The Growing Challenge Update
Posted on May 20, 2008 by
Well, I’ve been totally delinquent with my Growing Challenge posts, for several reasons.
- I’m lazy about taking pictures and then getting pictures out of the camera and onto my website.
- I’ve done a ton of work, but I need to obtain some mulch to make the pathways in my garden look pretty so I can show you and it’ll be a “wow, I can’t believe that was all grass and now it’s a garden” moment, instead of a “wow, that looks kind of funny, but I can see where she’s going with it” moment.
- Except for a handful of plants (ten tomato, three sage, two pepper, and one lavender), the seedlings I started indoors bit it. We get horrible light in our house, and I bought this fancy organic soil at the natural foods store, but it seems to want to grow white mold more than it wants to grow seedlings. They all sprouted, looked like the were doing great and then keeled over and died a few days later. Fun. I’m going to direct seed everything I can, and buy some plants, but I’m sad that the seedlings didn’t work out.
Here’s what’s going well:
- The beds are all dug and ready to be planted.
- The blueberries are flowering (top photo).
- I bought and planted strawberry plants and they are already sending out new plants (and have, thankfully, recovered nicely from my just-turned-five-year-old neighbor riding his scooter through them! Grr.).
- The broccoli rabe (above) I planted is coming up nicely, as are the snap peas. We’ve been enjoying the broccoli rabe thinnings in salads.
- I planted carrots and there are little tufts of green coming up in a nice neat row.
- The tomato seedlings look amazing and I’m going to have more cherry tomatoes than I know what to do with.
- I planted rosemary in three whiskey barrels (below). I’m hoping the plants get really big.
Wow! I am so impressed and a bit jealous. What a wonderful, healthy summer you are going to have!
I think the garden looks great! We started in containers because we are living in an apartment and the poor quality of light forced me to grow a bunch of stuff at work where it seems to be doing fairly well. BUt to get to that point I think at least 2/3 of our seeds never sprouted or died after sprouting.
It looks great so far!
Thanks!
I wonder what the trick is to seed sprouting! It’s really disheartening to watch them die.
looking good! i picked up a cheap table-top grow light kit this year and it definitely made a difference in my seed-starting. unfortunately due to unforseen circumstances i still haven’t been able to get any of them planted in the ground yet, but at least they are thriving!
That’s great! Keep up the good work.
Thanks, MG.
Danielle — that’s an awesome idea. I should look into that.
i got mine from Gardener’s Supply Company in Burlington, VT. Their website is gardeners.com, if you want to check it out!