Top - Pot. It's not the same forward as it is backwards.

I made my first big gardening blunder before the plants ever hit the soil. In my hasty shopping process I erroneously grabbed a bag of top soil instead of potting soil. And as the letters in full reverse accidentally imply, the top soil did exactly the opposite of helping my seeds to germinate and pot themselves. They molded and turned into tiny cement-like soil squares.

After mourning the loss of all my new potential seedlings, I went back to the Lowes and picked up a peat moss seedling greenhouse and started over.

I even picked through the topsoil looking for seeds that hadn't been ruined and replanted them in potting soil as well.

This part was a great lesson in seed identification. Beans and Squash varieties were easy...perennial flowers, not so much. But I gave it my best shot.

The top soil clumps that I couldn't identify seeds within - well I didn't have the heart to just toss it aside. I had been really putting my time into watering them adn beckoning their growth. So, next to my fence I placed a mystery pot. I packed it full of potting soil and the top soil failures. As many as ten different plants. Who knows what will come up! Not what I intended going into this, but fun none-the-less.

Now the question I'm trying to answer is, "Can I pick any Kale in the summer months or will it just taste bad?

Comments

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Planning The Garden Layout.

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...

Lettuce Begin Again!

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!

Seasoned Eats - Learning to Garden and Grow in Ohio

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