Way overdue update

Well, it's been a LONG time. Things have been going really well. I got a late start putting out a lot of my veggies, but have been enjoying lettuce and cucumbers out of the garden and have harvested a couple of crookneck squash (planning those for dinner tonight!). I have tomatoes that are getting huge, but still green.
So today's my birthday. :) I thought I'd spend a little time updating this while I have the time. So here goes.

Here are photos from June 1 when I first put everything out (remember: everything was grown indoors from seed!).

These are (from top to bottom): coleus with dichondra in top two baskets and impatiens in bottom.

And here's the same baskets July 10:

And a closeup:

I just love those. I'll definitely be repeating the dichondra and coleus. The dichondra is supposed to be able to take full sun, but those pots are in mostly shade and they are my best dichondra.

Here are other pictures from around the garden:


These are tomatoes on June 1.
And on July 10.

I made some self-watering containers for some tomatoes and squash. This is one of them on June 1.
And a view of the squash and some tomatoes on July 10.
Some cuke transplants on June 1 in my square foot garden (before trellis).
The SFG after trellis.
SFG on July 10. Things are much bigger today. Mediterranean Vinca with dichondra in top, sweet peas in middle, and red petunias with coleus and zinnias in bottom.
And the Med. Vinca on July 10...it's actually trailing! I'm still waiting on the red one to start blooming...it finally has buds.

I promise to update again really soon!

A mini update

Hello! So it's been a while, but not much new to report other than everything is growing! Just wanted to add a few pictures of the progress. I again apologize for the poor quality of my camera...
I am trying to start tomato seeds in ziploc bags since I have had no luck with starting them in seed starting mix for some reason. Just put those in yesterday, so I'm looking forward to sprouts! I'll write again soon...

Moving on up..

Well, today I decided I should try to transplant some of the big "kids" to some 3" peat pots. I honestly couldn't believe the size of the roots! They were growing through the peat pot mesh and all over the place! So that's a good sign. Here's a picture of what's left to be transplanted (I ran out of room! But I did get the ones that needed it most...)







I lost at least 9 Mediterranean vinca, and I"m not sure why. They were doing really great, and then all of a sudden, they withered up and fell over. I know it wasn't from too much water--they were always barely dampened...and if anything, too dry..which could also be the reason. However, I think it may have been due to too much light. I had one red one that had the two "fake" first leaves that folded back together yesterday, so I transplanted it and it's white cousins and put them away from the light, and sure enough, the red one opened its leaves back up. Dunno what's going on there, but I'm still so sad that I lost so many of these. Here's a picture of where they are (super tiny!).And here's some pictures of the bigger transplants...mostly gaillardia, dichondra, and salvia.

Well, other bad news..yesterday I gave up on some of the peat pellets that hadn't sprouted anything. I threw away probably 30+ pellets (after checking them for signs of life, of course). Thus, I had very poor germination for petunias, impatiens, and re-planted coleus, salvia, and gaillardia.

Also, no sign of life for my tomatoes, zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, or dichondra in the pre-filled peat pots that I planted about a week ago. I put a clear cover over them today so hopefully that'll help. Also, nothing going on with the AV seeds, but it's still too early. I'll update again when something happens! :)

Almost time to transplant

Hello again. Sorry it's been a while again...busy time of the semester. Things just continue to sprout, and now I've got Gaillardia that's nearly ready to be separated and put in 3" peat pots. I'm going to try to split the multiple seedlings instead of killing off the weakling, since I feel that's just wasteful. Hopefully I won't end up killing all of them. :) So here are a few pictures of the progress lately:
Also, the Mediterranean vinca have really taken off:
A few days ago, I planted some tomatoes along with some other flowers. My mom gave me this container...it came with a soiless grow mix already in it. Here's what their setup looks like:
All in all, I'm pleased with the progress. A lot of the stuff I've planted (e.g., Dichondra) has had a 100% germination rate. The petunias (especially red) were a bit of a disappointment, but I really didn't expect much with them (and so far have 3-4/12).

Alright, that's it for tonight. I'll leave with a picture of my new blooms on my African Violet. :)
Goodnight. :)

So many new babies!

So, it's been a few days and a lot has been going on with school, so I haven't had time for an update. As of last night, I have Salvia Splendens "Lighthouse," an Impatiens (from a Burpee mix), a few white petunias (easy wave hybrid), and my dragon sunset coleus sprouted. Oh, and not to forget, one of my white Mediterranean vinca and one red Med. vinca!
Here is a picture of the red vinca sprout (in front of my index finger):




And the first two of these pictures are of the Gaillardia (far right) and Dichondra (middle; grass-like) that have been up for about a week. They're growing so fast!'
So, yesterday, I also started some new seeds in egg cartons with saran wrap over them. African Violets! They were the tiniest seeds I think I have ever seen, and I have no idea how many I even planted, but we shall see how they do. My AV I've had for a while now is finally blooming, so I took a few pictures this morning to show it off a little...

Well, off to get ready for school!

They're growing up so fast!

