Let's get this garden started!

[Cola82]

Wooooo! Is this an office or a greenhouse!? Is that a quilting rig or a seedling nursery!? WHO KNOWS! I learned my lesson about starting too many plants. I only started 10 of each tomato variety instead of 50 like last year, and +/- 4 of each other kind of thing.





Should probably get my light hanging from my quilting rig soon. >_> The chains I bought last year for that purpose are currently holding a heat lamp over a little shelter we built for a stray cat that lives in our backyard, so I have to get new ones if I want to keep him cozy until spring.

ETA: we call him "Third Cat" because we have two indoor cats who love warbling at him through the window. He won't come within ten feet of us, though. Here's a photo!



I hope he doesn't mess with my garden, D:

[Cola82]

Sleeping on the job, tsk tsk.

[applestar]

What a CUTE space heater!

[Cola82]

Woohoo!

Sweet basil!


Early cherry tomatoes.


Sun golds!


Thai basil is breaking the surface, too. I didn't have a heat mat, but I did have an actual space heater to keep the room swampy.

Although I'm sure my cute space heater helped, too. She likes the lamp a lot. ;p

[Cola82]

[rainbowgardener]

YAY!!! Seedlings!

Don't you love it? It is 7:30 AM and just getting light, but seedlings help me believe in spring.

I still don't have anything planted, but I'm getting ready. Brought my potting mix in from the shed to unfreeze, clearing off the space, sorting all the seeds.

I think I have too much. I have to pay attention to if I fill up the heat mats with all the earliest stuff, will they be ready to move off by the time it is time to start the next wave, peppers and purple basil etc. And then what about all the 8 wk stuff like tomatoes.... I have to do a bit more planning and probably thin the list a bit.

[gixxerific]

I learned my lesson about starting too many plants. I only started 10 of each tomato variety instead of 50 like last year, and +/- 4 of each other kind of thing.

Nobody likes a quitter.

But really it's good to see some green, it is good for my mental health. Keep seeing pics of new growth from here and around the world hard to believe some of it, since I am in the same boat as Rainbow, seed starting is just right around the corner.

Soon my pretty's, you will see the light (maniacal laugh inserted here).

[Cola82]

Sunrise is about the same here. I figured I might have started a little soon, but it's okay. I can up-pot and dote on them indoors a little longer. Few things are as nice as taking a break from work and just staring at the plants. My friends are already tired of photos of seedlings on my Instagram account. But I can't imagine working full time and planting as much as you do, RainbowGardener. You're like a super-gardener.

Here's some photos from today. I promise I won't just be uploading daily progress after a certain point. My orange peppers weren't coming up and I sifted through the soil a bit and didn't see anything, so I put in the rest of my seeds. I think they might have washed out when I watered them after seeding originally, or maybe it's just because the seeds are from last year. Oh well, we'll see how it goes. Leeks are up!







Haha, and who said I was a quitter, Gix? I just don't want to be everyone's source of free tomato plants this year like I was last year. I had to reach through my mom's church community to get rid of them all, and somehow I ended up without any yellow cherry tomatoes in the process. This year, I'm only growing enough for my mom, my grandmother, my boyfriend's mom, and me. My mom's friends can buy starters like everyone else. ;p

Just a reminder that this is what I was grappling with my very first year of growing tomatoes. I'm surprised my boyfriend didn't leave me, I was spending all of my time rotating plants, repotting, transporting, watering, fertilizing. I had no time for work. D:









Those photos barely convey how many tomato plants I had on my hands. I had them in several different places, as you can see.

Not that I didn't also kind of love it. ;p

[gixxerific]

Looking beautiful I am so jealous.

[rainbowgardener]

I don't work full time any more; I am "semi-retired." I had to quit working so much, to indulge my gardening hobby more. So now I work maybe 25 hrs a week, which is half time, compared to what I used to do.

[Cola82]

I find that no less impressive, honestly.

Thanks so much, Gix.

[Cola82]

Peppers are up!



Urgh... some cat has just lost her sitting under the lamp privileges.



Also got my indigo rose seeds today and put them in their cells.

[applestar]

Looking good! I love the excitement at this stage when they grow visibly morning and night

....'fess up! how many times do you look in on them each day?

[Cola82]

They're growing right behind my office desk, so probably once every ten minutes.

Here, I used an app to make a panorama of my office. D:



Ignore the fact that a previous version of this panorama is open in photoshop on my computer. >_>

[Cola82]

Uuuuugh, I have pink eye that refuses to clear up after three weeks, even with antibiotics. I'm so miserable. Plants are the only joy I have at the moment.

Indigo rose has sprouted, and I sowed several Love Lies Bleeding amaranth seeds in some cells, too.







