Garden Update: Better Botanicals

On Monday I planted a good number of organic seeds packaged by "Botanical Interest." Those seeds have come up much more quickly than the Ferry Morse, and not all of the Ferry Morse seeds actually germinated. So, I am thinking that the Botanical brand of seed is the way to go.

Friday I spent a good bit of time transplanting the Ferry Morse started romaine and fingerling carrots I seeded three weeks ago. The carrots took forever to come up and get to the point I could move them to the large containers. But already the Botanical's beets, kale, Napa cabbage, carnival carrots, and red cabbage have sprouted, but the celery and artichokes have not. However, the packet said it could take up to a month for the celery to sprout and two weeks for the artichoke to emerge.

I've become a little worried about the peas I planted because I just today read that peas and beans are "nitrogen" correcting and don't need fertilizer. Although I didn't add fertilizer, I did add bone meal to an already enriched organic container soil. I read that the vines may go crazy if the soil is too fertile, but the fruit yield is curtailed, so I hope I didn't screw up by not using regular soil for the peas.
The damn aphids love the lettuces, despite the cayenne pepper and rosemary oil spray I made up. The spray does help, it just has to be done religiously, everyday. I haven't found that the diatometus earth does much good, personally.

I've now got the beets, cabbage, other carrot varieties, and kale to transplant, after they develop in the seed cubicles a little longer. I will definitely need more pots because the vegetables that are growing now won't be ready to rotate out of their containers by the time the new seedlings will need to be going in. I may have overplanted, but I guess that way I'll learn a bit more about what crops I seem to do OK producing—surely I'll end up being successful with at least one crop! Below are some pictures:

 Beet seedlings, about a week along

 Napa Cabbage seedlings

 First planting of Romaine Lettuce. I bought these as
seedlings at Pike Nursery a month ago.

 Green pea vines. I just staked these three-week old vines yesterday.

Brussel Sprouts. My kids' least favorite vegetable of all time. These I also planted about a month ago from started seedlings I got from Pike's. I tasted one of the young leaves yesterday— just like cabbage.

Vegetables in the Orchard?

 I am starting a new garden for the first time since I was a little kid. I'm excited but also nervous that things might not go well. Since I live in the Southeast and it's now Fall, I am just starting what we call "cool weather veggies:" romaine and red leaf lettuces, Italian spinach, red and Napa cabbages, beets, a few varieties of carrots, green peas, kale, snow ball, green, and purple cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts—and I'm even attempting artichoke for a late 2011 Spring harvest. I've planted "cool weather flowers" as well: nasturtiums, along with some bush variety flowering sweet peas. I already love fruit gardening and have Red Delicious Apple, Santa Rosa Plum, Asian Persimmon, and Brown Turkey Fig trees, and I have three varieties of blueberry bushes (the Rabbit Eye variety is my favorite), and blackberry and grape vines. The blueberry haul this year was so overwhelming that I had to give about half of them away. I wish I had just frozen them now, but I enjoyed sharing my bounty with others. I've had pretty good luck with the fruit husbandry, so I hope the same will extend to the vegetables.

 I've decided to document my winter garden on my blog —a Waldenesque adventure of my own. I do all this in the hope that my kids (13 and 10) will open their minds a little to the joys of green eating if they see vegetables grown in their own yard—or at least be more willing to try some new things. Before I had children, I was once a vegetarian, then vegan, then vegetarian, and now a "pescetarian," but society has turned my kids into chicken wing-chicken nugget-mac n' cheese addicts, and I'll admit I've been an enabler in an attempt to get anything into my persnickety kids' tummies.

Thus, expect to read about my garden successes and woes. I've already had to concoct a organic vegetable spray of cayenne pepper, rosemary oil, cloves, and peppermint soap to keep the pesky aphids off my romaine! I plan to take photographs of my maiden gardening journey over the next few months, too. So let's go play in the dirt! (Above photo: started-romaine in seed pots)

Test Post

Post