Clay

by Garden-Wellington

I know that the soil here is not good for growing, and that it is a very clay-like medium.  It's been really noticeable this week after it snowed and melted.  It is so gross!  Mud and muck everywhere. I have shoes saved for the purpose of walking in this stuff, but I still can't get used to all the mucky stuff that gets stuck to them.  It's slippery, too.  And you can't always tell it's mud until you step in it and slip. The water doesn't drain well.  It just stands on top of the clay before it ...

So Many Tomatoes

by Garden-Wellington

By now it's no secret, I planted way too many tomato plants and started them way too early.  They are big enough to be planted outside, but I can't put them out there for another month.  I decided to take drastic measures.I decided I need to transplant them again into larger containers.  These will need to hold them until they go into the ground.  I've already used all the sour cream and cottage cheese containers I'd saved, so thought I'd try to buy some.  I didn't want to spend a lot of money o ...

More “Potting On”

by Garden-Wellington

In the past couple of weeks, we made a second shelf of grow lights for more seedlings and to make room for the larger size of pots for the seedlings I've transplanted.  I think I did about a hundred of these today!  Tim also rigged up some shades to cover them at night to deter the cats from messing with them.  Quite a setup!The tomato plants are doing very well, nearing a foot tall.  I know that I planted way too many, too soon.  Live and learn!  I wish I didn't have to learn by making mistakes ...

Soil Blocking

by Garden-Wellington

I made a few more blocks today--very fun. We haven't built more grow lights yet, and the ones we have are pretty full, so I was wondering what to do with these newly planted seeds until we make the new grow lights. They don't really need light until they germinate, but I need to keep them away from the cats. Aha! I put them on TOP of the current grow lights. They should benefit from the warmth of the lights, too. The trays of soil blocks look like brownies at first glance! Soon there will ...

My First Soil Blocks!

by Garden-Wellington

I made my first soil blocks today! Here's photos of my first row, and then 4 trays almost done. There are a few recipes around for the soil to use to make the blocks; I used one from my Burpee book that seemed easy. I was glad that I'd seen another one that suggested to screen the compost & peat to 1/4", because I did that, and I think it helped. I got quite a few of the larger chunks out that way. I had done some reading and found that it will be good to water them from the bottom, but tha ...

“Potting On”

by Garden-Wellington

Today I did my first "potting on", or transferring the little seedlings into larger pots.  I made some larger pots out of newspaper, and put the little guys into the bigger pots.  It was easy enough, but I'm thinking that next year I may consider the potting blocker method all the way--from start to finish.  The larger size newspaper pots aren't holding together as well as I'd hoped, and I'll have to be careful with them.  I don't want to use plastic pots--I think that transplanting will go much ...

Rabbits

by Garden-Wellington

Our plan has been to have a path around the entire perimeter of our garden for Lucky (the dog) to run, so she can continue to bark at the bunnies to keep them away!  We were concerned that she would mess up our sheet mulching process, so we had Lucky confined to the front yard until we could fence it off.  The next day we looked out and saw that the bunnies have discovered that Lucky was gone, and already about 10 of them were having a party in the backyard, trying to find new goodies.  There is ...

Seedling Progress

by Garden-Wellington

I've started some broccoli, kale and yellow bell peppers this week.  I'm wondering whether I started some of the others too soon, but we'll make do with what we've got.  I potted these in newspaper pots, and no longer plan to use the peat pots I used earlier.  I prefer the individual pots (I got the peat pots that are 8-packs).  They're also cuter, they reuse old newspapers, and are free.  The 8-packs are also less convenient for tossing the ones that didn't germinate or aren't doing well.  I'll ...