Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Ready, Set, Starts!

With our unseasonably warm temperatures, we're throwing caution to the wind - and a few seeds too. This weekend we cleaned out our pair of 6x8 raised beds, added aged compost from the pile (enriched heavily with free coffee grounds from Starbucks), and filled them spring veggie seeds. Summer veggies are bound for the new garden spot we're clearing, but that's another story for another day.

We direct sowed:
Veronica Hybrid Broccoli
Burpee's Golden Beets
Chiogga Beets
French Breakfast Radish (a lovely gift from a christmas elf!)
5 Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard
Dragon Carrots
French Market Carrots (oh la la it's getting French in here)
Nantes Half Long Carrots
Flat Leaf Parsley (much better than curly leaf and grows better too)
Cascade Harvest Mix Lettuce (free from Puget Sound Fresh @ NWFGS)

Note the liberal use of bamboo stakes. Later wrapped with jute twine for cat discouragement technique. So far so good.

We tried something slightly different with the Sugar and Snow Peas - we sprouted them between wet paper towels after an overnight soak in warm water. Can't say yet if this makes them come up faster - but it does have a satisfying sense of growthiness about it...observe!Since I had the camera, I snapped a few snowdrops from that day...
Have you planted yet?

Amanda

4 comments:

  1. ooh, I feel like I'm so behind!! I've got radish, beets, swiss chard, and red lettuce diretly sowed. Working on peat pot sprouting cilantro, parsley and maybe basil. Keeping summer stuff like eggplant and zucchini to sprout in mid spring. Oh, and YES, am doing the water soaked peas as well -- will let you know when I see signs of life!

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  2. seeds have been ordered & delivered...now we just have to wait another few weeks, plant the seeds indoors, etc. we have quite awhile before planting outdoors happens in ohio. but! we are gleefully looking forward to it all. the snowdrops are so beautiful to my snow-filled eyes.

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  3. I started some seeds a few weeks ago: carrots (St. Valery, Chantenay Red Core, Atomic Red), Chinese Red Meat radishes, Tall Telephone peas, and beets (Crapaudine-- terrible name, I know). I've got some sprouts and set up the time lapse camera a few days ago, so hopefully in a week or so I'll have a cool time lapse of them growing!

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  4. Oh lordy, I never plant any seeds at this time of year, I'm waaay too lazy. Plus, I worry about late frosts. Although this winter is so weird. I know carrots and peas can usually go in by March, so you're not pushing it too much with those. Can't wait to see the cat discouragement system in action. We tend to have the most problems right at planting time, when the soil is disturbed. The pea sprouting technique worked like crazy for me last year, I'm always going to do it like that. More than overnight is fine too, it seems, at least from my limited experience. Great to get the garden off and running, congrats!

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