Sunday Seedlings Update #6

It's been an exciting week for the kitchen-garden-in-progress. For one thing, the raised beds finally got some soil in them! But... it's not enough. I need to top them off a bit so I'm comfortable with the soil depth, and then... I need to plant! I have peas and blue potatoes that are just begging to be put in the ground. Very exciting.

And on to our seedlings...

The leeks have become a tangle of grasses. Anyone know what to do with them at this point?? I'm out of my depth. I assume they need to be thinned, but I'm too chicken to do it. I know they're supposed to be transplanted when they're "the size of a pencil, maybe a bit thinner," but it's hard to imagine how they're going to get to that point.



The thyme is also a bit of a tangle, but herbs being what they are, I'm not too worried about it.



Look! The parsley is starting to look parsley-ish! First true leaves have appeared in the last few days, very exciting.



Eggplant is coming in nicely. Last year I only had one surviving plant from the seeds I started -- hoping for a better yield this year!



I planted the basil in eggshells. Just because. I'm a big fan of cute, and a big fan of eggshells in the compost, so I thought this might be a cool combination. I have had very good success with basil for many years running now, so I hope this year doesn't disappoint me. Especially considering how much I start to rely on it for my cooking...



Broccoli! It's so cute, I can't stand it.



Tomatoes have come up nicely, need to get some more varieties. I'm thinking just one is too limiting, even if they do well. Any heirloom recommendations?



And this silly sage sure has kept me waiting, but all of a sudden it's had a growth spurt! It looks so lovely, reaching for the sky...



Our weekly summary:

Leeks: Planted 6 weeks ago, has become a thicket.
Thyme: Planted 5 weeks ago, finally has first leaves.
Parsley: Planted 4 weeks ago, first true leaves!
Eggplant: Planted 4 weeks ago, looking good.
Sage: Planted 3 weeks ago, wowie! Getting tall.
Broccoli: Planted 3 weeks ago, tall and hearty-looking.
Basil: Planted 1 week ago, just emerging.
Tomato (red calabash): Planted 1 week ago, coming up nicely.

Check back every Sunday (or sometimes Monday) as we follow the progress of our kitchen garden from seed to table!

Sunday Seedlings Update #5

My seedlings are feeling camera-shy. Really it's that it's been so cloudy, all my pictures look terrible. So you're going to have to take my word for it.

Oh, fine. We all need to be humbled now and then. Here's what the 99.9% of pictures I take that you don't see look like. It ain't pretty.

Broccoli is surprisingly tall and willowy in seedling form:



And the parsley continues to thrive, which is good because I have cooked two recipes that included parsley this week and I'm just so excited about getting to use my own soon. (Also, did you know that parsley attracts butterflies? Especially when planted near a butterfly-attractive flower like verbena? We had black swallow-tail butterflies and caterpillars the last time we grew parsley -- quite an exciting addition to the garden.)



OK, seriously, that's all I'm showing you. They're doing well, I promise! Scout's honor!

And this week we planted basil and tomato. Red calabash tomatoes, to be precise, which for some reason makes me start singing "Rock the Casbah" in my head every time I read it.

Anyhow, basil seeds:



And tomato seeds:



We have six weeks until my planned planting date, and still no soil in the raised beds. I know! I need to get cracking, but I was trying to calculate the amount of soil needed and my head exploded. Got to get on that this week, though, because my peas are begging to be put in the ground.

And now, because I have some kind of obsession with growing things, I must show you... the wheatgrass! I saw a fabulous tutorial on Simple Kids, showing how to grow wheatgrass in the kids' Easter baskets. I was totally charmed, and ran out to the grocery store to buy wheatberries. I soaked them overnight, lined the Easter baskets with containers from the recycling bin, filled with potting soil, and planted my wheatgrass. But I had all these extra wheatberries. So I kind of got carried away...











Basically, I started planting wheatgrass in anything that would sit still. But now... look!



Roots and shoots! Ah, these are the things that feed my soul.

Our weekly summary:

Leeks: Planted 5 weeks ago, looking spindly.
Thyme: Planted 4 weeks ago, seems to have stagnated.
Parsley: Planted 3 weeks ago, lookin' good.
Eggplant: Planted 3 weeks ago, tall stalks.
Sage: Planted 2 week ago, finally emerging.
Broccoli: Planted 2 week ago, tall and willowy.
Basil: Planted today.
Tomato (red calabash): Planted today.

