Catch up post: new garden, planting seeds and transplants

I'm really not that great at blogging, that's what I have realized. So, let's catch up a bit here.


We built a new raised bed in an unused patio area of the backyard, and then filled it with a compost tri mix from a local compost company:

There was extra soil left over so we used it to top up our previously existing garden bed:

Then I waited a few weeks and got to planting peas along the garage in the old garden bed, and planted lettuce, beets, onion starters, and arugula in the raised bed. I also took a risk and planted out 3 tomato plants and put Kozy Koats around them. They survived and are doing great!


Time passed, and suddenly it was this weekend of May 27/28 and time to put everything out for the year as the frost has passed (fingers crossed).


I planted out all the tomatoes and peppers that I grew from seed, and added in some marigolds to keep them company.

Then in the raised bed I planted my herbs out (basil, oregano, parsley), and 2 cucumber plants. not pictured are two watermelon plants that I planted in pots. I broke down and bought these cucumber and watermelons as plants because I got behind on planting from seed and wanted to get some going ASAP. However, at $1.80 per plant, I don't think it will break the bank. Next year I need to remember this and maybe just buy everything as starters.

The previously planted lettuces are starting to grow nicely and you can just see some carrots sprouting to the left of the lettuce.

A view of the entire bed on May 27

The weather did me a huge favor this weekend as well. Saturday morning early I planted out all my peppers and remaining tomatoes, herbs, cucumbers, watermelons, and put in more Mesclun mix seed. I was a bit nervous for the peppers and new tomatoes because though I had exposed them to the sun in the past, I was nervous they may not be quite ready to plant out. Then a wonderful thing happened, Saturday turned into a partly cloudy day with patches of sun on and off and a light breeze. Sunday arrived with cloud and rain all day. Now that it's Monday, the  rain is supposed to clear off by the end of the day and the sun will be back out by the end of tomorrow. I'm hoping this will have been a perfect stretch of conditions for the peppers and tomatoes to get a little extra hardening off before they get days of full sun. Here's hoping!


I have also planted Strawberry plants (12) and blueberry plants (2). We will see how they do! I'm nervous the two blueberry plants will not have blueberries this year. Even though one has lovely flowers right now, I think it needs to be pollinated by the other plant, which has yet to flower. Perhaps next year they will be good to go.


I planted two cucumbers, and two Minnesota Midget melon seeds into peat pots this weekend and hopefully they catch up and I can plant them in the next couple of weeks! If not, I'll go buy a starter from the store!

Tomatoes are up

Well, I'm officially into gardening mode for the season. It's been unseasonably warm this spring and my tulips, crocuses, and daffodils are getting close to putting out flowers already! I actually had to water them last night because they were drying out with the higher temperatures and full sun.
My pansies, petunias, tomatoes and basil are officially all up! The pansies and petunias are just a pair of tiny leaves and aren't much to look at, but they will get there. The basil is pretty small as well, but the tomatoes are really going for it!

Veggie starters: (Left to right) Green peppers, Basil, Jalapeno and yellow peppers, tomatoes.


I remembered that last year one of my biggest frustrations was getting my peppers acclimated to the sun. If you grow plants under grow lights you need to slowly adjust them to the sun or they will die immediately from the intense UV. I read on a gardening blog that as long as it's a bit above freezing, you can start putting your plants out for a little bit at a time so they begin to adjust early. If you start this really early, it makes the adjustment easier (or so they say). So last night I put the entire tray of veggie starters out for half an hour in the evening sun at around +12 degrees. There was a light breeze, which will also help to strengthen their stems. As you can see on the right of the photo, the tomato starters are doing well and will be getting their first true leaves soon. The pepper plants already have their first pair of true leaves well under way.
hopefully I can put them out for another half hour here and there over the weekend so that they start to develop a UV tolerance early on.

Planting Pansies and Pepper Pictures

Good morning!


Spring is finally coming! This weekend we spent some time outside in the yard trimming trees and shrubs around the yard starting the ramp up for summer. I'm getting really anxious to get into the garden. My tulips and crocuses I planted in my front flower beds are already about an inch above the soil, and I suspect that this week they will really go for it with the temperatures being high with lows above freezing.
My peppers are coming along really well, and only one or two seeds didn't sprout. Here are a few pictures of how they are doing:

The tray on the left is all the Northern Hybrid green pepper, and the tray on right is Mucho Nacho Jalapeno (top row) and Mohawk yellow pepper (bottom row).

They are doing really well and I have started to fertilize them bi-weekly with liquid seaweed and 10-52-17 at half strength. This mix was suggested to encourage strong root growth.

I also planted my cool wave pansy seeds and some left over petunia seeds I had for a total of 36 small cells. I also filled an old berry container with soil and planted petunias throughout. If a lot of the seeds sprout I will separate them as they start to crowd.

No sign of sprouting from the Basil or Tomato seeds just yet. they should start to sprout this week hopefully.

Peppers are sprouting!

Well, I've officially got seedlings! My onions came up at the end of last week and are now about 4 inches high. There are definitely a few that are taking longer but I got a very good germination rate and will have more than enough to plant for the season.
Also, my peppers have started to sprout! I have a few from all 3 varieties coming up and can see a few more pushing through, I'm hoping all seeds will germinate so that I've got enough for the summer. If not, I will buy them as transplants at planting  time. I seem to always have a hard time hardening off peppers so I may end up buying transplants anyways.
I subscribe to the email list from a few of the local seed companies and they suggested it's time to be planting: peppers, tomatoes, basil, petunias, onions, and impatiens. Yesterday I planted my tomatoes and basil, so I'm right on track. I will also be planting my cool wave pansies this weekend. I'm pretty excited for these because I've always liked pansies, and these can run up to 2 feet and will be in my hanging baskets this season (see picture below).

