Finally, It Looks Like a Garden!

 Can definitely tell the difference between the phone camera and the good camera.  Bunch of shots of the garden after nearly a week of gorgeous weather, the sun really helped get things moving along.

Kale

Artichokes and cilantro

Alex's carrots.  He checks on them regularly to see if they're ready yet. :)

Broccoli.

Leaf lettuce

Romaine lettuce

The tulips are done, but the pansies are taking over.

Oregon Spring tomato just waiting for an opening in the garden beds.

Swiss chard is finally starting to grow at a decent pace.

Potato plant, 3 of the 5 I planted are growing well.  The other two never did anything.

The first bed is really starting to look like a garden now, but the second one has some catching up to do still.

Raised bed 1.

Raised bed 2.

Hot weather starts enjoying some sunshine.

New whiskey barrel (#3) with perennials and bulbs planted.

Strawberry bed, flowering and doing great, but I really need to weed the path next to it.

That's how my garden's growing today, not long now till there will be peas, lettuce, kale, and strawberries coming in on a daily basis.  Over the next few days I plan to make some adjustments to my watering system, and have my brother help me with some work in the front and back yards.

A Little Light Goes a Long Way

I stopped by my neighbor, Julie's, house the other day to exchange a few seeds with her and she gave me a couple tomato and jalapeno starts as well.

Seeing Julie's grow room system and the condition of her starts made me decide to put up a post regarding legginess and lighting.

Left, my pepper starts, planted about 2-3 weeks ago.  Right Julie's jalapenos, planted 2 months ago.

Left: my tomatoes, Right: Julie's tomatoes (the little ones in front are mine too.

In the photos above you can easily see that Julie's plants are much older than mine, but you can also see that they have a paler green color to their leaves, much longer stems between each set of leaves, and I'm actually holding the tomato up because its stem isn't strong enough.  So why the difference?  Light. 

I wish I had taken a picture of Julie's grow room, but sadly I'll just have to describe it.  She has one large set of fluorescents in a 4 bulb fixture above a wood shelf in a west facing window.  There is a second shelf below that one with no lighting.  The light fixture is suspended about 6-8 inches above the pots. 

All in all it isn't a bad system, but it's not adequate; the easiest way to tell that it's not adequate is the pale leggy look of the starts.  The light fixture she has would be perfect for the one shelf if it were positioned lower, but it does nothing for the lower shelf, especially since the wood shelves let no light from above down onto the plants below. 

So if you are having trouble with leggy, sickly pale green starts try adding more lights, bringing the lights closer to the plants (fluorescents are very cool and will not burn your plants even if the leaves touch them) or if possible the very best way to improve the health of your starts is to set them out in the sunshine a few hours a day.  Only do this when it's comfortably warm out though and slowly progress them from an hour or so to a full day in the sunlight.

Eggplants finally sprouted! (Only planted two though, WTF? Why are there three?)

 Just to add a quick update to things:  the past few days have been cold, rainy, and depressing.  The plants in the garden are growing very well and I'm waiting for my first harvest with bated breath.  I haven't been able to get the rest of my tomatoes started yet because there is no room under the grow lights, but the weekend is expected to be beautiful and I will try to get the pumpkin bed cleaned up and planted with pumpkins, beans, zucchini and basil.  Hopefully that will give me enough space to start the rest of the tomatoes.

More starts under the lights, I bought one Oregon Spring tomato in hopes of a very early harvest from it.

Keep your lights close to your plants, give them more light than you think they can bear, and good luck!

The Need For Speed

One of the conundrums new gardeners face each year is when to plant each type of seed.  The seed packs always say 4-6 weeks before/after last frost date or something similar, but that's not all that helpful most of the time.  They also sometimes say what temperature the soil should be for germination, which is nice for outdoor planting, but doesn't really matter for things you start inside.  More important is the question of how fast the seeds will sprout and grow before you run out of room for them and are forced to put them outside?  And how slow will they grow?  Will you run out of summer before they are big enough to go outside?

So here's a quick list of the crops I've grown and their growing speed to give you an idea what should be planted super early, what can wait a bit and what will outgrow your indoor space before the weather warms.

Fastest to slowest:
-lettuce
-spinach
-squashes (summer and winter)
-radish
-brassicas
-melons
-peas
-beans
-tomatoes
-Swiss chard
-peppers
-carrots
-basil
-onion family (from seed, not set)
-herbs
-eggplant
-celery

I haven't grown corn yet, so have no idea how quickly it grows, but this should give an idea that you would not want to start celery and lettuce together in early Spring for a harvest at the same time.  In fact, celery is the slowest growing vegetable I've planted, which is why I usually buy it as a start.  I could plant celery in January and it still might be too small to go outside in April.  At the same time it would be pointless to plant zucchini seeds (summer squash) inside in February when it will outgrow your space by April and (here, in Oregon) can't be planted outside until the rains slow down in May.  I've lost many cucurbits to powdery mildew and no longer take any chances, plus since they grow so quickly I have plenty of time for a good harvest even after waiting out the rains.

