Seeds galore!

Original seedling tray... with seedlings!

The seeds I planted in the original seedling tray all sprouted! (whoo hoo!) Everything seems to be growing quite nicely, except for the chard and the beets (far left). They are more reluctant to grow, but maybe they're working beneath the dirt instead of above it.

The big seedlings you see on the right are the bean plants. These are new spouts that I planted after seeing the ones I put in the ground outside struggle. It has been cold here (in the high 40s at night) so it looks like I planted outside too early. The good thing is that beans grow quickly so it won't be hard to replace the ones outside. My cucumber sprouts all died (they love hot weather), the peas are fine and actually growing well (they love colder weather) and about half of the sunflower seedlings survived. I re-planted the cucumber seeds today, so overall no harm done (but a few lessons learned!)


Sprouticide

One of the things you have to do when your seedlings sprout is thin them out so the stronger ones can really take root and grow. Obviously this sucks for the sprout that gets pulled up, but it was sad for me as well - I had to commit "sprouticide" in order to allow my other sprouts to grow. These are basil, chard, and pak choi sprouts. Sad face! Oh well.



New gardening book! (thanks Bro!)

My awesome brother gave me this book about urban gardening for my birthday. As a general rule, I like to keep things simple - buy seeds, put them in dirt, they grow. But the more I get into this gardening project, the more I realize I don't know. So this book came at the perfect time. I'm learning a lot reading it (for example, who knew that cornmeal can be mixed into your dirt as an anti-fungal?) The author also has suggestions about how to rotate your (mini) crops, what to grow to help avoid pests and critters, how to grow things in pots and in shade. I'm lucky because I have a real plot of dirt out front. However, we also have a nice balcony in the back that gets partial sun, and I was just looking for an excuse to plant more things back there. So perhaps I will end up with two gardens - one in the front yard, and the other one in pots in the back patio!

The author suggests planting onions, oregano, and/or something from the mint family to help ward off pests. So I thought, "Okay, maybe I'll go to Home Depot and look at some more seeds, just to ward off pests, you know. And maybe think about what I could plant in back on the balcony." Well, I got a little carried away...


New seedling tray... and more!

I now have nine more varieties of seeds, another seedling tray, and another bag of potting soil. I scrounged up every available plastic container in our house to plant seedlings in, and they are all now luxuriating in some lovely dirt. I also re-potted my pole bean seedlings into bigger containers. I think I may be getting in over my head. I mean realistically, how much can I possibly grow? But I am just so excited to finally have my own garden that I don't really see the point in holding back. Some things will grow, others won't, but it will be fun no matter what. The seeds I planted today are:
- Cosmos (flowers) in yellow, red, orange, and pink)
- Catnip (in the mint family)
- Oregano
- Two types of onions ("salad scallions" if you're a yuppie seed producer)
- Red sunflowers (about half of the yellow sunflower sprouts I planted outside have died because it was cold this week - what a great excuse to buy another packet in a different color!)
- Nasturtiums (these are a beautiful and edible tropical-looking flower. I planted the kind that climbs, and I hope to train them to grow up around our balcony in back).
- Okra (why not?)
- Chinese cabbage (in case the chard decides not to grow)



Natural predators

One of the predators the author does not mention in that book is the average house cat. This is my cat Bailey, and one of his all-time favorite activities is eating plants. He regularly snacks on this houseplant, and I have no doubt that if given the opportunity he will eat my very tasty plants as well. For now I have to risk it though, because they need to stay inside (it's 52 outside today!) This is another reason to grow a lot of different kinds of plants - he may like some kinds but not others. I know he'll like the catnip!



Organic matter

One of the best ways to add nutrients to your soil is by digging organic matter into it. "Organic matter" is almost anything that decomposes - so we've started saving fruit and vegetable peels and other waste. My roommate also works at a cafe and they have plenty of coffee grounds available as well, and those also work to help bolster the soil. I plan to start digging this stuff into the soil as soon as it warms back up a bit.

