November 15, 2012

starting to sprout sweet potatoes

To get a head start, I put my sweets for sprouting in small bowls with half filled with water. I lined them up under the radiator for extra warmth. I will be collecting some pint jars (and toothpicks) for setting them up correctly soon. Here is a great link for reading about how to sprout sweets: Starting Sweet Slips. I have three varieties starting. Two from my harvest from this year (Jewel’s and Hannah’s – these are dry textured, orange and white flesh) and a new one I picked up…

September 30, 2012

last seedlings

These are my last seedlings of the season. They will go out in the cold frame soon. Maybe tomorrow. I will pull aside the cucumber vines and pull out the eggplants to make room for them. These are mostly salad greens. Spinach, lettuce, escarole and arugula. A few broccoli’s. I just love a cold frame full of winter spinach!

September 6, 2012

planting seeds for winter my cold frame

Today I planted a full tray of seeds. Several varieties of lettuce, as well as escarole, spinach, arugula and broccoli. These are plants that will fill my cold frame during the winter. Since the light level gets too low for plants to grow by about November 10 here, I would like to have these plants pretty much full grown by then. That is about 8 weeks or 50 days from now. I planted the seeds in seed cells and will grow them indoors under lights for a few weeks. My…

August 21, 2012

fall seedlings

Over the weekend, I found some fall seedlings at a local nursery (Mahoney’s in Winchester MA) and bought a bunch for me and my parents. Six-packs of spinach, escarole frisee, and red leaf lettuce. Also a couple plants each of Brussel’s sprouts and parsley. And one pretty sage plant with big round leaves for my mom. They are all happily in the ground now.

August 6, 2012

what to plant now

Its time for fall planting. I have a tray of seedings ready to transplant to my garden this week. They will go in the rows left open by fading summer squashes, finished broccoli and cauliflower, spring beets, cabbage and carrots, and potatoes that are already dug. My fall seedlings were planted about 3 weeks ago. They are red and savoy cabbage, bok choy, escarole, endive frisee, 4 or 5 types of lettuce, a few varieties of beets. This week I will also try sowing some fall peas. They never work,…

July 23, 2012

fall and winter seedlings

I planted a tray of fall seedlings a couple weeks ago (July 7). I have kept them indoors under lights. Today I brought them outside to start getting used to full sunlight. Beets, Chiogga Guardsmark Beets, Round Red Merlin Beets, White Detroit Cabbage, Pac Choi, Mei Qing Choi Cabbage, Pac Choi, Win-Win Choi Cabbage, Red, Super Red 80 Cilantro, Calypso Endive, Dubuisson Escarole, Natacha Lettuce, Butterhead Green, Ermosa Lettuce, Butterhead Red, Skyphos Lettuce, Looseleaf Green, Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce, Summer Crisp Green, Nevada Lettuce, Summer Crisp Red, Teide The beets…

May 20, 2012

cukes, eggplants, and watermelon transplants

Today I transplanted cucumbers, eggplants and watermelons. I put them in the cold frame with covers removed – the warmest place I have. In the morning I prepared the soil – weeded, raked a pile of new compost flat, dug it in a little, and then raked the soil flat. It was so hot that I waited til evening to transplant the seedlings. It was dark when I finished planting and watering. The cold frame is next to the robin nest – overfull with 4 big birdlets. I keep thinking…

May 12, 2012

seedlings

These are photos of my seedlings growing this past week. They have been inside til today when I moved them out to my cold frame. I hope the weather will be warm enough to plant them soon.

May 4, 2012

transplanting to my plot

This afternoon I transplanted a bunch of seedlings to my community garden plot. I planted out broccoli, cauliflower, onions, beets, carrots, parsnips, radicchio, and two varieties of bok choy. Yesterday I planted a full bed of potatoes and expanded my asparagus bed. I added several barrels of compost to my beds prior to planting. Everything is looking good. I did not have my camera with me today. But I am thinking that with this drizzly wet weather, the new transplants will look really good in a couple days for a…

April 26, 2012

I finished off my indoor spring seed planting yesterday with a few pots of zucchini, yellow squash, pumpkins, butternut and buttercup squash. I also put in a couple extra pots of basil. My cukes and watermelons have sprouted and are working on their second leaves. All that left for seeds now is to remember to plant more lettuce every couple weeks. And maybe a second crop of spinach too. The bean seeds go directly in the garden and I don;t plant to put these in for a couple more weeks.

weeks and counting until my last spring frost

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