Welcome to Part Two of the blog post.
A quick update on Peter: He's still a little bastard and I had to give him the discipline already once today. I'm starting to suspect he enjoys it... which is weird, but not surprising when you're talking about ducks.
Ok, so now that's out of the way. I've got a bunch more stuff to tell you about and lots more photos. Let's get right into it with the seedling update!
These are sugar snap peas. I had forgotten how quickly they grow. This is day 3 after planting them. Incredible!
The is my seed growing area in my studio. Yes, I have to use the step to get to the top shelf. Not all of the seed flats have heat mats on them and the ones that are left uncovered are ones that no longer need the dome. In this location, they get a nice amount of direct sun from about 2 pm to 7 pm. One day I'd like to have my own mini hard sided greenhouse for cultivating seedlings. But they're a couple thousand dollars and this works well enough for right now.
These are the double click cosmos that Renee Shepard of Renee's Garden sent me. She's my 2nd cousin, for those of you who don't recognize the name. If you are looking for seeds, I highly recommend Renee's Garden seeds. They are all doing really well for me and she's got a wide variety of heirloom and organic seeds to choose from. I'll be honest and say that I'm really terrible at starting flowers from seeds. My track record, though short, is not awesome. I did some pinching back and it was a traumatic experience for everyone apparently. Such dramatic little seedlings!
On the left are the Van Gogh ornamental sunflowers. Also from Renee. They were very quick to sprout. And on the right are watermelon seedlings. I have two varieties of watermelon growing- one with seeds and one without. The one with seeds are the popular Moon and Stars variety. They are on the shelf below these guys but I can't find the photo. Which doesn't matter anyway, because at this point they all look the same.
Oh my lovely and hearty Jade Bush beans from Johnny's Select seeds. This was a complete test because these seeds were from last year and I wasn't sure if I had stored them correctly. But in a few days they popped up and now I've already had to cull the dinky ones and transfer the strong ones to the bigger pots. (You'll see those photos below)
These are the sugar snap peas the day after I took the first photo of them. Yah, no joking they are strong and happy!
This is the beautiful Neon Rainbow chard from Renee's Garden before their pinch-back. I've never grown chard so I really hope they do well.
'This little lovely is a bell pepper seedling. They are slow to grow, which is fine because if all my seedlings were growing as fast as the sugar snap peas I'd be doing a juggling act I'm not sure I would succeed at.
And this fun shot are the sweet peas in their overnight soak. (With my girl's eggs in the basket) I scored them gently when I planted them, as per the advice I got online. Last year I didn't have the best results but I also had neglected to soak them. These are the seeds that are left over from last year, hopefully they survived storage and will grow big and strong this year.
These are the heirloom tomatoes I started last month. They are also from Renee's Garden and are super happy and strong. I have to say, that I did get some tomato seeds from Johnny's Select Seeds also and those are not as impressive. They were all planted at the same time. They all got the same amount of soil, light and water. Renee's seeds are just kick-ass.
A close up of the tomatoes.
The bush beans in the organic grow pots. These are great because they can be planted directly in the soil when the beans are ready to go outside full time.
My Jade bush beans are from Johnny's Select Seeds. They did great last year and I expect they will be great this year too.
Transferring- yeah, a bit earlier than I would have liked, but they were outgrowing the seedling flat I had them in and I figured I could give it a shot since the weather has gotten so nice. I've kept a close eye on them and they hardly need my help. These are plants are are just too excited to be growing. They are tough and resilient.
This is the set up I've got for the seedlings while I'm hardening them off. They get the royal treatment- twice daily spritzing and at least 8 hours of sunshine. (I just typed "sunshit" and google spell correct knew what I meant and corrected it for me. I think sunshit is hysterical and the idea that you could have 8 hours worth of it is marvelous)
So that is the Seedling update. Next up, let me give you the aquaponic construction update. We are so close to being ready to really test the system with water and shortly after that, fish and plants. This is how the pit looked this morning:
Filled in with gravel and now almost fully hooked up to the system. Aaron probably has it totally hooked up by now.
Aaron had to dig this ditch (I SO totally offered to help but he didn't accept my help) for the pipes to run from the grow beds to the cistern. Thankfully it hasn't rained in 48 hours so he could do this. While he was doing this, I was mowing the yard and getting some raised beds organized for plants that won't go into the system.
Here is the ditch digger. The world needs them too....
Aaron's special helper- Chairman Meow.
Here's the fish tank, reinforced. If you can't tell, it's full of water but no fish yet. We were just testing the strength of the tank. We decided that one more reinforcement will be put on at the end so we had to drain all that water. Instead of wasting it, we used it to fill the cistern! We had to fill the cistern because when it rained, the thing started tilting because it was too light and had no anchor. Aaron adjusted it, quickly put a bunch of pipes together ("it's just like playing with legos!") and started filling the cistern in minutes.
Here's the photo:
See all that water collected at the bottom of the hole? That's from the massive amount of rain we got, not the fish tank.
While Aaron dug the ditch, I started mowing the side yard. Might as well take advantage of a rare (seemingly) dry day. We don't have a riding mower anymore, so I was doing it with the push one. It's hard on my wrists and hands and we really need to invest in a riding one. While I was mowing, Wiley would sit in the tall grass chilling out. When I got too close, he'd get up and move further down the yard. It's nice to have company when you are doing chores.
Here are a few of my raised beds. In the far background are the garlic beds. They were planted last winter before the first frost. I can't wait to start harvesting them... soon!
The plant in the beige round raised bed is my blueberry bush. This is it's first season. So far, it's doing really well and leafing out nicely.
The two small black raised beds with the upside down tomato supports in them will be for some of the sugar snap peas. They need supports to climb up and I had these, so I figured why not use them? This is the first time I've used these soft-sided raised beds and I have to say I really like them. I like that they can be stored over winter, moved around depending on where you want specific plants and they last for years and years. They also allow you to try out a location before creating a more permanet bed.
We have a lot of wild onions growing around the property. I collected a bunch for dinner. (These are my front steps.)
Here they are washed up. I sautéd them with butter, mushrooms, garlic and mixed that all up with rice. It was delicious! (I can't wait to do that with the garlic that I am growing!)
And lastly, Old Man Wiley Dog.
It's exhausting being a farm dog.
And that brings us to the end of the update. Email me any questions you might have! Let me know if there are any spelling mistakes! (Mom and Aunt Norma I'm looking at YOU)
No comments:
Post a Comment