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!