More seeds, More snow......and a Raised Bed

After all of my excitement last week, it snowed!  Woke up to find not 1-2 inch as predicted, but a good 4-5 inches of snow.  First thoughts went to the seeds I had already planted outside, in all my "spring has sprung" excitement.  Garlic got covered again in mulch, but nothing much could be done to the other seeds that were planted.  Keep my fingers crossed and hope that they will sprout, once the snow melts!  The back up plan is to seed them again.

Here's my backyard  - covered in snow..... again!

In the other news, I found this packet at Walmart today!  A red onion seed packet for $1!  I went online to read about it and found that this was a good variety to plant in our region.  So I promptly planted 144 seeds(2 each in 72 seed starting trays).  I think I was a bit late, planting on March 23, but these packets were not available, the last time I was there.  So I will see how they do this year!

I also bought 200 red onion bulbs and 10 garlic bulbs, each for $3.  I read about garlic bulbs and found out that they should be planted in fall rather than spring.  I will be returning the garlic bulbs back to walmart.  Not sure why they would sell them in spring rather than in the fall.  I couldn't find garlic bulbs anywhere last fall.  I finally bought one bulb from farmer's market.

I've also planted a whole bunch of other seeds, mostly different kinds of flowers - dahlia, zinnia, marigolds, red hot pokers, calendula, daisy, lupines, forget me not etc., a week ago.  I thought it was a bit early to start the flower seeds, but my son has been bugging me to plant his flower seeds and since I got my hands dirty, I figured, I might as well plant them all. 

They've started to sprout here and there.  I'm not sure I have the space for them in our yard, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it.  For now, I am happy that my seeds are sprouting!

Since we were snowed in, my dear hubby decided to assemble the raised bed in the basement from all the lumber we had purchased last month.  One raised bed is now ready to be transported to the outdoors!



More seeds sown........Spring has sprung!

On March 14th, I got around to seeding tomatoes, peppers and a whole bunch of other stuff.  This is what was seeded indoors.

Tomatoes:
Early Girl - 5
Homestead- 3
Red Brandywine - 4
Rutgers -3
Bestboy - 3
Beefsteak - 3
Roma -3

Peppers:
Green Bell Pepper -12
Red Bell Pepper- 12
Sweet Banana Pepper -10
Thai Dragon Chili - 10
Cayenne Chili -10
Kung Pao - 10
Jalapeno - 3

Melons:
Sweet 'n Early -7
Sugar Baby -7

Other:
Butternut Squash - 5
Dahlia -5
Hollyhock -5
Green cabbage-6
French Dwarf Marigold -6
Rosemary -6
Lupine -6

Seed starting trays

Surprise! Surprise!  I already see tiny eggplants coming up and also marigolds, cabbages and lupines.  It is so exciting to see the new growth. 

Eggplant sprouts

Cabbage,Lupine and Marigold sprouts

In the other news, we had beautiful weather yesterday  - St. Patrick's Day!  It was in the 50s.  Almost all of the snow has melted. 

This is the backyard now. Almost all the snow is gone!

I went outside and seeded whatever cool weather loving seeds - I could find from my collection of seed packets.  So this is what was planted outdoors yesterday-

Spinach - Bloomsdale longstanding
Peas - Burpeeana Early
Green onions - Lisbon bunching
Baby Bok choy
Swiss chard - Bright lights
Cabbage - Orient Express
Four types of lettuce, two varieties of radish, brocolli.

My main kitchen garden - Peas planted around the inverted tomato cages.

Spinach overwintered

My garlic plants survived under the straw mulch.  This is how they looked.

Garlic plants -12

Seeds planted....First of the season!

I finally planted some seeds for the 2011 season!  Bitter gourd seeds(that I saved from the ones bought last year from grocery store) was the first to be planted on March 1st.  All 27 of them.  No germination yet!  I did soak them for 2 days before planting(I read that it improves the chances of their germination).  Ofcourse, bitter gourds(or any asian gourds for that matter, are notoriously slow to germinate with very low germination rates)  I will wait another two weeks before giving up on them.  Atleast I didn't pay an arm and a leg to get these seeds :)

The other vegetable that got planted on March 4th was Eggplant.  Three different pkts of eggplant!  These are also very slow to germinate, so I decided that they get seeded next.  Fairy Tale egpplant(6 seeds) is new this year with 55 days to harvest (the earliest of all eggplants).  I couldn't find them anywhere in local stores(I called all the garden centres around) and finally bought them online.  The other variety is Long Purple eggplant(6 seeds) which was from last year's leftovers.  The third pkt is a mixed variety called Burpee's Garden blend and has 4 varieties - Applegreen, Rosa Bianca, Millionaire Hybrid and Snowy Hybrid in equal proportion.  6 of them got planted( I wonder which ones got planted- will have to wait and see!).  No germination yet.