Just a quick update, since I have to leave for class in a few minutes. All the Gaillardia and Dichondra that I planted a week ago are up and growing! So, I promptly planted more of them since the whole jiffy pellet kit was an experiment (especially after I expanded the pellets and saw how wet everything was!). So far, nothing else is up, but today is really the soonest anything could be expected (of course, Gaillardia was supposed to take 14-21 days according to where I ordered seeds from, and it came up in what, 4-5 days?!). Just wanted to share a few (really bad) pictures. I hope to get a new digital camera really soon...
This one shows the dichondra (6 on the right with longer leaves):


This shows the Gaillardia (if you look really hard!)..there are 12 of them on the left.

I'll update again when I have new seedlings!

A mini-update (again)

Um, so I'm officially obsessed..but I have reason! Every time I check on my "kids" there's a new one poking up! So now I have 11 out of the 12 Gaillardia pellets with seedlings (actually more- there are some with multiple seedlings up now), and now 5 out of the 6 Jiffy pellets with Dichondra have sprouted as well. I can't remember how many dichondra seeds (actually these were pellets with 3 seeds/pellet) I actually planted in each Jiffy pellet.
At least the ones that are sprouting have good germination rates!

Ok, that's it for today--I promise! :)

Mold?!

So, I think I may have found some white fuzzy mold on the jiffy pellets. I was afraid of this since the pellets were so wet when I planted the seeds. It didn't seem to affect the Gaillardia seelings--I had 5 more up this morning. So far, I have 8/12 up of the Gaillardia I planted. And it doesn't look like those pellets have any mold growing on them. It's only on the outside of the other pellets, so I'm hoping it will be ok. I mixed a little bit of hydrogen peroxide in with some water in a spray bottle and misted them lightly. Also, I took the clear plastic lid off to help them dry out a little (I don't think this will be an issue since they've been planted 5 days and have never been watered). Keep your fingers crossed-hopefully the mold won't affect the seeds' ability to germinate and survive!

Here's a picture of the Gailllardia seedlings today. I'm such a proud mom! :)
Hopefully they are visible in this picture...they're barely poking up right now..looks like the bottom right corner is the only one you can see at all, and not very well. Sorry for that, but you get the idea! :)
I'll write again soon...hopefully with more seedlings up and no more mold!







Shortly after posting the message above (and instead of working on a paper I need to finish...oops), I went and checked on the little guys and lo' and behold..a little dichondra is trying to poke through! I was getting worried about them since they had the shortest germination period of everything I had sown. So, there's hope after all. Just wanted to share. :)

Off to a good start...

Hello and welcome!

First and foremost, this is my first time blogging, so bear with me.

So, this year I have a lot of plans. One is I just moved into a new place that I'm renting and have been given the seal of approval by the guy I'm renting from to have fun in the flower bed (if you could call it that) and I'm allowed to put in a garden in the "side" yard (there's really no back yard to speak of..but that's another issue). My vegetable garden will be a square foot garden- something I have no experience with!

So, in NC it was about 80 degrees earlier this week and I was dying to get my hands in some dirt. I had a few blue fescue plants and some daylilies I wanted to put out (they were given to me by my mom, a fellow gardener). Started weeding the flower bed, and what do I find almost immediately?
FIRE ANTS! Grr... so that made me want to stop right then and there. I knew that we had them on the property, but not that close to the house. So I have tried the boiling water thing, but then it started raining a few days ago and hasn't stopped, so I haven't checked on them since. Anyway, needless to say, I still haven't put the fescue and daylilies out.

So, once the rain began I decided it was time to start some seeds. I figured I'd start off with some flowers since I have tons of pots I plan to have on the front and back porches. This is my first year starting seeds indoors, so I got a Ferry Morse seed starting kit with the Jiffy 7 peat pellets inside. I did this on March 11th. I sort of followed the directions that came with the kit, and even though I didn't add as much water as it said to soak the pellets (to get them to expand), I felt like they were way too saturated to plant anything without simply rotting the seeds. So I waited a few hours and just left the pellets out in the open air to dry out a little. A few hours later (I couldn't wait any more!!), I finally planted some seeds. I guess I should also mention that I topped the seeds with vermiculite since I felt like the soil was too wet. Here's what I had:
Coleus (Dragon Sunset)
Dichondra (Silver Falls)
Gaillardia (Arizona Sun)
Impatiens (pink/white mix)
Petunia (Easy Wave Hybrid; red and white)
Salvia (Splendens; Lighthouse)



Also, in some egg cartons, I planted Mediterranean series Vinca (red and white). I used two old lasagna pans, one for the bottom and one for the top (for germination) which I then stuck together with binder clips. These, I originally put on top of the refrigerator to keep warm, but soon realized we have a new refrigerator that doesn't put out heat on top and it was really cold up there. So, I have been keeping these on a heat register in the kitchen so I can remember to check on them daily.




Well, I've been checking everything religiously, and haven't had to water the seeds in the pellet kit since they were soaked before planting the seeds. I was starting to get worried that maybe it was all too wet and the seeds were just rotting in the soil. I woke up this morning (March 15th), and had three new little friends. All three were Gaillardia seedlings. So, I promptly took them out of their cell and put them in a new one that won't have the lid on so that the remaining seeds have a chance of germination and we avoid the dreaded mold on the seedling. Here's a picture of my new babies, but it didn't turn out too well. Hopefully I'll have more up tomorrow! I feel so much better knowing that they have a chance...

So this is only the beginning..I'll try to update often! Thanks for stopping by!