Saturday, April 12, 2008

Apr 12 - Gardening: Spring Planting

The weather is getting better and we actually had some sun today. A 70 degree heat wave... lol

The neighbors were out in force these past two days mowing their lawn. Of course, I'm the last one to do it. I wonder what my rep in the 'hood is like.

The dandelions dotting my lawn have pretty yellow flowers. Also, the tulips are adding some color to the neighborhood.


I can't resist looking into the flower.


What's all this have to do with food and eating?

Well... this seasons project is to plant beets and carrots. I can't use the backyard because the dogs will trample the garden. Also, the sunlight is better in the front of the house. Container gardening to the rescue! :-)

Beets seeds. Apparently, beet seeds are actually cut up pieces of pod that contain more than one seed.


Carrots seeds. These seeds are tiny. One sneeze and I'm growing carrots in my lawn. lol. Of course, I can't stick with normal looking carrots. I picked these ball looking carrots. I'm such a rebel. lol.


My container and the el-cheapo potting soil. See the dandelion flower sneaking in the photo. :-)


I added some perlite to the potting soil in an effort to lighten it up and help with drainage. The potting soil contains perlite so I'm not sure if this is pointless step.


For the beets the package recommends 4" spacing. The top of a drinking cup was used as a guide. Again, probably overkill again, but I'm a geek and measure things out. Of course, this assumes all the seeds will germinate. Typically, people just sow the seeds and thin to 4". Not me, I have faith.


After the beets seeds were positioned. I covered them with a 1" layer of potting soil. For the top layer, I mixed in a handful of lime to "sweeten" the soil... push the pH level to the alkaline side. Beets apparently like alkaline soil. We'll see how it works.

For the carrot seeds, since they are so small I just scattered them onto the soil and covered with a light layer of potting soil. For the carrots, I'll eventually thin to 2" spacing... according to the package.

Red Container for beets... White container for carrots.
Hopefully, my cat will keep the squirrels away.


Beets
GERMINATION: 2 to 3 weeks in warm weather.
Approximately 59 days to maturity.

Carrots
GERMINATION: Approximately 2 weeks in temperatures of 60 degrees.
50 to 60 days to maturity.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your flowers are beautiful! I can't wait to see how your veggies turn out.

Eat4Fun said...

Thank you! :-)

The tulips are actually pretty easy. I don't really do anything. Also, the weather here is cold enough where the tulips don't need to be dug up and refrigerated to encourage blooming.

The veggies on the other hand has me nervous. They should work, but my thumb is not always green. :-)