Tomatoes are much faster growers than peppers or eggplants, if you plan to transplant all three together once the weather is warm enough you'll have to plant your eggplants, wait a week, plant the peppers, wait two more weeks and then start the tomatoes.  Otherwise your tomatoes will be far too large to keep under grow lights before the rest have a chance to catch up, especially if you have failed germination and have to replant something.

Point in case:  One row of my garden bed right now has lettuces and swiss chard that were planted inside the same day, cared for the same, and transplanted the same day as well; it also has peas that were planted outside the day the others were transplanted.  Today this row has lettuce that's nearly ready to harvest, peas that are about 6" tall, and Swiss chard that is still little more than a sprout with it's first true leaves.  I transplanted all of this on March 26th, then started some tomatoes on April 10th.  The tomatoes are already putting on their second set of true leaves, and are far ahead of the chard despite being planted 2 weeks after the chard went outside.

I hope this post is helpful in determining planting dates, and good luck with the gardens everyone!

Garden Update: Yep, Raining Again!

Since my last post it has rained all but 3 days; and it's not expected to stop for 4 more.  Luckily the weatherman is on my good side again for predicting sunshine for the next week after that!  One good week of sun should be enough to finally get all those transplants growing, and to get the second bed turned and amended and planted with more transplants.

My brother, for those who don't know, has a very nice heated grow room and was planning to get my hot weather starts going for me.  His grow room got infested with spider mites a few weeks ago though and is currently under quarantine.  Hopefully he'll still be able to get things started and grown to transplant size before June.  My fingers are crossed that we'll have tomatoes and peppers that are happy and healthy by then.  Last year he lost a lot of them to damping off and mildew issues from lack of air circulation.  This year he has a better ventilation system.

Since I gave him all my seeds for starting but the winter squash, I figured I'd go ahead and get them rolling along today.  I planted Buttercup Squash, Waltham Butternut Squash, and Delicata Squash.  Personally I am not a fan of squash; I kind of hate it.  My mom loves Delicata though, and will eat the others as well.  The main reason for growing them is to fill in the blackberry zone in the back yard.  If I tear out enough blackberries and put in squashes that grow fast and are huge and shade out the ground; my hope is the squashes will also shade out the blackberry roots and help keep them in check.  Of course, having squashes for eating isn't a bad thing either.

Meanwhile, back in the garden... Nothing in the main bed is really growing yet, a few leaves have appeared here and there but not much growth beyond that.  Who could blame them? All this rain doesn't help and they are still recovering from the transplanting.  On the plus side, none of the transplants have died, and the cat-proof covers have done their job.  The kales in the whiskey barrel are doing great though, they have really taken off and are actually putting on some decent sized leaves (about the size of my thumb), which is a big improvement over a week ago when they only had their tiny first set of leaves.

I'm still not seeing any growth from the potatoes, or the rhubarb, but I have heard they can take a while to get going. My cherry tree is popping out green leave buds though, so I guess I didn't kill it after all. :)

In other news:  I was out of town most of last week and apparently one of the cats tried to jump on my little greenhouse.  The cat broke through the plastic cover and tipped over the entire thing, including my tray of starts that was hardening off.  My husband did his best to save everything (and he did great!), I'm hoping the trauma won't do too much harm, but a few stems are looking kinked despite the plants looking as healthy as ever.

And that's the news for today!  Hope everyone's enjoying Spring and growing some garden goodness!

Onion Culture

Allium cepa a.k.a. the bulb, common, or garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of Allium.  Allium cepa only exists in cultivation; though there are a few Allium species in the wild, often referred to as "wild onions" they are NOT Allium cepa. 

Traces of onion have been found in Bronze Age settlements dating as far back as 5000 BC (about the time the potato was being developed on the other side of the world; because what is a potato without an onion?).  It is uncertain if these traces were of "cultivated" onion; true cultivated onions can be traced to about two thousand years later in ancient Egypt, leeks and garlic also had their beginnings at this time.  Ancient Egyptians believed the onion's spherical shape and concentric rings represented eternal life.  Traces of onion have been found in Egyptian burial chambers and it's believed that the workers who built the pyramids ate onions and radishes.  In Greece, onion was believed to lighten the balance of the blood.  in Roman culture, gladiators were rubbed with onion to firm up their muscles.  In the Middle Ages they were so important they were used to pay rent, and given as gifts.  Medicinally onions have been used to treat constipation, erectile dysfunction, infertility, headaches, coughs, snake bites, and hair loss.  Columbus brought cultivated onions with him to the Americas, only to find out later that the natives were already using wild onion for everything from food, to dyes, to toys.

You should never give onion to pets or other animals as it may poison them.

Onions contain chemicals known to have anti-inflammatory, anti-cholesterol, anti-cancer, and anti-oxidant properties (in humans).  Studies have shown that eating onions may lower the risk of head and neck related cancers.  The more pungent an onion is, the greater its ability to inhibit cancer cell growth.  Onions may also be beneficial in reducing the risk of osteoporosis in women. 

Lacrimatory Factor, or LF, is the gas created when an onion is cut into or bitten that causes your eyes to tear up.  This can be reduced by using a sharp knife to cut them, or by chilling or freezing them before use, or by cutting them under running water or in a bowl of water. 

