How to plant peas in your square foot garden...

First of all, It's good to have a nice reference book.  

You can see the back of the book is arranged by vegetable type. 

I flipped open to the peas.

Then I soaked all of the peas.  ALL OF THEM. Duh.  Spring and fall's peas.  I ended up giving the rest to my sister-in-law.  

And then I went out to my square foot garden and placed the seeds in the soil.

And covered them up.

And it's looking pretty good! The rock on the lower right side is covering a vole hole. We added mole/vole bait that will break down into a garden friendly substance and sorry but the name escapes me right now. Those little critters are like mice/moles and they think my garden is their playground, and my lawn, and my window wells -gravel inches deep doesn't even bother them.

The peas are planted and good thing too because I just used the last of them in my parrot's food.

Learn about Romaine and Summertime lettuce from Anderson's Seed & Garden

This is the Romaine Lettuce Plato II.  I purchased the seeds at Anderson's Seed and Garden last year.  As you can see, the seeds are still doing well and had no problem sprouting.  I think after I harvest the spring crop I am going to try the Outback Romaine - it grows taller and is exceptionally heat tolerant.  Nothing like fresh lettuce with grilled hamburgers, especially when you're allergic to wheat and can't enjoy a hamburger bun. 

More about Romaine Lettuce Plato II from Anderson's Seed & Garden:

This popular Romaine has upright growth reaching 10 inches tall with large, thick, medium green, slightly rumpled leaves with creamy white centers. Tender, crisp, and sweet flavored. It is tolerant to many lettuce diseases and is slow bolting. Approximately 65 days to maturity.

This is the Summertime Lettuce.  I purchased the seeds from Andersons.

More about Summertime Lettuce from Andersons:

Summertime head lettuce is an excellent choice for cultivation in warm to hot climates. Here in Cache Valley it can be treated like loose leaf lettuce. This sure heading iceberg variety produces medium-sized, firm heads in about 75 days from direct seeding. Heads are medium green, with a short core. Summertime has demonstrated very slow bolting under high temperatures, and shows good resistance to rib discoloration and tip burn. 

Here is one of my many jalapenos transplants.  I have learned that peppers take a long time to sprout and need a heat mat.  I use an old heating pad.  To get the Serranos to sprout I actually had to turn it up on high.  Serranos take the longest. If you are going to start your own - plant January 1st.  I started the bell peppers and jalapenos the same time.  They really don't need to start until February 1st.  They can't go outside until all danger of frost has past unless you plan on covering them. 

Here's more about Jalapenos from Andersons: 

An improved, medium maturity Jalapeno type with blunt-ended, dark green fruit, ripening to red. The upright medium sized plants produce excellent yields of very hot peppers and provide very good foliage cover for them. A popular type for certain markets.  80 – 110 days to harvest.

Utah Celery transplants - what a difference the right pot makes

So maybe you remember this post from a few weeks ago. That was March 3rd and if that wasn't enough to convince you then I hope that this will.

The stalks of the celery in the peat disc are so much smaller that those in the 3" pots.

And even the color is different. I stuck the small one in next to the larger dark green leaves so you could see the difference up close.  The leaves are much larger and darker green in the 3" pot.

It's almost unbelievable.  And of course, just a reminder - I purchased the seeds at Anderson's Seed and Garden.

And as you can see, my transplants are starting to really fill in.  This is the time to make sure you are using a fan to prevent mold and damping off.  Pretty soon the snow will be gone here and I can start to harden the cabbage, kale, broccoli, and onions that need to be transplanted to the garden.  This is when the super duper tough tubs come in handy.  They are sturdy enough to handle the trip upstairs every day and sit out in the sun for a few hours until they can handle being outside all day.

Getting this garden started

It's February 1st - again.  How about that?  I know that last year I planted a bunch of cold weather vegetables on the same day and was going out of my mind because the ground was so soggy that I didn't get my garden tilled until the end of April. 

That's a long time to have lettuce, cabbage, and kohlrabi sitting around the house - in my window sills to be exact.  In my dining, living room, and bedroom window sills.  My husband doesn't have very many pet peeves but that is one of them. And they really do block the view. 

Three things have changed this year: 

#1 - I have two square foot gardens that don't require a tractor to till and with better drainage I will be able to plant even if the spring is extra soggy thanks to my awesome dad and my husband too. (I still have lots of space to be tilled - there are some things that grow just fine in regular old soil)

#2 - I finally figured out how to hang my full spectrum light over my plants so they are on a table in the basement and not in my dining room window.

#3 - I'm not planting Kohlrabi

These little jiffy pots fit in my Jump Start 12 inch window sill trays.  I refilled them today. I don't like these for peppers or tomatoes.  Last year I had a hard time getting the tomatoes and peppers to sprout in them.  They are great for all of my cold weather veggies.  

