New Toys

I broke my first head yesterday, so I was forced to go shopping for a replacement. In the process I dropped some cash on a new set of symbols: Zildjian A Custom 20" Projection Ride, 18" and 16" A Thin Crashes, and K Custom Dark hi-hats.

FarmVille: Week 3

All those plastic cups and boxes on the sidewalk bed are covering (and keeping warm and moist) seeds in the ground waiting to sprout some leaves. There are carrots and beets (planted today), turnips, more peas, a second-round of kale, and some remaining unsprouted lettuce and spinach under those.

I also prepared and set some planters in the shady corner area next to the garage (upper right of pic), where soon I'll plant some flowers and cilantro. Because it's nice and cool there, this area will eventually become my summer lettuce and spinach plot.

Almost all of the seeds I planted out a week or two ago are sprouting now: lettuce, spinach, a couple first-round peas, first-round kale, and some pre-sprouted turnip seeds I planted in the last few days.

The chard is not up, partly because I messed up the plot while working on another area, so I'm starting over by trying to pre-sprout some seed inside.

I was getting impatient with the slow germination in the cold ground, so this past week I decided to try pre-sprouting indoors and planting the seeds just as they were breaking open and the first root was coming out. The turnips and kale both responded very well to this plan. The second-round peas are going slow but enough have sprouted to transplant today, and I'm still waiting on that chard. :(

I also planted out my broccoli babies just before the cold rains came on Sunday night. They seem to be taking well to their new home:

I got a late start on my parsley and cilantro indoor starts, but some sprouts are finally coming up in the egg cartons, so those will likely go out next week.

The crocuses came and went pretty quickly over the last week, but the daffodils are starting to open, and soon we'll have tulips. So nice that Spring is finally here.

UPDATE: slow chard seed finally sprouted so that'll go out in the morning. We'll have a full bed very shortly.

Week 2

In week 2 there's not a lot of obvious change except that the snow melted away completely and I took the plastic off the sidewalk bed to let the sun in during the day.

Today I decided to start round one of the snap peas on the first fence there, and I put in a couple Red Russian kale seeds as well. I'm not sure the kale will germinate in the cool weather though.

None of last week's seeds have sprung up yet, but I did see a spinach seed on the surface sending a little root down, so I quickly sprinkled some dirt on it.

However, all of the garlic bulbs sent out new growth (and the shallot shoots are greening up too):

Around the front and back yard there are other signs of life: day lilies, tulips, crocuses, and daffodils are coming up, I think I see tiny wild blue violet plants here and there, and the pussy willow is in furry bloom:

Here's hoping there will be some more green stuff next week.

In the Ground

Gambling with nature goes outdoors! The first seeds went into the ground today:

lettuce (spring mix, butterhead, romaine)
spinach
chard
bunching onions (pre-sprouted)

Hopefully these will stay protected in my makeshift greenhouse until the chance of a hard frost has passed.

Also, the broccoli sprouts were overtaking their little peat pellets so I made these cool little origami pots to transplant them into:

Growing Season 2010: Week 1

This year I will attempt to keep a record of the changes in the garden throughout the season. I thought it would be fun to take a photo from the same spot each week, so that the changes in most of the yard can be seen.

Today I've removed the straw cover from the bed by the sidewalk and the section behind the garage where I planted the garlic and shallot bulbs last fall.

The shoots are looking pretty sickly, but hopefully some air and sunshine will improve them. I also noticed some daffodil shoots coming up in the front yard.

I've constructed a little "greenhouse" over the sidewalk bed, using a large 10x20 foot plastic tarp, and the pea fences provide the support.

After the soil warms up under the plastic for a couple of days, I will start planting the early spring crop: lettuce, spinach, and chard.

My FarmVille

A couple of celery sprouts came up overnight. I planted these Feb 22nd along with the broccoli that came up so fast. 12 days ain't bad, right?

Here we have the little sprout farm setup with the sprouting terrarium and the egg cartons, with potting mix and extra vermiculite stirred in for water retention (according to the Square Foot Gardening book).

The sprouts in the foreground are the broccoli (which have grown quite large) and the two celery (there are supposed to be 8 total) that finally appeared.

The bulk of the egg carton cells contain bunching onion, marigold, and zinnia seed/sprouts. The onion seeds are new this season so they're germinating just fine. I've had a 50% success rate with the 2 year old zinnia seed (3/6), and much worse results with the 1 year old marigold seed (5/18).

I didn't mark the one marigold variety that did come up successfully (there are 3 varieties sewn in there: Burpee's Yellow Boy, Chameleon, and Scarlet Starlet), so I have no idea which packet is producing results. Oh well...I threw some Yellow Boy in the empty cells so we'll see if those are the winners. Plenty of time to get this going right?