The thinning of the seedlings

Zinnia on April 28

It was a big night in farm land - tonight, I decided that it was time to thin the seedlings. After a little bit of research, I decided on the snipping approach (as opposed to pulling), so that I wouldn't inadvertantly kill the remaining seedlings. I tried to make the decisions pretty carefully - keepers were straight seedlings, growing somewhere near the middle of their cell, with sturdy looking stems. Mike helped with some of the tough calls, and now we're down to one plant per cell. Except for the peppers - I'm going to give them a few extra days so that I can better see which seedlings are going to look the hardiest.

(Top picture - tomatoes post-thinning. I think the bottom shot is pretty self-explanatory)

It's really easy to tell the different seedlings apart now that their true leaves are coming in - with the tomatoes and marigolds especially it's obvious what they're going to grow up to become.

Marigold on April 28

This weekend will be a big farming weekend - we have plans to meet with our neighbor/garden guru to talk garden plans and raised beds, and (fingers crossed), we might be able to have the area where the garden will go rototilled. Also, another neighbor is coming over to help us pull out some nasty wild rose bushes and stumps, which Mike is very excited for as it will entail the use of an excavator, and potentially a tractor.

New leaves, and fruit trees

The seedlings are all doing really well this week. The flowers and tomatoes are almost all starting to get their first full set of true leaves, but I think I'll be able to hold off on moving them into larger pots until Sunday. I was a bit haphazard in my tomato seed distribution, so before I transplant, I'll have to thin out the seedlings in quite a few of the cells.

Peppers on April 27

Because the vegetable garden and chickens didn't feel like quite enough, last weekend we acquired several fruit trees. Last summer we planted two apple trees (well, my parents' neighbor planted them, and we hovered), and since we've gone nearly a year without killing them, we felt it was time to expand. Mike did nearly take one out last weekend while felling a neighboring pine tree, but luckily our little apple tree only lost a branch.

Skillins was having a 20% off sale on trees, so last weekend we loaded up on 2 peach trees, 2 pears, and 2 sweet cherry trees. The sales woman assured us that they'll all grow and produce fruit in Maine, although she did say "they can take a little work." I suspect that for the peaches especially that might be an understatement, but the idea of having a mini fruit orchard was too appealing. Next weekend we'll pick up the trees after we go to a vegetable gardening class, so this weekend's outdoor project will be putting them all in. Optimistically, we're trying to think of all the digging as an excellent cross-training opportunity.

Zinnia, April 27

The seedlings on day 10

First, I really can't believe how many of the seeds actually have sprouted. I was pretty skeptical about this, but either I have really good seeds, or I'm doing something right (except for the whole eggplant thing. But I'm trying to move on.)

Out of the 144 cells in total, only 7 are without seedlings (and 4 of those are pepper cells, so I'm giving them a few more days before admitting defeat). Today it's much easier to see the true leaves starting to come in on the zinnias, marigolds, and tomatoes, so it looks like tomorrow night I'll be reading about how to transplant them into 4 inch pots so that they keep growing correctly.

Some of the seedlings on the edges of the trays are still leaning a bit toward the light, but less than they were when we still had the eggplant going, so it is good that I have more space for them now. I think we may try to expand the number of lights we have this weekend if we get a chance.

And now, for the dramatic photos:

Last Tuesday (Day 3):

And today (Day 10)

Tomato and pepper tray

A marigold, with the first true leaves emerging

Zinnias and marigolds


Heirloom and peach tomatoes

Debut of the peppers

I was an absentee farmer this weekend, as we traveled over to New Hampshire to spend Easter weekend with my parents. We returned home Sunday night to find that the peppers had sprung up! As of this morning, a few of them are as tall as their tomato neighbors, so they seem to be trying hard to make up for lost time.

In other exciting seedling news, some of the tomatoes and flowers look like they're beginning to develop their first true leaves - once this happens, it will be time to transplant them into larger containers. While I'm very happy that they're growing so well, I would like them to slow down just a bit until after this coming weekend, so that I can take my vegetable growing class before having to perform my first transplant. The odds of this don't look good, though, so I'll be reading up on transplanting seedlings this week.

