Let's Start some Seeds!

I love March!! March means I can start safety planting my cool weather seeds (outside) and start my warm weather seeds inside.

This has been a interesting winter as we here in the Pacific Northwest have not gotten even a speck of snow all year. (At least where I am at 300ft above sea level). That means that there was some nervousness of starting early and getting that late spring snow but according to the weather forecast that doesn't seem like it's going to happen this year.

My cool weather seed technically can be planted outside right now (just throw a light cover over them at night if it goes below freezing), but my garden is going through some transitions right now. Therefore they get started in my recycled "egg carton" starts. (My hubby will be happy to have them gone from the garage). Then put to bed in my greenhouse that I bought last year.
Today I started:  Lettuce and Broccoli

It will be great to just put these straight into the ground

Can you see the lettuce seeds

Then for my warm seeds we did:
Butternut Squash, Pumpkins, Cayenne Peppers, and Tomatoes.

 

SATURDAY!!! LOOK LOOK LOOK

54F and sunshine! What does that mean?!?!?  Time to head out to your yard and garden and start to clean up.. ( Oh yeh, and get some Vitamin D!)

It just happened I was sitting here drinking my coffee, watching the news and checking out my new Martha Stewart FEB13 magazine. The first page is a calendar of the month of Feb. of what "Martha" does. Well, for week of Feb.3rd (yup, next week), it say to:

• Sharpen Knives, scissors and garden tools
• Organize seed packets
• START SOWING BROCCOLI AND CABBAGE SEEDS! (woot woot, I can start planting)

Then it hits me as I hear on the news, "Saturday is going to be sunny and up to 54F, get out and enjoy the weather" and read the calendar above, OH WOW, I need to plan to work on my garden Saturday.. Yippee!! but EKK!!!

As per my previous post, I want to tear apart my beds and make a new garden set up.. I have to do that all on Saturday. (Which happens to be the same day my DH is gone all day and my DS has hockey right in the middle of the day). Mmmm, what am I going to do?

Well, I might work on the clean up and start my seeds in seed starts.

Seed starts

Welcome to 2013

Well, here we go again.. Christmas is over, and now I can start dreaming of my garden.
I know we are not out of the woods for our first big snowstorm but hey when it gets up to 52F it's hard not to dream.

Here is a great link if you are starting to dream to know what Hardiness Zone we are in:
Seattle and Eastside Planting Zone  = 8a

What this will help you with is knowing what vegetables (and plants) grow well in our area, what their growing season will be and when to start them.

Another fact you want to know is when are the last and first frost dates:
Frost Dates

This is great on the calendar to know when it's safe to start planting certain vegetables as the frost can kill their tender leaves.


This year I am planning on ripping up my garden beds and going back to the original 12X12 plot that was there when we moved in. I have realized that I have a lot of wasted garden space with those raised beds and want to be wide open for gardening.

• This is what the original garden area looked like (after a summer season of being unattended as I had just moved in a week before in 2004).

 

• After a winter season my husband Michael and I decided to attack the backyard and make raised beds.

 

 

 

 Now, after 8 years of service it will be time to say goodbye raised beds.

Two weeks of growth

In just two shorts weeks my seeds have come to life and are loving the warmth in the house.
Pumpkins

Butternut Squash

Tomatoes:

Cucumbers:

(only one has joined us)

Corn (oh yes, I am really going to do it this year)

They have all been moved to their new home in a recently purchased Greenhouse from Fred Meyer

Matthew and I put this together all by ourselves

A new favorite spot for my cat Malibu

Today was also a busy day as Michael took out our hedges that have divided the garden and our yard for the past 8 years. This new spot will be my trial spot for growing corn!! I am soo excited..

Today I worked another bed and now the romaine lettuce and beets are planted. I would like to do some broccoli but it may have to be in a different bed. 

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Still have a few more weeks until I can start my carrots as it is still chilly overnight.. I am excited for a good growning season!!

Nasty weather makes me wish for the warm summer

The weather today is just plain old Nasty. Cold, pouring rain and windy weather could have made me depressed but instead it made me look forward to the warm weather to come.
This means time to get the seedling started so they are all ready to be planted when the weather warms up.
Once this rain stops I am going to start direct sowing my peas and my lettuce and broccoli as these are cool weather vegtables.
The seeds I am starting today are for warm season vegtables and have a longer growing season so they need to be started earlier so they will be ready before it starts to turn cold in the fall.

Matthew was my awesome helper but to try to get picture of him was almost impossible.

We planted tonight:
Corn, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Sweet Pea Flowers (hoping to have a pretty trellis with them), Walla Walla Onions, Butternut squash, and Pumpkins.

There is much more to come!

Pepper Time

I am so excited to start this season! My kids are a year old and that  means a little more help for this Wanna Be Farmer.

March is a great time to get the cool season veggies going outside and the hot season veggies started inside. This week we tried out a cool idea that I got from "of course" Pinterest. Using Milk Jugs as a mini greenhouse. Matthew and I planted Peppers in the milk jug on March 8th, 2012 and now it's sitting happily in our bay window.

Milk Box Greehouse Idea

I am keeping my fingers cross that this year will be alot better than last year for gardening. Let's keep our fingers crossed for warm and dry weather all season long. Hopefully that will help with the pumpkins we are planning on growing.

Happy Gardening!

Let us eat Lettuce

Just picked our first batch of romaine lettuce.. Still fighting the slugs for control of the lettuce, but boy is it yummy.. I need to plant some more seeds so we have lettuce all summer long (and maybe even winter.)