Welp....here we are. Bizzaro land. The last day in the office for DH was Friday, March 13 (he's been working at home since). We're honoring the quarantine request of Gov. Cuomo by social distancing & only going out when necessary: Grocery store, once to the hardware store and we walk the dogs twice a day in the neighborhood. Not much to do...might as well garden & blog.
I haven't been gardening much in the past few years. The trees grew too tall & shaded my old plot. Last year we took the fence out & I did a lot of container gardening on the deck & patio. A neighbor had cleaned out her garage & was selling huge ceramic pots for $1 each so I scrounged around for cash & bought 15 or so. Score!
This year for my birthday DH got me wood & dirt. He knows how to make a girl happy. I designed & threw up a raised bed in 2 days. It was a lot of work. DH supplied the muscle. It's 16'x4'x20"- long & skinny. My one trip to the hardware store was for wood & screws. I called the local nursery & they delivered topsoil & leaf/mushroom compost. I scrounged around in the garage & found my old pea fence & gardening bag with twine. I spaced finishing nails out every 12" & made squarefoot gardening squares with the twine & put up the pea fence.
The new bed. You can still see the outline of the old bed up in the top left corner. (We're looking E/SE). The flower bed is the blob in the lower left corner & the circle on the right is the peony bed that needs to be fenced or moved because it always gets clobbered by the dogs.
I have seeds of all different ages. Some of my tomato seeds are really old- I soaked those in bleach solution for 30 minutes before planting-some in the flats, some in little dixie cups, some in a milk jug. I got out my heat mats, grow lights & seedling flats & got things started. It's a lot harder than I remember. I'm having damping off & leggy seedling issues. I found a bunch of milk cartons in the garage so I'm starting some seeds by the winter sowing method. Fingers crossed.
This is the current starting line up*
*subject to change
Started outside in the garden:
Peas
Fava Beans
Rapini
Carrot
Swiss Chard
Kale
Arugula
Lettuces:
Winter sowing:
Borage
Sunflower
Calendula
Marigold
Zinnia
Parsley
Cilantro
Mentuccia Romana
Shiso
Arugula
Rapini
Kale
Roman Chamomile
Starting inside seedling flat & heat mat:
Tuscan Kale
Basil
Corriander
Lettuce-I think this might be a bad idea
Tomatoes: Black from Tula, Champagne Cherry, Black Cherry, Stupice, Matt's Wild Cherry, Cowlick's Brandywine, JD's Special C-Tex, Tigerella.
Also: DeMilpa Tomatillo & Molly's Ground Cherry
Starting inside Dixie cups & heat mat:
Zucchini: cocozelle & Striato di Napoli
Cucumber
Squash: Thelma Saunders & Buttercup
Melon: Sugarcube
Tomatoes: Champagne Cherry, Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Cherry, Tigerella, Green Zebra, Black Zebra, Ruby's German Green, Black Krim, Purple Dog Creek, Earl's Faux
Starting in a milk jug on a heat mat (I'll pulling out all the stops):
Tomatoes: Champagne Cherry, Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Cherry, Tigerella, Green Zebra, Ruby's German Green, Black Krim, Purple Dog Creek, Earl's Faux
Yes, that's a lot of tomatoes. but since the seeds are between 6-10 years old I'll be lucky if a few of them germinate. If, by crazy luck, I have more than I need I'll put them by the curb & give them away for free to a good home.
Oh! I saw my first daffodils this morning. Things are looking up!
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