Port Potager

Behold the pitiful state of our okra seedlings: It looks like just about all of these germinated, but then all but one (maybe two...we'll see) failed to take root. This could have something to do with the extra-cool temps in our house while we were on vacation. We adjusted our thermostat way down while we were gone, and okra likes it hot. But I'm thinking a more likely culprit is the new seed starter cups we used. In general, these are pretty cool. They are little discs of coir wrapped in biodegradable paper that plump up when you add water. Each one has a little indentation in the top to place a seed, and once in a watering tray, they just soak up water and stay good and damp. These worked really well for our tomatoes and peppers, especially since you can just plant them, mini-pot and all into a bigger pot when they get too big. Those nightshade plants will grow extra roots up their stems, and they'll poke through the paper with no trouble. But for okr...

Less than three full days after planting, our broccoli and cabbage seeds are sprouting! This is excellent news. We don't have our seed tray on a heated mat or anything, but it looks like it is plenty warm enough in the house to get them started (at least these cool-weather guys!). They also get lots of direct sunlight on the porch: With all the shades pulled wide open, there is direct sunlight in here (barring the 20 minutes it's in that little shadow you see) for just about as long as the sun is up, because this room is lit from the east, south, and west. That is an excellent  feature of this house. At the Red House we didn't have such big windows, and the way the house was oriented on the lot, we were always struggling to get enough sunlight in a lot of places (indoors or out). Hopefully this will be enough to get these seedlings off to a good start! Update I originally posted the bit above this morning. Now it is afternoon, and it is a sunny 55 degrees. T...

It's time to plant some seeds! Part of the  garden   planning  that we have been working on (and finished this weekend, by the way — more on that later) involves noting when to start seeds and/or set out plants of each type of vegetable we are growing. A great resource for this is Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening , which has a handy chart of when to start everything in relation to your last frost date. After we had everything plotted out on the graph paper plans, we added planting to dates to our family iCal (I am a huge fan of this, since one of us can update something and the other can see it on his or her iPhone almost instantly). This will allow us to check planting dates easily from year to year since we'll have a record of it, and I also set up the alerts to remind us the Friday before of what we need so that we can run and get any seeds or supplies before  Saturday morning rolls around. Hooray for technology! Anyway, this weekend is 12 weeks before...