to heck with waiting around inside for a thrips infestation, I'll start hardening everything off.

It will be a long hardening off.  The only point is to get the plants outside during the day.  For some reason I feel less scared about an insect infestation destroying everything if the plants are outside.

When they come in, the newest pottings are coming back into the computer room for more light since they're still so small.

Mayday! Mayday!!!! FLYING INSECT IN SEEDLING ROOM!!!!!!

Argh!!!!!!!!!  While inspecting seedling room plants tonight, an insect flew away from the top shelf!!!!

(I wasn't able to catch the fly)

That's the shelf that's been housing most of the blue soil, which is the soil that broccolis were in which are almost officially an entire flop.

Pleeeeeeeease don't tell me that was a thrip or whatever and is going to damage everything!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I immediately whisked away ALL blue soil plants (I've been labelling them as blue soil, just in case).  Brought them downstairs and covered them in plastic.  They will simply have to start hardening off, starting tomorrow, so that they can get some sun.  Will bring in at night and cover in plastic.

All my sunflowers and Scotia tomatoes were in the blue soil, sigh... Hopefully they will manage...

---- Of note, this is one year TO THE DAY (plus one) that I first noticed issues with stuntiness last year!  Everything (except the broccoli) is looking so goooooooooooooooood....  please let this goodness continue!

Carrots round 1 sowed -- including some in containers

Bed:  Nantes to the west, Touchon to the east.

Containers:  One with each kind.  Haven't tried carrots in containers before.

Indoor peas almost all up; none of the outdoor ones yet

Yesterday, brought in all but one of the outdoor, to help them germinate.  Set them in the living room, wrapped lightly with plastic to keep any potential insects inside.

Snow and hail today

Glad to have not set anything out yet. 

Been keeping the hardening-off-plants in at night, and even during some days like today.

Not a very warm spring so far!

Sunflowers are up! Potted into soil.

3 are up already, potted into soil now.

Exciting!!

(so yes, a very damp paper towel works with larger seed types)

Sunflower seeds started

Started some sunflower seeds in a paper towel (the seeds from the foil package).  Don't think I've ever tried to grow these before, or if I did, it wasn't successful.

Hope it works!  Experiments are fun :D

Potted some zinnias into the first bag of soil -- monitor for issues

Since I've almost run out of the reliable(-so-far) soil and my newly acquired bag of Pro Mix is so tiny, decided to use some of the first bag of soil again.  This is the blue bag, which all those broccoli look horrendous in and the one parsley and the celery leaves look mildly curled.

I still don't think it's thrips or other insects, but, just in case... I've put them on the top shelf all by themselves.

Indoor peas have appeared

Several of the indoor peas have started poking through.

One begonia has appeared!!!

Just as I was about to write them both off.  One has appeared.  The other hasn't yet.

Thinned lettuce and turnips

They were due for a thinning.

Still not confident they'll be harvestable before the zucchinis take over the bed, but, a fun experiment.

Sowed more peas - round 2 (forgot the inoculant!)

Another package of peas sown today.  Most into outdoor peat pots with outdoor soil.  Leftovers into the ground.

Completely forgot to add inoculant!  D'oh.

Seed-collecting experiment: Planted 5 of the fridge beets from last fall

Planted 5 cylindrical beets back into the ground today.  They were from last fall's harvest, spent the winter in the fridge and still looked good.  So let's see if we can get any beet seeds this year!

Peas sowed - round 1 - some in peat, some direct outside in ground

Soaked one package of seeds overnight.

Then today:

- filled two peat pots with indoor soil, with inoculant, placed inside
- filled one peat pot with outdoor soil, with inoculant, placed outside, up on chair
- put some directly in ground, southmost vertical area, south tip of there, east of the vertical structure (leaving room for squash to go just west of there next to the wall), with inoculant
- put more directly in ground, just north of the others -- without inoculant

For the outdoor ground-sown ones, placed the two outside tables upside down to try to ward off seed-stealers... though they don't lie flat so I doubt this will work.

Started tomato "Scotia"

Forgot I had ordered these seeds along with the peas.  The arrived today, so went ahead and started these Scotia tomatoes, in paper towel.

A ton more zinnias have sprouted

And potted into soil.

