31 March 2006

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.

30 March 2006

Let's grow, Sproutlets!

Ok, I have a toddler who watches a lot of Sesame Street on the Sprout cable channel, so that's the first thing that comes to mind. However, the sproutlets in question are in the seed cells under the grow light. Last night the ones planted in seed starting mixture poked through the soil. The lights have been on 24/7 since planting and it took just four days to germinate and be visible.

Yesterday, I put out three "Wall-o-Water" covers in the raised bed. These will be for the tomato plants. The directions note that the "Wall-o-Water" should be in place for a week in order to warm the soil. It should get some good sun today as the high is predicted to be 72.

28 March 2006

First emergence from the soil

The first green shoots emerged today from one of the cells planted with James on 3/22. It took six days from planting (two under lights) until they were visible above the soil. I also finished filling the raised bed and mixing all the elements together with the tiller. I watered and left it alone to settle.

26 March 2006

Let there be light! (and it was good)


Ok, ok, I actually broke down and built a grow lamp in the laundry room with materials I purchased from Home Depot. The space we have isn't large enough to accomodate a four foot "shop" lamp so I had to use a two foot fixture, wire up a plug, and put in "grow" bulbs that simulate the proper part of the light spectrum to stimulate growth. I'm no electrician so I was very surprised how quick and easy this actually turned out to be. I hung the whole thing from a chain on some hooks I had bought to organize the garage (and never got around to mounting).

Below the lights, I hung a plastic-coated shelf meant to organize closets and put the cell tray of seedlings on it. While I was shopping, my wife and son planted five more cells with stupice tomato seed in seed starting mix that I had purchased today from Southern States. Liquid fertilzer (Miracle Grow 18-18-21) was added to all seven cells to get them jump-started. The total cost of the shelving, chain, and light was $61.67, bringing the total project cost so far to $239.88.

22 March 2006

Tomato seeds begun in cell packs

Today I planted two tomato (stupice variety) cells with 2-3 seeds in each cell tray. I don't have any grow lights so I kept them in the warmth of the kitchen window with the clear plastic top on to keep them warm. My two year old son James was my "helper" and very excited about the garden. We didn't have any seed starting mix so I just used potting soil for these two since he was so excited about planting them. We already had the cell packs from a previous gardening experiment a few years ago that my wife had done so there was no (new) cost associated with these.

11 March 2006

Construction begins



The book describes a 4' x 8' raised bed made from 2'x 8's and filled with a precise mix of soil and nutrients that vegetables love. I followed the directions and easily constructed the bed in about an hour while my son watched and drew with sidewalk chalk on the driveway. The more time-consuming task was taking up the sod, tilling the ground to break up the hard earth and partially filling the bed with the soil elements. I used a small gas powered tiller to mix it all together. It worked like an egg beater and mixed it all up just right.

05 March 2006

The purchase

Today I began the garden season by opening up not the earth but my wallet. The entire family made the trek to Home Depot (we needed two cars to carry all the stuff). We had planned to go out to eat afterward but it took so long that the kids needed to get to bed so we just came home, driving slowly as both cars were overloaded with heavy bags of soil elements.

I'm working off the plan for a raised bed garden described in The 20-Minute Vegetable Gardener: Gourmet Gardening for the Rest of Us by Tom Christopher and Marty Asher.

The total cost of all materials to build and fill the bed was $178.29. That got me the wood, hinges, screws, topsoil, sand, sphagnum peat moss, and composted cow manure. I also threw in some pelleted lime to offset the acidity of the peat moss and a small box of 6-12-6 fertilizer.

Garden prep 2006


I guess I should begin by telling you that my backyard is located in Southwest Virginia, in Washington County, in the town of Abingdon to be precise. According to the USDA, we are located in gardening zone 6b which is colored orange on this lovely graph.

This blog will detail my attempts to construct and manage a garden for the first time. It's basically my own record so I can know what I did in the garden on specific dates for coming years. If you garden nearby or in the same zone, I'd love to hear from you. Heck, if you even bother reading this, I'd be glad to hear from you so feel free to post a comment.