“It’s the most wonderful time of the year…”
Ok, just kidding. But
this weekend is pretty high up on my list of favorites…because we are setting
out tomatoes and other warm weather veggies in our garden! Woot!
Maybe I am a little over excited, but I am a tomato-holic…as the Pioneer
Woman would say…”They make my skirt fly up!”
So…let me give you a short run through of our garden. Last year was a complete fail. Between planting happening 4 weeks late due
to heavy rain, and even more heavy rain after that, and our crappy clay soil…it
just wasn’t very pretty.
This year, we put in 4 raised beds made with 2’ x 12’ x 12’
boards and these awesome raised bed corners from Plow & Hearth. We ordered the soil from a local
nursery. It was supposed to be a nice topsoil/compost
mix, but ended up being light on the compost and full of pieces of gravel…I am
a little disappointed, but I will amend it with more compost and manure, and it
is still much nicer than our clay yard.
We covered the beds with black plastic right after we filled
them, to help raise the soil temperature faster and prevent weeds.
Fast forward a couple weeks, and we put in some cabbage,
sugar snap and snow peas, lettuces, onions, and radishes. The cabbage is growing like crazy, the peas
are so/so, the onions are growing…most of the lettuce was a fail except for a
few ‘Green Ice’ stragglers that seems to be thriving.
Now, we are ready to transplant my babies. They would be tomatoes started from seed in
my basement. I used a seedling heat mat,
found here, and a shop light fixture with both warm and cool spectrum T12 bulbs
mounted on a PVC frame that my awesome hubby built. Had nearly 100% germination and the plants
are thriving!
I also ordered a few different varieties from Burpee…notice
the size difference…but will be starting all from seed next year, based on the
success we had this year.
I will be using Epsoma Garden-tone fertilizer, and Sea MagicGrowth Activator, based on the amazing amount of positive reviews for
both. The garden is not completely
organic, but I will not be using chemical fertilizers or
herbicides/pesticides. I don’t want to
put no so healthy things in my little munchkin’s body!
Hope you have enjoyed my little garden tour, and look
forward to hearing about your garden adventures as well!
Now…I am off to drool and daydream about a fat BLT sandwich
made with a nice juicy tomato straight from the backyard…yum!
I think I need to add a little disclaimer, too…I am, by no
means, a garden expert…and you can feel free to laugh along with me at some of
my failures! I am definitely learning as
I go. I would love to hear your comments
and advice!
-Samantha
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