Broccoli round 2 is a flop too!!!

What the heck!  Round 2 of broccoli is also looking like a flop.  The plants are just small, wimpy, and now even floppy.  The leaves don't have the speckled/browning of round 1, but, still very unwell.

Decided today to start hardening them off now.  Maybe inside is too warm for them.  Will see if they stand a chance...

Sprinkled some grass seed

To cover up some spots.  First sprinkled some soil, then the seeds, then sprinkled more soil but didn't make attempts to thoroughly cover anything.  (didn't dig the ground at all)

Some of the zinnias have sprouted; potted them

Only a few so far.   Carefully labeling each pot as I go. 

To hopefully avoid the ground cherry's problem, I mixed in some of last year's mushroom compost, and, did the vermiculate "well" at the top too.

Ground cherries having trouble breaking through in this soil mix; tomaotes doing fine

Uh oh -- The ground cherries are having trouble breaking through.  This soil mix seems rock hard for some reason even though it has a lot of vermiculite in it, and nothing else has struggled like this yet...  e.g. The tomatoes are doing fine.

So, I put a few of the paper towel left-overs into new pots with even more vermiculate added in, and, with a little vermiculate "well" at the top.

Asparagus have started appearing, including several nice sized spears

Several days ago noticed the asparagus have started appearing.  This is the year I get to make the first harvest, and it looks like there will be some nice sized spears!

Started hardening parsley, onions, chard, and broccoli

Started hardening the parsley, onions, chard, and broccoli.  As for the broccoli maybe how warm the computer room gets is part of their problem?

Will bring them in at night and leave them out during the day. 

Sure frees up a lot of space inside.

Garden prep day

- Sowed the beets
- Twined two of the vertical areas (need to buy more twine to do the cuke one)
- Arranged/tidied the fences, including the central patch
- Raked off the beds
- Admired the growing garlic, etc.

Garlic location a-ha

Silly me thinking squirrels had planted some garlic for me in my terra cotta planter...  re-reading my blog from last fall, I did that!

I'm also the one who put the two on the north side of the compost bin!

My memory sure is the pits!

Today found a clove next to the air conditioner which is surely from me dumping out the soil a few weeks ago after one of the planters broke (having forgotten I had put garlic into it).  Put that one into the remaining terra cotta planter -- and in so doing found the third one from last fall which doesn't seem to have done anything. I should dig around next to the air conditiner for the other two bulbs. 

Started round 1 beets outside

Same spot as last year.  Entire north foot sowed today, with 2 feet of cylindrical at 16/square (oops), and 2 feet of Detroit at 9/square.

Started zinnias -- a whole bunch (in paper towels)

Talls:
- almost all are from last year's collected seeds that were collected from my 2018 plants
- the exception is the yellow, which I didn't have any last year, so these were from the 2018 plant which was from a package -- so, it will be interesting to see if the yellows will actually be yellow

Shorts:
- all shorts are from seeds collected last year from 2019 bought plants

All are nicely labelled in separate paper towels / baggies and I hope to keep track of them all throughout planting, to see if this year's flowers will be the same colour as their "parent".

Potted all tomatoes and ground cherries

Potted up:

3 x tomato Sweetie
3 x tomato tofusteak
3 x tomato "medium"

6 x ground cherry

Some of the lettuce and turnips are up

At one point, Charlie walked all over the bed, so there are little paw indentations all over.  Hopefully things will grow ok regardless.

~12 sprouted garlic cloves appeared in various places! Put some into a container

Wow, about 12 garlic cloves have sprouted up in places I didn't plant them!

- the SW area where some grew last year
- two on the north side of the compost bin
- two in the remaining ceramic pot!!

I wonder how they got there, especially the planter and compost ones.

Moved all of the ones from the SW area into other spots, namely the north bed where the rest are, and put four into a plastic container, as a test.

Left the ceramic pot and compost ones, as a test.

Started tomatoes (three kinds) in paper towels

Started these three kinds:

- Sweetie from the package
- Beefsteak from the package (from the foil pack collection)
- "medium" size tomato from seed collected in 2018

Started ground cherries (in paper towel)

Yep!

Waited almost two weeks longer this year, since last year it seemed too early and they got stunted in the containers.