The Chick Order

The chicks are ordered at Paris Farmers Union and are due to arrive May 5th. The basement nursery is all set up and awaits the 20 new girls. Went to a very informative chicken seminar at PFU and won 25 pounds of medicated chicken feed! Can't wait for the hatch day!

Goodbye eggplant

This morning, I was elated to see that my eggplants had begun sprouting in earnest. Like the proud farmer that I am, I told them how wonderfully they're doing, and instructed them to keep at it. Apparently I believe quite strongly in talking to plants.

When I potted the eggplants, we set them up in four inch cow pots so that we wouldn't have to subject them to transplant stress (this term immediately makes me feel quite sympathetic to the poor plants, and I seem to have made avoiding transplant stress a priority in my farm plans). One of my books said that newly seeded pots should be put in plastic bags until germination, so I put my eggplant cow pots in plastic bags (not sealed), and set them under my grow lights. I should note that my parents were very skeptical of this plan. But the eggplants were happy! Only four days in, and three had sprouted. I was feeling quite accomplished.

Then, eggplant tragedy struck. Those plastic bags that were keeping my pots all warm and germination friendly were also quite conducive to mold, and tonight we discovered that all of the pots had mold both on the sides and in the dirt. So, the eggplants are no more. We sadly bagged up the plants to prevent the mold from spreading to the other seedlings, and said goodbye to the eggplants.

On the plus side, I now have much more room for the other seedlings, which are doing great and will need even more space as they get bigger, so this may be for the best. The new eggplant plan is to buy seedlings later this spring. I was very excited for these eggplants, since they were the baby apple green variety that I think are just adorable. So, note for next year - no plastic bags around the pots!

Germination!

The first seed to germinate was a zinnia, on day 3. By the end of the day, there were a few zinnias poking up, and a few marigolds as well.

Day 4 was particularly exciting - below is a shot of the flower container in the morning. On the right are the zinnias, and marigolds are in the middle. The tomatoes also started to come up on Day 4, with the garden peach tomatoes taking an early lead over the heirloom mix.

Then, on Day 5 the vegetables began to take off. Below you can see both the heirloom and garden peach tomatoes. This week I've been rushing into the office as soon as I get up, and as soon as I get home, to see the progress of the seedlings - they're making huge leaps every day! The eggplants aren't in the photo, but we also had one little guy come up on Day 5. Only the peppers haven't germinated yet, but according to my garden bible, they'll take 7-10 days.

The official beginning of the farm

Today is the day that we finally got our hands dirty, so to speak. After much research on all of my vegetable varieties, I came up with a (rough) plan on what to plant, when. My tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers are all warm weather plants, which is a challenge for Maine gardening. To give them the best shot possible at actually producing fruit, these guys are getting a head start indoors. A few weeks ago, Mike built me a grow light setup, and we bought a cheap folding table to complete the indoor farm. At Skillins, my new favorite store, I bought two burpee seed starting sets, with 72 cells each, peat pods, self watering tray, and clear plastic covers - the idea being that each set will give me all that I need to start out my seeds. Initially I was thinking of starting some squash inside, too, and so we also bought several Cow Pots, which are pots made of composted cow manure, that contain your seedlings and then dissolve into fertilizer once you transplant outside. I also had some zinnia and marigold seeds whose packets instructed me to start them inside, so they also went into round one.

As soon as we started setting up, I realized that there's no way I'll have room to start the squash seeds inside. I was on the fence about that plan anyway, as I've read in several books that squash plants don't like to be transplanted, so the space issue made the final decision easy. To the eggplant went the Cow Pots, to prevent transplant stress. Zinnia, marigolds, tomatoes and peppers went into the Burpee containers.

I decided that I should probably plant as many seeds as possible, as I'm trying to be realistic about the number of plants I grow that will actually survive. So we filled all of the cells, going especially heavy on the tomatoes and peppers. This way, if some don't make it, I should still have viable seedlings. And if they grow particularly well, then I can thin to the best, and give some of the seedlings to my parents. My father approves of this plan.

