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.