Monday, March 11, 2013

Vegetable Garden...Starting My Seeds

This summer I decided to attempt to grow a vegetable garden again. Last year my garden didn't quite go as planned and was pretty much a failure.
 
Shelf Greenhouse
This year I began my seeds in a shelf greenhouse that I got at a yard sale for $10. My shelf green house is perfect because it is on wheels so I can leave it in front of the window seat most of the time and when it is nice outside I can unzip it and wheel it outside. If you have family members that may forget to bring your greenhouse back inside I recommend restricting them from moving your greenhouse. My father forgot mine outside and I lost half my plants.  I live in Northern California in a Zone 2 climate where it still gets quite cold at night.
 
 This year I found Jiffy Peat Pellets at my local hardware store for $3. The ones I bought came in a bag of 25, they start as 1/4" disks then I soaked them in warm water and as they absorbed the water they became 3' tall with a hole in the middle. I put my seed in the hole at the depth stated on the seed packet. When they need to be watered they turn a lighter color making watering easy. Since I'm frugal I used disposable aluminum baking pans that I bought from Dollar Tree to keep the peat pellets in.



To keep track of which seeds are which I made name tags. First, I used Popsicle sticks that I cut in half and cut pointy ends using my kitchen scissors and wrote on them with a sharpie. I wouldn't recommend this since the Popsicle sticks absorb water and eventually started to mold (as you can see on two of the front Popsicle sticks). Instead I am using a milk carton which I cut into strips then gave pointy ends (something I saw on Pinterest), the plastic doesn't mold like the Popsicle sticks and you can still write on them with a sharpie.

Since I really have to no clue what I am doing I have been doing research on growing vegetables. I have a Western Gardening book and have been watching YouTube and reading articles etc. If anyone has any suggestion I'd be happy to hear them.Thanks for reading.

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