Onions are propagated by seed, or by bulb set.  Onion sets are small bulbs of onion grown from seed the previous year, planted in the ground these will grow into full sized bulbs in a shorter time frame than seeds.  Sets are reputed to grow bulbs with less durability than seeds though.

Onions that produce seeds are "day-length sensitive", this means they require a certain number of daylight hours before they will begin to bulb.  Long-day onions require 15 or more hours of daylight, intermediate day onions require 12-13 hours, and short day onions require 9-10 hours.  Often, short day onions are planted in the fall in mild climates and will bulb in early spring. 

Green onion, or scallion, refers to either an immature onion that has not yet bulbed, or to the Welsh onion, an Allium species which does not bulb at all.  You can differentiate between a Welsh onion and a common onion scallion by the cross section of the leaves; Welsh onions leaves are flattened on one side, while the common onion leaf is round.  Tree onions, top onions, topsetting onions, walking onions, or Egyptian onions refer to the species Allium proliferum; this onion plant forms bulblets on top rather than a flower and seeds.  These bulblets can then be planted to grow more onions, or eaten like a normal onion bulb.

Tree onion

Green onions and leeks should be refrigerated after harvest.  Regular bulb onions can be stored at room temperature in a cool, dry, dark, ventilated area.  At room temperature onions have a shelf life of 1-5 weeks depending on variety; in the fridge this can be extended up to 4 more weeks.  In storage, onions can absorb the smells of apples and pears; they should be stored away from moister vegetables as they can draw that moisture from the air and will spoil sooner.

Onions generally come in 3 colors: red, white, and yellow.  Yellow onions are full-flavored and are usable for just about any culinary purpose.  Red onions are best chopped fresh, or as grilled or char-broiled onion.  Red onions have a sharper flavor.  White onions are traditionally used in Mexican food, they sautee to a golden color and develop a sweet flavor when cooked.

Small bulbed onions are used for pickling, or eaten as vegetables; these include pearl, boiler and pickler onions.  Onion seeds can also be eaten as sprouts, similar to alfalfa sprouts.

For longer season onions (those that make a regular bulb) you should plant seeds in the fall; or plant sets instead in cold climates.  Short season onions like scallions and pearl onions can be planted early in the spring.  Starting them inside can help you get ahead of the game when the weather stays cold late in the season.  Seeds can be planted very close together (my pearl onion seed pack said to plant up to 100 seeds per 4"-6" pot) then thinned after sprouting.  Thin to about 1-2" apart, further for larger onions.  Sets can be put into the ground as early as January, or as late as April depending on variety and climate.  Tops will grow up, when tops die back the bulbs are ready for harvest.  The whole onion can be harvested at any time too, for use as scallions.  Don't waste your thinnings! Chop them up into a recipe that calls for green onion. 

Onions are a great addition to any garden, they can deter some pests, look pretty both in growth and in bloom, take up very little space, and can be added to nearly any recipe.  If you're going to grow tomatoes, you'd better grow onions too.  You can't make salsa or spaghetti sauce without them.  I have never heard of a pest or disease problem with onions either, though I may be mistaken (Note: the SFG book says onion fly maggot can be a problem).  My only issue with them  in years past has been that they just don't want to bulb, so this year I'm giving them a head start in the house, both the pearl onions and the sweet Spanish white onions, in the hopes that I'll actually have some onions for all my summer recipes.  In an SFG garden plant 16 onions to a square foot.

After harvesting lay onions out in a single layer in a warm dry place, this will allow them to cure and the skins to dry, ensuring they will last longer in storage.

My onion growing knowledge is kind of slim, so if anyone can add to this please feel free to let me know.

Love Lettuce

Despite the fact that the seeds were planted Saturday night, and it is now only Monday morning, I spotted the tiny white slivers of lettuce stems in my pots today.  I am just amazed at how fast that was.  Optimal conditions for germination make a big difference.

Also, I called this morning for location services to ensure that planting my cherry tree won't involve electrocuting myself or bursting a water line... if it's a problem I will just have to look into a different location for the tree.  I probably should have done this before buying the tree, but oh well, live and learn I suppose.

That's all for today, hoping to get a chance to post a lettuce culture post soon so keep your eyes open for that.

When the Men Are Away, the Women Will... Build a Grow Room?

Shelves, trays, lights, bulbs, and seedling mix.

The original shelf and all the stuff stored there.

Got my grow room set up yesterday, just like everything else it was more challenging than I expected.  The 2' light fixtures I bought were for wiring into a house and didn't have cords, plus they needed assembly which I didn't know until I opened the boxes.  So after returning them I was forced to visit two hardware stores and a Home Depot to find something that would work.  So here's a quick tip: undercabinet lights, shop lights, and aquarium lights are your best bets for fixtures.  Strip lights wire into a home and don't have cords.  Undercabinet lights are primarily less than 2' long, shop lights are 4' and longer, and aquarium lights are in between.  Since you pay close to the same amount for a 2' light as a 4' light it's more cost efficient to have a 4' space and buy one shop light (which are cheap) than to buy two 2' lights (or in my case two 18" lights).  Aquarium lights tend to be more spendy since they are rather specialized, the other advantage of shop lights is that they often come with chains to hang them.  Sadly, my space was not wide enough to fit a shop light so I had to resort to a less efficient system.

