HelpfulGardener.com

Nothing is planted yet, but I did just put in my seed order from Territorial Seed Co.

I ordered: green beans (speedy), broccoli (belstar), kale (nerodi toscano), a salad mix lettuce blend, peas (dakota), spinach (tyee), swiss chard (electric neon), 3 tomatoes (stupice, momotaro, early cherry), caraway (sprinter), impatiens (tempo butterfly mix).

This isn't close to everything I will be planting - last year I ordered bulk seeds, so I have a lot left over, plus the whole bag of seeds a friend just gave me.

Soon after it gets here, I will get the broccoli started. I am thinking about also starting a bit of spinach indoors. Usually I just plant it in the ground. But usually I also fall plant some for overwintering and that does the best. Somehow that didn't happen last fall. So I may try starting some indoors to give it that head start, keep it from bolting too soon.

Bring on seed starting!

I am still getting catalogs coming in. Burpee sent theirs last week. I got peppergal about three weeks ago, and Richter's came in a couple of days ago. I have whittled down my list but with these catalogs coming in I am getting tempted again.

I went through my seed bag again. I do need more kale, borage, green onions, cilantro, and buckwheat. I can get the buckwheat from the store. I am debating on getting the inoculant for the beans. Unfortunately, my choices are limited not every place will ship here. I will probably be adding to my list and whittling again because I have a vegetable drawer and a whole shelf in my refrigerator taken up by seeds.

I am harvesting my broccoli now but I am still waiting on the brussels sprouts. I got some romaine lettuce but the rest bolted. I just planted joi choi and more beets and my older beets should be ready to harvest as well. still waiting on the Michili to head up and I pulled out three daikon radish and harvested some of the ginger just in time for new year's day.

I have seeds started for romaine, Detroit dark red beets, green onions, mesclun, pak choi, cilantro, Italian and curly parsley and I took cuttings from the rosemary, bay leaf, lavender, Mexican oregano, black pepper, and Brown turkey figs. I still have to divide the cardamom, take the cuttings from the Portuguese cabbage, and pot up a bunch of super chili seedlings. It is too cold now to start peppers night temperatures are in the low sixties. Now, I just have to figure out where I am going to put them all.

I finally got a good indoor grow light setup, so I'm starting really early this year. I've got California Wonder bell peppers and Anaheims in a flat, along with broccoli. The broccoli has already begun to germinate.

So much for New Years resolutions Rainbow

I will be starting Jan. 25th:

Clear Dawn, storage onion
Copra, storage onion
Cippolini, sweet onion - great for roasting
Red Long of Tropea, sweet - salad type.

True seed potato ( I may wait until Jan 31 or Feb 8 )

Eric

I'm very excited to get my first batch of seeds going in my new Greenhouse. Not sure yet what to go with. I live in SC, so the winters are not to bad (Although its getting pretty cold this weekend).

I still haven't made plans yet. I am gonna start soon. I need to buy more potting soil, few heat pads, pots for starts etc. I am gonna keep it simple this year though.

PunkRotten wrote:I still haven't made plans yet. I am gonna start soon. I need to buy more potting soil, few heat pads, pots for starts etc. I am gonna keep it simple this year though.

Haven't we all heard/ said that before !!

"Few" heat pads seems like a lot. I start at least 500 plants from seeds with two of them. I could use more, but I don't want to, because I already feel guilty about how much energy my seed starting operation uses. So it is all in the timing. Start the earliest things as early as I can get away with, crowded with on the heat mat. Move them off the heat mat as soon as they have true leaves, and fill up the spaces with whatever is next in line.

Hey, I never said or wanted to abandon THG, just cut it down a bit, spend more time actually gardening. But of course right now there is no gardening, not even plants under lights. But back when I was a mod, my posts/ day average was 11.5. Right now, it is just under 9.5. (Mathematically) it is hard bringing down your average, when the total is so high, but I am slowly whittling away at it.

