Crazy Time!

I am frantically trying to get my gardening act together. I really do more than one person can handle while raising a bunch of kids. I get myself frustrated every year, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Sunday my husband put up shelves so I can move the flats out of my plant room into the natural light. They will do so much better now.
I cleaned out the right bed, tilled the dirt and planted tomatoes on the far end with jalapenos. There are cucumbers along the back and some garlic in the corner next to the blue barrel. I still need to figure out something for the middle front.

The left side is all tomatoes. The pots are the daylilies that will go around my upper pond.

The center bed has cantaloupe at the far end (we still need to put up a trellis) and some bell peppers. I have to figure out what to put in the rest of the bed.

Cucumbers and the rocks mark the garlic rows. My husband is bringing me some paint stir sticks to make labels. The dirt is holding at 60* and up to 66* today.

Here are nine jalapeno plants.

The cantaloupe on the end and 15 bell peppers. I have a lot more pepper plants, but can’t decide if I should plant them or grow something else. I think a guy only needs so many peppers.

I have flats full of flower starts that need transplanted plus 401 things that need taken care of around my home. I love gardening. I anticipate it all year long. April and May are my two stress-filled months getting it all going while school is winding down and sports are starting up. Throw in some drama with my kids and I'm usually taking two steps back rather than forward. Hopefully tomorrow will be a more productive day.

Cucumbers

This is the cucumber and pepper side of the greenhouse. I planted a variety of cucumbers to see which we like best: Marketmore '76, Spacemaster, Garden Sweet and Muncher.  Curious to see which will produce the most and that we'll like the best.

This is the first one of any size and it comes from the Spacemaster cucumber plant.

Most of the plants have multiple starts.

The one thing I am finding extremely frustrating is that many of the plants will not grab on to the string.

Looking for any and all suggestions as to why this would be.

I'm looking forward to our first pickings. We are having such a cold and rainy summer my outlook for success is getting more dim with each day. We had measurable rain on over half of the days in June, and others were equally gloomy. June's average temperature still reads high, but that is only because the over night temperatures were higher than normal due to cloud cover. It's just been plain miserable. We wait so long for summer to come...having a hard time enjoying this one. On a brighter note: July is the only month on record that it hasn't snowed in Fairbanks. Hope we don't break that one!

Quick Update

Lovin' my petunias!!  I hope I can move them out to a greenhouse soon.  The artificial lighting is really holding them back.  I noticed that two weeks ago mine were the same size as the greenhouses and now their plants are 3 times the size of mine with flowers!

Peppers gone wild!! I sure hope these produce a lot and I can freeze them for all winter.  Our peppers are $2 a piece in the store so I never buy them. (Red, yellow and orange are $2.50 each).

Lots of marigolds started.  Never as big as I would like them to be at this late stage, but it will all work out.

The zucchini is ready to get out of the house as well.

Lots of Dianthus to repot.

This cucumber is ready to climb!  We have everything to finish the roof and sides of the greenhouse, but have had high winds the last couple of days and can't work on it.  It's getting very frustrating.

The tomatoes out grew the shelving a long time ago and I moved them over by the windows.

I have a lot more going on inside and out, but wanted to give a quick update since it has been so long.  I'll see if I can get more photos today.

I'm attempting to grow barely fodder for Daisy and the chickens. It's definitely a learning process.  I think the answer is to soak the seeds for a couple days instead of one so I'll try that next.  This is a Day 6 photo and this morning it is quite a bit thicker.  It's supposed to be an 8 day growing cycle.  I'll be able to feed it, but I really would have liked there to be more greens.

Lots of Life

I wish I could remember what blog I learned to make tags out of containers from to give them credit.  I seriously can't believe I couldn't think of this on my own.  I actually got the petunia colors all mixed up last year when I ran out of tags.  I guess sometimes the easiest solutions can escape a person.

Do you remember how big the geraniums were just about 20 days ago? It's amazing how quickly plants grow.

 Schizanthus standing up tall.

 The Dianthus are coming up.

 Apparently I spilled some Livingstone Daisy seeds because they seem to be sprouting in every flat!!

 Look at those Dahlia's!! Can you see the dime in the middle?

 Roma tomatoes...really wishing I had planted more of these.  Debating starting another flat.

 Out of all the tomatoes the Pineapple variety is growing the fastest and have the strongest stems.

 Lots of California Wonder Peppers for salsa!

 Sweet 100's....I never feel like I have enough tomato plants.

 Look what cucumbers can do in four days.  In thirty days they go to the greenhouse.  They're going to be huge!

 The Kohlrabi reaching for the light.  I slide the trays back and forth all day long so they straighten out.

 There are also multiple trays of Aster's coming up.

 I am now up to 89 trays on the shelves so the grow room is now a hair over half full.



What is planted (approximately...I'll do a solid count as they are put into the ground as many seeds won't germinate and I usually end up killing something before it gets outside)?

