PLANTS!!! (Or where I use lots of exclamation points)

I started my seeds less than a week ago.  I have no idea what I'm doing, but how hard could it be?  I  mean, I filled the starter pots with starter soil and planted according to directions and...  plants!

My herbs are still little bitties, but everything else!  Wow!

The green and yellow beans popped the top right off their lettuce box greenhouse!   The tomatoes are little spindly threads but they were up against the top and growing sidewards.  I  guess it was a good thing I picked up the greenhouse the other day while I was running errands.
 
The silver box on the shelf surrounded by my tomatoes is a wireless thermometer so I can an eye on my greenhouse temperature to make sure, if the temp falls below 60, I  can bring them in for the night.

The thermometer was going to make me nuts.  I found an indoor/outdoor thermometer at a local hardware store, got home only to find that the remote had 4 teeny screws on the battery compartment that were smaller than my eyeglass screwdriver.  *grrr*  So I  went back the next day,  the woman got the back off,  but there must have been a loose connection that  wasn't closing the circuit  as it wouldn't work consistently.  My third trip, the guy pulled out some tools, fiddled and got it working consistently (so far). 

As I'm out and about today, I'll stop at the dollar store and pick up a few cookie sheets for when the herbs are ready for the big greenhouse.

The seeds arrived today for my class to plant for our annual observation piece in science. This year they will grow tomatoes, basil and ghost peppers (per my students; request).

Welcome to the Greenhouse

These are the plants I  started in their old lettuce container greenhouses sitting in indirect sunlight.

Then I realized it won't be long before they outgrow their greenhouses.  So I needed something with more room for my seedlings.  Off to Ocean State Job  Lot for the $20 deck and patio greenhouse. 

We have one of these at school and I  figure if it can survive all the kiddos opening and closing it to water their seeds, it can survive being on my deck for the few weeks I need them to be before their ready to go into the ground for real. 

It's also time for me to start taking an inventory of what I have, what I need and what I should plant in ground vs seedlings from seed vs seedlings to buy.  What can I grow in 80+ square feet?  How much is enough? Too much? Not enough?  Do I need to order lettuce seeds?  Carrot seeds?  What else should I grow?  How much trellis space do I  need?  How high should they be?

What are the questions I haven't thought of yet?

This week is reading up on things and moving seedlings out to my greenhouse.  Maybe pick up a cheap thermometer to get a steady reading of the internal temp -  it's all new to me.  Well not all of it, but a lot of it.

What did I get myself into?

I have always wanted a garden.  I moved to a condo complex a couple of years ago that has a community garden for the residents here.   When I put in for a plot last year, I was happy when I got the call telling me I had plot  #7!  My first question: so... how big is my plot?

The response: was a vague sort of same as everyone else's.

I went down to scope it out and saw two fenced-in areas and figured the  5' x19' space was mine. 

Cool, cool.   I was a new kid on the block.  I'd make it work.  Some tomatoes and stuff... I could do this. I drew up some rough plans and went down to start cleaning the space out after some years of neglect.   It wasn't long before I realized,  that the two fenced in areas belonged to me too!  The whole space that was mine was 16' x 19' and I had no idea what to do.


I bought a raised bed kit, gave it a try and it all went to pot when I went on vacation for 3 weeks and the person who said they'd water did that, but between the local fauna and such, I came back to wilted plants, fruit and such on the ground, half eaten by chipmunks, and a general mess.

Part of the problem had to do with the ghost of gardeners past who had planted mint and raspberries that spread through the garden faster than water rolling downhill in flood.

So  I  thought through the plan for this year.  I reread "The New Square Foot Garden" by Mel Bartholomew, remeasured and replanned. 

This is what I started with on March 29th of this year.  I cleaned out the 8'x8' fenced in area and built some raised garden beds to created 40 square feet of gardening space in that section alone.

So... here we go again.

Fighting back the ghosts of gardens past - all the failures, all the things that invade in community gardens, all the critters.

Wish me good luck... I'm gonna need it!