With this weekend's wintry blast, my unheated garage "V8. Nursery" is currently reading 34°F. The frost hardy plants I am growing and overwintering there should be OK -- lettuce, arugula, onion/garlic/leek greens, Swiss chard, mints, celery, parsley, dill (?), and rosemary, pineapple sage, jalapeño, citrus, pomegranate. I'm overwintering two eggplants in the same way as hot peppers as an experiment and I don't know how they will do -- maybe I should bring them inside today since it is currently 14°F outside with windchill of 0°F and tonight's forecast low is actually 0°F. V8 nursery temp will no doubt plummet.

But yeah, not starting seeds for a while yet. I AM thinking of starting onions/leeks inside now and putting them out in the garage, but I have to reduce the light cycle down to 12 hr day or shorter. Maybe I'll try early spinach, too.... -- Cauliflower and broccoli around mid-January, I think.

Yup, applestar, we have similar climates, and mid-January is what I am aiming for also, for earliest cold weather stuff and cold hardy perennials. I am not planning on doing a lot of perennials, but in my friend's bag of seed she gave me was lavender, so I will probably start some more of that.

rainbowgardener wrote:

PunkRotten wrote:I still haven't made plans yet. I am gonna start soon. I need to buy more potting soil, few heat pads, pots for starts etc. I am gonna keep it simple this year though.

Haven't we all heard/ said that before !!

"Few" heat pads seems like a lot. I start at least 500 plants from seeds with two of them. I could use more, but I don't want to, because I already feel guilty about how much energy my seed starting operation uses. So it is all in the timing. Start the earliest things as early as I can get away with, crowded with on the heat mat. Move them off the heat mat as soon as they have true leaves, and fill up the spaces with whatever is next in line.

Hey, I never said or wanted to abandon THG, just cut it down a bit, spend more time actually gardening. But of course right now there is no gardening, not even plants under lights. But back when I was a mod, my posts/ day average was 11.5. Right now, it is just under 9.5. (Mathematically) it is hard bringing down your average, when the total is so high, but I am slowly whittling away at it.

Hahah, yeah I was making my grow list last night and it turned out bigger than I was expecting. Actually I am just going to get two heat pads. I never used to use them but my tomatoes and peppers would pop up slow and uneven. The other heat pad is going to be specifically for ginger/turmeric. I am going to try and give them a head start inside so they have more time to mature as plants outdoors. I've slowed down a little too. Partly cause it is a lot of work taking care of a garden, pond, cat, 4 dogs, several fish tanks etc. Plus I got classes on top of that, which are hard science classes. I shut down a few fish tanks and downgraded my garden. I did not grow anything during the Fall because I wanted a break, but also because I think my garden needed the rest. I have been adding compost and burying veggie scraps all over so that the soil is re-nourished. I have not been impressed with some of my harvests the last 2 seasons. My garden uses up more resources than what goes into it. I think the smaller/lower yields have to do mainly with low nutrients in the soil.

I have a question though. How many times do you up pot before setting them out to the garden? I used to use these small 6-pack containers to start them, then put them each in a plastic dixie cup when I uppotted them. I'd leave them here until they go into the garden. The plants get pretty big, but when I plant them I can see they are root bound. I want to actually buy nursery style pots. How many times do you up pot and what pots sizes? With my experience, I would want something deeper than the dixie cups I've used. At least for the tomatoes and peppers. I am going to try and make my own potting mix too. I still got a nice amount of peat moss. What other ingredients are good?

IMHO - the commercial nursery containers are good for saving space when growing many plants of same kind because they are tightly fitted and sized to fit in standard 1020 trays, but I found using recycled containers to be very effective. Especially re-using plastic beverage cups and cut off drink bottles for the final containers before planting out tomato plants as described here https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... 33#p301333

For saving space in the initial stages, I'm going to use the two stage soil blocks again as described in this thread.

We are headed for -24° F overnight Sunday-Monday, so nothing outdoors here in the frozen north for many months yet! However, I have been plotting and planning for weeks now and spent much free time over the holidays pawing catalogs and looking around online. I am doing all of my ordering from Baker Creek this year and have a bunch left from last year from various sources and will share excess seeds with several friends and order a few packs for them too to save on shipping.

