Whoa, where have I been for the past three months? Well, here there and everywhere but the garden adventure continues on.  So my little seedling experiment has turned out quite well so far. I had to put the seedlings in my garage due to our area’s sudden regression back into early spring (i.e. snow) . But here is a shot of my little plants as the progressed into the months of April:

Then I went on holidays for a couple of weeks and thanks to my neighbours my plants grew like mad. Unfortunately I started them I think just a bit too early as our colder spring ran far too late but here are a few more pictures showing some growth. I think they got too leggy but I planted them anyway and we shall see how it all goes.

Once it stops raining long enough I’ll post a few more pics on my garden and the containers. But for now I can honestly say the k-cups worked for seedlings probably much better than anything else as long as they were watered from the bottom. Now we’ll see if the tomatoes actually grow

March 14, 2010

Time to build the light stand, plant the seeds and get this show on the road.  This is the second in my series of Great Garden Adventures. At first I thought I’d just dig in and plant everything I wanted and then I realized that some of these seeds will grow faster than others. I knew I had to get the tomatoes started for sure and the peppers but first up was a bit of planning.

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So I cataloged the seeds with details like growing time, height and anything I could glean from the packages by putting everything into a google doc spreadsheet. It also gave me some idea on how big the seedlings could get before I needed to repot them which hopefully I won’t have to do, but this is my first attempt at this.

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Next I wanted to know exactly what I wanted in my garden (hopefully) and most importantly what I needed to start indoors, what could be sown directly and what I wanted to put in containers so I could rotate them, like tomatoes and peppers and to keep them warm. So that involved a bit of graph paper and some planning for height, sun light needs and number of plants. I love beets and sweet peas so there will be plenty of room for these.

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I also drew a diagram for my seedling starters on graph paper so I will know what I planted at least until they become more recognizable. I’ll also be able to fill in other seeds in the ones that don’t grow with some late starters. Then I got busy.

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I ran out of seed trays so I found another use for my K-cups, I know I’m not the first to think of this but but I’ll probably have to replant these ones anyway since they’re tomatoes. So everything went under the lights and the timer were set.

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Just to get me going sooner I planted some cat grass too.

Now comes the waiting part and to see if anything grows. I suspect something will grow but its too soon to tell whether the grow lights and careful watering will actually allow me to beat the season a little more than in previous years. My biggest disappointment usually being the peppers and more of the tomatoes I like. This year I hope I can jump start some of these with my early seedlings and then not run the risk of frost like I have for so many years. Next planting March 27th and we’ll see what’s up then.

Related post: The Great Garden Adventure – Part One

March 7 2010

Gardening. It must be easy to learn, there are so many books out there, both “dummies” and ‘idiots” can do it. So it should be no problem” Right? And really this is really a continuation of my plans from last year or am I just a masochist?

Never mind. Since I have a plan and I’m probably indirectly solving the country’s deficit by helping my local greenhouse pay for some of their summer help. Aside from a few bucks here and there and some time I may actually grow something. Who knows?

So first off,  “the List”:

• Buy (yet another) garden book or books paying particular attention to ones concerning starting seeds indoors
• Buy a garden growing lighting system so I can start said seeds earlier than July 1 and maybe have a crop before the snow flies
• Start all over again with the seeds and this time make a database on them and store them better, yeah yeah
• Buy a house plant a) because I pretty well picked off my topiary myrtle bush from IKEA and b) because it may act as an inspiration
• Check out the garden shed to see if I can salvage my little pots and stuff  – no dead bugs please
• Make a plan as I go along – this is the easy part

So here was the plan, first of all I would head over to Lee Valley Tools : a great place to show case before you buy even if it’s a bit pricey. Then go to a garden centre – my favs are either Greenland or Salisbury (not the best website but they’re a garden centre)  both are close to home and I like them.

