They can make it… I hope. See what happened is I bought a shoplight and 2 plant bulbs way back before I planted my first seeds. I wanted to be prepared. Then I waited until the plants were sprouting and hooked up the light. Of course it didn’t work! Why would it? So plan B involved me going to the hardware store (not where I bought the first light) and finding another light that was supposed to be compatible with my plant bulbs. Luckily this one works. Now I know that my next batch of seedlings will have a good light, I’m just not sure how this first batch will do. As you can see they are awfully spindly and crooked right now from seeking out natural light. I rigged up the light in my closet and plan to plug it in with my Christmas light timer set for 14 hours of light per day. How are your seedlings doing? Anyone care to place bets on whether or not these seedlings will be worth a darn?
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I Started My Seeds!
I’m not exactly sure if this was the right time to do it, but I did it. The weather will never be exactly right in Michigan anyway. Here’s what I started on Sunday: Snapdragons – 9 cellsBaby Dolls – 9 cellsPing Tung eggplant – 9 cellsLong Purple eggplant – 9 cellsAmish Paste tomatoes – 36 cells I used equal parts of peat moss, vermiculite, and perlite as a starting mixture. The plastic cells and trays are being reused from last year. I’ll be starting another batch of tomatoes in a few weeks as well as some other flowers, my herbs, broccoli, and some others I’ve forgotten. Right now I have the tray down by our corn burner to stay warm. This next goal is to get Brian to hang up my new lights so the seedlings can go under there once they sprout. It feels like spring it finally here!
Continue readingHowling Hill Seed Swap
I’m a little behind on this one but at last, have the time and motivation to post on it. I first heard of the Howling Hill Seed Swap over at Children in the Corn. Both are great blogs with tons of useful information. Head over and check them out if you haven’t already. Anyway, the basic idea is that an envelope of seeds is sent around. You can take what you want as long as you put back in the same amount of seeds. They have to be non-GMO seeds. I received the package from Becca at BrightHaven Times, all the way from Florida! Her blog is new to me and looks to be quite interesting. The package is already on the way over to Farm Mom (of Children in the Corn, linked above) – she should have it early this week. Above is the picture of what I selected to keep for myself. Since I already have most of my veggie seeds and have been putting off starting an herb garden I mostly took some herbs seeds. Now I have no excuse not to start growing my own herbs to flavor our food. I chose 8 partial packets in
Continue readingBack 2 Basics and Other Challenges
I’ve decided to start the Back 2 Basics Harvest Keeper Challenge for 2009. Chicken eggs will be the only thing on the list for now but I am excited to see things rack up once spring arrives. This will be very good for me because I kept no records from all of the farming and canning I did last year. Check out my sidebar if you’re interested, and go visit Farm Mom for a better example. Other challenge updates: We haven’t been using our corn burner at all due to it malfunctioning and refusing to keep a fire going. Brian is trying to track down the problem but in the meantime we’re blowing our budget with all the fuel oil we’re burning. So much for keeping track of the corn we use! We do keep the thermostat set low (58-62 F) and I finally found the controls for our dual heated blanket so we use that every night to take the edge off. I covered most of our windows with the clear plastics kits in the fall and although I don’t how much that is helping I do like that I can’t feel a breeze when I walk by the
Continue readingHow Do You Start Your Seedlings?
I am happy to be back to blogging after the holiday. I meant to leave a more upbeat post up over Christmas but have been having a lot of trouble with my internet connection and therefore gave up. I have some nice Christmas pics to post and I’d like to share what gifts we gave this year, as well as some nice things we received. Today, though, I would like to discuss something that has been on my mind a lot, and apparently on others too. Let’s talk about garden plans! The latest edition of Hobby Farms is full of tips and tricks for garden planning. Sharon Astyk posted awhile back about signs of a possible seed shortage so I sorted through what was left of last year’s seeds and made my list for this year. I order my seeds almost exclusively through Baker Creek Seed Co. at rareseeds.com. They are a great company to deal with and produce a wonderful catalog chuck full of good information. The real reason I prefer them is because they care so much about seed integrity and I trust them. Frankly, I don’t have to time or the knowledge to sort through other catalogs
Continue readingIndependence Days Here on the Farm
I decided to join the Independence Days Challenge so here is my first post about it: 1. PLANT SOMETHING: Well let’s see… already this year I have planted carrots, onions, bush beans, pole beans, snap peas and sugar peas, potatoes, and tomatoes. The seeds all came from Baker Creek Seed Co. and are heirloom varietes. The tomatoes plants came from a small greenhouse at a local farm but I’m afraid they shipped them in from somewhere else. I tried to start my own tomatoes from seed but I killed them – better luck next year I guess. The potatoes came from another local greenhouse. They do come from out of state but the family personal selects them and brings them home every year. Everything mentioned above has been planted for atleast a week now. Oh I also planted sunflowers (heirloom), and some raspberry, black currant, and gooseberry bushes. Today I got the dward blueberry bushes that I ordered. Tonight my fiance rototilled another section of the garden one last time and we spread a thick layer of composted hay over the top. I planted 3 different varieties of watermelon in hills in this new section. I also finished mulching the
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