 When selecting flourescent bulbs be sure to buy the correct length, circumference, and light color.  While a standard soft white bulb will work to sprout seeds, they will become leggy fast searching for actual sunlight.  Flourescents come in varying circumferences (T12, T8, T5) and you should check the size on the fixture you choose and buy a bulb of the correct size to fit it.  My fixtures require 18" T8 bulbs.

Examples of different bulbs that would work for plant growth.

Once you find the correct size you need to select a light color as close to that of sunlight as possible.  Daylight, Full Spectrum, Wide Spectrum, Plant and Aquarium, Natural Light, or Natural Daylight are some of the names for the bulbs you need.  If you are unsure of whether a bulb will work for your starts you can check the label on the package.  Look for the "Color Temperature" on the label, it should be a number between about 5000K and 6000K.  A number higher than that will cross into the white light category and may not be adequate, while a lower number will become closer to red light and again won't serve your purpose.

Once I solved my light fixture problem I set up my shelf, moved all my junk onto it, then plugged in the power strip.  It took a bit of arranging to get the lights hanging correctly. Then I wrapped tin foil over the cardboard from the shelving box and hung it over the back of the shelf.  Finally, I planted some seeds, I will probably plant more today, but was surprised to find I could fit 29 pots of different sizes into one tray.  I may not need more than that!

Below are more pictures showing the grow room space.

The shelf all assembled, lights hung, you can't really see the tin foil but it's against the wall reflecting the light forward.  I also set my thermometer w/min max on top to watch the temps here and in the green house more easily.

Examples of reusing last year's pots, and of phone book page origami pots.

21 of my pots filled and ready to go.  I had to stop and make more paper pots.

Plastic dome over top.  Seeded, watered and under the lights.  Ready to sprout!

I could have fit 3 trays under these lights but by the time I was done last night I was not prepared to plant that many seeds.  Plus I think I'll need another bag of seedling mix first.  Be sure to keep lights positioned just above the tops of the plants, no more than 4" above them to encourage short, robust growth and deter legginess.  You can move the lights up as needed or move the plants down, whatever is easier.  Lastly I wanted to mention that while researching on plant lights I found out that plants require and grow better with both light and dark times each day, so be sure to turn your plant lights off at night and back on in the mornings, if you are too forgetful for that then set a light timer to do it for you.  Having dark time is nearly as important to plant health as having sunlight.  Good luck!

The Costs of an Early Start

Growing seasons differ across the country.  A lucky friend of mine just sent me a picture of the lemon and orange trees in her yard that are in full fruit right now, living in southern California makes a big difference I suppose.  The weather here is still touching on freezing overnight and with as mild as the winter was it would not be remiss to expect it to keep going this way for another month or even two.

I recently picked up an indoor/outdoor thermometer with min/max capabilities to keep an eye on how much the temperature in my tiny greenhouse is changing.  In the past week the minimum temperature inside the greenhouse was 33 degrees, and the maximum was 96.  Unless one of the kids slapped the thermometer with a hot potato when I wasn't looking, that means there was a more than 60 degree change in temperature just within the week.  Too cold for winter veggies and too hot for them too.  I definitely need a better greenhouse system, but I'm unwilling to invest in one since I have such limited space.  Instead the greenhouse will be used solely for hardening off, opening it up during the day and closing it on cooler nights to keep the temps from going out of control.

This has left me in need of a space to get my winter veggies started.  My brother, may his awesomeness reign forever, has agreed to start my hot weather plants for me again this year.  I plan to attempt starting the cold weather plants myself though.  With that in mind I decided to build a "grow room"... er, shelf inside.

People give you a lot of strange looks when you mention that you are building a grow room, it seems the phrasing just makes them think of growing marijuana, but in actuality it makes good sense (cents?).  Starts from a nursery are often limited to the most common varieties, and by what is in stock.  Each start you buy ranges in price from .99 to $5.00 (for gallons).  But if you have a grow room and some seeds you can effectively pay far less in the long run and have better quality plants of more varieties.  If you save your own seed it cuts the cost even further.

So let's talk about the costs of a grow room.  For cool weather plants the costs are lower than for hot weather plants, primarily because you don't have to heat them as much.  Start with a shelf, or shelves, or a tabletop, or a windowsill, anywhere you can find room to set one or more trays of pots, hang a light over it, and keep it away from things or people that could cause trouble.  You will need lighting, if it's a completely enclosed space you'll need ventilation, if it's outside of the house or you will grow hot weather plants longer than a few weeks you'll need a heat source you can monitor and adjust.  You also need trays, pots, potting soil, seeds, water, and a power source for the heat/lights/ventilation.

For example, my "grow room" will actually be a few shelves in my laundry room.  The furnace and back door are in there, and it is generally left open to the rest of the house so ventilation and heat should not be an issue.  There is a power source (the outlet the washer is plugged into) to run the lights, though I will need a power strip to use more than one light at a time.  Currently I have a small metal shelving unit in there which holds the overflow of my Costco shopping trips that won't fit in the kitchen.  My plan is to replace this with a 4 tier shelf that is wider and taller.  It will still hold my overstock goods in the bottom two shelves, but the upper two will be outfitted with lights and house my starts.

