Summer vegetables

Yesterday was a big day for our summer veggies. Sowed lots of seed:

- four 2" pots Copra Hybrid onion (long keeper)
- two 2" each Guardsman onion (salad onion) and Purplette (bunching or keeper)
- two 4-packs Buttercrunch lettuce
- four 2" pots Sorrento broccoli (early spring raab)
- four 2" pots Derby Day cabbage (early cabbage)
- one 2" pot each of 8 tomato varieties:
Stupice (ultra early 2" fruit)
Sun Gold hybrid (sweet, orange cherry)
Oroma (italian sauce)
Cherokee Purple (heirloom)
Super Marzano Hybrid (sauce/drying Roma )
Cabernet (small red grape)
First Lady II hybrid (early slicer)
Brandywine (THE heirloom tomato to which all others are compared)

Started a bunch of flowers in 4" pots in the same manner as a week ago.

- Columbine (aquilegia 'McKana's Giants')
- Coreopsis 'Plains' (Coreopsis Tinctoria)
- Butterfly Chantilly Snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus)
- Bells of Ireland (Moluccella laevis)
- Pride of Gibraltar Cerinthe (Cerinthe major atropurpurea)
- Dwarf Dahlia 'Unwin's mix'
- Dahlia 'Fireworks'

Orchids

I must have taken good care of them this year cause a bunch of my orchids are sending up spikes or blooming - 5 in all! 3 of them I bought almost 3 years ago on clearance at Lowe's for $5 after they were done blooming - so I don't know what the flowers look like. Here are two of my phalaenopsis.

Germination!

So I went for it and got a seed heating mat. Basically a waterproof plastic sheet can be plugged in and raises ambient temps by 10-15 degrees. I got the size that will heat 2 10"-20" flats. For my "closet garden" that hovers around 65 degrees, this brings me right into the recommended germination temperature for most seeds - from 75-80. After sowing my seeds, many germinated and were up within 4 days.

This picture from a few days ago shows my flat of 4" flower pots on the left, my lavender cuttings, and 6 pots of peas. How exciting.

Spring Cleaning

Even though the soil was still a bit too wet, today we went ahead and prepared our first bed. Our process for spring bed preparation is as follows (this is for NEW beds - or in our case, an established bed that has not been properly prepared for many years):

- First, weed entire bed.
- Make sure soil is dry enough to work by collecting a handful and squeezing into a ball. The ball should crumble and come apart easily under pressure. If it will not form a ball at all, it is too dry. If it stays together and compresses under pressure without breaking up, it is too wet.
- Using a 12" digging fork, break up soil by plunging fork all the way down and pulling back, moving back 4" each time, across the entire bed.
- For a clay soil, like in most of Bellingham, broadcast about 50 lbs per 1000 sq ft lime and work in deeply. Also work in 1-2 gal per 100 sq ft complete organic fertilizer (around 5-5-1).
- Add 1/4-1/2" well rotted compost and incorporate into the top 3-6".

After this was completed in plot C10, we transplanted all our perennial herbs from elsewhere in the garden. These included:

- 2 x Arp Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis 'Arp')
- 2 x Grappenhall Lavender (Lavandula x intermedia)
- Greek Oregano (Origanum vulgare cv. hirtum)
- Hot and Spicy Oregano (Origanum vulgare cv. hot and spicy)
- Sweet Marjoram (Origanum majorana)
- Garden sage (Salvia officianalis)
- Tri-color sage (Salvia officianalis cv. Tri-color)
- Purple Sage (Salvia dorii)
- English Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)

We also moved over two Alpine Strawberries and one Pineapple Strawberry (Fragaria ananassa), a very sweet (and pine-appley) yellow fruited variety.

- Sowed 5 row ft Bloomsdale Spinach under plastic tunnel cloche

Today Emily transplanted lots of flowers that I held over the winter in pots or around the garden plot. Included were a few varieties each of German Iris, Coneflower (Echinacea), and Blanket flower (Gaillardia).

I also am attempting propagation by softwood cuttings. I took 6 cuttings each from two establish lavender plants. Provence lavender (Lavandula intermedia "Provence") and Blue Start Spanish Lavender (Lavandula stoeches "Blue Star"). These will receive bottom heat for a few months until evidence of root growth.

Flowers and peas

Ok. Although I am a few days behind, I did get some of my seeds sown today. Here's the method I used to sow many different seeds in 4" pots:

- fill pot to 1/2" from rim with fine, sifted soil
- compress soil slightly to restore capillary action
- place pots in sealed tray and fill bottom with water so pots wick up water until surface glistens
- empty water from tray
- sow seeds evenly across soil surface
- cover seeds with soil to a depth of 2-3x seed diameter
- spray soil gently to moisten
- cover with clear top to maintain high humidity
- place in a 70-75 degree environment until germination

When these seeds have germinated, the cover will be removed and the tray will be placed under florescent lights 12 hrs a day. When the seedlings' first few leaves have formed and they begin to get crowded in their 4" pots, they will be broken up and potted up individually into 6 packs or 4 packs to be grown on.

Today I sowed annual flowers to give them a head start and get them into flower earlier than if I waited until after last frost (May 1) to sow outside. I also started some perennial flowers that need to be started early if flowering is expected the first growing season. I also sowed my earliest spring (lowest temperature tolerance) veggies: sugar snap and snow peas.

- Sowed three 4" pots each (about 30 seeds each ) of:
Border Pansies "Satin Boudoir" (Viola x wittrockiana)
Coneflower (Echinacea Purpurea)
Collarette Dahlia (Dahlia Variabilis)
Gazania Daybreak Tiger Stripes (Gazania splendens hybrid)
Johnny Jump-up Viola (Viola tricolor)
Bee Balm (Monarda hybrida Lambada)

- Sowed four 4" pots each (30 seeds each) of:
Oregon Sugar pod II (Snow pea)
Mega (Snap pea)

Whew.