Root Bound Garden Squares

I was preparing a new garden frame this weekend to replace my tree root infested frames. I took off one of the old frames and tried to salvage what soil I could. It turned out to be a much more difficult task than I expected. The tree roots created a tough interwoven network within the soil.

I can't be angry with the tree for finding water and nutrients within easy reach, but dangit, I spent years building up the fertility and tilth of that soil. It is a bit discouraging to see it taken over like this in the span of a couple of seasons. There is nothing to do but to learn from the experience, salvage what I can and start over again.

Tree root bound garden soil

Detail of frame edge

Tree roots extracted from two 4' x 4' garden frames

Tomatoes Transplanted On

This evening, I transplanted the tomatoes to larger containers. The tomatoes will be planted out after the middle of May when most danger of frost is past, along with the basil and coriander. I've got 26 healthy plants, but will probably use less than ten. If I had finished creating the new planting bed last weekend, I would have planted the rest of the cold hardy plants such as celery, parsley there along with another seeding of radishes and spinach, then would have had enough room under the existing lights. Next week will be the time to start fast growing squash, melon and cucumber plants to be planted out at the same time as the tomatoes.

Tomatoes In Soil Blocks

Tomatoes after Transplanting

Seedlings Under Lights

Breakfast of Champions

Homegrown asparagus, spring onion, sunflower and radish sprouts; avocado, heirloom tomato, and shiitake mushroom from the Co-op, and pressure cooked adzuki beans in a spelt wrap; plus fresh squeezed carrot, apple, celery, ginger juice. 

First Asparagus

Last weekend we had sunshine between showers and temps around 70 degrees and now, all of a sudden, the asparagus is ready for the first cutting. The tomatoes in the basement are about three inches tall and will be transplanted to one quart containers soon. I will get more potting mix and Bumper Crop this weekend for a new frame and the grow box container gardens.

Emerging asparagus on April 13

First cutting, April 23

Transplanting outside

This morning I planted out two trays of lettuce, choi and kale. The lettuce was started very close together in the seedling trays so will take a few days to perk up. Following the motto of Stacey "I love to plant and harvest all of the time" Murphy, I will soon be harvesting from the radish and spinach seeds that I broadcast several days ago and the lettuce as well. I will harvest in such as way as to allow the remaining plants enough room to grow to full size. In some ways it is like growing and harvesting microgreens in the kitchen, except that the microgreens are usually harvested all at once.

I also harvested the kale from last year's garden that is beginning to bolt following the warmer temperatures this past weekend. It yielded about 3 gallons of loosely packed leaves.

This evening I transplanted the peppers and remaining marigolds to larger blocks. The peppers took longer than anything else to germinate.

Vestiges of Last Year's Garden

There are a few plants from last year's garden that overwintered and are beginning to grow again. We have kale, choi, parsley and onions. These are all biennial so will be harvested this season before they go to seed.

One pleasant surprise was to see the ramps that I purchased from the co-op last spring reappear. The tops withered and died soon after I brought them home and planted them last year, so it is good to see that several survived. Ramps are a native wild leek with a taste somewhere between onion and garlic. Here is an article with more information on their cultivation: https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-449.html

Overwintered choi, kale and ramps

Overwintered onions and parsley

Asparagus is also beginning to appear.

Seedling Progress

This weekend, youngest and I planted out about 150 snap peas. We planted them three abreast in a 1' x 8' row.

Peas in morning sun in soil blocks

Peas in garden bed

Garden bed covered with ag-cloth

I also transplanted celery, parsley, marigold, and cilantro from micro to mini-blocks. Some straggler tomatoes and basil were planted from micro into regular blocks. The process is very fast when the soil blocks are made with the micro-block dibble, otherwise each plant needs to be inserted into the mini-blocks with a chopstick or a similar tool. Because I used the latter method for most of the seedlings, this took a couple of hours.

When I ran out of seed blocking mix (512 mix from Johnny's), I tried an experiment by purchasing regular potting soil mix and then adding sand. Note that the sand is brown and says "for molding". The sand needs to be "sharp" to hold its shape. The soil blocks are working but they are not as strong as those made with 512 mix. I have been using three quarts of soil mix to one pint of sharp sand, using a yogurt container for measuring (6:1 ratio).

Seedling Setup

This has been the best year yet for seed starting. I feel like I have a system that works well and requires minimal effort. Here is the basic outline:

Starting with five trays:
  * one tray of micro-blocks (3/4" - 224 to a tray) with bottom heat set to 72 deg F, including tomatoes, peppers, parsely, cilantro, kale, chard, choi, basil, celery, and marigolds. These are transplanted to regular or mini-blocks once they are at least  1/2" tall.

  * one tray of lettuce in mini-blocks. May be planted more densely than one plant per block since they can be separated and replanted when transferring to the garden. These can be transplanted to the garden when they are 3 or 4 inches tall and have more than one set of true leaves.

  * three trays of peas planted in mini-blocks (1.5" - 48 to a tray). The peas are first soaked in a wide-mouth half-pint mason jar overnight and then rinsed a couple times a day until the radicle (first root) begins to separate from the seed. These can be planted outside as soon as the seedlings are a couple of inches tall.

Peas with radicles ready to plant

Peas planted in soil blocks

The trays are setup under 4' fluorescent lights that are suspended about 3" above the blocks. The lights are set to be on 16 hours each day. There is also a fan standing at the same height as the seedlings. It is set to come on at a medium setting for about 45 minutes, three times a day. This provides stimulation that the plants need to grow strong so that they will be able to stand up to wind and rain when they are planted out.

Here is the seed starting setup --

Bottom heat on top left tray. Thermostatic control on far left.

Lights should be only inches above the seedlings.