Costs:
36" wide 4 tier shelves:  $60
Power strip:  $20
2' wide single bulb flourescent light fixtures:  $10 each
2' long flourescent light bulbs (daylight or plant and aquarium):  $8 each
Plastic seedling trays:  $2 each
Organic seedling potting mix (small bag): $5 each
Aluminum foil: $5
Newspaper/reusable old pots/phone book:  $0
Cardboard:  $0

Depending on how many plants you plan to start it should have an initial cost of about $150 or more.  Nearly half the cost is just the shelving unit, which is totally reusable year after year and can be used for storage between growing seasons.  The other big cost is the power strip and it can also be used year after year, or used for other things when it's not needed for the plants.  The light fixtures and plastic trays should last you a few years too.

The things that need replacing each year are the potting mix, aluminum foil, cardboard and pots.  But cardboard is free from any recycling bin, aluminum foil is inexpensive, potting mix can be made in bulk, and pots can be made of free recycling items too.

So, to make the cost comparison, let's say you are planning to grow cabbage, broccoli, kale, onions, and carrots.  About 70 plants total.  To buy these plants already started you'd pay about $2 each for four packs of the larger veggies or 6 packs of the smaller ones.  For this price you get the smallest starts, basically a stem with its first set of true leaves.  If you want 40 of the large veggies it will cost $20 and let's say about another $10 for 30 of the smaller ones.  So you spent $30 on starts.  Not so bad really, in fact, I know I usually spend more than this... maybe I underestimated the cost.  But no matter.  4" potted starts will cost you up to twice as much for one plant.

The first year of building a grow room you will have spent $150 on the setup alone, and about $7.00 for the same five types of plants.  The difference is that a packet of kale seeds contains around 50 seeds, carrot packets contain closer to 100 or more.  So instead of 70 plants you have the ability to grow 250 plants.  You can grow spares and sell them, or trade them to other gardeners, or share with friends or family.  Or you can save all that extra seed for the next year and save yourself the seed costs.  Obviously there is no savings the first year, but the second year you only have to pay... well, nothing if you make your own potting soil from your own compost, about $5-$15 if you buy it, depending on how much you need.  And so on, for many years.  Light bulbs will need to be replaced every few years, and undoubtedly your plastic trays will eventually need replacing, but for the most part the grow room will be low maintenance and save you money in the end.

Considering I spend $150 on seeds alone, of nearly 40 different plants, if the grow room will allow me to improve their survival rate and possibly even turn a few starts into cash by selling them to neighbors or my mom at a discount I will be happy with the investment.  Two shelves of grow space alone should provide all of my cool season crops adequate room, and it could also be enough space for the hot season plants if needed (after the cool plants were moved outside).  Imagine how much you could grow in a whole room!

The other big bonus to creating your own grow room is getting ahead of the game on planting times.  In the Willamette Valley a gardener has between April 15th and October 1st to do all of their growing.  Just over 5 months.  If it takes a cabbage 60 days to reach maturity and a tomato 80 days... there just isn't enough time to plant one from seed and then follow it with the other from seed.  Working in a small space you can really increase your returns by planting the same area twice, or even three times, in one season.  With a grow room I can start my cabbages inside a month earlier than I could outside, while the soil is still too cold for germination.  They can grow larger under optimum conditions before being put outside, then finish their growth in the garden where they will have plenty of room.  This means that I should be able to have the cool weather crops (or at least most of them) harvested and pulled out in time for the hot weather plantings to go in at the beginning of June.  Then I can even start a fall crop in August when the determinate tomatoes have finished producing and the basil is harvested, leaving the longer season tomatoes to finish off before it gets cold again.

Lastly, I can use my grow space over the winter to grow entire plants for fresh eating indoors.  Spinach, lettuce, green onion, annual herbs like cilantro and basil, all of these can grow indoors over the winter.  They won't outgrow their space and can easily be harvested as needed without sacrificing the entire plant.  Inside a house they shouldn't even need extra heat to stay healthy.

P.S. I almost forgot to explain the purpose of the foil, cardboard and newspaper etc.  Backing and/or siding your shelves with a reflective surface (i.e. aluminum foil wrapped over cardboard for stability) will help keep the light and heat focused inward toward the plants and can make a big difference in plant health.  Newspaper or phone book pages make excellent paper pots, or you can reuse any old start containers from previous years, just be sure to wash them well with soapy water.  I've found that newspaper origami pots are about a 4" pot, while phone book pages make a pot closer to the size of a 2" peat pot.  Yellowbook phone books are totally recyclable and have soy based inks that won't contaminate your soil, check online to see if your phone book is made with soy based inks.  If not, stick to newspaper, which is always made with non-toxic inks.

Next time... When the Men Are Away, the Women Will... Build a Grow Room?
In which my daughter and I put together our grow room, start seeds, and then wait for my husband to notice it when he gets home.

Are We There Yet? Seed Starting

It's early February and while it's warm out right now, it's still a little too early for seed starting.  Last frost here in the Willamette Valley is the first week or two of April.  From my own experience and the particulars of my garden I will put out my coolest weather plants in late March.  I have plastic sheeting to cover the plants if there is a late frost expected, and my beds are all raised so the soil tends to warm up faster than in-ground beds. 

