Thinning seedlings

If you are not ready to thin your plants, you are not ready to be self-sufficient in vegetables.  Once you start your seeds you will have more plants sprout than should grow in a cell.  One plant per cell is the rule.  If you try to grow more, they will strangle each other - giving you weak plants instead of strong ones.  With lettuce, it's not so bad because you can eat the thinnings.

With tomatoes and other plants it's harder - you cut down the little plants and throw them into the compost.  But you have to do it.  It's hard to reconcile taking the time to plant from seeds and then cutting down a lot of those plants, but they grow stronger and better when you thin them.  Don't let your sentimental side keep you from thinning your seedlings - they need it.

Benefits of sustainable living

This weekend I went to a work party - hosted by one of the guys on my team.  I wanted to take a hostess gift and started thinking about what I could bring.  One of the best parts of growing and preserving your own food is that you can give gifts that come from your heart.  I put a mint jelly (for pork and lamb), raspberry wine jelly (for appetizers on crackers with cheddar cheese), 2 heads of garlic and seed packets I made up myself into a basket. 

For the rest of my team I brought seed packets (envelopes), plants, and spices - depending on who plants, who lives in apartments, and who cooks.  It made me so happy to give these.  It's a little part of me that I can give to them.

216 Onions

So yesterday I actually decided to plant 9 onions per square foot - 216 onions planted!  It's amazing how quickly it goes - right index finger pushed into soil an inch, do this for 2 sq ft, plop in 18 onions and cover them...on to the next 2 sq ft.  No time at all.  I highly doubt that the two of us will eat them all, though, especially if they reach full size, so we'll see how many we use and plant accordingly next year.

The worst part is that something was already in the garden today digging them up.  I had to replant 7 of them after I got home from work.  Probably a squirrel, but I don't know why - they don't eat them.  I highly doubt it was a deer, they usually don't like the smell - but I know they were in the garden last night because a number of our hostas got eaten.  I'll just keep replanting and see how it goes.  Every night I come home from work and "walk the garden" - pulling up the maple tree sprouts and any newly sprouted weeds, replanting if needed or propping up plants that have fallen over.  Therapy.  Even in 40 degree weather it's a pleasure to come home and walk the garden.

Onion sets!

My onion sets came today!  Long-day sampler from Burpee...and I'm working from home, so perfect timing.  They'll need to be planted right away because they're a little dry, but they look good:

They are Walla Walla, Red Zeppelin, and Spanish White.  I know the Walla Walla is not a good storage onion, but the Red Zeppelin is a storage onion, and the Spanish White I'll just have to learn about.  I don't mind freezing the onions to store them, and I have a dehydrator to dry them as well.

The directions say to plant them about 6" apart, and I have 24 square feet set aside, which means only 96 onions (and I received 225).  That's very strange since I usually plan carefully to maximize the use of the plants I order.  So I looked up the planting instructions in the Vegetable Gardener's Bible and it says to plant 4" apart.  That would have been 6 per square foot, taking care of 144 plants.  That's more like it.  I'm going to try the 6 per square foot and see what happens.  The rest I'll give to neighbors and friends/colleagues at work.

Plants in the garden

The temperature is dropping fast, but the cold weather plants should be ok.  At least I hope they will be.  I planted not only the kale and cabbage, but also the broccoli and cauliflower as well.  Here they are with the thinings (we used those for lunch) and the garden plan.

Here they are in the garden:

Cold weather crops are going into the garden behind the garage, where it's a bit more shady.  Two different locations within that garden house the cabbage, kale, cauliflower and broccoli.

I love the square foot measuring tool Dianna made for me.  Wooden yardsticks from Home Depot.  A 3X3 with a 3X1 extension.  It really helps me figure out how to place my plants..

And here are the peas and radishes:

Eggplant sprouts & cabbage

Today will be a very busy day.  Despite the fact that the weather report says we'll be in the upper 30's tonight and tomorrow night I've decided to plant the kale and cabbage.  They're too big for the starter cells, I don't want them to become root-bound, and it's not worth it to plant them into larger containers when I would just plant them outside next weekend anyway.

Then, I need to get the eggplant sprouts into starter cells.  One of my neighbors said she was told that eggplant is difficult to start, so she puts them in wet paper towels in a baggie in a warm spot.  I put them on top of our refrigerator.  That was 3 weeks ago.  Here's what they look like now:

Definitely ready to be put into soil.

I'll upload pictures of the kale and cabbage in the ground later today, along with some pictures of the sprouting peas.

Daffodils

If only you could eat them.  They would be the perfect flower.

How beautiful is that?!?!