We try to grow a good diversity on 0.0012 acres (I.e., 52 square feet) of raised beds more or less doing SFG and mix it up a bit each year and also a few square feet of herb garden. I have two pads and will have two 4 foot, 8 tube lights this year and will start the first seeds in early March and carry on through latest April or so for the cucurbits. Plans for transplants and direct seeding this year include:

Basil: Emily, Genovese (2 or 3 of each)
Beets: Detroit Red, Autumn Harvest Blend (many of each, some indoors, some direct)
Carrots: Amarillo, Atomic Red, Dragon (many of each, direct)
Collards: Champion (2)
Cucumber: Beit Alpha, Bushy, Holland White (2 of each)
Dill: Dukat, Vierling (several of each indoors, more direct seeded)
Eggplant: Aswad, Edirne (1 each)
Kale: Lacinato (2)
Leek: Blue Solonaise (many)
Lettuce: 8 varieties of various types (2-4 of each)
Garlic: Armenian, Leningrad, Persian Star (12 of each, planted late October, frozen in place under inches of mulch now)
Melon: Gnadenfeld (2)
Parsley: Giant of Italy (1)
Parsnip: Turga, All American (many of each, direct)
Peas: Green Arrow, Lincoln, Wando (*dense* direct sowing of each as an experiment, might try the rain gutter thing)
Peppers: Ancho (2), Jimmy Nardello (2), King of the North (1), Lemon Drop (1), Sweet Chocolate (1)
Spinach: Bloomsdale, Olympia (6 of each)
Swiss Chard: Bright Lights (10)
Tomato: Black Krim, Marianna's Peace, Orange Strawberry, Pink Bumble Bee, Purple Bumble Bee (2 of each)
Zuchini: Gray (1)

As always at this time of year, I am feeling really good about how it will all go! Last year was my first year starting from seed indoors and it was great to have a couple months of gardening in before the last snow fell in early May!

Wow ... 52 sq feet is basically one 10x5 bed (however it is actually divided up). That looks like way too much stuff to put in it, especially the 10 tomato plants. You could just fit 10 tomato plants in that space, in 2 staggered rows, but it would be very crowded and it sure wouldn't leave much room for anything else.

You could do some things early to be done before the tomato plants get very big, like the peas, lettuce, and spinach. I do that with broccoli. But much of what you mentioned is going to be in the ground a long time, like chard, beets, carrots, parsnips. And a lot of the rest is warm weather crops growing at the same time as the tomatoes and getting pretty big: eggplant, cucumber, peppers, melons, zucchini. I guess you could grow the cucurbits on trellis, but it still isn't quite making sense to me how it all goes in that much space. And I grow in raised beds and crowd them.

I guess you have done this before and it works for you....

DLup, I'm like rainbowgardener and not understanding how you plan on growing that much in the space. Surely, you have left out some important information.

Hi rainbowgardener and Meatburner,

I am *mostly* following the recommended spacing for square foot gardening, and some of these will definitely be succession plantings. So far I have never managed to get all of this planted out or grown from seed, so I have never achieved a full plan like this yet! As I mentioned in another post, we have had damping off problems in previous years with leafy greens, so that has often left empty space. We have also had really poor germination for beets for several years in a row now. Our first year they did great and we thought they were so easy, then we have almost completely failed with beets every year.

Carrots and parsnips each have their own container and have been doing well at the tight spacing recommended (16/sq ft), in part because I don't get 100% germination and in part because I take some as they go and thin that way.

The melons and winter squash are in their own 2'x2' bed (open bottom), and I am definitely pushing the spacing this year! I am being greedy partly as an experiment, partly because the gnadenfeld melon has been just productive enough in the past to convince us that it is tasty, and partly because I could not choose among the winter squashes! These all get trellised so they are growing vertically, not horizontally. We'll see how it goes this year and maybe I will have to make the hard decisions next year.

The rest of the growing area is 3 beds that are 3'x4' and one that is 2'x4', all open on the bottom. I usually do one tomato in each at the back and trellis them so they grow vertically. This year I am going to try adding a second tomato to each in the same space as the peas while they are finishing up. I will have the seedlings anyway (hopefully), so if it does not work no big deal. Those second tomatoes will replace a couple lettuce plants when they go in and hopefully won't bother the peas already on the trellis. I generally prune the tomatoes down to two or three stems and wind those through the trellis. Growing one tomato in one square foot is the same as growing it in a 7 gallon container.

