I got bogged down in school deadlines and have some catching up to do here.

The promised picture of the whole garden.

None of the egg carton seedlings amounted to anything and most of them never sprouted at all. When I finally gave up on them and dumped out the dirt I found that a few of the seed had sent out a tap root and it was lodged in the bottom of the egg carton. Based on this and a conversation with my sister about common problems in starting from seeds, I figure the whole egg carton idea was just silly. They may be biodegradable but they are not deep enough for even a seedling to grow in. It seems like when the tap root hit bottom the plant was done.

In the same sister conversation she mentioned that the small dixie cups were what an article she had read (I think from Mother Earth News?) worked well. I reseeded the tomatoes, peppers, and Casabanana vine in them. So far, they are doing very well although the cups are falling apart so I had to stick them in extra cups. Almost all of them are nearly ready for planting outdoors so we are beginning to harden them off.

A few days ago, I noticed that our Pablano tree had a bad infestation of white flies. We've had these a few times and have used an organic pesticide on them with varying levels of success. I don't understand where they are coming from. The soil maybe? We immediately put the pepper outside since white flies love both tomatoes and peppers and the Pablano was right next to my happy seedlings. I checked the seedlings and they didn't seem to have any white flies.

Bean Row

The next morning, I noticed one or two of the pepper seedlings seemed a little shriveled and sure enough all the seedlings had a few white flies on the bottoms of their leaves. I assume these flies were ones that had been startled off the Pablano when we moved it and so relocated. They were few enough that I just wiped them off with my finger tips and killed them all. Within 48 hours some of the youngest seedlings, that hadn't even unfurled their leaves from the seed yet, had died, but the older ones perked back up and seem fine now. I hate white flies.

We sprayed the Pablano down and took all the peppers off of it so it could focus on survival. White flies are little vampires that suck the life out of plants so even after they are gone, the plant may not survive. I'm hopeful that we caught the Pablano fast enough since it has been almost a week and it is looking a little better.

Summer Squash on either side, Green Bean in the middle

Our garden is doing fairly well in spite of the many cold snaps we have had these past few months.

The weather really needs to make up its mind. The beans were the first to come up and were also the first to be munched on by a ninja bug we have never seen. We sprayed them down with pesticide and even the most damaged ones are now putting out happy new leaves. I'd say only a third of the amount we planted actually came up. We assume this is because of the many cold days we've had. Only one of the green beans we've planted is up. The Baker Creek bean packages specifically warn that if the dirt is too cold or wet the beans will rot in the ground. So, that explains that.

Tomato plants that will need thinning soon.

We had a pumpkin sprout and then rot. It was depressing. The summer squash are both up and putting out their second set of leaves as are the Butternut. Almost all of my tomatoes that I planted straight into the garden have sprouted and are doing just as well as the ones that are inside. The only ones that seem to be struggling are the Beduin which is odd, since we thought they were the ones most likely to do well. But, again, we were thinking for the heat, not the cold.

There is only one confirmed Marigold and a very few basil sprouts. I'm still not sure about the chives, if any are up they are very few, but it's hard to tell whether it's chives or weeds at this point.

When the weather finally decides whether its Spring or Winter, we will probably replant some of the things that haven't sprouted yet. We might also start some more seeds inside since we've had such good success with that so far.

The Marigold

My sunflowers are all coming up like weeds. A few of them I had to replant, I think squirrels dug up and ate at least one plot. I'm practically giddy about them which I find humorous since I don't particularly care for sunflowers and never would have bought them. A very few of the Lupine seeds have come up, 3 or so. I haven't gotten to plant any of my Zinnias yet, which is probably just as well, since they love heat.

Happy Sunflower Plant

No sign of life from the Banana, or
most of the indoor herbs. The Parsley is the only one going great guns. Some of the Oregano has sprouted in the pot to give away and one basil seed sprouted. I'm a little bit baffled. Maybe they all just need more heat and light then I can give them indoors? I did find out that chives actually need darkness to sprout and I had basically sprinkled them on top of the dirt since their seeds are so small, maybe it's the same problem with some of the others? But that doesn't explain why the Oregano is only coming up in one pot and not the other. I'd take any educated guesses!

