Catching up

Much has happened since the last post. We have four garden boxes completely planted with seeds or seedlings (except for the back four squares of each box which are reserved for tomatoes). It has been a great help this year that the garden boxes are already built and filled with good soil. Last year, we spent a large portion of each weekend struggling to build more boxes.

Over the past weeks, our largest challenge has been getting pepper and basil seeds to germinate. The California Wonder peppers came up, but only one of the hot peppers and one Yankee Bell. In addition to adding heat, we are starting a new set of basil and parsley seeds where the seed is placed almost at the top of the vermiculite. We may have been planting seeds too deeply, but we haven't given up on the remaining pepper seeds. If they don't appear soon we will try again.

Violets and an old apple tree are blooming in the yard.

Here is a list of recent garden related activities and observations:

04/16 - basil and parsley planted in vermiculite; transplanted 22 tomatoes (2 roma; 8 husky gold; 8 cherry sun; 4 paragon) and 2 chard to larger containers

04/15 - soaked more basil and parsley; first romaine lettuce sprouted in vermiculite

04/14 - 8 California Wonder peppers germinated;
Garden 2 (36) Danvers 126 carrots; (18) Johnny's spinach; (12) salad bowl lettuce;
Garden 3 (36) Red Ace beets; (18) Johnny's spinach; (16) salad bowl lettuce;
Garden 4 (8) Johnny's chard; planted the following seedlings: (2) de Cicco broccoli; (2) Carabella broccoli; (2) Early Girl cabbage; (2) Moss Curled parsley; (4) Starbor kale

04/13 - watered outside garden; harvested sunflowers inside; one Yankee Bell pepper germinated in vermiculite

04/12 - transplanted (10) tomato plants to larger containers; planted (28) romaine lettuce in Gardens 1 and 2 and (8) chard in Garden 2; observed two chickadees building a nest in tree stump

04/11 - paragon and cherry tomatoes sprouted; lobelia sprouting; quince blooming; tulip tree starting to show leaves; robin building nest

04/09 - salad bowl lettuce sprouted in vermiculite; vinca blooming outside and white star flowers

04/08 - planted about 20 garlic cloves and 40 spinach in the garden

04/07 - planted (16) romaine and (16) oakleaf salad bowl lettuce in vermiculite; last night started lobelia, alyssum, bergamot, more tomatoes and hot peppers; there are (10) tomatoes germinated from the previous planting including (2) roma, (7) cherry sun, (1) husky gold, and (6) paragon; planted about 50 red onion bulbs before downpour