Seeded:

Lobelia: 3 flats

Mimulus: 1 flat

Painted Daisy: 144

Sugar Baby Watermelon: 11

Brussels Sprouts: 23

Broccoli: 124

Jalapeno Pepper: 12 6-packs

Habanero Pepper: 8 6-packs

Cherokee Purple Tomato: 48

Gold Nuggets Tomato: 84

Snapdragons: 36 6-packs

Oregano: 21

In the process of sprouting:

Cucumbers: 352

     Olympian

     Garden Sweet

     Muncher

     Spacemaster

     Marketmore 76

Dwarf Aster: 360

Kohlrabi: 144

Early Girl Tomatoes: 54

Wave Petunias: 318

Celosia: 36 6-packs

Nicotiana: 10 6-packs

Joker Pansy: 18 6-packs

Transplanted to individual pots:

Giant Pansy: 6

Tidal Wave Pansy: 7

Livingstone Daisy: 104

Dahlias: 86

    Silk

    Dwarf

    Delight

California Wonder: 56

Schizanthus: 44

Geraniums: 44

Sweet 100's: 56

Roma: 17

A good deal of my germination failure is because I don't use seedling mix.  It is entirely too expensive.  Except for the Wave Petunia seeds, it makes more sense to buy two packets of seeds (on sale) for about $1.08 each and only have half grow than it would be to buy hundreds of dollars worth of the proper planting medium.  Last year I did purchase bags of sterilized soil and that still ended up running me over $300.  This year I am using garden dirt my husband hauled last summer in the back of his truck.  I started out sterilizing it with boiling water and then got lazy.  It doesn't seem to make a difference except with the Petunias.  I learned a hard lesson: buy the right starting mix. 

I am officially out of soil.  I cannot transplant anymore nor start new seeds.  Very anxiety inducing.  Checked the local store and it is $12.99-$14.99 for a big bag.  I bet I could use up ten of them. For around $50 I can get another truckload.  My husband said he saw them digging in the pit, but he isn't sure if they are selling.  He's going to go there tomorrow and hopefully he can bring me home a truck load otherwise this is going to get awfully expensive.

Tomorrow it will be one month until we fire up the greenhouse (if he gets the roof on).  This is more exciting than Christmas!

Would love to hear your gardening stories.....

Things Are Getting Busy!

This is how most every morning begins....you know, after I get five kids fed and four off to school.  I head into the grow room to water my thirsty plants with my coffee in hand. It's about an hour long process now.  I need a bigger watering can.  I have one, but the spout is too big.  The one I use only holds a quart, but have a small spout that is perfect. You can imagine how many trips back to the kitchen for warm water that is!  And no, I'm not losing weight because of it.

We have cucumbers!! Yea! I did some in peat pots and won't do that again.  They seem to dry out instantly and I'm not really sure anything will germinate.  I believe I have five varieties that we are trying.

Out of all the vegetables that I want to make it these are number one.  Little cherry tomatoes are like Nature's Candy. I grew a few two years ago, but the greenhouse was started to late and I was left in late fall with tons of green ones.  Last year the greenhouse wasn't used so I am very excited this year.  I can almost taste them.

These are the California Wonder Peppers.  I also started some Jalapenos and have some Habaneros to plant (not that I'm going to eat them, but I'll give them to the guys that work with my husband).

This is Swiss Chard.  I've never even seen or eaten this before, but the package looked so interesting.  I have conflicting information for growing this in Alaska.  One thing tells me to start it ahead of time and another says it won't transplant very well and to start it outside.  I planted half the packet and will sow the other half directly.
The Schizanthus seem to be doing better this year. Not as spindly, but it's still early.

Look at those Geraniums.  They really took off!  I wish I would have planted more, but I only had a couple survive last year so this is an improvement.  There's always next year. :)

A blurry shot of the tomatoes sent from Oregon.  (I'm really too exhausted to go take a new photo).

I am so happy with the Livingstone Daisies.  Last year they just grew into one big blob in a flat and were planted that way.  This year I actually got a lot transplanted and now I'll be able to be a bit more creative.

The Roma's are doing great.  I still have that panic feeling thinking I should have grown twice as many, but this will be the learning year.

Some of the Wave Petunias are coming up.  I stress the most about these checking them several times a day.  The seeds come to about 16 cents each and if they don't grow I can't replace them as they go for about $3.79 a plant (last year).  Fingers crossed!  They already don't seem to be doing as great with the fine vermiculite.  I've never used it before even though it says to.  Not sure it's working out.

I am up to 73 flats in various stages of growth.  Still behind, but that's my own fault.  I can't pass the seed rack without picking up one or two new packets.  I want to try everything!

Still so much crap on the other shelves.  Bad idea to use them for storage...not like I didn't have all winter to clean them off.

Well, that's it for tonight.  It's been a long day.  I hope to make some real progress tomorrow.  I need to do a count at some point as well. Happy Gardening!!