Seedlings Starting to Emerge!

Daikon radish seedlings peeking out of the soil to say 'Hi'.

How very exciting--my seeds are starting to emerge! It's truly amazing how fast they can grow. I went out to check this morning and saw a few radish and purslane (cultivated) seedlings, and by the afternoon there were turnips, beans, cucumbers, and basil as well, and the radishes had already grown much larger.

It's funny to see how my seeding deteriorated throughout the afternoon that I planted. My first block of radishes are in a perfect offset grid. By the time I reached the end of the mound, I basically scattered them in the rows, telling myself I'll thin them later.

My carrots haven't yet emerged, but from what I've read it sounds like they take a while. I may have made some mistakes in planting them...I just found a guide here. It rained right after I planted them, which may have compacted the soil. The publication recommends covering them with vermiculite instead of soil to prevent this problem. Also, the fertility of the spot I chose might be a bit high. Oh well, it's all just an experiment. Here are a few more photos of my lovely seedlings.

These cucumber seedlings just can't wait to provide me with delicious pickles one day.

Happy little bean seedlings with purple stripes. It will be interesting to see if the adult plants will retain any of their dappling. The seeds were certainly beautiful.

Planting the Seedlings: Tomatoes, Peppers, and Cabbages

This weekend I began planting the starts. I planted:

July 11th : tomatoes
July 13th: cabbages and peppers

I also threw the dill plants into the ground because they were looking so wretched. I have little faith that they'll survive, but it's worth a shot. I still have more cole crops to plant, it's just a matter of finding sunny space for them.

Variety-wise, I basically went with what was available at the garden stand. The tomatoes are a random assortment including Better Boy, Brandywine, Rutgers, and some yellow full-size and cherry toms. The cabbages included Savoy, Stonehead, Discover, and Red Acre. The peppers weren't well-labeled, but I think they were all sweet peppers.

For all the seedlings, I tried to mix the varieties around so that I wouldn't have all of one type in a single location, in case that spot's bad for growing.

I also took a few approaches to the planting itself. The tomatoes were really leggy, so I removed their bottom leaves and buried them quite deep. Since they were already so tall, I had to mound soil up around them to keep the stems buried. This might have been a bad approach from a water management perspective. I mulched heavily around the mounds using oat straw. I placed the tomatoes in the second row from the north. They will get excellent sun there, but won't be shaded by taller plants. I may have spaced them a bit close--I used a checkerboard pattern with ~24" between plants, giving 3 offset rows in the mound. If I get a single tomato out of this I will be amazed.

When I watered the tomatoes I noticed that a lot of the water was running into the walkways, so I took a slightly different approach with the peppers. These I placed on the furthest north mound, where they will be next to the green beans, but not in their shadow. Between the peppers and the beans I made a trench, where most of the water flows. I hope this will make a little reservoir of moist soil whenever it rains or I water. I have not mulched these yet and I'm not sure if I will.

For planting the cabbages I got cleverer still. I placed each cabbage plant in a small depression, so that they will be surrounded by moist soil after I water and the water won't run into the walkways. I mulched heavily between the plants to discourage weeds, hold more water, and keep the soil cool. I've heard that cabbage roots are delicate and they often don't survive transplanting. I tried to be gentle with them, but they were terribly root-bound in the pots. I teased the seedlings apart while holding the rootmass in a pail of water--a technique I perfected on swallow-wort, of course. So hopefully these little guys will survive. I would really like to put up a bunch of sauerkraut from my own garden.

Next I need to plant the herbs and I'm trying to monitor the garden to find a sunny spot that's not in high demand from vegetables. I will be receiving my seeds early next week and then I will plant those.