Potager Schoultz...
Mike's parents decided to set up a garden of raised beds in the backyard directly in front of the sun room about 15 feet from Patch Market. Mikes Dad bought a raised bed kit and 5 tomato plants and his mom bought some herbs and peppers. I am so excited that they decided to set up there own garden because the backyard will be full of veggies and fruits. My dream of stepping out on a warm late spring and early summer morning and smelling everything grow will come true. I was so excited that they were setting up there garden I decided to input all of the plant varieties they purchased and the sized beds into SmartGardener.com. I even chose a name and a few extra plants I'd heard them talking about. The new name is Potager (french for kitchen garden) Schoultz (their last name). I think it might be cuter than Patch Market, not that they are going to make a sign and all of that for their garden but I did have to input a name to create the garden layout on SmartGardener.
It took me a couple of hours to find the types of tomatoes they'd chosen, pick vegetables that went well and they'd spoken of, and chose the number of plants. I don't know that they'll use the exact plan and don't expect it because I only went on varieties I'd remembered. They have a lot more space, I just tried to fill it in with the things they'd actually bought. The site recommends where to place each plant after selecting them. That was the true reason I set it up... Mikes dad asked me something that had to do with spacing and harvesting. So now they know where to plant what they did buy and maybe they'll even buy a few things I added so that the plants they bought have the best companions.
Patch Market...
Yesterday before all of the Potager Schoultz stuff happened I went to the AFAC work party and when I got home I had lunch, relaxed, and headed back out to tend to my garden. I finally planted something in Patch. I planted the carrots and radishes. I am so excited to see them start germinating. I hope that the carrots make it. I was a little discouraged when they spoke about the carrots they'd planted for AFAC at the Central Library. They sowed the seeds a couple weeks prior to the work party and as far as we could see they weren't doing very well. That's part of the reason I chose to plant yesterday instead of waiting until the LFD. If the carrots don't germinate I'll have the time to replant.
My strawberries are so healthy dark green and tall it is amazing to see the growth from brown duds to lively beautiful plants. My lettuce on the other hand has started to wilt a little bit. The iceberg has shown new growth in the heart but the old leaves and some of the new have lost there crisp upright posture. I think it's a little hot in the greenhouse for them. Now, that we are in April, and the days have begun to warm, I am going to transplant them. Lettuce is a cool weather crop and because it's cool outside the greenhouse is now warm to hot. I realized that is how the greenhouse seems to work... it is about one season ahead of where the outside world is. So, tomorrow I add lettuce to the carrots and radishes in the raised bed. Soon I'll have a full house.
Patch Testing...
My raised bed veggies aren't doing much yet, obviously, but I do have a few test updates. The spinach cup pre-germs. that fell over and were transplanted from the glass-papertowel-bottle are growing very well. The seedlings are about an inch tall and seemed to survive the little mishap without any set backs. Again, plants are much more resilient then they've been made out to be. The watermelon seeds are still just soil and newspaper. The radishes seed tape and primed radishes that fell over have all germinated and are doing extremely well. I even took them all the way out and put them back into the soil and they are growing at the average rate if not quicker for being primed and taped. And again, it seems like the flour water paste has the same affect on the rate of germination as the soaking in tepid water does.
The carrot seeds in the glass bottle have pre-germinated at about 25% and the rest have molded. I'll have to look into testing other ways to pre-germinate carrot seeds. I don't think the wet paper towel works for carrots. The scarified watermelon seed is at the same stage of the control seed in the glass bottle, nothing's changed. I guess we'll see on those too. The sweet potato that rooted and grew root hairs is doing amazingly. It drink about a fourth of a glass of water each day and the roots just continue to grow. I am hoping that means I'll start getting some shoots in the next week and I'll be able to plant my slips rather than buy plants.
I started priming the lemon balm for those tests. I am going to attempt growing it from seed by priming and pre-germination. I have my reservation because of the tiny seed size but we'll see how it goes. I'll be planting the primed seeds tomorrow along with the lettuce and a dry watermelon seed (control seed).
