Square Foot Garden April 26, 2010

I just checked the light garden and I'm pleased to say that I have germination of all 17 variates that I have planted so far. Some of the earlier things to come up have already grown their second set of leaves and other thing are just coming through the surface but at least everything is starting to grow. The only thing that has missed in a few places are the Deacon Dan Beets there are a few cells that are empty but not to many and that is good because the lady that supplied me with the seed said they were five years old which is just about the end of their life cycle. I still have some seed left so if nothing comes up in those cells in the next few days I will reseed them.

I have never grown Ground Cherries before, or for that matter eaten them, so I'm really glad to see a good germination of them because I only had a few seed. I've been doing a little research on them and I can hardly wait to try them, hopefully I will have enough to make some jam too.

Today was carrot planting day the packet information says they can be planted a month before the last frost date and that is just about now. I always start putting seedlings in the garden on or around the Queens birthday, May 24th., her birthday is actually in April but the official day for the celebration in Canada is in May. The variety that I'm planting is called Napoli and the packet says it is an early Nantes type, whatever that means. I'm also using pelletized seed, for the first time. Love carrots but I hate having to thin them out and the seed are so small it is almost impossible to get them planted evenly so I'm trusting the advertising and believing that pellet seed is the answer to this problem. Each seed is a little white pellet and it was much easier planting them, I still managed to drop some so there will be extras popping up all over the place. The Square Foot Gardening book called for 16 carrot plants per square foot cell so that's what I did. I covered the seed lightly with soil-less planting mix and resisted firming up the soil. Fingers crossed for early carrots.

We had an amazing winter in this area and so far a glorious spring everything is up and growing so early unfortunately so are the black flies there were lots of them in the garden today, the earliest I think I've ever seen them.