You might notice that is actually the plastic piping from a ladder toss game. I purchased the light at Lowes last year and it just sat in the storage room until today. I stood out in my garage trying to figure out what I could use. 

And then I saw it.  I practically skipped into the house with it.

 It's all just kind of shoved in the corner. It doesn't look great but it's better than sitting in the windows on the main floor of the house. The heating pad is on  low on a timer.  The light is on a heavy duty timer with 4 outlets in it, perfect for when I get another light or two. (I bought it years ago for the Christmas lights on the front porch) It'll be on from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.  

I've never used grow lights before. This will be interesting.

 I put the lights nice and low.  They are just a few inches from the Jump Start boxes.

 On the left is the Pink Brandywine.  I purchased the plant at Walmart last year.  It's an heirloom so I collected some of the seeds and I decided to try and start some now.  If they grow -  good.  If they don't I will know by March 15th - in time to purchase seeds somewhere.  It was a delicious slicing tomato.  It just takes forever to grow. End of season sort of tomato but so worth it.

The middle pot hold green bunching onions with seeds I collected myself.  I've done it before.  They grow like crazy with no problems.

The pot on the right is the Red Beefsteak. Again - just trying to see if the seeds I collected with sprout. It's a late season variety.

Romaine Lettuce, and 2 boxes of spinach. I might plant more but I need another light before I do.  I have always started Spinach outdoors but the last 2 years were a total flop.  So I'm experimenting and starting it indoors just for kicks. And I'm going to plant them in my west square foot garden.

Just a few bits of stuff started.  The boxes on the right are not filled with anything.  They are just sitting there so everything is in one place. The Jump Start tray not on the box is on a heating pad.  I find that the cabbage starts better when the trays are kept warmer.

It's about time I made my seed list.  This year I want to keep my expenses down in the veggie garden because I want to plant a few more trees (the 4 last year were $450) and bushes. I better get my plant written down or else...

The best part - this cost me $0 this year. I haven't purchased anything for my garden since September of 2011.  I do need some seeds.  But I'm going to try to not get all crazy eyed when I go into Anderson's in a few weeks.

And to keep my tomato cravings in check I've been making tomato soup with the canned tomato puree you see in those jars.  It's spicy with home grown garlic and onions too.

Sprouting in my window sill

We planted columbia cabbage, romaine lettuce, and purple kohlrabi on February 1st.

Here are the sprouts on the 11th.

The Kohlrabi wasn't sprouting so I stuck the heating pad under it.

I set it to LOW and it's only on during the day. We now have 8 of 12 sprouted.

And the Romaine Lettuce is coming along.  The Big Daddy Onions are too. I learned a few things about Onions HERE.  Some onions DO NOT STORE WELL.  I've been getting onion sets from Anderson's Seed and Garden.  I usually get a red and a yellow.  Walla Walla and Candy Red.  Last year I decided to try Big Daddy.

The big Daddy Onions are doing really well and so easy to store.  I didn't put them in the best spot of ground so they didn't get very big, but they are tasty and I still have a few left as you can see from the last photo. I decided to try and start them from seed so there is less of a problem with them going to seed this summer.  So far so good.  They seem really hardy.

It's nice to see something sprouting indoors even though it went from 50 back down to the low 20's.

It's February 1st!

Gardening Already??? I know, it's 10 degrees today. I just needed to feel a bit better about this weather.

I'm sure many of you are used to buying seeds in these cute little packets.  That's what I grew up with.  That's what we purchased the other day - a few anyway.  They don't have Genovese Basil at the garden store I love.  I labeled the upper left corner with the month and year.  Many of the seeds we buy are good for a few years. There are guides out there to help you on that.

And then I was introduced to Anderson's Seed and Garden.  They sell seeds in bulk.  I get exactly the number of seeds I need for the length of the row I plan to plant.  And it's less expensive. The nice thing is that they have this nifty planting guide divided up into cold plantings, just before frost, after frost, and fall.  Everything on one sheet. Get your copy here! Print and laminate that puppy. No more trying to keep track of dirt covered seed packages.

Here's my little helper.  The lettuce was the easiest for him to plant.  The round kohlrabi and cabbage seeds got away from him. I've never tried these window sill peat starters.

We are going to try them out on the cabbage and kohlrabi, oh and the romaine lettuce.

I had no idea I could plant lettuce so early.  I like the romaine because the deer don't.

It only needs to be 25 degrees. And I love kohlrabi - no bugs like broccoli.  And it's great in stir fry.  And Mike at Anderson's says the purple is more tender.  We shall see...

 

And here you can see that it's all in the window sill.  We can transplant in about 6 weeks which is when the boxes say to move the starts out. As long as the garden dries out a bit, we can.

I labelled them with painters tape. Nothing fancy.

Don't want to garden this year? It's always a good idea to keep some seeds stored along with your food storage.