The other cat is getting in on the lamp action.



I also sowed carrot seeds in a barrel outside, and catnip seeds in a planter that has some survivors from last year. We'll see how that goes.

[gixxerific]

Alright fine I am dropping seed today, now you see what you did.

[Cola82]

Haha, glad I could help!

Sun golds and serrano peppers.



Indigo Rose and orange peppers, worrying me. The IR leaves are yellowed in places and I don't know if I should be concerned. Also, you can see I planted a seed that was actually two seeds stuck together, and they came up intertwined. :/



Leeks and basil.



Oh, and love lies bleeding amaranths... maybe I shouldn't have followed the instructions to drop a pinch of seeds in each cell so closely.

[Cola82]

Broccoli Romanesco popped up this morning!

[Cola82]

Put the tomatoes in paper cups, which are color coded this year, making it easy to tell at a glance what is what. Although I wish I'd saved the blue for Indigo Rose instead of the Sun Golds. That's gonna throw me. :/

Orange peppers finally sprouts, and broccoli is looking healthy. I hope it's not too leggy, the light is very close to it. Eggplants sprouted, too. They look a lot like the IR seedlings at this stage. I also put the serranos in my little square plastic nursery pots, and put them on a shorter stand so they're farther from the light. I think I'm supposed to do this to give me more stem to work with when I start the praxxus method.

Now that everything has broken through the soil, I can turn off the space heater and let it be a little cooler in here, which is nice. I don't like having it on when I'm not in the room.

[Cola82]

I finally got a timer for my lights. It's so nice not to stress out because I didn't remember what my alarm at 7 a.m. was for and now it's 10 and oh my god!

Sweet and Thai Basil, Broccoli Romanesco, Love Lies Bleeding, Mangan Eggplant, and orange bell peppers:


Indigo Rose and Sun Gold tomatoes:


Serrano peppers, Leeks:


The exiles, Golden Nugget cherry tomatoes and a couple extras for which there was no room under the shop light:


Edit to Add: My daffodils are coming up, and the Brass Buttons that were destroyed by a frost last November appear to be recovering, but it's been below 30 degrees at night lately (probably because it's been clear and sunny). I covered them last night, and I'm wondering if I should keep doing that. Not just for the buttons, but for the daffodils.

Photos:

[rainbowgardener]

Looking good, every thing very tidy and organized! The color coded planting cups is a nice idea.

Daffodil is very cold hardy, you don't need to worry about covering it. The only time to worry is if the daffodil has actually bloomed. A frost at that point will kill the blossoms. I don't know anything about brass buttons, so can't answer re their hardiness.

[Cola82]

It's native to New Zealand, which is a good sign, I think, but this website describes it as evergreen in zones 9-10, so not quite my 8b.

I really like this stuff. It's adorable, and I love dense, short ground cover type plants. It really took off last summer, and I was heartbroken when the frost reduced it to a solid brown mat last November.

[Cola82]

It finally snowed here! A good few days of being trapped in the house. We haven't that in a couple years. I covered the barrel in the yard with the daffodils and the brass buttons with plastic and weighted it down with snow. I finally took it off today and everything looked fine underneath. Several plants desperately needed water, though, which I didn't want to do while everything was frozen.

I repotted most of the seedlings and now I have a little glade type thing happening in my office.






Here's our yard at the height of the snow earlier this week. The prints on the left are mine when I took my cat out there and dropped her in the snow (she ran right back inside). The prints on the right are Third Cat, the stray we take care of.


Bird friends! They were coming up to our door, probably hoping for water or suet that isn't frozen.


Unfortunately, I caught several starlings mobbing the suet yesterday, which means it's probably time to take it down.

Here's video of Azul watching the snow.

[applestar]

Here's video of Azul watching the snow.

That was great! What a difference from the jaded, bored "expressions" on our cats' backsides when it's snowing for the umpteenth time here (another big one expected tomorrow night).

Your little babies are looking good. Mine are just poking out of the growing media.

... Dropping your poor kitty in the snow I've done that to our indoor cats as well ...

[Cola82]

Haha, if we didn't mess with them from time to time, what would be the fun in having cats at all!? It came up to her chin, and she bounded back to the door with back legs as rigid as a wishbone. Hilariously, she came back to the door and let me pick her up again just seconds later, but I decided to give her a break and just took her back in.

I need that to foster trust so that I can take advantage of it. ;p

Also, booo. Image shack is no longer free. Curses. Guess I'll be hosting more images on my Tumblr blog.

Roots were poking out of the bottom of the cups, like, a lot. So I spent a bunch of time repotting them. Stop growing so fast, tomatoes.


Properly labeling this year, so I don't just get stuck with two plants of the same type like last time.


