Update

April 28, 2013

Front two plants are my eggplants after being transplanted into larger containers.

You can see my dead cabbage that I'm trying to revive and my celery in the top-right container.

New Grow Shelving - Tomato and Pepper Update

April 28, 2013

Got this new rack for my plants.  I like that the shelves aren't solid.  It seems as if more light is getting to the plants.  I bought these pulleys that were made for grow lights.  I love them because you can easily raise and lower your lights and not have to mess with chain links like I was before.  My husband is a smarty-tarty and color-coded the pulley strings so I knew which set to use.

So top-left shelf are my tomatoes - top-right are my peppers - bottom shelf has everything else.

Close up of my peppers

Look how big my tomatoes look compared to my peppers.  It's pretty amazing how fast everything grows.

What not to do :(

April 24, 2013

Lesson 1 - Don't leave your plants outside if it's going to get below freezing.

I was hardening off my cabbage since you can plant them in the garden so much earlier than the rest of my plants.  I only had a few more days to go until the weather appeared to stay above freezing at night and I left my plants outside all night by mistake.

I left for work and there they were...I couldn't believe I killed my plants.

I will start two more seedlings...I planted these February 28th and killed them April 24th:  that puts me approximately 55 days behind schedule...not sure this is going to work out  :(

Eggplant Update

April 19, 2013

I know, I know, the picture isn't clear.  I really didn't want to set up the giant tripod to take one picture.  The photo focused on the Poblano label instead of the two eggplants in the front of the picture.  As you can see, they are growing pretty fast.

(Before transplant to red Solo cup)

Tomato Transplant Time

April 18, 2013

Look how big my basil and tomatoes got!

First I use my favorite potting soil: Roots Organics


Here are the ingredients:

Coco fiber, peat moss, perlite, pumice, premium worm castings, bat guano, kelp, fish bone meal, soy bean meal, feather meal, greensand, leonardite, and alfalfa meal.

Place some soil in a bowl and add water.  You don't want your soil to become soggy, just not dry.

Place a small amount of soil into the red solo cup (cut five small holes in the bottom for bottom watering) then sprinkle some Mykos.(fro

Information from Mykos' website:   increases plant biomass and yield by up to 300%. Xtreme Gardening® MYKOS (mycorrhizae) is a beneficial soil fungus that facilitates the breaking-down and transporting of nutrients to plant roots.

MYKOS increases the availability of both the moisture and nutrients required for plant growth and connects many of the microbes in healthy soil to host plants. With one application, MYKOS is capable of transforming an ordinary garden into something Xtreme! 

You can see the white Mykos sprinkles

Remember I started my tomatoes in my rapid rooter plug.  Once the roots started coming through the plugs, I put enough potting soil in the grow tray to raise the plugs almost to the surface.  Then I surrounded the plug with more potting soil (see below)

 Place the root plug in the cup.  As you can see, I put some soil on the bottom to give the roots something to stretch out in AND I left room at the top so I can burry the plants deeper than they were originally.

Tomato stem grow roots if buried.  So each time you move them, burry them deeper.

Viola!  Final product.  I will keep my plants in these cups until it's time to take outside.

 Here is what my setup currently looks like.  You can see my tomatoes on the top left.  My peppers and eggplant and some herbs are on the top right.  The bottom shelf has my bok choy, cabbage, and celery.

Celery Update

April 16 -

Here are my three celery - each planted two weeks from each other

New Garden Beds

April 13 -

My husband is in the middle of building me new 4X4s (qty 4) and now a 5X7 (qty 1).  I originally wanted a 3X5 and he talked me out of it so now I will have 99 Square Feet to garden in.

My other beds were about 12 inches deep and these are 15 inches deep so I will have to get a yard of dirt to get these filled.

As soon as he placed these two in the backyard it started snowing so it will be a little while before my yard dries out enough for me to move dirt back there.

Look how amazing these beds are.  My old beds had the posts in the inside which messed up some of my squares.  I'm waiting for him to notch the tops somehow so that I can use one long string to grid out my beds.  Last year I drilled a screw every foot and then hand tied a string from one side to the next.  I hated doing that plus at the end of the season you want to turn your soil and add amendments so you have to remove the grid.  I'm thinking his idea will make it easier.

Some people make a wood grid and lie it in the bed but to me it looks as if he takes some of our real estate away.  Maybe not?

Lesson Learned

April 15 - (Happy Birthday to my daughter!)

First things first.  I would like to dedicate those post to Ryan.  Ryan loves Bok Choy and loves reading my Bok Choy posts...so this is for you!

I started my Bok Choy way to early!  My first planting got so big that I had to eat it, which, of course, I didn't mind.

Look how big they got and how great they look without bugs getting to them before I do.

I made a stir fry.  First you cut the tops of and cook the meaty stems (I'm sure there's a name for that?)

Then you add the leaves

All done!  So yummy!!!!

So you thought the lesson learned was not to start too early?  I wish that was it.  Since so many of my Bok Choy is getting so big, and I have limited space, the smaller plants weren't able to thrive.  I didn't notice this until I pulled the bigger plants out.

Compare how these are growing to the ones above.  The plant isn't even shaped the same.  You can see how the plant had to open up to try to get some light and had to grow taller without growing thicker.

So with the amount of space that I have indoors and the growing season, I will start my plants four weeks later next year than I did this year.