The first week of March is when I really started planting things this year. I started some herbs in pots both for myself and for a sister. I early started our tomatoes, our two kinds of peppers, one banana tree, and some very unusual fruit that is in a class of its own. The corner of our living room looks like this right now.

I hope you weren't expecting good photography.

From left to right in the "empty" pots.

• Oregano, Marjoram, Thyme
• Parsley
• Chives in the window box (the same as I put in the garden)
• More Oregano in the small hanging pot (it's hiding behind the lamp) to give away
• In the bigger grey pot is our banana seed.
• One leftover scraggly Basil plant from last year in the other hanging pot, as well as some new Basil seedlings. Also to give away.
• In the egg cartons I started the tomatoes (same as the garden), Albino Bullnose peppers, Thai Red Chilli peppers, and something called a Cassabanana.

If you notice the tiny pot to the far right, that is, I think, a tree seedling that volunteered in one of my pots from last year. It looks like a miniature version of the tree that hung over our apartment balcony. I decided to save it and see if I could eventually turn it into a bonsai.Of course, the actual tree in corner there is our Poblano. Once I stopped drowning it, it started putting out peppers again. To the left of that is more scraggly basil that I barely nursed through the winter. Probably won't be doing that again. I must resign myself to a basiless winter.

So far, most of the herbs and one tomato have actually sprouted.  I am very concerned about the egg carton containing the peppers and the Cassabanana. I originally put them inside something that I thought might give a green house effect, but I forgot that seedlings need air flow. I took them out when the dirt started to grow mold. I'll probably start some more just in case.

I also got to plant some flower seeds I bought last year and never planted. They are called Lupine Tutti Frutti Mix from Burpee. I don't know anything about them except that the package says they do well in shade. I have a little flower plot right next to the house that is in shade most of the day. Hopefully I'll get some flowers out of it.

We finally got seeds into the ground! We planted the beans Friday night or so but all the rest of the garden got planted today. We ordered most of our seeds from Baker Creek at rareseeds.com. There are a few exceptions that are leftover seeds from last year. Here is the list of what is now planted in the actual garden.

• Suyo Long Cucumbers
• Good Mother Stallard Beans
• Cherokee Trail of Tears Beans
• Christmas Pole Limas
• Yellow Summer Crookneck Squash (not from Baker Creek)
• Blue Lake 274 Garden Bean (not from Baker Creek)
• Butternut-Waltham Squash
• Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin 
• Rampicante Zuccherino Melon
• Casaba-Golden Beauty Melon
• Ali Baba Watermelon
• Great White Tomato
• Beduin Tomato
• Rev. Marrows Long Keeper Tomato
• Pearly Pink Tomato
• Siam Queen Thai Basil
• Brocade Mix Marigold
• Common Chives

Here is my highly accurate and very spiffy Paint version of the garden. The crossed out plot had a metal pipe sticking up once we started digging there, also the grass around it was dead, so we just left it and didn't plant anything there. Eventually, I will post a real picture.

We more or less planted along the square foot gardening idea. You will find that we do lots of things in a "more or less" fashion. We are also trying some companion planting.

Apparently, everything likes Basil and Marigolds. Tomatoes like the onion family; beans don't like the onion family. Peppers don't like tomatoes.

Today, we only planted seeds, none of our seedlings are even sprouted yet. I started tomatoes and peppers inside, but I didn't get them planted as soon as I should have. I still have no idea if they are going to sprout or not.

I decided to hedge my bets with the tomatoes (oops, I spelled that wrong on my nifty picture) and planted seeds straight into the ground as well.

There are still more things that need planting. I hope to get some okra seeds from my sister soon and we'll be planting our peppers in the front yard to show off the beautiful plants. I have some New Zealand Spinach that is supposed to be able to take heat that still isn't planted. Not to mention the flower garden and herb garden I want to create.

Baker Creek sent us a complimentary package of Lemon Queen Sunflower seeds and I did get them planted along our back fence yesterday. 

I intend this to be a casual and hopefully useful blog. My goal is to keep good information about what works and doesn't work in our garden this year. The blog cannot fail to be useful to me personally and may eventually end up being useful to others who are also trying to garden in this area. One of the things I ran into when looking on the internet for gardening info was that the info was never specifically for my area.