Cabbage Planting 2 of 2 and Pepper Planting 1 of 2

February 28 -

Cabbage
Started my 2nd cabbage.  Seems silly starting another one when my first one is so tiny.  I'm wondering if 2 weeks really makes a difference.  We will find out. :)

Habanero

It's -10 weeks before the last frost and you can start peppers indoors between -10 to -8 weeks.  Most seem to opt for -8.

I noticed last year that my habaneros took a lot longer to grow and a lot longer to harvest than all of my other pepper plants so I decided to start my habaneros earlier than the others.

Well, I just read the back of the package and compared it to all of my other peppers and boy don't I feel dumb.  These take 100 days to harvest while all my others are around 70 days...so...with my little 7-day head start, not thinking that's going to make a difference!

I have done so much research, why haven't I seen something out there saying to start these 2-3 weeks before your other peppers?  Everything I've seen just has you starting all of your peppers at the same time.  (perhaps that's why they have the information on the back of the packet?)

Last year I started all of my peppers on week -10 (notice the 2/29/12 written on the packet) so I'm disappointed that I forgot to start the habaneros on week -11 or week -12 and all other peppers on week -10.  Oh, well.  It will be fine.

This year I'm going to allow for two plants to grow next to each other and treat them like one plant.  I read that by doing that the leaves from each other's plant helps to shade each other and the fruit so you end up with stronger, healthier plants.

My plants were amazing last year so I'm nervous to try something new but you don't know unless you try.  I'm thinking I'll split it up and test half of my peppers with twosies and the other half by themselves.

I'll do the tests so you don't have to.

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?

Bok Choy - Planting 3 of 6

February 21st

Planted five Bok Choy today using the rapid rooter plugs I only need four but am planting an extra just in case.  My first planting has one plant that is growing pretty slow and another that's turning yellow.

You can see the two on the right are growing strong and the ones on the left, not so much.

See how yellow one of them are?  Do you think if I keep adding fertilizer to it that it would green up?  Why would plants grown in the exact same environment turn out so different from one another?  Is this typical? (Yes, I ask a lot of questions...it's in my nature) I guess these are things you learn through the process.

Even the leaf is getting crispy-fried.

Look how beautiful the one next to it is.

I read that if Bok Choy turns yellow that it needs nitrogen fertilizer.  I don't know what to use?  I have some of that blue-powdered Miracle Grow (not organic so I need to figure out something) and made a batch at half the recommended strength.

Since these are still pretty young, I was afraid to give it full strength.  Let's see if it makes a difference.

I also transplanted all four of the first planting into small containers since I was starting to see the roots come through the netting of the peat pellets.

I first cut the netting off then planted with my favorite soil: roots organic.

Ingredients: 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.       

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.

Cabbage

February 14 -

(Select to view My Garden Plan)

I'm planting 2 squares of cabbage.  Each square gets 1 cabbage.  I'm only planting 2 because I'm uncertain if this is something I want to grow.

I plan to plant each cabbage 2 weeks apart.

I planted my first cabbage on February 14th.

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

Bok Choy

(Select to view My Garden Plan)

I saved my Bok Choy seeds from last year and started four plants inside on January 20th.  They germinated in three days and true leaves started on February 1st.

I'm planting 6 squares with 4 plants each...I'm spacing my planting by planting 4 plants every 2 weeks. I'm freaking clueless if I'm too early or too late??

 Can you guess which photo I didn't use a tripod?  My husband said I had to use one and I didn't believe him so I tested it.  I hate it when he's right!

(photos taken February 4th.) 

February 7 -
Here are the seeds I saved from my garden last year.  I have tons of them, this is just a sampling.  I purposely let one Bok Choy flower and go to seed for this year's planting.  If you do this every year, you will never have to buy seeds.

Today I planted four more plants for my second square out of six.

 I moved my existing plants into a separate container so that I could place the dome on this container to get the seeds to germinate.  I bought several of these little HydroFarm green houses.  I'm not crazy about using the peat pellets but I didn't want to throw them out.  My preference is what I used last year:  Rapid Rooter Plugs.  The plugs stay moist much longer.  (Did I really just use the word "moist"?)  I only had to water every few days and with these I have to water twice a day...no thanks!

February 10 -

Yesterday I lifted the clear dome and saw nothing.  This morning I was quite surprised to find this:

Again, it took only three days to germinate.  I immediately removed the dome and placed under the lights as close as possible.  You can see how the seedlings are thin and long.  If I kept the dome on and did not move the light closer, they would become so leggy that they would just fall over.  I've seen where people grow stuff under the dome for long periods of time but I have never had any luck with that technique.  I only use the dome for germinating.

I still have these on the heat mat but now they are separated with canning rings so that the bottom of the tray is not directly on the mat.  So heat mat, two levels of canning rings, then tray.

  I do this so that the soil doesn't get too hot and so the roots aren't as close to the heat source.

I removed the first batch from the heat mat altogether.  I read that Bok Choy bolts quicker if it's in constant warm temperatures.  I figured I can use the heat mat for the first two weeks then move them off the mat completely.
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February 14 -

Update - The four plants in front were planted exactly seven days ago.  The plant in the back was planted 25 days ago.

 All four from my first January 20th planting

Making so many changes...

I love this comparison.  They are only 18 days apart.  You can see how every day when you look at your seedlings you can see physical changes.  I love that about gardening.