A guest post by Heather Hoyt who writes at Heather Moments.

I live without lawn right now. My yard is mostly sand–the dirt isn’t completely sand, which I would prefer. It’s just really sandy, mixed in with a fair share of rocks, dead plant material, etc. It’s not very pleasant to play in and it’s not very conducive to grow anything. There are these little dead plant things with sap on them that get stuck to your shoes or feet whenever you go outside and won’t come all the way off even if you scrub really hard.

The transplants are in. After a year of basically not gardening, I have forgotten how dirty and hard gardening is…and how wonderful. I’ve got four rows planted in my garden and about that same amount to still plant.

Here are the finished transplanted, featured here, here and here:

They were a bit crowded and needed more fertilizer at the end, but not too bad overall. I hardened them off over a period of five days, and planted them on a rainy, cloudy day. I was lucky that the weather cooperated pretty well.

And here is my garden right now:

Right now I have snap peas, cabbage, swish chard, various lettuce and greens, walla-walla and red onions, Yukon gold and red potatoes, banana peppers, ichiban eggplant, and roma, fourth of July, Cherokee purple and yellow pear tomatoes. I still have twice as much area to plant, most of which will be vining crops.

I’ve also been compulsively picking dyer’s woad from neighbor’s yards and cracks in the sidewalk. Although it is beautiful in bloom…it is a horrible noxious weed and it is everywhere up here. My own garden is full of bindweed. Even the plastic mulch I have down won’t kill that stuff.

Okay, enough of an update. Hope you weren’t bored.

Update on the transplants: They are doing quite good, especially the tomatoes. They were ready to transplant several weeks ago, and they keep getting bigger. It has been a struggle to keep the light high enough. We (meaning my husband did it when I asked) had to re-build the shelf. I think it is too early to put them out yet as I don’t have any means of protecting all 32 of them. I also don’t want to transplants them over to bigger pots. I don’t have room. So they are growing and will probably be a bit root bound when I transplant them. Plants can grow too well. I did transplant out my cool season crops. I ended up freezing some lettuce, but the rest are doing all right.

Everything is growing in the garden. Nothing has really taken off yet (except the indoor tomatoes and they weren’t supposed too). I think it has been a bit too cold, but hopefully it will warm up (I did see some snow this morning though). Nothing is too exciting in these pictures, but I like to keep a record of things. It makes for fun comparisons later on.

The bulbs out front are gorgeous. Many who come over comment on them. “I was thinking well of course you have pretty flowers, but then don’t you plant bulbs in the fall, and you weren’t here then?” I can take no responsibility for the flowers besides keeping the bed weeded and putting a little mulch down. I’m glad those that lived in my apartment before cared enough to plant them out, even when they are not here to enjoy them.

This is part two for this first post.

My seeds germinated. I turned on the overhead light just as soon as I saw green coming up. After a couple of days, I went ahead and transplanted the seedlings to containers.This was nine days after I seeded them. My peppers were slow: I did those five days later.

To transplant, I filled containers up with loosely packed potting mix. I poked a hole in each cell where the plant would go.

From the seedling tray, I worked my finger underneath the soil, loosening the roots and pulling the plant up from the bottom. If I would have pulled on the top it rips the plant from the roots. (So don’t do that.)

Then I placed one seedling in prepared container and pressed the potting mix back in the hole.

They looked very wimpy and sad at first. But I kept them moist the light on and in a couple of days they were perky again. I had 100% transplant rate at this point, unless you count the couple that my baby got into and I had to re-plant. Here they are today:

Final steps for transplants:

• Keep the light on, about two inches above the plants. I’m actually going to go ahead and double up on my lights because some of the plants are getting a bit long and leggy. I turn off the light at night.
• Keep the soil moist, but not soggy.
• Fertilize as needed. My potting mix has a bit of fertilizer in it, I’ll probably put on some slow release granular fertilizer I have on hand in a week or so. The nursery fertigates about one a week…and there are organic options too. If the plants ever have yellow leaves, fertilize.
• Once a transplant has 5-6 leaves, and the weather is right, it is time for hardening off and transplanting.

Just a little note. I actually did a lot of this process this way because of the supplies I have on hand. If you don’t have anything on hand,  you can use different methods, like soil blocking, organic fertilizers, etc. I love to try new more sustainable methods, but it makes sense to use up the materials I already have first. And I’m also a bit lazy.

I just noticed that taking pictures is invaluable. My son ripped out the tags, but there they are, all labeled in the picture.

I just got my first batch of seeds for indoor transplants in. Yea! I had a request for a how-to. There is actually a lot of methods and variations in steps. Google can tell you more (or if you are more old-school you can actually look in a book).  I’ll just share how I do mine, and say why as well.