That's all for the week! Thanks for checking out what's blooming in Bloomingdale! :)

plants on the ground

(In case you don't get the reference in the title of this blog post, check out this clip from American Idol (I hate the show but love this guy)

The weather in DC is lovely today (60 degrees and sunny) so I couldn't wait to get outside this morning and start mucking around in my garden! In my excitement, I forgot to take a picture of my seedling tray with all of the seeds that sprouted - so apologies, you get to see the seedlings going in the ground instead of what they looked like in the seedling tray (but don't worry - I planted more seeds so I'll take a picture when those sprout, so you can see the little forest of sprouts!)

About a day after I posted last, almost every single seed sprouted, and I had a tray full of little green mini-plants! It was amazing! They all just came up overnight. Having a cover for the seed tray makes such a big difference - it makes it into a little greenhouse and keeps the plants warm, and recycles the water. The seeds in the mini-greenhouse sprouted about three times faster than other seeds I planted in separate containers.

It's hard to tell when seedlings are big enough to plant in the ground, because they are still so little. But I don't want to wait around for all of them to grow into legitimate plants, because I don't have enough pots (or patience) to do this. The beans, peas, sunflowers, cucumbers, and tomato sprouts were all getting too big for the seedling tray, so I thought I might as well plant them outside in the ground to see what happened.

One thing you have to do when you re-pot/plant seedlings is to put as much of the seedling as possible underground, and leave the part with leaves above ground. The part of the plant put underground will sprout roots, so this gives plants a healthy chance to establish themselves in the soil.



Picture 1: My patch of earth! This is the view from the steps in front of our house. This is my garden!

One unexpected benefit of living in a group house is that others who lived here before me seemed to have also tried their hands at gardening. There were lots of old pots lying around, as well as a watering can (score!) I am putting them all to good use. The veggies are going to grow in the ground, and I have plans to plant the herbs in the pots. That way the herbs can come inside when the weather gets cold and hopefully live through the winter in the house (who knows how that will go, but it's worth a shot!)



Picture 2: Tomato seedlings! I planted one six-seedling tray of tomato seeds... and I think every single seed came up! I re-potted all of them this morning because I have no idea how many I will lose to birds/critters/etc. If they all end up growing into plants - than any of you local folks are welcome to a tomato plant! Most little sprouts look the same, but you can just barely tell they're going to be tomato plants because they have a little teeny amount of that nice prickly fuzz that tomato plants have on the stems.

One of the things I love most about tomato plants is how they smell. They have this rich, earthy, almost tangy smell. It's also so lovely to watch the little yellow flowers sprout and then have a teeny baby green tomato appear. I can't wait!



Picture 3: Sunflowers! This is a row of sunflower sprouts. I decided to plant sunflowers in the very front of the garden (close to the fence) as a way to protect the rest of the garden from passers-by. They are going to be about six feet tall, so they will provide a barrier to people who come by and feel tempted to make a snack of the tasty veggies I am growing!



Picture 4: Purple and yellow pole beans! These are my bean plants. They really look like plants, not sprouts, unlike the others. They grew the fastest of all of my little seedlings, and sprouted some fairly impressive leaves quite early! I think they literally grew about an inch a day.



Picture 5: Peas, please! These are my pea plants. Peas are one of the most fun plants to watch growing, because they have lots of little leaves, and these curly little green tendrils that reach out and grab onto everything nearby. They are a climbing plant, so you have to plant them in or next to something they can cling to as they grow. I planted them on the right side of the garden, next to the fence, so they will hopefully grow very naturally right up the fence. I didn't realize this, but pea plants can be planted 2.5 inches apart. I planted the four that sprouted, and planted three more full seedling trays (six spots per tray) of peas, because there is a nice long fence so there's lots of space for them to climb.

That's all for today... thanks for reading, and check back soon for another update!

SPROUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! SO EXCITING!!!! My first sprouts came up! This is the Pak Choi. The seed packet said they would come up in 7-10 days - I planted these on Tuesday night and they came up last night - so four days. HOOOOOORAY!! VEGETABLES!!!!!