June 2nd update - variety of things here

June 2, 2013

I'm being lazy and putting a bunch of pictures in one post - sorry

My husband working on my garden area

Pepper planting time - Basil - and Cilantro

Tomatoes straightened out.  See my onions?

Here's my cold weather box:  Bok Choy, Peas, and a variety of lettuces

Garden Box 2 - Here's my celery, eggplant, and my tiny cabbages that should be much bigger!

Bought a whisky barrel from the Rocky Mountain Barrel Company  I was lucky enough to get two quarts of Breckenridge Whisky for free!  

Hardening Off Time

May 10, 2013

Hardening off your plants is probably the worst part about growing your own plants. At least for me it is. My plants are in the basement and I have to carefully carry the trays upstairs then outside and the plants ALWAYS tip over. (That's the negative of using red Solo cups).

I started off putting the plants in the shade until they started to wilt. I did this for several days. Then I gave them morning sun until they wilted then placed them back under the lights. Once they perked up, I placed them in the shade. I did that for 3 or 4 days. Then I started just leaving them outside all day then giving them breaks in the shade if they started to wilt. It wasn't long before they could sit in the sun all day with no ill effects.

This tray has a mixture of sweet basil, purple basil, peppers, and bok choy

Here are my tomatoes - pretty leggy. Lesson learned - I'm pretty sure I kept them on the heat mat too long so they grew taller than they should. Last year I removed the heat mat as soon as they all germinated but this year I was babying them and used it for several weeks longer.

Already starting to grow flowers :)

Pepper plants are growing buds

My beautiful pepper plants. I'm very happy with how these turned out.

My celery stalk - I'm amazed how big this is considering how tiny the seed is and how hard it was to germinate.

Celery shot from above - you can see the new growth coming up.

Close up of an eggplant leaf. You can see the tiny pricklies.

Another eggplant picture

Eggplant in the back right, celery in the front right, then basil, and bok choy

The bottom basil leaves are getting ridiculous!

The purple basil is really pretty.

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.

Celery Update

April 16 -

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

Figured out how to Germinate Celery

March 23 -

So apparently celery is the hardest plant to germinate and I do have to admit that I struggled more with these plants than any other.  I thought Rosemary was tough last year.

I ran every kind of test you could think of and finally I got something that works and it's super easy.

Use peat pellets, sprinkle several seeds on top, keep misted, keep dome 2-3 days after you see at least one plant germinate,  and keep on a meat mat.

Don't cover the seeds with soil, don't use plugs, use a mister not anything else to water.

Planting 1 of 3 - I love the shape of these leaves

Planting 2 of 3 - 

Planting 3 of 3 - It's hard to tell from this picture.  I probably should have placed something in the picture so you could understand just how small these plants are.  With the naked eye, they are like thick  hairs.

Top view of all three plantings

Side view so you can see how tall they are getting.  It's hard to believe these will be vessels for snacking on peanut butter this summer!

Finally: My celery germinated!

March 8 -

I thought I would never get the celery to germinate.  I can't remember the day it came up but it was probably March 6th and I planted on February 14th.

For my second planting on February 28th, I soaked a bunch of celery seeds in water and placed it on the heat mat for 24 hours.  I took MANY seeds (which are the size of a flea's poop) and put half in a peat pellet and half in my favorite rapid rooter tree bark plugs.

Yesterday one germinated in the peat pellet and I see nothing in the plug.  I can't believe how fast this one germinated as compared to the first planting.

I started soaking more seeds today for my final planting.  I'm thinking I will use the peat pellet for the celery.  I'm thinking since the seeds are so tiny they do better in this environment than the large hole in the plug.

It's a Cabbage!

February 26

Well, my research was correct:  celery is harder to germinate than cabbage so the one plant that came up that I was unsure of (because I didn't mark them!) really is a cabbage.

See how there is a little tint of purple on the seedling, that tells me it's a cabbage and not celery.
Celery -
I'm still waiting for my celery to germinate.  My initial planting was on February 14th (which means it's been 12 days) and my 2nd planting -- because I'm thinking the seeds got cooked by my heat mat -- were planted on February 21st (which means it's been 5 days).

So if any of you are interested in growing celery, think twice.  If anyone has successfully grown celery, what am I doing wrong?

Confused...is it a Celery or a Cabbage?

February 21 -

So I only planted one celery and one cabbage.  Just one of each...and now I have NO idea which is which.  I didn't mark them and I thought I would remember.  So always remember to mark your plants no matter how confident you are that you will remember.

I planted them on February 14th and today is the 21st and neither one has germinated.  I had them on the heat mat and I'm wondering if it's just too hot for them so I moved them off the mat.

I ended up opening up the soil in both and one of them has a little root...not sure which one??  I'm guessing that tomorrow or the next day I should see something poke its head out.

I read that celery was the hardest to germinate so I'm going to assume that it's the cabbage that's coming up.

I decided to plant 2 celery today:  one in the peat pellet and one in the rapid rooter plug.  I want to see which one works best.  I am not placing on the heat mat.

Celery

February 14 -

(Select to view My Garden Plan)

I am planting 3 squares of celery:  each square gets 1 plant.  My plan is to stagger the planting in two-week intervals.  Not sure how it will work out.

I have never grown celery before and just read that it's pretty hard.  GREAT!!

I planted one plant on February 14th