April 7th-

Getting the 36 Jalapeno's planted this weekend. Can you see how big the radish & lettuce has gotten!

Although they are hard to see, I had just started to place the tomato cages on the tomatoes and pepper plants.

Yumm! Broccoli. This is the first time myself and surely my children have ever seen how broccoli really grows.

Growing a garden is such a great learning experience for the kids as well as adults. No matter what the size, from a few containers on the porch to an acre, there's so much for everyone to learn.

April 7th-
Growing, growing, growing!

Row 1 & 2 -far right- onions
Row 3 - half cauliflower/half broccoli
Row 4 - half radish/half lettuce
Row 5 - 4 cilantro, Cute Stuff Peppers
Row 6 & 7 - 36 Celebrity tomatoes & 6 Cherokee Purple tomatoes

Radish from seeds at 7 weeks growth

Lettuce from seeds at 7 weeks growth

Onions at 7 weeks

March 31st-
I noticed a few of our Tomato plants had produced whats called a "Sucker".

A Sucker is named as such because it is a small piece of green growth that will grow out from between a normal healthy stem and the main stem of your tomato plant.

Some gardeners choose to snip these off and some choose to leave them be. It is our believe that the plant will be healthier and happier with this little guys gone, where as if you leave them be, they will grow into a full size branch and will weigh your tomato plant down. Your plant will also become bushier.

When your tomato plant is young, there is really no need for these 'extra' little leaves 'sucking' extra energy from your healthy plant. So off they go!

March 31-
 Yes it was Easter weekend but after the family get together was over and all the eggs were found, it was time to get back to planting.  By now, we've had our last freeze so we should be out of the woods for the colder temps.

Getting more rows ready. Because we are planning on making homemade salsa & hot sauce, we'll be planting 48 regular jalapeno plants and 48 roma tomato plants. Also I wanted to try a new variety that we received from Malakoff Nursery at the store. They are called "Cute Stuff" and they are a type of small bell pepper in red and orange colors that are more of a snacking pepper instead of a regular bell pepper that you would use for fajitas. We also planted 3 habanero peppers too!

We used the post hole diggers to make the holes for the pepper plants & tomatoes. Most were in 4 packs, but some were in the single and 6 pack cups as well as some peat pots.

Using the post hole diggers allowed us to make larger holes thus breaking up the packed ground to make it easier for the roots to get growing quicker and spread out easier.

Planting the Cute Stuff pepper plants....

To give our tomatoes and extra boost, we used the Espoma Tomato-Tone plant food. The directions called for 3 tbsp. per hole, but since i have such small hands and knowing that although we added lime, our soil isn't that great, I just took a small handful of the mixture and sprinkled it into the hole before we placed the plant in it.

At the end of one of our tomato rows, I did a comparison planting of 2 of the same varieties of rainbow tomato plants, one with the Tomato-Tone and one without to see which plant does better.
 I'll keep you updated with pictures on how the trial goes.

You can see the Tomato-Tone is the small white colored granules in the bottom of this hole.

We like to snip off the first few 'arms' from the tomato plant when planting them as this will help the plant become more stabilized in the ground and develop a better root system. Its best to plant at least 2/3 of the tomato plant in this fashion. Also it helps to 'ruffle' up the bottom of the root system to help get them growing quicker.

Here is a great example of how much of the actual tomato plant we like to plant. You can see we have a larger plant about 12-14 inches high in the 6 pack and when we were done planting, it is only about 4-5 inches high.

This is really a great secret on how to grow better tomato plants.

Another new variety we are planting this year is called "Cherokee Purple". They produce a large deep purple tomato named after the Cherokee Indians. These were available in large peat pots so this picture series shows how to plant if your tomatoes came in a peat pot. You'll snip the plastic label from the top and make sure to snip a few arms off and then simply plant the whole pot in the hole and gently pack the dirt in around it.

Our finished rows of tomato & pepper plants. Now just to water them and let Mother Nature work her magic!

March 17th-
FINALLY! Time to start getting some planting going! Remember to keep and eye on the weather, this is an iffy season through March. Its still a perfect time to plant veggies that are considered a cool season type.

We are going to get started with 5 plants of Cilantro, Broccoli and Cauliflower plants too!

But just a quick check on our Lettuce & Radish seeds! Look at these guys! They are really started to get big. The radish is to the right corner and the lettuce is to the left top side. This growth is only at a mere 1 month!

 OK back to the cauliflower & broccoli plants. Although these were kinda sad and droopy looking, the perked right up once planted and watered.

We started with the cauliflower first and spaced them about 12 inches apart in 4-5 inch holes.

 The old fashion way to dig holes..

 Place the little guy in there..

 And gently tamp the dirt in around it.

 Moving on, this is where the teamwork comes in at. Our daughter made quite a few holes, but I came along and spaced the plants more appropriately for Tommy to plant.

Finished rows of onions, freshly planted cauliflower & broccoli and you can see our row of half radish/half lettuce.

February 26th-
WOW! Just a short 9 days after planting look at how our lettuce and radish have grown! I am definitely impressed! I've never been much of a seed person, always having started with actual plants instead for that 'instant gratification'.

 Our Radish are up about 1/2 inch

The lettuce is really coming on too!

The time hadn't changed yet so the pictures are kinda dark so I didn't have much light to work with when we get home about 6:20pm

More water please..

February 17th-
This planting thing was going so well we decided to go ahead and start planting our radish seeds and lettuce seeds, as well as broccoli & cauliflower plants.

Keep in mind when you are planting the seasons. A lot of people new to gardening are anxious to start planting as soon as it starts to warm up. Like in the photos we are all in short sleeves and the sun is shinning and its late February. If you jump ahead and start planting warmer season plants like tomatoes, you run a good chance that we'll have another freeze and it will wipe them out. So with gardening, patience is a virtue!

Once again we used the handle of an old rake to make the troughs to put the lettuce and radish seeds into.

  Tommy just walked along the row and pressing slightly with the end made a somewhat straight line along the top of the row.

 Who needs a seeder? He used his hands to slowly drop the seeds into the trough. Although its not rocket science, we knew using this method once the plants started growing we would have to come back and thin them out.

 Doing it the proper way, using a seeder will ensure your seeds are evenly spaced for optimum growth.

You can see the tiny red colored radish seeds in this picture.

The lettuce was just slowly sprinkled from the seed pouch into the trough.

Here you can see the little white colored lettuce seeds.

 
Time to cover them up and tuck them in to grow. Tommy gently covered them with the dirt so as not to disturb them and lightly patted it down.

 Time for some good ole watering to get them good and moist.  We used our tower sprinkler to water in the lettuce & radish seeds as well as the newly planted onions.