So this one day I built a garden...

I love food. And growing things. And making things out of the food that I’ve grown. The trouble is, I haven’t lived in a place that allowed for any sort of gardening in over 10 years, so while I’m a pretty decent cook (most dwellings do allow for a certain amount of cooking…) I am a fairly novice gardener. Last year I appropriated a sizable portion of our bike storage lockup area with some large pots, but this year I'm going big.

 This is what I'm graduating up from. 

Teeny tiny, but all mine. 

Equipped with the basic knowledge of how to dead-head marigolds (thanks, Nana!), mixing different types of soils (thanks, Dad!), try to water in the morning, and make sure to plant for the amount of sun available (thanks to spending one summer working for a plant nursery in Michigan), I decided to go for it. Ooh, did I mention that I wanted to do it basically for free? Yeah, this is gonna be fun. 

Thanks to some free scrap lumber (someone crashed into the wooden patios next to our building and they had to be rebuilt, yielding plenty of scraps that would have otherwise made their way to the landfill- don’t worry, nobody was hurt) I built a 4’x6’ box and lined the bottom with extra boards and newspaper to prevent seeping  in of ground chemicals. I did have to spend a little $ on the proper dirt mix and some small plants from Home Depot. Let’s be honest, you can only plant so much from seed (see Adventures in Seedlings). 

My thought in placing the plants and veggies like I did was that I know that Marigolds and certain herbs can naturally deter pests, especially from tomatoes, and that maybe if I planted the hot peppers on the outside of the box the neighborhood bunny wouldn’t be too interested after trying to nibble the first time. Zucchini, cucumbers, and squash have a tendency to spread so I tried to plant them near the edge of the box. We have full sun so the tomatoes go absolutely bonkers, which is why they ended up at the back of the box. And, full disclosure, I planted the flowers and ground cover plants in between the seedlings because I wanted it to look neat and couldn’t wait for all the stuff to start growing. 

This was definitely an experiment. Straight up. I fully anticipate that I will make some major changes next year, depending on how this turns out. (see Garden Progress, aka Weird Decisions)

And now we play the waiting game…

Adventures in Seedlings

Planting from seed is pretty ambitious. There’s a lot of research, planning, and equipment to commit to and invest in if you’re going to do it properly.

I didn’t do any of that. Truth be told, I’ll typically research how to do something until the point where I go “Oh, I can totally do this” and promptly stop reading and just start the project. Then, when it inevitably doesn’t go quite as planned, I’ll read endless blogs and articles about what I should have done, and plan accordingly for next time. Here’s what happened when I decided to plant seeds. 

I chose the things I would like to eat: Rainbow Chard, Peppers, Tomatoes (cherry & yellow pear), Kale, Cucumber, Green Peppers, Jalapeno, Basil and the things I would like to look at: Marigolds, Black Eyed Susans, & Sunflowers.

These seedlings do not all want the same water, sun, or soil conditions. But I decided that the strong would survive and made them all greenhouse friends anyway. And by greenhouse I mean a cardboard box lined with a black trash bag and covered with a cardboard/saran wrap top. Very sophisticated. 

Some did well (Cucumbers, Sunflower Seeds, most Tomatoes, and Chard). Others never saw the light of day (Blackeyed Susans, Jalapeno, Green Pepper). The rest made some sort of appearance but shrunk during one particularly hot spring morning when I am pretty sure that leaving them in the greenhouse effectively steamed them. A coworker who gardens quite successfully told me that I probably had also shocked them by deciding to transition them from a partially shaded box to full sun and wind in about 24 hours. Lesson learned. 

I also have since found out that peppers are one of the hardest things to grow from seed and tomatoes are right up there too. Well, now I know. 

Things I learned: 

1. Make a chart of which seeds need which conditions and when they should be planted
2. Make seed neighborhoods rather than seed city based on needs and timing
3. Allow seeds to acclimate to actual weather starting with an hour a day
4. Let seedlings get pretty big (4"-6") before transplanting
5. Peppers are extremely hard to grow from seed. Tomatoes are also tough. Probably go ahead and buy these next year as small plants.
6. Zucchini, squash, cucumber, and cantaloupe are SUPER easy to direct sow and are serious about their territory. Plan ahead space-wise. 
7. Eggplant needs its own county.

Transplanting Seedlings to the Garden!