mary abdoney, mls

Assuming all goes well this weekend and I get the little buggers planted, soon I'll have some veggies.  While I will surely be eating many of these fresh, I'm thinking about trying my hand at canning, especially the tomatoes.  I've picked out a couple of books that I'm thinking about buying:

Of course, I won't be able to do any of the canning in my tiny kitchen, and will have to use another one.  Just brainstorming at this point.  Another thing I'd like to do with the peppers is to dry them.  Hot dried peppers are so delicious and would give me some homegrown spice year round.

I decided to do the gardenerly thing and thin out the cucumbers and tomatoes to one seedling per unit.  It was hard, but I did it anyway.  What struck me was that the cucumbers have really started to smell like cucumbers!  Yum!

The cucumbers are around 4 inches tall, and the tomatoes around 3 inches.  The peppers are coming along nicely, and about 1-1.5 inches.  Soon, I'll have to thin them out,too.  I just hope all the little guys make it to the weekend.

I can't help but post these.  If anyone wants to buy some for me, feel free! 

I've started to think about how I'm going to plant my seedlings.  I'm using the square foot gardening method because I think it will be the easiest and least likely to upset my landlord and neighbors.  I live in a townhouse, with neighbors on both sides, so I have to be as compact as possible.  My hope is that this plot will fit right next to my back steps.  I also don't want to plant anything in the ground for the landscapers to mow down, so this seems like the most practical solution.  You can read more at the link about building the boxes.  I'm planning on making and planting my boxes this weekend, but first I wanted to plan them out so that I know exactly what I need to buy at the lumber yard.  Here is a lovely diagram of my plot:

The circles in the tomato and cucumber plots are supposed to represent obelisks, two of which I already have.  As you can see, I will need 12 feet of 1x6 lumber, which will be broken into two lengths of 4 feet and two lengths of 2 feet.  I will use twine to separate the squares for this first time, since I'm really just trying it out.  I also plan to use weed-blocking cloth on the bottom, which I am assuming can just be attached with a staple gun.  I'll need 8 square feet of that.  Finally, I'll need 4 cubic feet of soil. 

Where do the herbs go, you ask?  I've been growing herbs on my front porch for a couple of summers now, so I'm going to continue growing them in pots.  They seem to do very well, so I don't want to mess with a good thing. 

In other news, I think I overdid it sowing seeds, so I'll be giving some away.  Even accounting for what Ned will probably want to plant at his house, I should have several seedlings left over.  Maybe some of my neighbors will want to try vegetable gardening?

I finally had a burst of energy this morning (thanks, Sudafed!) and decided to upload a few pictures of the little growers.  Below are the pictures I took on Friday, March 26:

If you want to see other garden pics, see my Flickr set.

It's been about a week since I last posted, mainly because I've been busy and sick.  The cucumbers have really started taking off, as well as all of the herbs.  The tomatoes and serrano peppers have started to come up.  The jalepeno and bell peppers are beginning to show some life.  I started to think I should put the cucumbers and tomatoes out, and I don't have any containers to put them in!

Yesterday I was starting to panic that the seedlings would begin to perish in the greenhouse (does that happen?) and that I'd screwed things up.  Luckily I had not put them out yet, since this bizarre weather is bringing possible SNOW this afternoon and below-freezing temps overnight!  Check out the weather.com screen capture below:

I took pictures this morning, but I'm feeling too crummy to post them just yet.  Maybe later.

This morning, I noticed the cucumbers had just barely started sprouting.  Also, the basil, savory and thyme look like they may be starting to do something. 

For Ned, I sowed SIX more units of cucumbers in the mini-greenhouse.

Sowed in the mini-greenhouse SIX units of the following:

• jalapeno peppers
• habanero peppers
• serrano peppers
• green-to-red bell peppers (I like peppers!)
• tomatoes
• cucumbers
• basil
• thyme
• savory

Will save zucchini and yellow squash for a few weeks.

Mini greenhouse sits on dining room table in the west-facing window.  Lots of afternoon sunlight.