I am off to my second season of gardening! This year I double my tomatoes (1 tray big beef, 1 tray brandywine -- thats 18 peat pots per tray, and I'll have 9 of each in my garden, maybe more??...so tempting!!), and also I have 1 tray of cherry tomatoes.
Other than my tomato obsession, I am growing:
parsley, chives, mint (partial sun)
rosemary, thyme, basic cilantro (needs full sun)
squash
zucchini
green beans
cukes
peppers
Down the hill we are planting pumpkins and gourds .
For decorative plants, we just planted a couple creeping phlox plants near our periwinkle by the driveway which barely survived the winter probably due to the excessive dirt and salt. I am planning on getting more periwinkle (I have a free unlimited source) and hopefully it will thrive - safety in numbers? Also we planted a forsythia down the hill just to the south of where the pumpkins will be. Not looking forward to trudging up and down the hill with water but it will be worth it. A rainbarrel down there makes sense.
To do all the veggies/herbs, I am roughly doubling my garden's size, while attempting to make better use of space at the same time. I also read about "green composting" so I am trying that by tossing 2 rows of mustard seed (it sproued in about a week in still sub 40 degree nights) in my garden bed and I'll dig it into the soil when I start ripping off the grass and working the soil more next week.
So far seedlings are off to a great start. I tried jiffy greenhouses and they are great. Lavender germinated very well and I kept it very moist - almost wet. Rosemary isnt up yet but I have read that it's best to keep them pretty warm and on the dry side, so I am hopeful that those will sprout up fine in a week or so. Basil, thyme and all tomatoes germinated beautifully. Especially surprising was that my old big beef and b-wine seeds sprouted faster in the jiffy house than my new tomato seeds did in the bigger peat pots! Interesting. I love having the fast germination in the jiffy house pellets, but transplanting is more work . . .
Also, I have 3 lights instead of 1 - only using 2 for now, but will get 3rd running soon.
More to come!!