Some of the successions include peppers replacing spinach and baby lettuce, eggplants replacing lettuce, and four of the chards following arugula. If I can get the first round out early enough and the weather is good, then we can get at least one good harvest before switching. I hope!

Pretty much everything else is spaced according the the SFG recommendations. It is tight but efficient. We really don't have any more space for veggies, maybe able to extend each bed by 1' in the long direction some day (if the wife will let me!) so I am really trying maximize . I would not say that our garden has worked as I have hoped every year or maybe even any year. But I think that is why we keep coming back! For the most part, the problems don't seem to have been due to the spacing. We had a couple exceptions last year for sure. We grew Purple of Sicily cauliflower, which got huge and never headed, and Russian red kale, which also got huge, and both of these crowded leeks, peppers, and/or eggplants around them in a negative way. This was a combination of plant choice and location (e.g., eggplants behind the giant cauliflower...oops). We have had problems with the peppers in particular toppling over, but I have not really staked the in the past. This year I am going to center a small round tomato cage in between four plants and tie the plants to the cage as they grow.

Chances are, we will not get everything out again this year, won't get all successions planted, and won't have every spaced covered. I think I am working out the varieties and placements at last, so I can eliminate some factors for past failures (I prefer to call it less than maximal success!).

I really view this all as an ongoing process or experiment with years yet to go! Separate from our available space, I like the idea of intensive planting, but I am definitely still figuring it out! As with the cauliflower and kale, I am certainly willing to adjust each year to make it work better.

I have about 200 sq feet of raised beds for veggies (plus containers, herb bed, flower beds, asparagus, raspberry and strawberry beds, etc) so I'm a big believer in gardening them intensively. Succession planting is definitely key to that. I plant cool weather stuff very early, replace it with warm weather stuff, and then replace again with cool weather stuff, some of which over winters.

I crowd my beds with lots of different stuff, including herbs and flowers for companion planting. What I try not to do, is plant too many of the same things. In other words, if you plant 6 tomatoes where 3 should go, they are competing directly with each other, cutting down on air circulation, etc. and likely all will suffer. If you plant the 3 tomatoes and a bunch of other stuff, including carrots, parsley, basil, chives, marigolds, garlic, onions, maybe borage, and spinach and /or broccoli early in the season, which will get pulled by the time the tomato plants are getting big, nothing is competing directly, things are using different root and air spaces and nutrients and everything does better.

The damping off could have been a result of over-crowding resulting in reduced air circulation (as well as too much moisture).

Hi rainbowgardener!

I think the damping off in the past has been my fault for direct sowing too early when the beds were still too damp and/or over watering early. I have been fiddling with the mix in the beds in one way or another each year, and I think I had gotten to the point that I had too much organic matter and not enough mineral, so they were slow to dry out in the spring. I mixed in sand of various coarseness last year and I think that helped with the texture.

In a normal year, which we don't seem to have any more here, I definitely have been direct sowing the cold season plants 2-4 weeks before average last frost (14 May and moving up!) and then the warm season crops, bought as seedlings until last year, on or just after last frost. The damping off was happening with direct seeded cold crops (and never the tomato or pepper seedlngs) before anybody was so big as to reduce air circulation, and last year when we planted all of our seedlings at once and late (June 6) we had no problems with damping off despite a wet June. Of course, we planted late last year because we were getting big, wet snows about once a week from mid-April to the end of the first week of May. If we do get a more "normal" spring this year, then I will be setting out the seedlings of cold crops in the weeks up to last frost and then getting the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and cucurbits out from last frost to a week or two after.

We'll see how it goes and what problems arise this time around. Then spend next autumn plotting how to fix those problems for next year! I am definitely a bit envious of room like what you have! Any increase in our space comes at the expense of our smallish back yard at this point, and the two year old and the -9 month old (!) need that space when it is not buried in a foot or two of snow!

And I think my 200 sq ft (one bed of which is a plot in a community garden away from home) is teeny and I envy the people with half an acre ... who are probably busy envying the people with three acres ....