Far more of an issue in my garden is that the fence along the back of each bed is south facing.  Right now we can have a beautiful sunny day and my beds are completely shaded, as well as several feet past them onto the patio.  The fronts of the beds won't see direct sunlight until mid-March, and the backs won't until late April.  I can start seeds indoors though and put them out in mid- to late March.  The only issue with this is trying to find a balance between when to plant versus how large the plants will get by the time they can be moved outdoors.  My small greenhouse will keep them safe a little longer, but they will become spindly and weak quickly and exposed to very high temperatures in the greenhouse when the sun is out.  The little standing shelf style of  greenhouse is useful for the transition between indoor growing and outdoor growing, but it really doesn't have any temperature controls and heats up very fast.

I generally figure about 10-20 days of indoor growth.  The first ten days are just to allow for sprouting, the next ten are to allow at least one but preferably two or even 4 sets of leaves to develop before transplant time.  Most cool weather plants shouldn't have trouble with this; others, such as celery, need much longer to develop.

I also don't have any south facing windows or any grow lights currently, so if I plant seeds too early they will get lanky searching for light long before it's warm enough for them outside.  The only windows in my house that face south are in my kids' bedrooms, and that's just not a practical place for plants to be. 

My best bet for starting brassicas, lettuces, spinaches, and other cool weather crops is to plant them around the last week of February to the first week of March, then move them to the greenhouse in mid-March and wait for the weather to clear for transplanting.  This is one of the reasons for keeping notes on your garden.  Last year I started things inside the first week of March, then directly transplanted them at the end of March because I didn't have the greenhouse yet.  They were very spindly after a month in the house, and i was forced to put them directly in the ground a little too early because the greenhouse was tipped over in a Spring storm.  I learned to weigh it down with a cinder block to prevent that happening again!  The plants struggled outside until the sun finally started to reach the garden beds in April, they did well after that though. 

This year I think I can get a head start by starting just as early indoors, then moving things to the greenhouse, and holding off to transplant until April.

One thing I do plan to change is the size of pots I will be starting seeds in.  Last year I used the tiny 2" peat pots from a seed starting kit.  This year I will be starting seeds in 4" pots, this will save me from having to transplant them before they outgrow the 2" ones.  Since I'm not running a nursery where seed starting space is limited it makes more sense to me to save myself the step of switching up to bigger pots.

You can start seeds in anything, peat pots, plastic pots, egg cartons, or paper pots.  Anything that is roughly the right size and will hold dirt and water, just make sure it has some drainage holes in the bottom.  You will also need a tray of some kind to catch water runoff; plastic trays from seed starting kits are reusable for this year after year, cookie sheets with sides work too, or a mesh screen over a bucket even.  My dad found a collection of old school lunch trays at a garage sale many years ago that work great for all sorts of things, including seed starting trays.

My brother found a very cheap solution for pots as well, that also protects against transplant shock.  Newspaper pots! Fold newspaper origami-style into a pot shape, plant your seeds, watch them grow, then plant the whole pot into the garden.  Here is an excellent video showing how to make these.  If your origami skills are lacking you can also try this method.

So you have a tray, and pots, now you just need some dirt.  The one thing to be careful of for seed starting is not to use old, used dirt from the garden.  Normal garden soil is full of weed seeds, fungus spores, insect eggs, etc. that you just don't want in the pots with your seeds.  You should use potting soil, seed starting soil, or if you prefer a less expensive option you can use peat moss and give it an occasional dose of compost tea once the seeds sprout.  Peat moss can be bought for a few dollars a cubic foot, which is more than enough to start all the seeds you need.  It retains water well so won't dry out between waterings and is soft and loose, allowing roots to spread out and grow better.  Peat moss doesn't have any plant nutritional value though, it's like the potato chip of soils.  Spritzing your starts with compost tea once a week will help supply the nutrients they need to grow healthy in a peat soil, and prevent them from damping off before they are transplanted. 

Plant your seeds, smaller things like spinach can be planted 2 or 3 to a pot, larger plants should be in separate pots.  Label each pot, see tip below.  Find a sunny (or somewhat sunny) spot in the house where seedlings will be safe from kids and pets (my cat ate my first lettuce plantings last year).  Cover trays with plastic wrap, or the plastic domes that come with seed starting kits to help retain moisture and heat.  Remove the plastic covers once the seeds have sprouted to prevent mold though!  And wait for your sprouts to come up.

Make sure to note what day they were planted and what day each type of seed sprouts.  If you have sprouts of everything but lettuce after 10 days, you should probably plant new lettuce because it should have been the first thing to sprout.  Again, this is when taking notes is really useful.

Tip: Don't write labels on the paper pots, they will smudge after watering.  Instead, you can use plastic knives from party packs of plastic silverware (because you always end up with leftover knives, yet need more forks and spoons) and a permanent marker.  These work great; they are sturdy, don't smudge, and it's a nice way to reuse something that would otherwise just keep stockpiling in your cabinets.  Another option that I found at Backyard Homesteader's YouTube Channel is using window blinds as plant tags, plastic blinds can be found for a two to three dollars at most stores that sell housewares, then cut up into small tags to label plants with.

