Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Sprouts!

Growing station made from PVC pipe.
Simple fluorescent lamp hangs on top rod.
The growing has officially begun!  Kept warm and cozy under our homemade growing station, the seeds that we started just two weeks ago have already begun to come up and show us some green.  The primary sprouters are flower seeds,  but tomato plants have also shown their heads, even more since these pictures were taken!  With another round of fresh snow dumped on us overnight and continuing to come down today, it sure is nice to come home to a reminder that winter WILL end!

As you can see, we started just a few trays of seeds for now with the intent of starting many more in the coming weeks.  Another round of tomatoes and peppers, as well as all of the other plants that require less start-up time.


Star of the Veld flowers coming up quickly...

The first tomato sprout of the year.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Planting the seeds!

Seed packets from Seed Savers
Let the planting begin!!  That time of year has finally arrived and we can get our hands dirty for the first time this season, WOO!  We decided that March 13 was going to be the day that we would put our first seeds in the dirt, since we're 7-8 weeks away from the last frost. 

The seeds you see here are the majority of what we're going to be growing this year.  We ordered the seeds from Seed Savers Exchange, a non-profit company based in Iowa that specializes in heirloom varieties of seeds.  We are excited to be growing some non-traditional (well, I guess since they're heirloom, they're technically 'traditional') plants this year, some colorful beans, corn and tomatoes that I've never seen before!   Here's the list of what we got:
- Beans (Empress, Dragon's                -  Carrot (Scarlet Nantes)
   Tongue, Provider)                                - Corn (Golden Bantam)
- Soybean (Fiskeby)                                 -  Melon (Minnesota Midget)                   
- Broccoli (Calabrese)                              - Cucumber (Japanese Climbing, True Lemon)
- Lettuce (Bunte Forellenschluss,            - Pea (Amish Snap, Golden Sweet)  
  Winter Density)                                       - Sweet Pepper (Napoleon Sweet, Tequila Sunrise)
- Hot Pepper (Hot Portugal,                 - Spinach (Bloomsdale)   
  Habanero-Mustard)                             - Flowers (Star of the Veld, Bee's Friend)
- Squash (Waltham Butternut,                    - Herbs (Cilantro, Chives, Basil)
  Black Beauty Zucchini)                     
- Tomato (Velvet Red [cherry], John Baer, Tasty Evergreen)


Seed Trays ready for some light!
We decided to plant our tomatoes, peppers and some flowers at this point, but not to start them all at the same time this year.  We planted 2 seeds per pod and will separate them out later when we transplant to larger pots.  We planted about 2/3 of what we'll end up with and will do the rest in about 2 weeks.  The trays will spend their days sunbathing under fluorescent lights (we made some growing stations, more photos to come) and hopefully will take off and be healthy!

Monday, March 14, 2011

The 2011 Garden

Tilling up the yard at my friend Rob's house in
2010.  Hopefully this year will be easier!

After moving into a new home in August, we were delighted to get the OK from our friends Rana and Hilary to start our garden on their land just 3 blocks away.  Ideally, we would want it on our property, but we don't have the size or sun exposure to grow anything meaningful.  The site where we'll be planting, however, is an empty double lot with full sun and permission to tear up as much space as we want!  I think our friends have merely failed to think this through completely, but we're taking it and running!

We have been spending the long, cold Minnesota winter planning out what we are going to grow, how much space we will need, options of a small CSA with our friends and a whole bunch more.  It seems like we get newfangled crazy ideas on a daily basis.  You'll notice that we are very much "idea" people, but sometimes fail miserably with follow-through!

The main focus for this year is going to be a vegetable garden, but we also intend to raise 3 egg-laying chickens (as allowed by our city code).  My family thinks I'm absolutely crazy, but they'll change their minds when they start getting delicious, organic eggs.

Anyway, back to the garden... since we have free reign to grow as much as we want, we're going to try to make this year's garden as bountiful as possible without going overboard and getting ourselves in too deep.  We have roughly a quarter acre of space to work with, which will be plenty to supply ourselves and some of our friends with fresh food this year and hopefully to fill a small freezer with goodies to last until next year.  We will be starting the seeds inside and will transfer them to the garden when the time is right.  We'll be growing it all organically and have several ideas for natural fertilizer (compost, manure). We'll also be making and using a rain barrel to save on water.

Look for a listing of our 2011 crops to come soon!