A Good Appetite Farm

It's May!

Sun, 03 May 2009 22:30:34 -0500

It’s May and things have really started coming together. We had a couple days of rain and no sun the last week of April which may have slowed some stuff down. But the rain is welcome for our perennial gardens. The rundown, by crop:

Lettuce & Spinach: first planting has sprouted (poor germination on the baby romaine) and has been thinned out. The second set of seeds was placed on May 2.

Kohlrabi: first planting sprouted nicely and thinned. The second planting was also put out on May 2.

Peas: good germination and just about to have leaves unfurl.

Leeks: moved 11 seedlings outside on May 2. Tried to break up the cells where we had two seeds come up, and tried to plant a little deeper than they were inside. I planted another square foot of seeds outside. The leeks are a big experiment because of the long season (150 days).

Cucumbers & Zucchini: Started two hills each inside on May 3.

Tomatoes, Peppers, Broccoli, and Brussels Sprouts: moved everything on May 3 to larger pots indoors (mostly 4” pots). Took the Broccoli and Brussels Sprouts off the heating pad to make room for Tomatoes since the brassicas should be a little more cold hardy. Lots of stuff was root bound. Next year need to remember to move things more quickly, so they have more space to spread out.

Overall everything is looking good and this week looks to be nice and sunny. I put down a little bit of organic vegetable fertilizer on the outside bed, to give the plants a little more to feed off of.

We’ve also gotten into the habit of heading outside to survey the land every day. It’s pretty exciting to see all this stuff come up.

Planting Update: Tomato Seedlings

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:07:03 -0500

We had really good luck with germination of both of our tomato seeds. Everything was sprouting in about 3 days. Now at 6 days, they’re already ready to come out of the greenhouse.

Our other plants all have good sized second sets of leaves. It’s going to be time to thin them out soon.

Nothing has sprouted outdoors yet, but we’ve had a few cold days so it could take a bit longer.

How To Grow Herbs Indoors

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:58:06 -0500

How To Grow Herbs Indoors:

Chow recently ran a story about growing herbs indoors. Useful for extending the harvest through Winter.

Planting the Vegetable Garden from UMN Extension

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:56:44 -0500

Planting the Vegetable Garden from UMN Extension:

University of Minnesota Extension has a number of useful resources for the Minnesota gardner. I found this planting guide especially useful because it has a large table of indoor/outdoor planting suggestions. It’s always good to have this sort of information for the particular area you live in.

Planting Update: Peas

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:25:00 -0500

Adding to yesterday’s planting, we planted a 4 ft double row of Peas today. Covered the seed with Burpee Booster for Beans and Peas.

Planting Update: Lettuce, Spinach, and Kolhrabi

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:51:00 -0500

It’s an exciting day for us. A few good days of weather has us itching to get stuff outside and in the ground. We planted some cool weather seeds today: 1 sqft each of Tom Thumb lettuce, Little Gem lettuce, Spinach, and Kolhrabi. We’re taking a little risk starting so early, but we’ll start another planting in a couple weeks for which the timing should definitely be OK.

Seedling Update

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:05:00 -0500

The seeds planted a week ago are up and doing well!

Seed Starting Setup

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:08:00 -0500

Kathy put together a nice explanation of our seed starting setup on her blog, for anybody interested.

Started Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, and Peppers

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:33:00 -0500

We started our Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, and Jalapeño Peppers inside today.

Some of the Leeks are starting to come up, but not all of them. The germination rate doesn’t seem great. And we just got the Friends School Plant Sale flyer, where we can get 30-40 seedlings for just a few bucks, so it seems like this may not be worth the hassle.

Started Leeks

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:03:00 -0500

The package for the Leeks says that they should be started 10 (!) weeks before being transplanted outside, so we’re starting them today.

Getting Started for 2009

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 20:23:00 -0600

What is this? A journal of our backyard garden, so that we may share it with others and more importantly, refer to it in years to come.

What are you gardening? We have two 8’x4’ raised beds and a few containers for vegetables, a small bed for herbs, and more space around the house for perrenials and shrubs. This journal will be mostly concerned with the edible parts of our garden. Since we also subscribe to a CSA, we are only growing stuff we don’t seem to get enough of.