@ Lee Valley bought:

• Three books:  “Canadian Vegetable Gardening” by Douglas Green (good name), “Plant Propagator’s Bible” by Miranda Smith and “Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers” by Edward C Smith. Okay seems the Smiths are a huge gardening clan.
• Herb Keeper – for all those tasty herbs that I’ve grown and buy and need to store especially cilantro
• A water stick – my finger just isn’t good enough
• Two windowsill seed starters

Lacking a south or west window and no sill means having to purchase the next items…

• A 2-tier Floralight – basically two shelves for fluorescent full-spectrum lights
• 4 lights for the unit cause it doesn’t come with them
• A tabletop tarp and I hope this thing works.

@ the garden centre:

• 262 packs of seeds…okay only 17 but I need them all
• One unknown houseplant – but it’s green and it’s healthy
• Good little snippers for when I’m checking out my garden – I’ll leave them at the back door so I can grab them on my way out
• Red onion sets – last year I couldn’t find any – and I’ll trade with someone since I certainly don’t need ten
• Schultz starter soil – love this stuff
• Grass kit – to take to work once it’s up
• Indoor plant spikes for work and some of my house plants

And last but not least, my garden centre membership because I-will-be-back and 10% is as good as a Walmart’s price all things considered and the plants are healthy.

Now its all up to me to set this thing up and start growing.

… and not one of them will be lack of time.
photo credit: dimnikolov

10. It’s not so cool to be associated with all the dreck out there in the blogosphere or whatever you want to call it. Some are very good and I like them but most are just trying to make money…as if that would ever change.

9. I have a real job. And its not my job to blog. I don’t even want to make it a job or a hobby or an interest.

8. My interests are mine I share them in person with people I know. I don’t need pen pals , fellow bloggers or twits at Tweetups to justify my interests.

7. All that is being said about whatever I say will be countered by another 10,000 monkeys on keyboards saying otherwise and maybe even saying it better too. Go for it!

6. Life’s too short to waste in front a keyboard.  I’m sure even the monkeys would be better off eating a few bananas, playing in the tree tops, and throwing fruit at the naked monkeys every now and then

5. Topics of the day are very well and good and people should add their opinion about it whenever they can or they can focus on discussing blogging or record album art collections whatever they think is interesting and they’ll have fans. Sounds great I wish it mattered to me enough to comment any more on.

4. Blogging isn’t even on my radar anymore I don’t go to other people’s blogs, I don’t look for them, and when I find them I rarely if ever go back no matter how entertaining they are. I’ve been on the internet for 15 plus years for me its a useful tool certainly not a social medium – social for me means being part of society not a drone living in my house “socializing” with my all my peeps. Maybe I’ll tweet about that later.

3. I’ve run out of things to write about – not really (ha!) but I’m just not one of those people who have a team of writers doing product reviews and (usually there is an  “and”) trying to sell their [fill in the blank] and then writing a book about it  (10 Things to Make you a Better Blogger than a Monkey) puh-leeze no more…!

2. It’s just not something that makes me want to work at or get worked up about heck it’s taken me forever to even finish this post.

1. I don’t want to anymore.

There is a moment in time, a pause upon a hill where there is a whiteness of winter. It’s not just an absence of colour but more a blending of textures. White upon white, cold to cold, slipping into the many shades of gray and finally a fade to black.

A fresh snowfall on a windswept prairie with the trees silhouetted against a dusky sun shrouded in a cold blanket of clouds.

The clear air, the crunch of snow and a sense of stark bleak threatening cold it’s a sense of darkness and dying. A certain biting chill threatens to take my breath away and drive a tingling numbness to my fingertips and my toes.

I move my feet to dislodge a small clump of frozen snow clinging to the bottom of my skis. The noise starts off a ruckus of brown sparrows as they take flight, chattering noisily and flicking from bush to bush they search for a cache of lingering fall seeds.

I inhale deeply and just as quickly the biting cold air threatens once again to pull it away. I stomp my legs more vigorously to drive the chill away then push off down the track. The warmth of my legs starts to return just as quickly as my face starts to burn with the cold. But in these peaceful surroundings and with each glide of my skis, I know this cold winter day will find no strength to take me today.