Okra

After living in Georgia for 10 years we came to love okra. So to bring a little bit of our "southern" roots up north, we are going to try to grow okra again. I sowed 6  seed pods for the raised bed, and an additional 2 for Julia Belén's section of her raised bed.  Okra being her choice of what she wants to grow this year. 

Spring Planting Guide

A couple of years ago I worked out a simple Spring Planting Guide in numbers, my sister just reminded me of it this morning, so I thought I would share it with everyone. Enjoy, and hopefully spring is really here, it has been a long winter, and I'm ready to get the garden going.

Broccoli

This morning between school drop off and biking to work I transplanted our broccoli that I had started in the basement. It's frost hardy so it should be fine as long as we don't drop into the teens again. If we do, I'll bring out my glass frames to protect them.

Sugar snap peas

This evening I sowed 9 ft² of sugar snap peas out in the raise beds. I also started two sugar snap peas on the windowsill in the kitchen to have a few for us and the kids to snack on. 

Raised Bed Plan for 2014

Basil

Started three different types of basil today on the warming tray. Lemon basil, which is one of my favorites, Napolitano Bolloso and a Lime basil. 

Tomatoes

I started my tomatoes today. I decided to go with an all new set of heirloom varieties that I chose from Wintersown.

Hot Peppers

Just this afternoon I noticed my cayenne and jalapeño peppers have sprouted over in my warming tray. I am using my furnace to heat a section of my seed starting tray for the heat loving plants that would struggle in the regular seed starting shelves I have in the basement. 

The basement is unheated, but sections do have the hot water fin tubes before they disappear upstairs, and being completely underground helps maintain the basement at around 60-61 degrees. I was surprised at how stable, specially since we've had some really cold days this winter with temperatures down in the single digits.