I had some old seeds from previous years and since I have not had a garden in 3 years I felt I should test sprout them to check their viability.  They were all packed for either the  07 or 08 planting seasons.  In this trial all seeds were given 5 days to sprout, the seeds that did not sprout have been put back into the baggies for a few more days to see how they will do.                                                

There were two kinds of beets in this test.  Three of one kind were tested and four of the other.  One of each kind did not sprout but since they were only given 5 days to sprout, they did very well.   It looks like both are good to go so as soon as the weather warms up from freezing I will go out and stick them in the ground :)

Looks like the peas sprouted with flying colors.  They, too, will go in the ground at the earliest opportunity.  I will also purchase more pea seeds for a fall crop.

The pic doesn't show the broccoli well at all.  There was a 50% sprout rate for these, looks like for older seeds they have done well.  I will plant them in the ground in early to mid July for maturation in the fall in our area

                                              

These brusssels sprouts sprouted great!  Every one of the 11 sprouted and they look good and strong.  I will plant them out in the ground in late July to early August for October to November harvest. 

Some wax beans along with some sweet and hot pepper seeds did not sprout~~yet~~They will be given 4 or 5 more days in the baggies. 

4/12/2011  The pepper seeds did not sprout, they simply got moldy.  Guess I will purchase new seeds.

A few weeks ago I transplanted my tomato seedlings from the square pots you see in back on the left. 

There were 4 of them in each pot, and they were transplanted singly into the yogurt cups.  Now they are growing like wildfire and need to be transplanted again.  I was not ready at all to transplant them now. 

All last week I tried to come up with something tall enough I could put them into and bury most of their stems.  While I was out  the other day I was thirsty and bought a bottled water,  I hardly ever do this.  Anyhow, while taking a drink from it I realized it was the perfect size.   It must have been divine intervention that helped me decide to vary out of my norm and buy that bottled water.   :)

As I said, I hardly ever drink bottled water (I have a filter system at home), but my son's family drink a lot of it and recycle their bottles.  AHA!  A free source of the perfect size container.  I simply poke holes in the bottoms of my plastic containers with a hot darning needle so I did the same with this bottle. 

This weekend I will get some of my family's bottles and transplant my taller tomatoes. 

When it is time to plant them outside I will run a table knife around the edge to loosen them.  If they don't want to come out easily, I will cut the bottles.  Whatever I do to remove the plants, I will rinse the bottles and put them in my recycling bin. 

Transplanting every few weeks helps the tomatoes develop a hefty, strong root system.  If you want to do this, simply pinch off lower leaves and plant as much of the stem along with the existing roots as deeply as you can. 

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I planted some potatoes on Saint Patrick's day.  This week we have had some pretty frigid weather (below freezing day and night for several days now).  I hope they don't die in the ground.  We'll see in a few weeks. 

Checking seed viability

Today I decided to check my older seed stash to make sure they will grow this year. I put from 3-10 seeds on a piece of paper towel, rolled it tightly, wet it, squeezed out the excess and put it into a labeled plastic sandwich baggie.

There are sweet, hot and hotter peppers, broccoli, brussels sprouts, peas, beets, and several kinds of bush wax beans.

Now I can't wait to learn the results, especially the beets and peas because they can be planted now in my area. ~~~smiles~~~

 

 My new organic garden.

Here is a pic of my new garden space. At this time it measures 15' X 15'.  After life changing events in the past couple of years, I find myself renting a home instead of owning my own. I got lucky and ended up in a nice little home owned by a wonderful landlady. She is letting me have a vegetable garden in the extra lot beside the house.

This will be my first garden in 3 years. Since it is being started from scratch on an existing lawn I am taking the opportunity to test organically smothering the grass.

With access to the town's compost heap I went last fall to get some pine needles and ground up pine. Then I got some cardboard boxes from the local dollar store and put them down on the ground, then covered them with the mulch. I wish there had been time to finish the entire area I wanted to cover but the weather didn't permit it. So this spring I am covering it with newspaper covered with the pine mulch. I hope the grass will die in time for my planting in the end of May and early June.

Oh! I found a perfectly good bale of straw at the community compost heap. What a great find, it will be used to mulch my short little row of potato plants.  Thanks much to my sister who helped me lug it out.  It was wet and very heavy.

The area that was mulched last fall is wonderful, I pulled back the mulch to find the cardboard boxes had disappeared. Traditionally, at least in my circle, we plant potatoes on Saint Patrick's Day so I simply pulled back the mulch and plopped my potatoes in and covered them with the mulch. As they grow, they will be covered with hay or straw until they are almost ready to bloom. Then when they are ready I will only have to pick up the plants with the potatoes attached to the bottom......How Easy Is That???  In truth, there will have to be a little digging to find a few that grow deeper.  There will only be 9 of them so not very many but they will be soooo good.

Last fall just before I ran out of good weather, I raked my leaves and covered some ground with newspaper and about half of the leaves, but didn't get to finish so just left some leaves on the bare ground and covered them with plastic to keep them from blowing away. Today I raked those over the leaves that are covering newspaper. That is the area that appears higher in the picture. It is around 3 feet wide so that is where the tomato plants will be going.

4/12/2011

A couple days ago I finished laying newspaper and am going to put more mulch on the garden to make sure the grass is totally smothered.  I peeked under the paper in several places and the grass under the newest part is already turning white, the grass under the oldest part is gone but the dandelions are growing well LOL.  Maybe I will allow some to grow to use for greens.  This will depend on where they are growing.

I have decided to stop expanding the garden size (for now) because I don't want to over-do it this first year.  I can always expand it in the fall for next year.  The 15 X 23 plot is big enough to grow everything I want.  For now :)