[Pollard]

Planted a 72 cell tray that came with the 10x20 seed starting greenhouse. Did rows of 6 of everything and placed a card on each end, one that says lettuce and the other peas. Will go by the graphic for the rest.

Will be eating a lot of salad evidently.

Was looking at cell trays with larger cells but everyone wants you to buy in large qualities or are simply crazy on shipping. Good thing I've been saving coffee creamer containers for 2-3 years.

My homemade starting soil didn't work out very well. I think I have poor quality peat moss. On impulse at Menard's last week, I grabbed some Burpee organic potting soil so when I filled the tray, I decided to do half mine and half Burpee. Puts some water in the solid tray and set the cell tray in and several hours later, my mix was still dry but Burpee's was moist so I dumped mine out. Maybe I'll get some Coir to mix with it.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Love Black Seeded Simpson and Outredgeous lettuces. They look gorgeous together.

Nice salad garden ya got there! I’m starting peppers this weekend, and doing some early greens experimenting in the unheated greenhouse. Yay! :)

[Pollard]

I was going to use an old kitty litter box which would have fit 15 coffee creamer pots but found I could fit 24 on a tote lid. It's a nice stiff one.

Still need to put drain holes in them. CC pots are exactly 3" in diameter for a 12" x 18" area so the 10" x 20"(9x19 actual) heat mat should work just fine.

[Pollard]

Checked my seed tray this morning and half the lettuce, all six komatsuma and half the peas have germinated. Cabbage already takes a couple more days and also likes the soil a little warmer than the 73 degrees I have it at but everything else likes 73. I think I started seeds 3 days ago. I'll be eating baby komatsuma & leaf lettuce salads in no time.

I'm thinking I'll trim enough 4-5 inch leaves off several plants to make a salad and transplant those. Thinking with less leaves, they'll put more effort into roots just when transplanted.

Sound right?

I put black plastic over a spot I tilled out in front of the house last year in late Summer/early Fall and also laid a bunch of goat manure over it. Need to get out there and rake in the manure and put something up for the peas to climb on. Don't want to till it and bring up weed/grass seeds. I'm hoping the black plastic got it hot enough to kill any near the top. Looks like marigold is a good companion plant for cabbage and most things.

lettuce, cabbage and peas all good together

Cabbage

Lettuce

Peas

Gonna have to pick up some radish and celery seeds and maybe some of the above mentioned herbs. Sage and rosemary at least. Rosemary was good with the lamb chops we had a while back so it ought to be good with goat and we got meat goats. I think I've used sage once in my life when I made homemade bratwurst. I can get some mint from a neighbor. Need to get some DE too.

I was planning on planting carrots in a raised bed out front. Baker creek sent me dill as free seeds. I have one companion planting guide that says carrots+dill is bad and one that says good. Another one says bad when dill is flowering. Carrots might be done by that time.

Carrots about 70 days and TX A&M says dill matures in 90 days. Dill hates cold and carrots like cold so I wouldn't be planting dill for a while but carrots soon.

All other literature says dill is good with everything else I'm putting out front. TX A&M says dill does well in containers indoors or out. Guess I'll do dill in a container or two and I can time my starting it so when carrots are done, the dill still a ways off from flowering.

This gardening stuff is tricky. All the timings, good plant, bad plant, bugs, bugs and more bugs. The house faces SE so it gets late afternoon shade. That should keep me going for a while with leaf lettuce, komatsuma and peas.

I've played around with gardening many times and at least grow potatoes pretty much every year but this will be the first year taking it seriously and going all out.

[Pollard]

100% germination.

Left to right; 4 different types of leaf lettuce, 1 ice queen head lettuce, 1 komatsuma, 1 cabbage, 3 edible pod peas and 2 lincoln peas. Will have to thin the head lettuce/cabbage to one plant.

Also just planted some purple Kohlrabi.