Garden Update - February 26th

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It has been another rainy week in my neck of the woods.  This winter the rain has been a little bit on the extreme side.  We got four inches of rain in one day last week.  My backyard and garden is pretty much a swamp.  I need at least a week of no rain to dry things out, but unfortunately rain is in the forecast this week too.

I planted some more lettuce and spinach this week.  My first try at direct sown spinach did not do well.  I noticed the seed was from 2009, so this time I tried using some fresh seed.  The snow peas and Alaska sweet peas are doing well and I put up another set of trellising.  We had a really nice day on Saturday so I got to catch up on some weeding and other gardening chores. 

Here is an above shot of the garden overall.  I have 3 beds of peas going.

Here is one bed of Alaska peas with four single rows.

Here is another bed of Alaska peas with three double rows

Here is a bed full of weeds, this was an absolute nightmare to clear out.

I vow not to let it get this out of hand again.

Here is the bed after I cleared it

My lettuce and spinach bed

You can see the standing water in my yard.

Dr. Seuss Magic Lorax Seed

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LATEST UPDATE 04-20-2012:  The seeds did germinate but quickly died.  It could have been neglect on my part.  I told my daughter I would plant her huge sunflowers as an alternative.  I think she thought this tree would be a real Lorax tree, so sunflowers were the best I could come up with.

UPDATE: I found out the Lorax seeds are Blue Spruce and White Pine Tree seeds.  I will give them a try, but I don't think those trees grow very well for zone 8.

My love of vegetable gardening started in 2010 when me and my then 3 year old daughter started our first garden.  Her interest quickly faded and by the end of that summer I was bitten by the gardening bug.  She still shows some interest (mainly to appease me), but I understand talking about my germination rates and yields per square foot isn't exactly stimulating conversation.

Fast forward to our dinner this past Friday at the IHOP.  They gave us a little card that had a "magical seed" from Dr. Seuss's new movie "The Lorax".  I have never seen my daughter so interested in planting a seed in her whole life.  She couldn't stop talking about it, and I quickly reminded her that I have been asking her to plant seeds with her daddy for the last few years.  I will admit my seeds don't look as cool as this one.

So today we planted that special seed and I am kind of curious to see what kind of seed it actually is.  For those of you gardeners with kids, it might be worth a trip to IHOP to get your kids fired up about gardening.  I think it is a great idea, and I thank IHOP and whoever came up with it.

Disclaimer:
This also marks the first time I have posted a picture of my daughter on my blog.  In spite of having a gardening blog, I am a very private person when it comes to social networking and my personal life.  I have no facebook, twitter, linkedin, or any other social networking account.  I am excited to share these pictures of her with my close blogging friends, but I may not talk about or post about her often.  
 

Here is the front of the seed card, that is one cool looking seed.

The directions said soak for 24 hours, we didn't see that so we only soaked ours about 6 hours.

Here is my little girl filling up the pot all by herself.

She is growing up so fast.

She can't wait to see what this seed is.

More money, more problems

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Just like I knew it would, this seed starting project has gotten way more involved and expensive than I wanted it to. I picked up some cardboard pots and some potting soil so I can transplant some of my tomatoes. This brings my total expenses to about $80 bucks. At around $3 per seedling, I would have spent about the same amount to just buy seedlings. So this year there was not really any cost savings, but I had to buy everything from scratch. Next year my expenses should be very low now that I own everything.

I transferred 9 tomatoes to larger pots. I will probably only use six of them, but I did three extra just in case some don't make it. I will probably trash (gasp I know) or see if my neighbor wants the remaining tomato seedlings. I am still waiting on the jalapenos, habaneros, bell peppers, and eggplants to germinate.

Here are my costs so far:
Light and bulbs=$32
Shelf=$29
Seed Starting Greenhouse=$8
Cardboard Pots=$5
Potting Soil=$7

This has been a fun learning experience, thanks everyone for your advice.

Hopefully they will stay alive.