Tuesday, March 22, 2011

March garden update

First, an admission of failure: the tomato seeds did not grow. Maybe 4 or so sprouted in each of my egg carton greenhouses...and then molded. They were fuzzy. It was just too wet. Maybe straight peat moss is a terrible medium for seed starting, or (probably) I just put too much water in it. Anyway, I tossed everything in the compost.

The new batch of compost, that is. First I moved my old batch to the garden! This picture shows what it looked like when I lifted the bottomless barrel off the pile in order to shovel it into the cart I borrowed from our neighbors. The compost could have used a few more weeks/months of "cooking" but I wanted to put it in the garden beds now, before my first planting.


I spread my compost (along with 3 additional bags of cow manure compost) over the two beds. The soil is delightfully rich and loose, and I have great hope that it will produce another bountiful harvest for us!

I decided to try semi-square-foot gardening for my first planting (carrots, lettuce, spinach, green onions, and turnips - which I bought solely out of curiosity...I don't even know if I like turnips!). I'm hoping the square plantings will yield more than rows did last year - we'll see! The lettuce in the right middle square came up on their own (from the seeds I planted there last fall). Nice!


I also planted some basil seeds in between the oregano and thyme in the first long planter. 4 strawberry plants survived from last summer (second long planter). Chocolate mint is sprouting up all over the large round pot, and I have one stem of green rosemary.

4 comments:

Diane said...

Looks great! I'll pray for good results

Meghan said...

I love your garden and find it very inspiring. I know I could not find the time/space to have a garden, but one day hope to try. You have such a beautiful set up. Oh and last year, your zucchini was so delicious! ;-)

Katherine T. Lauer said...

Absolutely beautiful! How I yearn for sun in our yard . . .

Hesses Madhouse said...

Wish it was warm enough here to get our garden planted. We have two square foot beds and will add another this year. We're actually kind of new to this whole gardening thing, so it will be fun to see how yours goes. Hope it all grows beautifully for you!