Garden Update

This week the weather has been beautiful in the evenings and so I have had the opportunity to do some more gardening, especially with the long evenings stretching out before us. On Monday (April 13th) I transplanted my garlic from the pots in the plastic greenhouse to one of the newly-created raised beds. The bed was intended to have tomatoes in, but they are suffering quite badly at the moment, so I am sure that I can utilize the space for garlic. So far only one of the eight that I transplanted appears to be suffering from the move but I will keep an eye on them.

On Wednesday I put a fence around the garlic bed to ensure that the cats stay out as far as possible, and I planted a lot more seeds. This included a mild mesclun mix, a spicy mesclun mix, bedfordshire champion onions (the early planted seeds are not really working), two squares of leeks (one Scottish Leek and the other Durabel), and two squares of lettuce (both Marvel of Four Seasons I believe).

So far all of the seeds that I have sown in the garden are making an appearance with the exception of the spinach that I planted some time ago. I have, therefore, made another sowing of Bloomsdale spinach in the pre-existing square, and today I transplanted my beans to one of the beds. Having not quite enough transplants to fill the required space, I planted about 6 more Maxibel Filet beans to make up the difference.

I have also moved the sweetcorn that I planted a couple of weeks ago into the plastic greenhouse as we are having some good weather at the moment, and I think that the earlier I get them out there then the easier they will be able to handle the variations in the weather. We'll see.

Seedling Update

Just a quick update with some pictures. Firstly, the majority of the second bath of onions and leeks seem to be doing ok.



Although there are some exceptions. They are slouched down and I am not too sure what they are sulking about. I will have to do a bit of reading up on the matter.



And lastly we have some tomatoes from a couple of weeks back!



On the minus side it snowed today! My plastic tunnel, not that anything appears to be growing in it, was definitely closed up. All in all, a good start I feel, although the onions give me some concern. I might plant some more for back up.

Tomato seeds are in!

Today I sowed a pot of Black Zebra tomatoes (3 seeds), a pot of Nepal tomatoes (3 seeds), two pots of Golden Cherry tomatoes (6 seeds), five pots of parsley (2 pre-soaked seeds per pot), a pot of Black Beauty eggplant (3 seeds in the pot) and two pots of King of the North Sweet Pepper (3 seeds per pot). I am being a little cautious about the quantities as it all needs to fit into the square foot garden I have going. I might have to change some of the positions that I have planned as I go, but I am only doing four tomato plants this year. Hopefully I will actually get to eat some this year as most of my crop was wiped out by blight last year. I have put them on the heating mat that I bought from Lee Valley recently, so let's hope that it does some good, especially with the heat-loving seeds.

Below are a couple of images showing the progress of the onion and leeks that were planted earlier.

Seedlings are go!

The image above is of one of my onion seedlings that I planted back in January. There are two more seedlings from this batch on the way, but this one is the most advanced out of the three.

In the meantime a couple of the leeks have sprouted as well as early indications that the chamomile is going to go well. I have shifted all of my seedlings under some fluorescent lights to ensure that they get enough light in their emerging days.

First Batch of Seeds Sown

Today I filtered another one of the beds that I am creating for the vegetable garden. I am trying to create 6 raise beds and have so far managed to filter the stones out of two of them. I have a very stony garden and so this is a very necessary first step. Today I only went down approximately 6 inches, and the raised bed will add a further 12 inches, meaning that there should be a good 18 inches of relatively stone-free soil, which should be enough for most of the vegetables.

Today I sowed 9 pots of Bedfordshire Championship Onions, as I did last month. On a positive note (well not THAT positive), one of the onions that I planted last time has come through, which I was surprised about as I thought that I had soaked the seeds too much. I also planted 9 pots of Durabel leeks, 5 pots of Scotland Leeks and 9 pots of chamomile.

I am using these deep-root seed starters that I recently purchased from Lee Valley tools.

Seed Update

Well, there has been no movement with the onion seeds I planted earlier. I even used my wife's heating pad as a make-shift seed heating mat, but to no avail. I am currently blaming the peat discs and hoping that the seeds aren't too old (I only bought them last year). Never mind, I have some more planting action later on this week, and we shall see how it goes.

On the plus side, the 2009 Lee Valley Tools brochure arrived today.

2009 Planting has begun

The planting year has officially begun, albeit a little late. This year I am following the Square Foot Gardening technique. I am in the process of building the raised beds; one of the beds has been built but the soil hasn't been put in yet as the ground is still frozen from a very cold Winter and snow is still on the ground.

Anyway, as I was saying the official planting has begun. I have planted eight seeds of Bedfordshire Champion onions to start with. The seeds have been sown early, about ten weeks before the last frost date (approximately April 15th in Port Coquitlam). According to the spacing of the Square Foot technique, there should be approximately twelve onions per square-foot and I am not incredibly sure how many I am going to grow, but I will do one square foot at least. The next four seeds will be sown at a later date to ensure a staggered harvest.