First Plantings of 2015

The start of the new year means it is time to start thinking about the spring garden in Central Texas.  Our long growing season means that cool weather transplants can start going in the ground in the ground in late February and early March.  So that means, it is time to start sowing some seeds indoors!

Ten days ago, on January 4th, I sowed my first seeds of the new year indoors.

Seeds sown included:

• Burpee Kale - Dwarf Blue Curled Vates (3 cells)
• Burpee Kale - Lacinato (3 cells)
• Burpee Spinach - Bloomsdale Long-Standing (6 cells)
• Burpee Collards - Georgia (6 cells)
• Burpee Broccoli - Sun King Hybrid (6 cells)
• Botanical Interests Lettuce Leaf - Black Seeded Simpson (6 cells)
• Botanical Interests Lettuce Butterhead - Buttercrunch (6 cells)
• Botanical Interests Lettuce Romaine - Parris Island Cos (6 cells)
• Botanical Interests Lettuce Leaf - Salad Bowl Blend (6 cells)
• Botanical Interests Leek - King Richard (12 cells)
• Botanical Interests Marjoram (9 pots)
• Burpee Alyssum - Royal Carpet (12 cells)
• Ferry-Morse Butterfly Flower (9 pots)

That's a lot of plants, and if all the seedlings make it, I'm not sure if I'll be able to fit all the plants in the garden, much less consume the harvests.  Oh well, I'm sure my gardening friends and neighbors wouldn't mind helping take on my surplus plants.

While I've grown lettuce, spinach, collards, and kale from seed before, I've always done it by sowing the seeds directly in the garden bed during fall planting.  This is my first go at trying out planing these seeds for the spring crop by starting indoors.  We'll see how it goes!

The leeks, marjoram, butterfly week and alyssum are all new plants and seeds for me.  Well, that is not entirely true.  I've planted several tropical butterfly weed store-bought transplants in my garden before, but after learning how the tropical variety is not the greatest for my beloved monarchs, I'm trying to plant more native varieties.  I've read that the alyssum is a great necter plant for pollinators, though it is an annual, so it will only be in the garden for one season.  Marjoram is similar to oregano and frequently used in an herbes de Provence spice mixture.

I placed my newly planted seedlings under my grow lights on my grow shelves.  After 10 days, all of the seeds have started to sprout.  In a couple of days, I'll need to start thinning the plants (I'm still terrible at planting too many seeds per cell...I always seem to underestimate how many of the seeds will sprout).  It is a heart-wrenching exercise (ok, that's a little dramatic), but it must be done in order for the remaining plants to thrive.

I'm already looking forward to the ground warming up a bit so I can get these new plants growing out in the garden!

Spring Seedlings

On February 17th, I planted several flower, herb and veggies seeds indoors on my grow shelves.  To get a start on the spring planting.

I planted the following:

Flowers

• Zinnias - Purple Prince, Giant Violet Queen, Lilliput Mixed Colors
• Marigolds - Burpee's Best Mix
• Morning Glories - Tall Mix
• Oriental Poppy - Brilliant Red
• Alyssum - Royal Carpet

Herbs

• Sweet Basil
• Common Chives
• Cilantro
• Echinacea - Purple Coneflower

Veggies

• Kale - Lacinato
• Eggplant - Black Beauty
• Cucumber - Marketmore 76
• Watermelon - Sweet Scarlet Hybrid
• Cantaloupe - Hale's Best Jumbo
• Summer Squash - Pic-N-Pic Hybrid

The morning glories, zinnias, marigolds, watermelon, squash, cucumbers and kale are all really taking off and I'll need to move them outside soon.  However, with the recent swing in temperatures and possibility of yet another freeze, I'm going to try to postpone it for as long as possible.

Indoor Grow Shelves

My most recent garden project was setting up indoor grow shelves.  These shelves will come in handy for starting my garden seeds inside when it is either too cold outside (January), or when it is too hot outside, like right now.  I tried several times to get some tomato, pepper and eggplants to grow from seeds outside, but I think it was too hot for them because the seedlings kept wilting.

I also tried starting watermelons and cucumbers from seeds multiple times.  The heat didn't bother them, but I noticed that bugs were chewing through the delicate cucumber stem and that the mockingbirds were pulling my watermelon sprouts right out of the ground.  The grow shelves should help me get the plants established before putting them outside.

To set up my grow shelf, I bought:

• Whitmor 4-tier metal shelving unit ($65)
• 3 4-foot 2-light T8 fluorescent shop light fixtures ($60)
• 6 4-foot T8 fluorescent light bulbs ($30)
• 4 Philips Daylight Deluxe (32 watt, 2750 lumens, color temp 6500K)
• 2 Philips Soft White (32 watt, 2950 lumens, color temp 3000K)

The daylight bulbs produce blue light, which are needed for the seedlings to grow.  The soft white produces red spectrum light, which the plants need for flowering.  Blue light is more important for starting seedling indoors that will later be transplanted outside, but I read that having a full spectrum of light (blue and red) is good for the seedlings.  I'm trying a little experiment and I have one of the shelves with only daylight (blue) lights.  The other two shelves have one daylight (blue) and one soft white (red) lights.  I'll see which one the seedlings tend to do better under and will adjust my lights accordingly to use the best light for my plants.