RIP Sprouts

Well, apparently one or more of the chickens broke past my cloche's defenses at some point yesterday, because when I went to check on the sprouts this morning it was clear that there had been a sprout massacre!

Only two sad little radishes were left standing!!! So sad!

I have hopes that some of the salad greens may still rally, and there is still a chance that some of the spinach seeds that I put in last weekend will sprout.

After a mourning period, I recovered the cloche much more securely and went and started some new seeds.

I'd been saving up some old egg cartons so I filled the bottom portions with soil and started more radishes in one and more salad greens in the other.

They are hanging out in the sun on our kitchen table right now. I've been thinking of getting a little IKEA shelf for going across our kitchen window which would be an ideal spot for starting seeds - that will just have to wait until I have the energy for an IKEA trip.

In the meantime, I'm still waiting to see if the peas will sprout. Right after I planted them we had a bit of rain, and last night there was a light frost.

If I don't see any action by next weekend, I'll plant more seeds.

Sprout Update

The Sprouts still seem to be doing well. The radishes are growing at a good rate - they are a couple inches tall now and looking strong. In just a couple more weeks I might even have a harvest!

The salad greens are still growing too - but much slower. It's a mix, so it's interesting to see the different kinds of greens coming up - different sizes and colors.

I remember reading about doubling rate in the gardening book, but now I think I'm getting a first hand lesson.

Basically even thought I got a head start planting the greens, they are growing so slowly due to the cold that greens started several weeks later would probably be ready for harvest at about the same time, because they will grow so much faster in the warmer weather.

At least they are alive - I'll count that as a victory, and eventually - I'll get a salad out of it!

Yesterday I dropped a few spinach seeds in the bed with the greens and radishes, so we'll see how those do.

The first seeds are in!

Yesterday I planted a pinch of the salad greens seeds under the cloche. Hopefully I'm not starting too early, but they claim to be able to germinate at temperatures as low as 40 degrees and my soil is already at 50 degrees.

I woke up this morning to find that the plastic cover of the cloche had blown off - but today is sunny and lovely so far, so I don't think any harm was done.

The seeds are supposed to germinate in just a couple of days, so I should know soon if the conditions were favorable enough for them.

Spinach, Salad, and Peas, oh my.

Today was sunny almost all day, the perfect day for playing in the garden.

We started the day by heading to Portland Nursery and picking up a few things. I got a four packets of seed; spinach, salad green, snap peas, and snow peas. I'm especially eager to try the snow peas - every garden book and blog about the Pacific NW talks about Oregon Sugar Pod II, so I'm looking forward to see if they do well for me.

I also picked up some pea inoculant, a soil thermometer, organic fertilizer, garden soil and compost. Sadly our new composter won't be producing usable compost for at least a few weeks, but the way it's going, it might even take a few months.

When I got home I used the thermometer right away and it told me that the soil in our yard was 50 degrees! Much warmer than I expected, and also just about what all the seeds I purchased require.

I filled the raised bed in the back yard with one bag of the garden soil and mixed in some fertilizer. As I was working on this, I began to think that that bed might be better used for the spinach and salad greens, and the gardening book I've been using - growing vegetables west of the cascades - recommends starting spinach and salad greens under cover in February.

We had some plastic left over from winterizing the chickens, so I ran over to Home Depot for a few lengths of pvc, and soon after we had a cloche! Hopefully I can plant some seeds tomorrow.

My husband made me two 2x2 beds for our parking strip, and I think that's where I'll plant the peas. I may make cloches for them as well. The peas should be done producing by the time I can plant summer squash, so that rotation should work out perfectly.