First seeds in the ground

Today was the day it all began. Say what you will about year round gardening, seedings under lights, soil preparation, composting, mulching, etc; it really feels like the garden is open when there are seeds planted outside. That's what happened today as I put out the first of the crops in the new raised bed. The selections will form the "salad section" of the garden and consist of arugula (rocquette), lettuce (florenscheiss romaine), rosalita (another romaine), and spinach. Today's temps hit over 70 again so I figured it was now or never for the lettuce. If the bed had been ready earlier, I would have planted earlier, maybe around the middle of March instead of the last day of the month. Oh well.

I also did a soil test with a home kit that I bought at Southern States. The pH was around 6.5-7 as far as I could tell from the color chart on my admittedly inexpensive test kit. The slight acidity was no doubt due to the sphagnum peat mix that I used in the soil mix (I still haven't blogged the soil recipe yet but I'll get to it eventually). The dolomitic lime that I added last week hasn't had time to dissolve and leech in yet but that should bring the measurement more alkaline in time as it does.

For what it's worth, I also cut the lawn for the first time today. The mowing looks great and it was actually fun to be out on the John Deere tractor again zipping around the yard. Before getting going however, I did all the annual maintenance called for in the manual as well as that recommended at 25 hours of run rime. The tractor was new at this time last year and the display read 24.5 hours when I started today. I'll be curious to look back this time next year and see if that holds true again.

Oh, I almost forgot. James and I were at Lowe's this morning and I made a pass through the garden center. The herbs looked good so I picked up a couple of basil and oregano plants as well as some pots to transplant them to. I'll put them out on the deck when it gets warm enough. They're under the grow lights right now, keeping the tomato seedlings company. Basil and tomatos go so well together on the plate that they should learn to live together from an early age in my garden. I'm planning to also get some rosemary and grow the herbs in pots on the back deck where they'll get plenty of sun and be close to the kitchen for easy picking. I also love garlic but that's a bulb best planted in the fall so I'll get to that then when other plants are beginning to peter out.

Today's costs totaled $50.77 (the herb pots were most of that), bringing the project total to $290.65.