I start the cold weather stuff indoors SOON and plant the seedlings in the ground a month ahead of average last frost date. That gives them a better head start on being out of the way when the warm weather stuff needs the space and helps makes sure stuff like broccoli and spinach doesn't bolt when the weather warms, which can happen pretty early where I am. Winter directly to summer with very little spring!

5 days after I did an on-line seed order with Territorial, I get this email back from them:

Thank you for your order. We are preparing for the 2014 gardening season, so your order may not ship immediately. Seed packages are being filled as soon as the current crop is ready.
Most orders will ship by the first part of January, but at this time we are unable to give an exact ship date.

I will be very disappointed if my cold weather seeds like broccoli and spinach are very much delayed. This was my first time ordering from Territorial and could end up being my last.

Hopefully you get them soon. Why don't you call the company and ask if they can give you an approximate date of when the seeds will be shipped. Sometimes it really annoys me how seed companies do things such as "ships when it is appropriate planting time for your area." I know this could be helpful if you had no clue what you were doing but gardening is so local that I may plant something a week earlier than my neighbor down the hill, but still in the same neighborhood. I would prefer to have it shipped as soon as I ordered it.

Anyway I have planted some pepper seeds and some Texas Blue Bonnet seeds. All of the cool weather stuff is already slowing down and some of it is already on it's way out. It is a little earlier to be starting seeds for my area but I figure that I will just re pot them in the greenhouse if it stays cold.

I ordered form Territorial seeds last year. I bought some garlic off them, paid a big price too, and some of it came in bad shape. I just let it go cause it was a few cloves here and there that were rotten. Also, they had the tags on the varieties mixed up. I order two plants off them about a week ago. They are saying they will ship first half of April etc. I really don't know when it will ship and I hope they come in good shape. If I am not satisfied this time I will not order again from them.

I emailed them back and said, please I want my cold weather stuff for indoor planting. They never responded to my email, but my whole seed order did come fairly soon after that. Time to get started!

That's great! I am planning on ordering the bulk of my seed from Park Seed. They have had the best prices I have found. Some of their seed is even on sale for less than a dollar. I do not need much seed though this year. I received a ton of tomato varieties trading with another gardener.

I am loaded with seeds actually. Got like 40-50 tomato varieties and 30 or so pepper varieties, a dozen cucumber varieties, over a dozen melon varieties, lots of pea and bean varieties, lots of herbs, lots of greens, squash (the smaller kind), and a whole bunch of other stuff. I am pretty set and it would take me several years to even make a dent in my seed collection. The only time I get new seeds or plants is if it is something on the more rare side or something I really wanna try with plans to try it right away. Since I have so many seeds I am not looking to add anymore. In fact I need to start letting some go.

Feel free to "let some go" to me! I don't have seed for a lot of the stuff I am going to grow this year...

What do you want/need? I can spare some tomatoes, peppers, some melons, herbs, flowers, some veggies.

Last year I ordered most of my seeds from HPS - horticultural products, HPSseed.com . They sell in bulk, more to commercial growers. But if you are willing to store seeds for a few years, it makes the prices really cheap. E.G. italian green basil at park seed is $1.77 for 100 seeds, not bad. At HPS it is $4.25 for AN OUNCE, which is about 17,000 seeds! The seeds come in air tight foil packs which are good for storage. Not all their prices are really cheap, by the time you get down to smaller quantities, some are expensive. But by shopping carefully, I got at least three years worth of seeds for less than what I usually pay for one year.

The variety selection especially of herbs is not huge, if you are look for anything really exotic it is not the place. And there were a couple failures, things that just did not germinate (out of 30 some seed varieties I planted). And they expect you to know what you are doing, so the seed packets do not give any info re how to plant etc. But all that info is available on line, you can just look it up.

I will look into them. I am hesitant to order that much seed though because one packet usually lasts me 3 years because I do not have a big vegetable garden. I might order ornamental seeds from them though because I blow through annuals.

