Jodi’s Garden, Fourth Week of February

In reading through the MySquareFootGarden blog I realized that I was missing out on the opportunity to get started on my plants! I was waiting until the magic “6 weeks before the last frost date” to get started, but through reading the post I figured out that anything that can be planted 4-6 weeks before could actually be started 6-8 weeks earlier than THAT. Following the week system Emily developed and using the Last Frost Dates in Utah chart that I found, I discovered that I am already in week 4 for the 2008 growing season. In light of that discovery I ran to Walmart and picked up my starting materials and got cracking. Here is an update of what I’ve got going this week:

• – Jiffy pellet refills for my jiffy greenhouse
• – Jiffy pots (bigger than pellets)
• – Potting soil
• – Purchased or borrowed seeds I was lacking for this year
• – Tags to label the plants

Vermiculite Experiment

I’ve never attempted to start seeds in vermiculite as described in the Starting Seeds Indoors post, so I decided to give it a whirl this year since I’m starting early enough to recover from any mistakes. Instead of making my own container, I opted to use a “jiffy pot” which just happens to be a small pot with a whole in the bottom 🙂 I followed the directions and am starting with just two vegetables until I see how it works:

• Broccoli – seeds are 3 years old and very small, so I sprinkled a small pinch of seeds in (hoping to get at least 3-4 good starts and end up with 2 full-blown plants in the garden)
• Green Peppers – seeds are 3 years old but I’m running short on seeds so I put in 5 or 6 seeds (if I can’t get 2 solid plants out of these I will try some seeds using my normal methods)

Jiffy Greenhouse Seedlings

My typical method of starting seedlings is to use this great Jiffy Greenhouse I purchased a few years ago. You can buy refills for it each year for about $4-5 but to buy a brand new one is under $10 so it’s not a huge cost if you don’t feel like storing it. Here is my method. Fill the tray with water and let the pellets expand. Poke a hole in each pellet and drop your seeds down in it. Then cover the hole lightly with the peat moss from the pellets. Then you put the lid over top of the tray and put it in a warm, dark location until the seeds begin to sprout. When a few start to germinate you prop the lid open to allow air to circulate. Once all the seeds are sprouted you remove the lid and move it to a sunny location. I’m definitely considering purchasing the indoor greenhouse posted under “Emily’s Week 2“. So here is a summary of the plants I started this week using the Jiffy method (all of these seeds were purchased this year so I anticipate good germination rates):

• Red onions – 4 jiffy pellets with 3 seeds in each (need 4 onions)
• Celery – 4 jiffy pellets with a small pinch of 10-12 tiny seeds (need 4 plants)
• Cabbage – 2 jiffy pellets with 3 seeds in each (need 2 cabbage heads)
• Jalapeno peppers – 3 jiffy pellets with 2 seeds in each, 1 in one (need 2 jalapeno plants)
• Yellow onions – 11 jiffy pellets with 1 seed in each (eventually need 16, but I want to stagger 8 at a time and I’m short on seeds so we’ll see what happens)

I am still finalizing my garden plan so I will post that later. Hope you have fun following my garden this year 🙂