Seasoned Eats - Learning to Garden and Grow in Ohio

It is soooo rainy that I'm struggling with my plants. My lettuce and spinach seeds have all run off and my seedlings look like they have root rot.  I'm considering purchasing a collection of cocktail umbrellas to put over each little seedling. I'm beginning to give up hope for this year's crop. Which is sad.

Well, I kept this blog last year in order to help myself do a better job this year.  Then in my excitement to get started, I completely unlearned all of my learning. Here's where I messed up. 1. I started my seedlings indoors a bit early.  Because of that and their location (not close enough to a window) they got very long rather than healthy and full. 2. I started separating some of the smaller seedlings too small and killed most of my tomato starts. 3. I put the zucchini that I started in the ground and lost it in one day. I'm not sure why.  I can only assume it is because I transplanted too early. So, I'm starting over on a lot of things this year and am going to follow along much more closely to what I did last year when things worked really well.

I had mentioned last year that there were a couple of things I was going to change in my planting design this year. I decided that I wanted to sketch things out so that my time spent planting was a little more organized. Here is what I'm thinking about doing!  If you are an experienced gardener and see any errors in my plans....please let me know!  All feedback  is welcomed! I've got my vine plants like zucchini and cucumber placed against the outside wire fence so that they can climb....and I'm not going to overcrowd this year. I did some minor rotating of the plants to make sure that there is a difference in the nutrients being leached from the soil (though I will admit that I didn't do enough research on this yet). There will definitely be trial and error on this, but I like that! I'm growing Jalapeno's and Carrots, which I didn't do last year....and then I took eggplant off the garden plot.  I might try it in containers instead.  They didn...

A little time. A little Sunshine. A couple of cooler weather crops. And we have begun. Today I spent a good portion of my afternoon out in the garden space, readying it for the planting season. I turned the soil with the hoe.  I pulled out the little patches of grass that seeded themselves in over the course of the winter. And then I decided it was time to put my lettuce and spinach seeds in the ground.  (I haven't purchased my kale yet or that would be seeded in as well.) I'm going to head out later to get what I need to start my seedlings for the rest of the garden.  I'm a little later than I was last year, but I did have a couple of mishaps in round one that I'm going to avoid in round two!!  I love growing season!

I've purchased my first seeds and pulled up all of last year's plants. I even took a peek in my composter and I've got some pretty good compost as well.  Yay for planting season!

I feel like a green thumb version of Harry Potter. In the fourth grade I fell while walking through the woods and got a thorn embedded in my right hand directly underneath my pointer finger.  Not allowing my parents to dig in hard enough to get the thorn out, I ended up with a situation.  The thorn became surrounded with a cyst and had to be removed surgically from my hand.  Meanwhile I had spent a couple of months harboring a piece of the earth within me. This week the scar where my thorn used to be has been aching.  I made a joke that maybe it was my cue to start my seedlings...plenty of light making its way through my windows now and I know I could get a much better start on my tomato plants if I took advantage of it.  So, as it happens my aching scar has made me feel like a real life version of Harry Potter - with a much more literal take on the word potter, if you catch my drift. Happy Planting Ohioans! Have you started your seedlings yet?

Ummm...I just went out to scope my garden bed now that the snow has completely melted and I have onions growing :)  Interesting.  Now what do I do with them?  Let them keep growing?  Pull them up before I plant?  Ponderous.

At the end of last summer I gifted one of my unplanted tomato seedlings to a friend.  She named it Gordy, transplanted it into a large container and gave it love all summer.  Then the fall hit and she brought it indoors. I get regular updates on the plant and this winter's update blew my mind.  This is Gordy all grown up.  He is wrapped around the window fixture and even fruiting. Bringing the tomato plants inside for the winter is smart smart smart.  Now why didn't I think of it?