Check back every Sunday as we follow the progress of our kitchen garden from seed to table!

Sunday Seedlings Update #4

Sunday again, and time to check in on the progress of our kitchen garden.

We didn't have any seeds to start this week, which worked out well, since we spent much of the weekend building our new raised beds! Yay! Here they are, all ready to fill up with dirt.



And given how warm and gorgeous the weather was this weekend, it's tempting to just plant those seeds directly in the ground (once I have some ground for them to go in!). But I've been lulled by a mild early Spring before, only to have my hopes dashed by an unexpected late frost. I will stick to my Mother's Day planting date for the majority of my crops. Peas and potatoes, I'll be getting in the ground sooner, though. (Which reminds me -- my blue seed potatoes were supposed to be here by now... better check on that.)



So, time to check in on how all our little seedlings are doing! Goodness, I just love the baby stage of plants... they're so tiny and fragile.

Here are the leeks, still in need of further thinning, lest it be mistaken for tall fescue or something:



And the thyme, which is getting sturdy and probably also needs to be thinned:



Parsley is coming along nicely and starting to look like a real plant:



And we finally have some eggplant action as well:



I can't say the same for the sage we planted last week. It looks like I'm going out of my way to care for the dirt gently nestled in an egg carton. Hello? Sage? Comin' out anytime soon?



Ah, but my broccoli is consoling me with its cute little baby brassica sprouts:



Our weekly summary:

Leeks: Planted 4 weeks ago, in need of a ruthless culling.
Thyme: Planted 3 weeks ago, also needing thinning.
Parsley: Planted 2 weeks ago, coming up nicely.
Eggplant: Planted 2 weeks ago, just starting to emerge.
Sage: Planted 1 week ago, taking its sweet time.
Broccoli: Planted 1 week ago, already sprouting nicely.

Check back every Sunday as we follow the progress of our kitchen garden from seed to table!

Sunday Seedlings Update #3

Wait, what? It's not Sunday? The whole household has been staggering around, delirious from sleepless nights, performances, houseguests, and one heck of a Spring cold. That's my excuse anyway.

So, it's Sunday Monday night! And time to check in on the progress of our kitchen garden!

First a peek at our established seedlings:

I thinned the leeks, but I think I'm going to have to thin them more. They seem happy, though.



And the thyme is coming along nicely, although very sensitive to sun placement -- I have to remember to keep turning them so they don't grow sideways.



Last week, we planted eggplant and parsley -- and thank goodness I gave them an extra day, or I would have had to report that there was no action from either one. But today, the first little parsley sprouts came poking through.



Eggplant is still a mystery, though. Hoping for the best.

This week, we planted broccoli and sage. Here's what the seeds look like, in case you were curious...

Broccoli:



And sage:



They were planted in another motley crew of containers. Hooray for the recycling bin!



In other gardening news, the snow finally melted and I was getting geared up for building my raised beds... until it decided to rain for days on end and turn my yard into Mudville. If I can wade out there, I may try to get them built next weekend, so I can fill them with soil and compost and get my super-early seeds in the ground already! Times a-wastin', by gum.

Our weekly wrap-up:

Leeks: Planted 3 weeks ago, thinned once, need more thinning. Doing great!
Thyme: Planted 2 weeks ago, about one inch tall.
Parsley: Finally beginning to sprout.
Eggplant: Whole lotta nothin'...
Sage: Planted today, 7-21 days to germination.
Broccoli: Planted today, 5-14 days to germination.

Check back every week as we follow our kitchen garden from seed to table!

Sunday Seedlings Update #2

It's Sunday, time to check in on the progress of our kitchen-garden-in-progress! What a difference a week makes. The leek seedlings have really come up, and are beginning to look like a nice patch of grass. About time to thin them, I think, while I still can.



And is this thyme the most adorable thing you've ever seen?? The seeds were ridiculously tiny, and now I can see why. Of course, thyme isn't exactly a giant of the garden or anything, but I still think the scale of these seedlings is remarkable. I keep imagining microscopic fairies wandering through a forest of thyme seedlings... Okay, I have a vivid imagination.