Step 1:

Find a place. An extremely sunny window might work. But usually even sunny windows really aren’t getting that much light. So you will need artificial light. I made my setup two years ago with old metal shelves and shop lights. It is currently shoved into my laundry room. The laundry room is actually a happy place because it is equipped with a drain for water spills,  it stays warm and more humid due to the dryer and heater/water heater, and it is the only place in the house that is off limits to the kids. One little guy likes to eat anything he can get his hands on, so this was a must. I did it in my bedroom before, on the carpet (which was protected by plastic). If you aren’t in a smallish rental, you probably have more options.

You do not need to buy more expensive grow lights. It won’t help that much. If you are only doing a few, a compact fluorescence bulb and lamb might work. Just stay away from incandescent because they produce too much heat.

Step 2:

Get some seeds. Most of mine are from Johnny’s, Burpee’s and the grocery store. I’m not opposed to cheap seeds, but mail order certainly has more and cooler varieties.

Step 3:

Prepare the seeding mixture. I use a seeding/cutting mix because it has a finer texture and is excellent for new roots to grow in. It was very dry, so I added lots of  water in a bucket and mixed.

Then I spread it out in a tray and let it drain.

Step 4:

Label the row, and then make a furrow for the seeds. The seed depth is listed on the package, or about twice the diameter of the seed.

Step 5:

Sprinkle seeds in furrow. Cover. 

Step 6:

Ensure the soil is moist, but not sopping wet. A spray bottle is much better than a watering can, because you want to mist the seeds, not drown them.

Step 7:

Put a cover on. I used a garbage bag. They make cool plastic covers. A garbage bag is much cheaper.

If you have a heat mat, use it. Seeds will germinate better in warmer temperatures. I’m too cheap at the moment to get one.

So this might be a bit different than other methods, because I just sowed about a hundred seeds in a single flat. My rationale behind this is a) it is a lot easier to prepare one flat at the moment, b) I only have to worry about one flat and germinating seedlings need special care, c)I am more sure to not have gaps when I transfer to a larger container, and d) I remember doing it when I worked in the greenhouse forever ago.

I will leave them in this set-up until they produce one true leaf, and then it is transplanting time.

I bought a bunch of seeds two years ago, and have a few more that I have gathered up from the past five years. I have not stored them carefully. They were thrown in a cardboard box and placed in my grandma’s bomb shelter basement while I was in Georgia. Lately, they have been in a plastic bin outside.

I decided to test the viability of the seeds. It’s pretty easy. It turns out I have quite a batch of seeds and it took a while. Here is what I did.

I placed 10 seeds in a wet paper towel, placed that in a fold-top sandwich bag and put it on my water heater.

A week and half later I checked it all. I shouldn’t have waited that long, I just forgot. Ideally, I should have been checking them every 2-3 days.

Vegetable seeds germinate quickly and have a high viability rate. And most last 2-5 years just fine. My germination tests resulted in 90-100% for the majority of the seeds. Only a few varieties didn’t have a high rate of germination, some of which were moldy and hence need a re-test.

I’m getting excited for spring…the snow is almost melted, the weather is warming up. I’ve been pruning shrubs and found a bluemist shrub that had self-propagated a beautiful layered cutting. I re-planted it in my own garden.  The seed shelf has been constructed, and I’m planning on starting some vegetable starts soon.

I’m still alive. After a long hiatus, I am gardening again. My family has moved back to Utah and my husband has a job. We are renting this year, but actually found a rental with a garden plot.

A couple of nice warm days (it actually hit 38 degrees), and now I am thinking it is almost spring. I even have proof:

In reality, snow is still coming and temperatures are not getting over 40. Spring might be a while away, but it is a good time to start gardening. Yesterday I spent the day pruning in my parents’ orchard, and today I sorted through my garden supplies that made it through far too many moves. Tasks on my list include:

• Planning out the garden
• Pruning hardy fruit trees
• Sorting through my seed collection and testing for germination percentage
• Setting up the shelves for seed starting
• Starting early vegetable seeds
• Sort through gardening information to get ready for coaching/teaching during the season

Are you itching for spring as much as I am?

My “garden” this year was a few pots out on the balcony. Their have been some bumps in the road. I mistakenly let my son help me thin seedling. Later on I found him “thinning” the already thinned plants. The cilantro and a few other plants were decimated to only a single seedling. I eventually re-seeded…but the damage was done.

After I fertilized, my plants began to grow much better. The basil was doing the best.  I had harvested it several time for such things as basil hummus, and still had a large healthy plant. I was contemplating trying out pesto in the near future and then I came home one day…and the basil was gone. It had fallen off of the high railing to its demise two stories below. I was able to harvest the shattered remains, which ended up being a couple of cups of good leaves, but now there is no more basil.

The demise of the basil has left me with a very sad outlook on the rest of the garden. Mostly due to laziness, I have not used the lettuce, chives and bit of cilantro that I have out there. The morning-glory and cosmos are only sporadic bloomers. I also have a ‘rescue’ plant that would probably be better off in the office it came from. It did not adapt well after the move. (I shouldn’t have put a plant that had been growing inside out into 100 degree temperature…laziness again.)  I have enjoyed the begonia and dusty miller planter: now that the basil is gone it is the one success of my small garden.