Got Shade?

So far shade gardening has not been my forte.  Many homes are situated in a manner that at lest some part of the yard is shady and visible to everyone passing by.  You can either fill these areas with gravel or mulch or let them turn into weeds, or use them as a place to keep your compost and empty pots; or you can try to make them a part of your gardening experience by creating a shade garden.  Vegetables? Fruits? Herbs? Forget it. It's just not going to happen so don't go getting any ideas about try to grow these things in the shade.  Some more useful options are moss, hosta, or rhodies.  Rhododendrons are native to my area and it's obvious why.  The dark moist richness of the forest floor is all a rhody really needs.  They grow quite well in the gaps between the tall firs and strain outward to catch a passing ray or two of sunlight.  While rhodies will tolerate full shade, they prefer to glimpse some sunlight at least a few hours of the day.  Moss likes moist shady areas, and there are many varieties in different colors and textures that can fill a small area and at least make it look green.

The best way to plan for a shade garden is to visualize what plants grow in the forested areas near you.  Here in western Oregon we have fir stands, and growing below the treetops are rhododendrons, ferns, Oregon grape, mushrooms, huckleberries, bleeding hearts and Dutchman's britches (common names for the different colored flowers of the Dicentra genus), and columbine.   In shady cultivated gardens you can spot acanthus, begonia, hellebore, impatiens, fuschia, and hosta.  Some blend of the wild-growing and cultivated, the foliage and the flowering can offer the best contrasts for a shade garden.

If you have the room put in a rhododendron, surround it with a few types of fern, and fill in the small spaces around these with lower growing hosta, then tuck flowers like begonia, impatiens, bleeding hearts and columbine in around each.  The bonus of a shade garden is that you don't have to water nearly as much, in some cases not at all.  Many shade plants are also perennial, like hosta and fern, columbine and bleeding heart.  One year spent putting together your shade garden and an annual trimming of dead branches and leaves and pruning of shrubs can be all it takes to have a beautiful space where previously there was a muddy pit, or a tangle of weeds.

When choosing plants look carefully at the tags or the descriptions in catalogs, watch for a little half-black sun symbol, or completely black sun.  These mean partial or full shade.

Catalog entry for shade or partial shade plant.

If you are truly at a loss on how best to plant in a shady space, you can always resort to a rock garden, or a water feature (which will benefit from the lack of sun and grow less algae).

Easy Plants Are a Myth

People often say that a certain plant is easy to grow, or difficult to grow.  I say it's BS.  Supposedly a great easy to grow plant that even a kid can plant is sunflowers.  Well, I have planted mammoth sunflowers many many years and they've always either failed to sprout at all, or grown the saddest spindliest flowers I've ever seen.  Last summer however my 3 year old son was helping in the garden and I gave him a couple sunflower seeds to bury just so he could plant some seeds that were large and easy to manage.  His two sunflowers topped 12 feet in height, they also put out flower heads that were a good 12 inches in diameter.  Maybe it was just better soil? Nope, I put in a few sunflowers too. Planted them at the same time and they only grew to about 6 feet and had 6-8 inch flowers.  I have no idea why, but the sunflowers loved being planted by the small boy.

Among the so-called "easy to grow" plants most people list perennial herbs, tomatoes, pumpkins, summer squash, annual flowers, and hardy greens like kale and chard.  If you are just starting out with gardening give these plants a shot, but don't give up hope if they don't do well.  Sometimes it will just turn out that you have a knack for celery (known to be a very finicky plant), while tomatoes fiercely dislike you.

My brother built a massive greenhouse and garden last summer, on my parents' property.  The garden there has been producing piles of tomatoes and summer squash for nearly 20 years.  He saved the hot crops for the greenhouse, but continued the tradition of putting summer squash in the garden, he also planted peas, turnips, carrots, kale, broccoli, and chard.  While this was the first year he managed such a large garden he is an experienced gardener.  Guess what? Everything in the garden did great... except the squash, and the peas.  For some crazy reason last year the only things that would grow well in that garden were root veggies and brassicas. 

Some crops are considered easy because they have few known diseases or predators, or because they can withstand some drought or flooding.  Very few veggies should be considered easy to grow, nearly all of the vegetables people plant are so carefully bred that they are entirely dependent on human kindness for survival.  Kale is one of the few that could probably manage on it's own, and in hot climates it is challenging to grow outside of the winter months.

Often when you have difficulty with a certain plant it is not because the plant is difficult but because you don't yet have an understanding of what it takes to make that plant happy.  Since a pumpkin makes a very small root compared to the massive amount of aboveground space it takes up, it doesn't generally need a lot of well worked soil.  The pumpkins roots won't spread much, they can be put in a 6" pot in a hole full of rocks and be content so long as their 6" of dirt is highly nutritious.  Meanwhile, carrots sprout from very tiny seed that then sends down a tap root, while carrots don't actually bulb like an onion (so they can be spaced fairly close) they are rather delicate and need their soil loosened and fluffed to make growth straight down easier.  If you've got heavy soil and only loosen the top inch or so, your carrots will never do well.  I have never yet been able to grow carrots well.  This year I plan to try again in the "Mel's Mix" soil, in hopes that it is light and fluffy enough to keep carrots happy.


