Sara's Garden MarketSustainable Living, Gardening, Flowers, and Food

I finally got my outdoor seeds started!

I live in Minnesota so my first day of safe frost-free planting is May 20th this year according to my handy Farmer’s Almanac. There are seeds that you can start outside before that, but not many. I like to transplant plants to the garden for a lot of veggies.

Carrots, tomatoes, and several others can take 75+ days to harvest. With only 3.5 solid months of growing season I need to maximize my garden time, and that means starting from plants, not seeds, for anything that has a growing time of 60 days or more. (You don’t want your first harvest to come during your frost! What fun would it be to not eat anything out of your garden for months?)

Here is a picture of the seed flats I have started:

I have press-and-seal wrap over the trays to preserve moisture and warmth which will start the seeds faster. I have 2 kinds of trays: small egg-crate style, and large potter style. I use the large pots for things that need to get pretty big before transplant like carrots and tomatoes. I use the small egg crate style for flowers and smaller veggies, and things that can go in the garden sooner size-wise as well as colder-tolerant.

So here’s what I have started:

• Yellow Onions
• Long Carrots
• Jalapenos
• Bell Peppers
• Broccoli
• Beef Steak, Roma, and Salad Tomatoes
• Petunias (regular ones :))

These I will sow right in the garden:

• Beans
• Peas
• Short Carrots
• Cilantro
• Basil
• Radishes
• Zucchini
• Cosmos
• Morning Glories

These are either fast growers, or cold weather tolerant and do well going right in as seed.

Thanks for stopping by!

So, the tomato plants have some yellow leaves on the bottom! That are falling off!!!

The health of the over all plant is good though, so not a huge concern. Here is a picture:

If a plant gets sunburned (which it can from indoor lighting as well as very hot direct sunlight) sometimes the first leaves will yellow and fall off. Other leaves with sunburn may show white-ish gray spots. Normally someone living in MN wouldn’t have to worry about sunburned tomatoes at all! Desert climates and summer heat down south can burn plants though.

Here is a picture for you:

It’s just the bottom leaves (the first leaves) that have an issue. The rest are green and healthy. 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

My tomatoes are outgrowing their spot on the shelf:

So I had to move them to a new place! I am scared to put them on the ground because I have 3 cats who would probably love to dig in the dirt they are planted in and see how they taste just for the fun of it!

So now, they are living on a little plant stand next to the shelf and have plenty of room to grow upward, for now. 🙂

Here they will stay until they are too tall to get good light on them from above. Then I will have to figure something else out!

Thanks for stopping by!

I wanted to take a moment and thank my Mother-In-Law for the beautiful Star-Gazer Lillies that she gave me! My Grandfather died last Monday, and these were waiting for me when I went to the dance studio to teach that night only a few hours after finding out. He had a very full life and was ready to go home, but I will miss him very much.

They are on the top shelf of the indoor garden 🙂

So, as most of you know, I started some Alyssum seeds a few weeks ago. I have a picture in that post of when the seeds emerged. Here is the latest pic. About a week after they emerged. They don’t have 2nd leaves yet, but in a few days I bet they will.

here is a picture of the 2 Sunshine Petunias that I got to germinate. I honestly don’t think there were any other seeds in the packet, but oh well! If these live I will be shocked!

I promised you all a picture of my tomatoes after I staked them, so here it is:

As you can see, you don’t need anything fancy when the tomatoes are this small! I have used 3 chopsticks, and 2 cooking skewers and some (not so sticky) tape. You don’t have to invest in stakes and green tape. At least not at this stage. You can use things that you have around the house.

Make sure that you tape them loosely, they need to continue to grow. Make sure that the stakes are taller than the plant when they are firmly placed into the soil next to them. Be very gentle when you place the stakes into the soil, and don’t place them right next to the base of the plant. This can destroy a tender root system. You can see from the picture that I have placed my stakes about 1 inch from the base of each plant.

Happy gardening!!!

Well, the tangerine tree is totally against all this care and change that has come to its home recently! It was thriving just sitting by the window, I would forget to water it, I certainly was not fertilizing it, and all it had for light was indirect, winter light deflecting from the yard which is over 20 feet away. The leaves were green, the stem was hard and it was very happy!

Since I changed the indoor setup to be that of the indoor garden (for veggies) it has dropped 2 leaved which yellowed, weakened and fell off! So, no more water, no more extra light, no more liquid fertilizer for that one!

I have moved it to a place (on the top shelf for now) where it only gets natural light and I will not be watering it as often, and I will just be using plain water, and fertilizing only about 1 time per month.

Hopefully this will stop the leaf shedding!!

I am always curious to hear what others are planning on planting in their gardens, and also what garden projects they have in the works for the coming season. Please leave a comment on this post about what your plans are! (To view all comments click the headline of the post above, “What are you planting?” and you will be taken to a page where you can see all the comments people leave!

In your post if you have favorite seeds/brands/or seeds you have saved from previous years I would love to hear about that when you tell us your list of yummy things you will be planting.

Thanks in advance for sharing with everyone. 🙂

So, the only mature cilantro plant I have seen has been staked and had a huge stem and was almost 24″ tall. I had started some seeds a few weeks back thinking that I would have to stake them at some point. I did try to stake them. They unstaked themselves within about 48 hours.

So, here is my note: Cilantro is crazy, it wants to be crazy, it is happy to be crazy. 🙂 I have let mine grow into a huge mess and it is just as happy as can be. I could be controlling and really stake them well and make them grow taller etc… but I like the tender leaves and stems better anyway!!

Here is a picture of my crazy cilantro. This is after the harvest I took to put on the tomato platter I made! You can hardly tell I took anything at all.

I’m not normally a huge Martha Stewart fan, but today I happened to have a free moment and looked at her show which was about greenhouses and begonias! Her greenhouses are just gorgeous of course. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to propagate begonias! Made me want to get some and try it myself for sure!

Here is her greenhouse link: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/marthas-greenhouse

Here is her begonia link: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/begonia

(There are not videos up yet because this just aired today, but there is other reading material there today. Check back tomorrow for a recap video from the show, which I highly recommend!)