Bitter Gourd and Eggplant seeds in trays.

I keep my seed starting trays by the south facing windows.  No lights or any other accessories.  Last year, I was successful with this method, but then last year, in March the temps were 40-50s.  This year, it has yet to reach 40s and sunshine is quite rare too.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Getting ready for Spring............from inside the house :)

It has been a very long time since I actually sat down to create a new post.  The reason for that is between all the household and kids' chores, not much time to concentrate and put a pen(er..keyboard) to my thoughts.  Also, since the frost killed my garden, there wasn't much happening on the garden front.  However, I have been reading a lot of other bloggers' and really enjoying their garden experiences.  Here in Minnesota, this year especially, we've had a lot of snow.  A couple weeks ago, the temps were in 40s and we went out and bought lumber and other stuff for creating 2 raised beds.  The very next day we had about 16 inches of snow, so all the materials are waiting patiently in the basement. 

Seeds are already available in most local stores, so I've started putting together what I have leftover from last year plus what I'd like to try out this year.  The new this year would be fairy tale eggplant, sweet 'n early hybrid and brussel sprouts.  I'm still checking out online and in stores and depending on what other veggies grow here in MN(since we have short growing season) add more to the list.  Meanwhile, enjoy these photos.

             View of the backyard.  My veggie garden is buried somewhere near those plants!

View of the frontyard and driveway.  Roads are all cleaned up.

Lumber and PVC pipes for raised bed and trellis.

Harvest Monday (or Tuesday, in my case) 9/21/10

I haven't been able to post on time lately.  So Harvest Mondays hosted by Daphne's Dandelions are increasingly turning into Harvest Tuesdays for me!  Garden this week, is just a continuation of downhill in harvests.  I did harvest all my apples, which totaled 11 for the season.  They were earlier than usual since Sweet Sixteen apples are usually ready in Oct.  Last of the eggplants were harvested.  Possibly long beans too.  Peppers continue to amaze me.  Plants are dark green and don't show any signs of Autumn yet!  There's probably only 1 more week left before the first hard frost hits.  I'm trying to harvest as much of green chillies as possible.  Earlier in the season, I was letting it mature to red, but that won't happen anymore.  I still have a few tomatoes, a few watermelons, few green bell peppers, maybe squash, beets and beans.  I won't be able to cover them all from frost, so it's a sad goodbye.  Here's the pics for the week.

Sugar Baby melon, sweet 16 apple and raspberries

Red bell pepper, okra, tomatoes, chili peppers

Swiss chard

Cucumbedrs, okar, green beans, tomatoes

Tomatoes

Eggplant, green beans, chili peppers

Sweet 16 apples

Eggplant, green chilies

Sweet banana peppers, chili, tomato, beans

 

Harvest Monday - 9/14/2010

Oops!  Technically, it's tuesday today, but I've been real busy yesterday, so better late than never.......  Garden is cooling down as is the weather.  Pepper plants are going strong with dark green leaves, but everything else is on it's way out.  I've still not ripped them out, but that is going to change soon....  Here's the pics of the harvest for the past week.  Please visit Daphne's Dandelions for other postings of harvests.

Wednesday - chili peppers, beans, long beans

Wednesday - Tomatoes, okra, raspberries, red bell peppers

Wednesday - Last of the Radish pods

Wednesday - Mint

Thursday - Swiss chard

Thursday - French Breakfast radishes

Friday - Raspberries, tomatoes, chili peppers, beans

Sunday - Tomatoes, green beans, long beans, banana peppers, chili peppers

Harvest Monday - Sept 06

The temps dipped this week, as a result, some plants are dead(cucumber), most are yellowing and curling.  So I've been going out into the garden every other day, which suits me just fine.  I've been busy with other things, but I still got decent quantity of veggies and some of them are in the fridge waiting to be used.  Please also visit Daphne's Dandelions who hosts harvest mondays each week. 

Monday - white radishes, green beans

Monday - dried cow peas, chili peppers, long beans, asparagus, okra, zucchini

Monday - tomatoes

Monday - cucumbers

Wednesday - okra, cucumber, sweet banana peppers

Wednesday - tomatoes, green beans

Wednesday - Basil

Friday - carrots, zucchini, asparagus

Friday - Long beans, green beans, okra, chili peppers, bell peppers(will turn red), eggplant

Friday - Tomatoes

Friday - Sugar Baby Watermelon - First of the season!

Friday - I had to show this!  This is the ripe juicy watermelon!

Sunday - okra, chili peppers, cucumbers, green beans and tomatoes