Moving on...

So today we will be planting eggplant and parsley.





We have a motley assortment of planting containers today. Eggplant seeds will be planted in a wide variety of reclaimed items from the recycling bin -- this is just to demonstrate that virtually anything can be repurposed into a planting container. Just remember to make holes in the bottom for proper drainage.



And the parsley will be planted in cut-up paper towel and toilet paper rolls (with a layer of newspaper in the bottom to keep the soil from spilling out).



Fill with soil...



And tuck in the seeds!



Our weekly recap:

Leeks: planted 2 weeks ago, thriving. Time to thin.
Thyme: planted 1 week ago, already sprouting!
Parsley: planted today, 14-21 days to germination
Eggplant: planted today, 5-10 days to germination

Check back every Sunday for an update on the kitchen garden!

Sunday Seedlings Update #1

The leeks were planted one week ago today. My, haven't they grown? Do you see how they come sprouting up as a long, folded stalk, and then gradually straighten up? Fascinating!

Today we planted thyme seeds -- German winter thyme, specifically. This is my first year growing it, but the bonus is, it's a perennial. So hopefully these plants will establish themselves and I can then ignore them. Which I am really, really good at doing.

So our seedling update:

Leeks: 1 week, doing fine
Thyme: planted today, 14-21 days to germination

And the remaining seeds that will be started indoors to get an early start: parsley, eggplant, broccoli, sage, tomato, basil, cucumber, pumpkin, zucchini. Oh, and daisies, because the five-year-old insisted.

Check back every Sunday for a kitchen garden update!

From Seed to Table: Step 1

If you're planning a kitchen garden this year, your first step -- besides planning, choosing, etc. -- is to acquire and plant seeds. Of course, many people start with plants, and there's nothing wrong with that. Especially for beginners, you have a dramatically better shot at actually eating something you grow if you start with established plants. But it is oh so satisfying to start from seed. Not only do you have far more varieties from which to choose, but you save a ton of money. And you get to witness the miracle of germination! Not to mention the nail-biting risk of all the many things that can go wrong!

I like a little excitement in my gardening. So I start just about everything from seed.



I made myself a nifty little calendar where I counted back from Mother's Day (the accepted planting date around here) the number of weeks necessary to start each kind of plant. So pretty much each Sunday from now until late April, I'll be starting some seeds. Today was quite a milestone -- we got to plant the very first seeds. Leeks, apparently, take forever to grow into those long, sleek stalks you see in the grocery store, so there was no time to lose.

I surveyed the supplies in the garage and found a small bag of Jiffy seed starter mix. And of course, a seed starting tray. (At one point, I had five of these. There are only two in the garage. Hmm.) Fill loosely with seed starter mix, water well, let the water soak in for about 20 minutes, and you're ready to go.



We planted the leeks quite shallowly, both because my various guides said to plant to a depth of 1/4 to 1/2 an inch and because I had a five-year-old helping me.

Ever wonder what leek seeds look like? They look like this:



Cool! We tucked the seeds gently into the soil, and watered well. Then we put the plastic cover on to ensure the soil stays moist. (You only use the plastic cover until the seeds germinate. Once you have bona-fide seedlings, you lose the cover, since they'll need to, you know, breathe.)



And now we wait. 4-12 days, saith my seed packet. Sigh, it always feels like forever. In the meantime, we just have to keep the soil moist. The trouble with watering seeds and seedlings is that they need very, very gentle watering. You have to be very careful not to damage the tender sprouts. A few years ago, I came up with a DIY watering bottle that does a great job of watering gently but thoroughly.



Take any flexible plastic bottle, such as a water bottle or 20-ounce soda bottle. Use an awl or a hammer and nail to make holes in the screw-on lid. I have one bottle with just a single hole, for when I need a tiny, targeted trickle of water, and another with several holes. Fill with water, turn upside down, and squeeze gently. The single-hole one is great for when you want to water around the bottom of a seedling without wetting the leaves.



Ahh. I can't tell you what a thrill it is to have my hands in the dirt for the first time this year. Simple pleasures. Next week: thyme!