I've been keeping the soil in the garage and just carting up what I need in a bowl moistened in the bathroom sink. This has been 100% effective against fungus gnats and I couldn't be happier.


Completely out of room, though.

[rainbowgardener]

Wow! Looking great! I'm still about a week away from planting tomato seed....

[Cola82]

Well the weather is improving rapidly here. It's raining a lot, but I'm really hoping I can get the raised bed set up soon. I can see the day they go out approaching.

I finally got a double wide shop light fixture. Hooray! Here are some photos from today.

I was admiring the purple freckles on my Indigo Rose.


I have a tomato orchard, really.


Sun golds are really sending out their branches very far.




Peppers are finally acquiring some size. I should probably up-pot them soon, but there is no room on the table for them.


Put the warm lights in the middle.


Fun times.

[applestar]

I think "burgeoning" is the word....

[Cola82]

Yes, I agree. I need to get rid of some of these plants, and soon. :/

But for now, I figured out how to get everything covered.



Spotted a gnat crawling around my solo cups this morning. I'm pretty crestfallen. Broke out the cinnamon and started sprinkling, but it's probably too late. Sigh... It was nice while it lasted.

[Cola82]

Azul thought it would be neat if she snipped off all of the leeks, then promptly vomit them back up on the carpet. Such a thoughtful cat. They seem to be recovering just fine from her thoughtfulness.


I pruned the basil, but I guess it was too soon. All the baby leaves are turning brown and falling off. It's not too late, though, I'll just start over.


I've had to get creative to cover my tomatoes.


Trying to get my peppers nice and spindly.


Eggplant, broccoli, amaranth, some peppers.


Same, but another angle.


Oh, and I finally got my driver's license today.

I'm only 29. ;p

[Cola82]

Things are looking downright prehistoric. I love it.

Probably ready to prune these peppers.


Cue the music.


This needs some dinosaur toys.

[Cola82]

Oh yeah, that's right, I have a ton of dinosaur toys.

[rainbowgardener]

Oh I love it, especially this:



Dinosaur in the jungle!

And incidentally, your plants are looking great!

[Cola82]

Thanks so much! It's really the amaranth and the broccoli. They just look so cool together.

The boyfriend had a dream he planted the whole backyard in lavender, so he rushed out early this morning and bought these intending to plant them without asking me.



But he had to ask me what a frost date was. It was adorable.

I don't know that our landlord would approve of replacing the grass with lavender, though. ;p

[Cola82]

I have no idea what's wrong with my Indigo Rose. It sprouted with blotchy cotyledons, and ever since it developed true leaves, they've tended to be very wilty. I don't think it's overwatering. It doesn't seem to matter either way. The only thing I've done differently for these plants as opposed to the others is add the magnesium sulfate to the top of the soil instead of inside (I plum forgot until I was done).



Stop it, little guys.

[applestar]

Your babies are so far along! Mine are moist depressions on the surface of the potting mix.

Mag. Sulfate as is Epsom salt? Maybe salt concentrating. Perhaps better to flush out and then later on water with weak solution dissolved in water.

[Cola82]

Yes, as in epsom salts. I'll try that.

[Cola82]

The tomatoes look okay for now. I pruned the wilted branches and watered and now I'm just waiting.

In the mean time, the peppers that were pruned are looking pretty good, if I may say so.

[Cola82]

Started moving tomatoes outside just in time for another storm system to move in and dump more rain on us. I'm so done with winter.

We're thinking really hard about moving to another house down the street. It has an amazing South facing deck. Although that means a significant part of the yard will always be in shadow because of the privacy fence, the deck itself would be great for container gardening. It's raised up, on top of a hill, where it will just be drenched in sunlight. And it has huge South facing windows inside, too, which means I could actually have house plants. Can you imagine!? I can't because I live in a coffin. :/

Obviously that means I won't be constructing the raised bed I had planned until I know for sure whether we're moving or not, so between that and the rain I'm going to have to just deal with the crowding for now.

I also discovered watermelon roots smell very strongly of watermelon (I refuse to be judged for starting watermelons! D:).

[Cola82]

The watermelon is sending out little tendrils and I had to free three leeks from its grasp. One of them was grasped in two different places. D:



Peppers look good.



Everything got really big really fast to fit into their new containers it seems.



I finally got a rosemary cutting to root! I'm so excited! I totally don't need another rosemary plant, but yaaaaay!



The Indigo Rose tomatoes refuse to grow. Most of them have stayed small even though I've repotted them in larger containers. I'm not sure why this is. It could have something to do with the wilting, though. All of the other tomatoes are huge.

And the carrots I planted in the barrel outside sprouted! Finally!