January 27, 2023

New Plant Shelves and New LED Lights

My husband rearranged my plant room with new seedling shelves and new LED plant lights. I have a small closet in the garage with it’s own thermostat that I use for seed starting. Shelves: This year, my husband set it up with two large Home Depot metal shelf units. They are on wheels so I can move the front one to access the one in the back. I raise so many seedlings between my home gardens and my Pantry Garden/Farm that I have been filling my shelves to capacity the…

January 26, 2023

Skippy’s Seed Planting Calendar App

My app is back at the Apple Store! This app is what I use to figure out when to plant my seeds. It tells you when to plant vegetable seeds based on your last frost date. Its $3.99 – about the price of a packet of seeds. If you try it out and you like it, please leave me a review at the Apple store. It there is anything you don’t like about it, please leave a comment here on my blog and I will get it fixed. I can…

January 25, 2023

Washing Trays – A Gardener’s Winter Ritual

Every winter, the first thing I do to get ready for planting seeds is to wash out my planting trays. I have a collection of at least a hundred and I reuse them as long as I can – until they fall apart. I have 10×20 inch support trays, both mesh and solid versions. And I have different types of planting pots, 6-packs, 4×4 inch pots, and 10×20 cell trays ranging from 50 to 200 cells per tray. My first step of cleaning is to rinse the 10×20 support trays. In…

February 28, 2021

Today’s seed planting

Today I planted beets, spinach, celeriac, and onions. Also herbs, parsley, thyme, rosemary, and chives. I planted a lot of beets and spinach. 144 beets and 64 spinach. These are for Aurelia’s Garden, the food pantry donation garden I work at. They are in the trays with 128 little cells and will get planted out in the field in a very early planting on the second week of April. We’re hoping the weather cooperates. The celeriac, onions, and herbs will take more time to grow up. I’ll share them with…

February 16, 2021

Today’s project – Sowing onion seeds

Today I planted onions, leeks, shallots, and bunching onions. I really think they are my favorite vegetable family to grow. They are the seeds that are planted FIRST – right after Valentine’s Day and right in the middle of the coldest and snowiest part of winter. It’s just so exciting to plant and know that now there’s a part of spring growing and on its way. Onions are very happy grown close together. I worked at a farm that planted their onions in trays with a guide to space seeds…

February 8, 2021

an app for seed planting!

I’ve written a cute little app that reminds you when to plant your vegetables seeds. Set your own frost dates and pick your crops to grow. The app makes a calendar for you. And it has helpful tips and planting information for each vegetable. I hope you give it a try. Some users have been disappointed that Skippy’s Calendar App doesn’t work on an IPad. On a tablet, the date selector doesn’t work. The app works great on phones. I am working on getting the app to work on a…

February 8, 2021

almost time to plant seeds

I usually start planting seeds for my summer garden around Valentine’s Day. That’s just around the corner now. The first seeds I’m planting this year are celeriac and onions on Feb 17. That’s 11 weeks before my last spring frost (May 5). I’m going to plant a lot of onions, most I will donate to Aurelia’s Pantry Garden. I’m planting yellow onions: Cortland and Patterson. Red onions: Rossa Di Milano and Wethersfield Red. Shallots: Conservor, Ambition, Zebrune, and Crème Brûlée (BGS-270). Leeks: Mechelen Blue Green Winter and Bandit. And bunching…

January 11, 2021

washing pots for seed starting

I have a collection of old pots that I reuse again and again for seed planting. It is important to wash and disinfect them well to avoid diseases that can kill seedlings. I washed a big stack of 128-cell seed trays the other day. This should be all of the pots I need for seedlings this year. It is important to wash and disinfect pots that are reused to raise seedlings. Molds, fungi, and pathogens can remain on the pots. Germinating seeds and small seedlings are highly susceptible to damping…

July 6, 2020

Skippy’s calendar app is out

Woohoo! My completely updated vegetable seed planting calendar app is now available. Just in time for Fall Planting. Let me know how you like it! Leave a comment here or at the store. At the Apple App Store the app is here: Skippy’s App for iOS. For GooglePlay, use this link: Skippy’s App for android.

April 22, 2020

out with the cabbages, in with the tomatoes

My little unheated hoop house is working out very well this year. On Sunday I brought all my tomato, pepper and basil plants down to the hoop house. Since it was full to the brim with onions, brassicas and greens, I moved all of these out to the garden. They can stand the cool weather and I just covered them with a light row cover. The pictures here show the full hoop house, then after I emptied it, and then the hoop house with the tomatoes, peppers and basil. Still…

weeks and counting until my last spring frost