Garden Update

The garden has gotten off to a very slow start this year. The cool temperatures and record rain fall have made for difficult times for tiny seedlings. I start my seeds in my greenhouse then transfer them to the garden once it's been weeded and prepped for planting. This year I'm having a heck of a time getting my seeds to even sprout. This week has been the first week of nice weather with temperatures today getting almost to 70F. Maybe in the coming weeks we'll have more of these warmer days.

So far I've gotten a lot of my cold weather veggies in the garden. Peas, spinach, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce and chard are all planted. Onions, cabbage and beets will go in next with zucchini, yellow squash, beans and pumpkins to follow closely after. Watermelon, cucumber, cantaloupe and more beans are still having trouble sprouting. I'm thinking of just putting them in the garden anyway to see what they do. I bought my tomato starts again this year. I have not been able to get tomatoes to sprout for me in years...ever really. I either keep it too cold or too hot, I guess, but I've given up on them. I just buy the starts and they grow nicely after that as long as I keep them close to the greenhouse.

I'm also keeping the sprouts for my daughter's Girl Scout troop in my greenhouse. Due to multiple issues with the community garden in which we plant these sprouts, they are still not in the ground and won't be for a week or so. The radishes are looking pretty sad and I'm considering just putting them in the ground in my own garden to save them. The other option is to let the girls see them and try to plant them then explain to them that some plants just don't grow well when they don't have the right growing conditions. So it's a choice between having more veggies to donate to the food bank or learning a lesson in gardening....hmmm.

Anyway, here are some pictures of seedlings from my garden and my greenhouse. How goes your garden this year?

Kale

spinach

Red Leaf lettuce: My lettuce seeds didn't germinate this year so I bought a 4 pack of lettuce starts for $1.99 and got 40 plants out of it. That's 5 cents per head if they all produce!

Cauliflower

Broccoli

Radishes

carrots and pumpkins

Girl Scout starts.