First week in june 2013

The garden is coming together finally.  At first I thought " what did I get myself into?  why did I make it so big"

There is still a lot of work to do.

Sweet potatoes need to be planted, I am just waiting for the slips to grow roots, then they will be planted.

The bamboo tripods need to have new lashing.

A few small trouble spots have to be taken care of.  These  have grass growing.  I will cover these areas with newspaper and hay or grass clipping to kill the grass, much the same as I do when preparing a new addition to the garden.

Speaking of adding on to the garden.  I have decided to go either another 10 feet towards the road (the side at the bottom of the picture) or another 5 feet along the longer side at the back of the garden (the long side on the left of the picture). 

The new addition would accommodate more greens, carrots, broccoli and brussels sprouts.

Replanting carrots and beets yet again

It seems as though I don't know how to get carrots started outdoors.  I have planted and replanted them already this year and am about to replant again.  This time I am going to try something I read about somewhere online, if I remembered where I saw it I would give credit here but I don't remember. 

I have sprouted the seeds indoors on damp paper towels.

I plan to make shallow furrows to plant them in then I will cover the sprouted seeds with sand.  Keeping them moist until the new plants grow and become established will be a challenge but at least I won't have to sprinkle them several times a day for 8-15 days the way I was doing before.  It should only take a few days for the new plants to emerge. 

Edit:
Yesterday (6-22-13) I planted the little carrots and beets that were started on the paper towels.  While planting them I noticed that 6 or 7 carrots out of the more than 250 I planted have come up.  Not a good ratio lol. 

I think that using the towels is not a good idea.   The roots grow through the towel and it is almost impossible not to break them when trying to pick them off the paper.  It made me think that if I wanted to use precise placement of the carrot seeds on the paper towel, I could simply tear away a piece of towel along with the little sprout, therefore saving the entire sprout, giving it a better chance of survival.  I re-started more carrots in case this last batch doesn't come up.


This time I used a sheet of typing paper on top of the paper towel.  Then I folded it down the center so that each seed would be touching the typing paper on both sides.  The paper towel is there on the back to hold the moisture. I just spread the seeds on half the typing sheet and folded the other half over them (with the paper towel ending up on the outside of the folded rectangle). Then it was sprinkled with water until the entire thing was damp, rolled up loosely and placed in a plastic baggie. 

I will watch the seeds closely to make sure the new little roots don't get too long and try to grow through the paper again.  Hopefully by using the typing paper, which is thicker and not so porous, I won't have the problem of the seed being on one side of the paper and the root on the other :(  what a mess LOL

In about 3 days I will know if the carrots I planted yesterday are going to come up.  In that time the ones I started on the typing sheet/paper towel sandwich will have begun sprouting.  I hope these can go into a new spot instead of replacing ones that didn't grow :)

I want carrots darn it all, and beets too.