Once you get a handle on what the plant needs to be happy you will find it easier to provide those things and have a very "easy" plant to grow.  For me, one of the "easy" plants I struggled with was pumpkins.  I put them in the ground and they got powdery mildew, or didn't sprout, or didn't grow beyond a sprout, or grew long and happy and healthy but didn't produce any pumpkins.  Each year I learned a few things so that I got a little closer to pumpkin perfection.  Initially I had it in my head that pumpkins were colder weather plants, it seemed reasonable since they aren't harvested until fall, I planted them in March and my seeds didn't sprout.  The variety I was growing needed about 100 days to reach harvest, so I figured out that I needed to start them indoors to keep them warm until the weather improved, this also helped prevent the mildew that sets in during the wet months in spring.  Once I had a good start going and the weather improved I moved it into the garden bed, but that year I let them sprawl and only had room for one plant: it grew well but no pumpkins developed.  Finally I began trellising, it gave me enough room to grow three pumpkins in my small space and finally had the cross-pollination needed to produce some very healthy fruits. 

Gardening is a learning experience, each year you find that you get a little better at managing the plants you grow and get a little better fruit or flower in return.  It's a struggle at first for most people, but it does get better.  You may never be able to get the hang of sunflowers, but you may grow the best turnips in the county instead.  There is no such thing as an "easy" or "difficult" plant, it all depends on the gardener, the garden, the weather, and how many butterflies flap their wings in Taiwan.  Gardening is truly an experiment in chaos theory unlike any other.

Planning Your Garden

2012 Garden Plan created in Territorial Seed Co.'s garden planner program.

There are dozens of software programs available for planning a garden, each has it's pros and cons.  The one I used for the plan shown here, for example, doesn't allow you to resize the plants. Yes, a bell pepper does need a square foot of it's own to grow, but there is no reason it should overlap into the next square.  There is also no reason you couldn't easily fit a thin row of carrots or radishes or green onions between squares of slower growing fruiting vegetables.  A simple, easy to adjust, non-computerized version of this plan may be better suited to some.  Drawing your beds out on a sheet of graph paper enlarged to 4 squares = 1 square foot is handier and neater than some programs.  A great way to do the hand drawn plan is to draw out your beds and then make a few copies of that sheet to use in years to come, saving the hassle of re-drawing it each time.  It also makes it easy to lay out a few different plans and compare them to determine your best course. 
Make a list of vegetables you'd like to have, include the ones you might not think of immediately that are often used in conjunction with others.  If you have a bumper crop of tomatoes but no onions, peppers, or garlic it becomes expensive to run to the store for those things before making your salsa or sauce.
You have two choices of how to proceed with your list at this point, you can decide to plant starts (an excellent option for the beginner) bought from the store or nursery, or to buy seed from a catalog or store.
Buying starts is simple, you wait until the season for the particular plant begins, buy the start, bring it home and plant it.  However, it is far more expensive, your selection is limited to the most popular varieties, and if you can't plant immediately you will have to keep those starts protected from weather, watered, and safe until you are able to plant.  Buying seed is far less expensive, a pack of 50 or more seeds can cost less than one plant start, seeds will last for one to five years in general before they are too old to germinate, your options are limited only by what will grow in your region, and if you start seeds too soon and the weather turns bad you are already set up to keep them warm and healthy a little longer, or just plant a few more if your plants are killed.  An added bonus to seed is sharing them with others, or sharing the starts you grow from them with others.  I usually plant a few extras of each thing in case my cats dig something up, or a transplant doesn't make it, which means I often have starts to spare for friends and family.  The primary downside to starting from seed is the initial cost of trays, tiny pots, and possibly a lamp; and finding a space to put them inside where they will be safe.
Most of my plants are from seed, but I have the advantage of having a brother with a grow room setup in his spare bathroom.  We share seeds and I have him get the hot weather plants started for me.  I handle the cold weather and non-transplantable seeds myself.  In early spring I generally have a few Jiffy trays set out on a card table in my dining room with cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower and swiss chard growing in it.  When they get too big to stay under the warming dome, or begin to get leggy from lack of light I move them outside to my portable greenhouse until the weather improves enough to plant them. I have a few plants I won't grow from seed, some things just aren't worth it to me.  Celery is one of them, it sprouts from a miniscule seed and takes forever to grow big enough to plant outdoors.  I would basically have to plant it in December or January and care for it until April before planting it.  I prefer to buy celery starts.  Another one is basil, I've always had trouble growing basil from seed, so prefer to buy starts for it.

Whichever way you choose to go be sure to have an idea what plants you will put into the garden before drawing up a garden plan.  It is pointless to pre-plan your garden if you aren't sure if you will have determinate or indeterminate tomatoes, or bulbing or green onions.  Knowing what size you can expect each plant to grow to, and whether they will shade out their neighbors or not will vastly improve your garden's productivity.  Once you have that settled you can start laying out your plan, don't lose faith in yourself if something goes amiss though, trial and error is the best way to learn and even seasoned gardeners have a season in which the tomatoes never turn red, or the beets don't sprout at all.