For growing seeds, I have my onions growing in a rinsed out plastic mushroom basket in a south facing window, and the rest of the seeds are in my basement under a grow light that is on for 14 hours per day right now.


Seeds planted March 23:
Bush Beefsteak Tomatoes (62 days)
Basil Dolce Fresca


Sprouted as of March 23:
Onions - all
Peppers - a few of all 3 varieties, at seedling 2 leaf stage:

• Northstar Hybrid  [Green] - 3/6
• Mucho Nacho Jalapeno Hybrid -1/3
• Mohawk  [Yellow] - 2/3

Onions and Peppers planted!

Well, the first seeds are planted!
Thursday night I got ambitious and decided to plant my peppers and onions. My onions I always start from seed in mid march so that they have time to get a bulb started before I plant them out. If you don't start them early enough, you will have very small onions by the time you have to pull them from the garden.
Peppers are a different story. Generally I plant them 6-8 weeks before last frost which ends up being 8-10 weeks before I plant them out in the garden. However, this year I found a new YouTube channel called  Alberta Urban Garden (link on the right under the YouTube links section). It is a guy from just outside of Edmonton who makes excellent videos that are much more relevant to someone growing in my zone. He's in zone 4a but his planting and ideas generally work for me.
SO. He plants his peppers in December (!!) because he prunes them a bunch of times. Yep, prunes them. I was skeptical but he has made enough videos about it and can actually show that by pruning his peppers, he ends up with more of a pepper bush than a pepper plant by the time it's planting season. If you want more detail, go watch the video yourself on his channel. Long story short, it makes them have a much stronger stem and more branching.
I decided better late than never, and planted my peppers at the same time as my onions hoping that I can get at least one pruning in before they go outside. This is about 13-14 weeks before they will likely go outside and I'm hoping to see some increased yields.
They should start to emerge from the soil in the next week. My seeds were from last year so I'm hoping they still germinate.




Seeds planted March 9th:


Onions:

• Candy Hybrid (85 days)
• Spanish Onion Superstar Hybrid (95 days)

Peppers:

• Northstar Hybrid (68 days) [Green]
• Mucho Nacho Jalapeno Hybrid (68 days)
• Mohawk (65 days) [Yellow]

Almost onion time

Well, it's almost time to plant the first starters of the season!


I start my larger variety of onions in mid March so that by the time they can go outside they already have a good start and a bulb developing and will end up growing larger by the end of the season. Last season I grew onions and managed to successfully store them for the winter. I'm just using up the last of them now, and they are still in great shape. They're also very easy to grow and low maintenance.


After promising myself I would not start my own tomatoes and peppers, I have decided to do it anyways. Mostly because last year I bought the equipment (trays, grow light, seeds) and I have the room. Seems to me that if I can now grow them essentially for free, I might as well. There are other plants I'm growing from seed anyways, and since the light will be on, I might as well use it.


So this season I am going to grow veggies and flowers both from seed indoors, seed outdoors, and bought as starters.


Seed indoors: Storage onions, Cool Wave pansies, nasturtiums, morning glories, beefsteak tomatoes, green peppers, yellow peppers, jalapeno peppers, cucumbers, watermelons, and cantaloupes.


Seed outdoors: Peas, leaf lettuce, head lettuce, mesclun mix, arugula,  swiss chard, spinach, carrots, green onions, yellow beans, green beans, basil, parsley, rosemary.


Bought Starters: Eggplant


Starters from family: Oregano, chives, mint






The plants I'm seeding indoors will start with the onions in mid march, and then roughly follow the order they are listed above, with the pansies being started 10 weeks before the soil has warmed (after last frost), to the cucumbers and melons which will only be started 3 weeks before the soil warms.




If you have a small garden, I really recommend just buying starters yourself. This year I still have seeds left so I'm going for it. Next year, I will likely just sell the light and buy starters once it's time.

Introduction

Hello,


This blog is going to be a place for me to enter information about trying to grow a vegetable garden (and some flowers) in a backyard in the middle of Winnipeg, and to help others do the same. More than anything, right now it's just a place for me to store important information so that next year I can try to not make the same mistakes twice, or repeat the good things!


Hopefully if you're reading this you can get some good information for your garden or just enjoy reading along.


It's not even time to plant starters indoors yet so blog posts will be rare for now. I will just be adding helpful links on the right hand side of the page.


A little information: Winnipeg is in Zone 3 (a or b depending on your exact location). Final frost date is usually around the May long weekend, farmers almanac says the last frost is May 24 and first frost is September 22, with a growing period of 121 days. That depends on the year.  Plus, some vegetables like tomatoes and peppers don't want to be out until it's warm at night and that put's you into the start of June. To make up for the short season we have very long days, so it works out to a reasonable season.


 It can be hard to find information for planting in this area, and googling "northern gardening" will sometimes get you results in the northern USA, which makes me laugh every time. Every youtube video you watch with somebody telling you when to plant needs to be taken with a grain of salt because many of them have their full garden in before we even start the cold crops.


I have a reasonable planting area for the size of my small yard, and with the addition of a couple raised beds this spring hope to have a planting area of around 36 sq ft. This is enough space to plant most of the vegetables our family eats most. This year we are also trying two melon varieties and a patio cucumber in large pots for the first time.


Anyways, there will eventually be a list of helpful links on the right hand side of the page for garden planning, information, Youtube videos, etc.