Soil Blocks and Garden Clean Up

What a beautiful weekend. Since I have started my vegetable garden I cannot remember a time when I was out in the greenhouse planting my seeds for the spring garden in a tee-shirt..In February!!

Saturday was spent cleaning up beds 2, 3 and 4. Raking out leaves and pine needles and turning the soil.

Bed 2 before

Beds 3 and 4 before

I added homemade compost to top off the beds, reset the water lines and put the square foot grids back in place.

We have only had a few days of rain this Winter so I was expecting the beds to be really dry. I was happy to see that only the top few inches were dry. Weatherman says we are in for a day of rain on Tuesday. I have been holding off watering in hopes of getting some rain soon.

Today was spent trying my hand at making soil blocks and can I just say why didn't I do this sooner?

Soil blocking station 

 I'm starting with the micro 20. Here goes....

Watching the video before hand really helped to get down the technique.

Wallah... first block of 20. I think a tray with a small grid would work better for the micro 20's but this will do just fine.

Once the tray was filled I added the seeds by using a pencil dipped in water.

Tray 1 with spinach, carrots and lettuce. 

To keep track of what I planted and where I made a soil block tracking grid.

 I also drew out beds 2, 3 and 4 so I can start figuring out where everything is going to go.

Trays were placed on heat mats. Since these first two trays are cool weather crops as soon as they sprout I will remove them from the heat mats and give them a few days in the greenhouse and then plant out into the garden.

Next I will be making the 2 inch blocks.... stay tuned....

Happy New Year Everyone

Happy New Year Everyone!

I spent some time in the greenhouse today planting some carrot, onion, pak choy, bok choy, chamomile, stevia and dill seeds.

Sweet Husband sneaking a photo of me in the greenhouse

Seed starting trays

Below is a photo of the January garden from the roof. In just a few months these beds will be full of color.

View from the roof

If you have been following my blog for the past two years you know I always come up with some kind of a big project for the season. When the new fence was installed over the summer we had to take down the shades. We are not planning on putting them back up because we don't think the new fence can handle it. So I will need to come up with something to shade the beds when the summer temps get too hot for the garden. I know what you are thinking as you look at the photo above... just put shade cloth over the hoops. Yes I could do that but I'm not going to. I think I have a better idea that will make it easier for me to get into the beds without having to remove the shade cloth every time I need to harvest.

March Garden

After spending Saturday morning at the Haven garden (see post before this one) I needed to get working on my own garden. It seems this time last year I had a lot more already planted out in the garden. It's probably a good thing I'm a bit behind since winter is holding out until the bitter end. It's been much cooler this year than it was last year.

I'll start you off with a garden view from the roof...
Click on photos for a larger view.







I repotted bell peppers, summer and winter squash, more cucumbers, and one more tomato.



Photo below: Some of the pumpkins will be ready to pot up this next weekend.



Photo below: The tomatoes and cucumbers are looking very healthy.



Photo below: All the seedlings I have started so far. I'll be starting bush and pole beans in a week or two.



Photo below: I added the last board to the mid season potato bin. They are growing so fast.



Photo below: Spinach sprouting in bed 4.



Photo Below Onions sprouting in bed 4.



Sunday was a good day to do a little pre spring cleaning on the patio. The potted plants in the beds next to the window needed to be cleaned up. I repotted a few plants that were root bound and added soil to others and gave every thing a good watering.

Photos below: Patio before and after photos.









Once the greenhouse comes down in April I'll be able to move most of the pots next to the garage and get the patio furniture out again.



After all this work over the weekend on my way home from work today it starts to hail and we are going to have frost in the morning. So I had to move the banana into the greenhouse and the rest of the pots on the patio were moved under the eave. The potatoes were also covered. Like I said, old man Winter is holding on to the bitter end!

Seeds and Potatoes

I finally started some seeds over the weekend. About a month later than last season. Tomatoes, peppers and cucumber are in the green house on a heat mat. In a few weeks I will start some summer and winter squash. Click on photos for larger view.




I also planted some more onions and lettuce out in the beds just in time for the rains. The planting templates are coming in handy.












The mid and late season potatoes have started to come up. I haven't seen any sign of the early season potatoes yet. I will give them a few more days and if they don't sprout I will dig up a few of the potato seeds and see if they are still in good shape.





Some random photos...


Photos below: Carrots in bed 3




Looking good. I think this will be my best carrot harvest to date.





The brussels sprouts are starting to show signs of sprouting. The biggest one in the back has little sprouts starting to show. I hope I get a harvest before I have to pull them to plant the tomatoes.







Photo below: Bed 2 is planted with onions, garlic, broccoli, cilantro, lettuce, and parsley. The back row will be planted with cucumbers in late March.




Photos Below: I'm finding a few of these critters in three of my beds.









The Winter garden is slowly starting to wake up to the coming of Spring.

Seed Starting Setup

This post is for Annie's Granny from Annie's Kitchen Garden

My seed starting area is nothing more than shelves in my greenhouse (cold frame) with the following items...

Seed starting trays $5.00 each at Wal-Mart

2 Flourescent lights fixtures cheap $9.00 model

4 white flourescent bulbs (can't remember what I paid)

2 Heat Mats not so cheap around $25.00 each. I bought them last year. You can use an old heating pad.

4 Coleman Emergency Blankets about $2.00 each

I used two coleman emergency blankets draped over the top, back and sides of the shelves. I use the other two draped over the front to retain the heat and to keep the glow of the greenhouse from bothering the neighbors at night.

It stays nice and toasty at about 65 to 69 degrees when it's all closed up with the heating mats on and the lights left on until 11:00 P.M. Even with the night time temps in the low 40's mid 30's. We only get a week or two of frost in Jan and Feb.

I hope this have given you some ideas for your setup.