Green thumb is itching, anyone else?

[Kassaundra]

I finally got my tomato and pepper seeds started in the house. I repurposed my cookie tin water heater for the base of the seedling starting tray, hoping that keeps the dirt warm enough to germinate those pesky pepper plants.

 

[afveteran88]

It is gonna be 63 here in Michigan today. But still to wet to get in the garden. I started seeds yesterday and look forward to April.

 

[j and bs hens]

Seeds are sprouting in the green house, and can't wait for spring!

 

[Carols Clucks]

Kassaundra, what is a cookie tin water heater?

Well, I am feeling better about the garden, the drip by the house is pretty much done.

We got two of the terraces turned over and our compost added. One has our soaker, basket and pipe sections laid out so we can plan. And straw over the top between the baskets and for our walks. We will cover the walks with wood chips later.

Three more bigger terraces to go, those are more like single day jobs for us. Then the edges, companion beds and pumpkin zones.

Nothing in the ground yet for the main garden, but that is the fun and quick part!

 

[Kassaundra]

It is basically a light bulb in a cookie tin that you set your water on in the winter to keep it from freezing. So I brought it inside and planted my seeds in a shallow metal pan (to conduct the heat) and covered the whole thing in plastic wrap, so hopefully those cold blooded little pepper seeds will be toasty warm enough to come out of there shells.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/107951/cookie-tin-water-heater

 

[Carols Clucks]

We went to an Organic Gardening class today, interesting! The speaker heard me say something about us having all the March plants in so I guess we really are not behind, he said oh no....this year March is April, so we are behind...lol

On the other hand, the other feed store says no wait til April for the tomatoes.

We are going to start a couple of tomatoes now, more at the beginning of April and then more in the middle of April, mostly because I want to go to a tomato fest at a different nursery and see what they have.

3 stumps to finish digging out and 1.5 beds to dig and we are almost done with the prep on the big garden

 

[harveyhorses]

I don't think I have told you all this, but I might have a problem. I looked at all the seeds I wanted to start, looked at my garden spaces
did some mathing, looked at the seeds, looked at my space, and put in a new raised bed. Because every summer I go to the farm supply
store, and there are the poor rootbound, left over plants with fruit on them marked down to .50. and they follow me home.
I am going to start the Tomato Rescue Group.

The plus side is I had the materials, and that is just more grass I don't have to cut.

 

[Carols Clucks]

Harvey,

I have a problem too. But mine right now is different than I thought it would be a month ago....

We have a cool season/winter veggie garden by the house (instead of a big lawn)

In the lower garden area veggie zone, we have 4 of 5 beds dug up and compost added. I have some soaker hoses, tomato cages etc set out. And I thought I had a perfect lay out.

Only now It seems I have one more bed than I really need.


Going to go over my list again and see if there is something I forgot. I can always fill with with the extra seeds that came up. But thinking I must have forgotten something

 

[harveyhorses]

Potatoes? Peppers?
I am not growing squash this year, last two years my plants took up a huge amount of space and I got maybe 6 squash.

 

[HHandbasket]

We are going to be very careful this year with how much squash we plant. We're growing jarrahdale pumpkins and spaghetti squash for our fall squashes, but I'm planting traditional zucchini (black beauty) and yellow squash (crookneck) for summer squashes, might do a patty pan squash, too (when I was a little girl, I called it "spaceship squash" & I still call it that, but nobody knows what the deuces I'm talking about LOL). We have a ton of space, though. Whatever we don't have room for in the yard, we can plant down the driveway where the landlords have a huge chunk of space/dirt that they're not doing anything with.

We have a lot of miner's lettuce growing wild out here. If you have never tried miner's lettuce, I think Baker Creek sells seeds for it. It's REALLY good! I never had it until last year, but now we eat it almost every day except November-January when it's dormant. I discovered a couple of weeks ago that it's pretty slammin' on a toasted tuna sandwich.