Seeds & Grow Rack

Today I placed my seed order with Seed Savers. I ordered everything listed in the previous post, for a grand total of $124.02. I also took a trip to Lowe's with my husband, and purchased the materials for a seed starting rack. The 6-foot utility rack, 2 shop lights, light bulbs, power strip with timer, S hooks, zip ties, and 4 small bags of potting mix came to $152.79. So, start-up costs this year are a little high (especially considering I'll be expanding the garden plots), but it's going to be a fun season!! Once I start my first seeds, I'll take pictures.

Starting Anew

Last year was really busy - moving, quickly building our garden, starting my doctoral program, getting to as many Brewers games as possible, and trying to keep up with the garden. Garden-wise, there is lots of room for improvement. My husband agrees that we should have more space, so we're actually going to triple the size of the garden, adding 4 beds! We got the 2 beds together in about 2 days last year, so this shouldn't be too much of a project. The bigger project will be hiring a landscaper to take out the trees lining the back of our property so the garden gets more sun and I can plant squash/cucumber/melon plants back there. To retain some privacy we're going to build a trellis (probably 4-5 feet high) that will become the home for my husband's hops and, at least this year, some beautiful sunflowers. We'll build a gate into the trellis so it will be a gorgeous entrance to our garden paradise.

I spent quite a few hours last night pouring over the 2011 Seed Savers Exchange catalog, and came up with a plan for this year's garden:

Beans

• Ideal Market (green stringless bean)
• Red Swan (purple stringless bean)
• Eiskerby (edamame)

Beets

• Burpee's Golden
• Chioggia (a beautiful red/white variety)

Broccoli: De Cicco

Carrots

• Dragon (gorgeous red/purple variety)
• Scarlet Nantes

Leeks: Blue Solaise

Lettuce

• Australian Looseleaf
• Forrellenschlus
• Red Iceberg

Arugula: Appollo

Melons

• Charentais
• Emerald Gem

Onion: Yellow Parma

Peppers

• Aurora (will grow in container)
• Candlelight (will grow in container)
• Bull Nose Bell
• Garden Sunshine
• Jalepeno - Traveler's strain

Spinach: Bloomsdale

Swiss Chard

• Five Color Silverbeet
• Rhubarb Red

Summer Squash

• Black Beauty Zucchini
• Golden Zucchini

Winter Squash

• Marina di Onioggia (had to plant this after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle)
• Waltham Butternut

Tomatoes

• Amish Paste
• Sheboygan
• Blondkopfchen (grew these last year and they're a must again this year)
• Dr. Wyche's Yello
• Italian Heirloom

Herbs

• Genovese Basil
• Cilantro
• Dill
• Italian Parsley
• Cilantro (will grow in container as ornamental, may end up in husband's beer)

Sunflower mixture

Whew! That's a lot of stuff, but I've already planned out my tasks on a calendar. I need to create a growing station in the basement, but my first planting task is to start the onion, parsley and chard seedlings the weekend of March 12.

I have a garden!

It's been awhile since I posted, because a lot has been going on! We moved at the end of May, and within a week we created two 16' x 4' raised beds in our backyard. It's currently planted with 16 tomato plants (the seedlings I started plus 6 heirloom plants we picked up at the farmers market, lots of basil and parsley, as well as some lettuce, sage, thyme, and garlic chives. Some little critter, likely a chipmunk, has eaten most of the parsley though. I'll have to plant that in containers.

We saw our first tomato blossom today!

Moving plants/seedlings outside

I woke up to sunshine and warm weather this morning. After checking the forecast, it doesn't look like it will be below 45 degrees for the next few days. So today, all of the seedlings as well as the plants we kept inside during the winter (thyme, chives, parsley, sage, oregano) went outside. I think I'll plant some lettuce today too. It's the first day of the outdoor farmer's market in West Allis, so I'm excited to see what they'll have to offer. Our CSA starts next week!

Tomato Seedlings!

Four tomato seedlings popped up this morning. All seedlings are still super tiny, but at least I know they're growing.

First Seedlings

I don't have a camera capable of taking pictures of them, but there are super tiny thyme seedlings emerging in one of my starter pots! I noticed them last night.

Homecooked basics

As we get ready to move, we need to have the apartment in the proper condition to show to prospective tenants. And although I don't mind an entire shelf of plants blocking a window, I don't think others will feel the same way. So, I purged our herbs by making them into something else. I cut down the entire pot of basil and made 2.5 cups of pesto. I also cut down an entire pot of parsley and grabbed some chicken bones out of the freezer to make stock. I didn't realize I had 3 carcasses in there, so I have 2 gallons of stock now. I finally went out and bought some quart containers so I can freeze the stock in manageable quantities.

It's nice not buying pesto or stock from the store - both are quite expensive and much lower quality than I can make at home.