Just started all my seeds tonight. Did 6 tomato plants (San Manzano, Black Krim, Totem x2, Stupice, Tiny Tim), 6 pepper plants (Poblano, Orange Habanero x2, Tequila Sunrise x2, Tolli), 4 Basils (Mammoth, Siam Queen, Purple Ruffles, Red Rubin), 2 Culantro, 2 Anise Hyssop, Sensitive plant, Allyssum, and 2 Impatiens.
Direct seeded peas already, will do some green tomorrow. Got two plants on the way in April; Bulgarian Carrot Pepper and Mulato (a type of Poblano with stronger flavor). When it warms up I will be planting Sunflowers, Squash, melons, Cukes, pumpkins, ginger and turmeric.

All my Basil is up now. I am thinking tomorrow might be tomatoes.

All the basil, including the purple and red ones? That's very fast. In my experience they are slower sprouting as well as slower growing than the green. I planted my purple basil Tues (1/28), I hope it is as fast. Next for you might be the anise hyssop (one of my favorite things to grow, good choice! ). I have that planted too and it took 4 days to germinate for me.

2014 gardens here we come!

Yes all the Basil is up. And I looked just now and the tomatoes are up too. I had two anise hyssop plants already and they would have overwintered but the neighbor kept putting their sprinklers on and flooding this little area we had. After we even told them to not do it they never listened and my anise ayssop died.

My tomatoes are doing great! Most of them are working on their second set of true leaves and are looking great! A few days ago I planted a ton of peppers, basil and squash. I did the baggie method for the bell peppers and it worked great. My jalapenos and bells are both up as well. I was planning on moving the biggest tomatoes out to the greenhouse but the lows are in the upper 30's. I still might because it is in a warm micro-climate but I do not want to rush it.

This is what I have so far. Rather or not all of these will be planted, & how many of each..remains a mystery Also I'm an impulse buyer at the local farmer's market here.. so many sweet old farmer couples with their beautiful starter plants for super cheap, I can't pass those up! There's a lady who always has the best Cherokee Purple and grape-sized tomato plants for sale every year, 4 for $1, so I just get those from her & save me some space in my seed starting area.

Russian Mammoth (in my avatar is 1 I grew 2 summers ago) & Paquito Colorado sunflowers

Yellow crookneck squash

French tarragon

California bell peppers

gourmet blend lettuce

strawflowers

bachelor buttons

black hollyhocks

chantennay carrots

Jack o lantern & sugar pumpkins

straight 8 cucumbers

dark green bloomsdale spinach

mesclun

blue lake pole beans

cherry bell radishes

dwarf blue scotch curled kale

cilantro

Oregon sugar pea pods

Sierra gold cantelopes

rainbow Swiss chard

allsweet watermelon

Parris island lettuce

indigo rose tomatoes

rainbow blend carrots

black giant tomatoes

royal burgundy bush beans

Romanesco broccoli

Chinese red noodle beans

striped German tomatoes

Of course you realize this is a very mixed bag as far as starting from seed. Different people might sort the list different ways, but here is my take on it. All the cucurbits (melons, cukes, etc) can be started indoors, but only a week or so before your last frost date or they will outgrow the space. Lots of people just wait until the soil warms up and direct plant them. All the root crops like carrot and radish do not transplant well and really have to be direct seeded. Lettuce and chard are so cold hardy, there's not much to gain by starting them indoors - then you have to harden them off. If direct seeded, they are already hardened.

Start indoors:

French tarragon

California bell peppers

cilantro

indigo rose tomatoes

black giant tomatoes

Romanesco broccoli

striped German tomatoes


Could go either way

sunflowers

Yellow crookneck squash

strawflowers

bachelor buttons

Jack o lantern & sugar pumpkins

straight 8 cucumbers

Sierra gold cantelopes

allsweet watermelon


Direct seed in the ground

gourmet blend lettuce

black hollyhocks (biennial, usually fall planted)

chantennay carrots

dark green bloomsdale spinach

mesclun

blue lake pole beans

cherry bell radishes

dwarf blue scotch curled kale

Oregon sugar pea pods

rainbow Swiss chard

Parris island lettuce

rainbow blend carrots

royal burgundy bush beans

Chinese red noodle beans

I hadn't planned on starting them all indoors, but your update to the list is quite handy. Matter of fact I never would've guessed the beans and sugar peas should go right into the ground. Thanks