Wednesday, January 27, 2010

It felt like spring

We had already planned to get our spring seedlings started last weekend but it was a special treat to have the weather turn perfectly warm for us. Daniel and I had spent several weeks thinking and planning this year's garden and browsing through our favorite seed catalogs. We sat down together to get the final count of our seed inventory and organize our first seed order of the year. We had also searched the web and our library at home for the best seed starting mix recipe. This is the first year we have attempted to make our own soil mix.

We are still harvesting winter crops including bok choi, cabbage, kale, and broccoli. No brussel sprouts yet, but they are still growing.




Here's the greens and cabbage we brought in this week.

Mixing the ingredients for our soil mix which included peat moss, composted manure, lime, kelp, and topsoil.








Taking a break for the water slide. The girls had the idea to pour bottles of water that they got from the rain barrel on the slide. Too bad it's blurry--you can tell they are having a blast.


Here's the final product. Three trays of spring veggies and one of flowers. Each tray has 72 plants. We've stacked them with the plastic tray on top to try to hold in as much moisture as possible. Our first sprouts should be coming any day.


4 comments:

William Kruidenier said...

Gotta be impressed -- I like the "six-handed" potting mix machine you've got going there. Nice!

Anna Morrison said...

just jotted down all you planted. ( i clicked on the photo to enlarge so i could read it)
we will be going to purchase our seeds and seed starting mix today.
enjoying the journey with you all.
love you. have a great weekend.

jbulluck said...

lookin good. And, curious... do you prefer plastic starters over biodegradable? And if so, why?

Jennifer said...

Anna, It's hard to read one of the trays since I just planted the same seeds in it this year as I did last. That one says broccoli and brussels sprouts (two different kinds of each.)

Jason, We use those Winstrip trays that Daniel's dad, William, gave us a 3 years ago. We like them because we can use them over and over since they are sturdy and well built. We cleaned them with a little bleach before using them this year. The trays are also great because you can fit so many starts in a small space. I do like to use the peat pellets that you add water to and I used some of those last year. Either way, we will transplant most them to bigger pots before planting them.

Jen