How does your garden grow??

My excitement for all things garden has died down a bit as everything is in progress.  I have already shown you my egg carton planters that were waiting for their seeds.  Since then I started a paper towel method of seed germination for a bunch of seeds I had left over from last year.  I wet paper towels and put the seeds inside, then put them in a plastic Ziploc bag and labeled them with seed name, date started, and days for germination.  I put the bags on a covered heating pad at night on the low setting and then moved them to the window sill during the day time for some much needed sunlight. 

I started the process for four different types of seeds - grand rapids lettuce, salad bowl lettuce, dill, and garden bean.  Within the next three to four days most of my seeds had germinated and looked like they had little white roots sprouting out of them.  The only seeds that did not germinate were the Salad Bowl lettuce - no surprise being that I planted them last year and not one of them grew for me.

This past Sunday I transferred the germinated seeds to the egg carton planters and will send you a photo of those when I follow up this post.  The lettuce is moving along grandly and some dill sprouts have started coming through the soil.  No luck on the garden beans, I think one is barely sprouting through the soil.  All the seeds germinated (garden bean), but none have grown shoots.  I am still waiting patiently.

In the meantime I went to home depot and purchased some new seeds this past weekend too.  I have decided on a Salsa garden - Roma & Beef Steak tomatoes, Jalapeno peppers, & Cilantro.  I have started all these seeds in the paper towel germination process.  They have been on the heating pad most nights (yes I have gotten lazy with them and left them on there all day today - whoops)  and on the window sill during the day time.  I still have the Ziploc with the Grand Rapids lettuce in hopes it was a late bloomer, but no germination yet and they will probably get thrown out this weekend. 

I just checked on the paper towel seeds (you should check them daily)  and both of the tomatoes have germinated and I will transfer them this weekend.  However, absolutely NOTHING on the jalapeno and the cilantro only one or two of them possibly have little white shoots.  Maybe they need more time?  I will research this.  And I correct myself, it is the Salad Bowl Lettuce that has done nothing, the Grand Rapids is the variety that is thriving on in my egg carton planters.  This is what the seeds look like for the tomatoes that have started to germinate in the paper towel methods.  They are kind of out of focus, but you get the point.

To pass some time I am preparing my outside garden.  TomTom and I did a impromptu set up for the red onions we put in the ground three weeks ago.  We mixed one large bag of potting soil in with our clay soil and threw the onion bulbs down.  Covered them with some pine needles and what will be, will be.  Well, those puppies are shooting up all over the place.  Every day I have more green onion tops poking up through the pine needles and I make some room for them to blossom.  This is exciting!  No more buying red onions! 

This past weekend I also hosed out an old pond I had from my past when I had lots of time to garden.  It has since come out of the ground and sat in the back of my yard left for dead.  No mas!  I took a tip from Mrs. V at work and collected pine cones off of my parents property to use as filler.  I don't want to spend that much money on potting soil to fill this thing up.  My first step was drilling drainage holes in the bottom of it and then filling it with pine cones.  Here she is with the holes in her and that black bag in the background is the pine cones.  They didn't even fill the bottom of her so I will need to gather some more this weekend.

I haven't decided where I am going to put her yet...in the shade for my bell peppers??? Or in full sun for the whole salsa garden???  I am thinking the shade for the plants that won't be able to tolerate our summer heat and just planting the tomatoes and peppers right down in my front garden.  In other words, some how working them into the landscape so that they look nice and take away from my barren front garden.  I have a big tree in the back so this might help if I want the pond garden in the shade for most of the day. 

So far seeds are doing well - the ones that have sprouted.  The challenge will be keeping them alive in the weeks to come before I harden them off for outdoors.  I WILL DO IT!  And by the end of the summer we will have harvested our own veggies for a fraction of the cost that we buy them for and a little elbow grease.