Actually planting the seeds was a little tricky. The container instructions were to place only 1-2 seeds per cell, but that was much easier said than done. For the most part, I think I managed to keep it down to 2-3 seeds per cell, but as we were finishing up I noticed quite a few rogue seeds that fell into random cells. Getting to the flowers was a relief, as the zinnia and marigold seeds were much bigger!

Now they are all planted and covered. We have heat mats under the eggplant tray and under the container that has the majority of the tomatoes and peppers, to keep the soil warm. We'll turn on the grow lights once we see green - hopefully within the next week or so.

Start small? No thanks.

When we first started talking about growing squash, Mike asked me repeatedly if I also wanted to try starting a small veggie garden. No, no, I said. Squash is already pretty ambitious given the number of varieties we want to grow. A vegetable garden would really be pushing it.

That was before I started looking at seed catalogs. If you've never read a seed catalog, well, don't unless you want to start a garden. The way that the text described different vegetables was incredibly seductive. How could I resist "over the rainbow" carrots praised for color and taste? Or purple bell peppers? What about apple green eggplant? Yes, please. And so it went, until I'd planned out quite a large "beginners" vegetable garden.

All of the gardening books that I read, and there were many, began with the same instruction. Start small. You can always plant more next year. I read this, and promptly ignored it. I've decided that I'm really in a different category than most beginning vegetable gardeners. While it's true, yes, that I lack any type of vegetable garden experience, what I do have is time. I'm leaving my big girl city jobs and taking the summer off. So this huge garden is something that I'm expecting, and wanting, to take a considerable amount of time and attention. My garden is going to be my summer job, and hopefully during my time out planting, weeding, watching, and harvesting I'll be able to figure out what I'm going to do next with my life. Also, I have some truly wonderful neighbors who've agreed to help me.

Lastly, I'm just not the kind of girl who starts small with anything.

So, as of now, the plan for the garden includes:

Provider Bush Green Beans
Cascadia Sugar Snap Peas
Sugarsnap Snap Peas (at the time I ordered them, there was a reason why I had to have two varieties. Unfortunately, I've forgotten what that reason is)
Patty Pan Summer Squash
8 Ball Zucchini Squash
Purple Beauty Sweet Pepper
Garden Peach Tomato
Heirloom Tomato Mix
Applegreen Eggplant
Mesclun mix lettuce
Arugula
Bright Lights Chard
Over the Rainbow Carrot Mix
Chioggia Beet
Watermelon Radish
Evergreen Hardy White Scallion
Parsley
Genovese Basil
Thai Basil
Chives

Sweet Dumpling Winter Squash
Spaghetti Squash
Uncle David's Dakota Dessert Winter Squash
Nutty Delica Winter Squash
Lumina Pumpkin
Rouge d'tampes Pumpkin
Candy Roaster Winter Squash
Giant Pumpkin (because at this point, why not?)

Squash as a landscaping solution

After several years of living the city life in Boston, Mike and I bought a home in Maine, complete with 10 acres of land, a barn, a run-in, a chicken coop, and big dreams of sheep, chickens, and an enormous vegetable garden.

Upon getting to know our new home better, we quickly learned that the prior owners had not merely owned sheep because they're so darn cute. The sheep also let them keep the grass down without doing any landscaping to smooth out the dramatic lumps and bumps that "add character" to the lawn. Since I'm not quite ready to become a shepherd (next year, folks), and the idea of spending thousands of dollars to smooth out the lawn was sobering, we started brainstorming temporary solutions. Last summer, we dealt with the unmanageability of the most treacherous sections of the lawn by letting the weeds take over, and then in August my father and Mike had a spectacular weed whacking adventure. We've decided to try something different this year (although I must say, the weed whacking was very entertaining for us bystanders).

At this point, it's necessary to note that I absolutely love squash. Going to the "squash lady" near my parents' house each fall is as exciting as Christmas morning. So I thought that a nice temporary solution to our unmowable lawn would be to cover it with squash. Then we won't have a yard overtaken with weeds, and we'll have a bounty of squash. Win win, right?

So our first plan for our garden involved planting about 8 varieties of squash on the bumpy west (*I might mean east) side of our house. Mike and I aren't very good at starting small, though, so the plan has since changed....