i'm starting my seed tonight, are you ready for the upcoming season

finally, its march and I am now able to start my tomatoes and peppers seeds!

I am still on board to transform my small back yard into a vegetable garden as shown below:



how about you? have you started your seedlings yet? are you ready for spring which is now fast approaching!

 

I have started lots of seeds off and I am planting new stuff all the time. Spring is the most exciting time of the year, all the prospects and promises. This is enough to motivate me and galvanize me into action. Spring is short and time is precious, at least the days are getting longer.

 

I plan on starting my tomatoes this week. That's really all I grow from seed anymore.

 

I have big leaf basil, flat leaf parsley, marjoram and thyme all started in February. The plantlets are in the guest bedroom under grow lights and on a heat mat. This morning was "thin the marjoram" time. The others were thinned last week. The next step is to up-pot so I can share some of them with gardening friends that don't have an indoor starting set-up.

 

peppers, tomatoes, basils, petunias, geraniums and more all up so far. starting another house full this week.

 

Also just got my pepper and tomato seeds in dirt. Hopefully they will be ready by late April to set outside or transplant to containers.

I planted some Carolina Reaper pepper seeds also... Got them from dried pods. Forgot to wear gloves. Yeah.

Those things are HOTT!!! LOL

 

Day #2, it's like watching paint dry.

 

I'm going to start planting next week. I tend to plant too early so I'm trying to hold back a bit. Love your garden layout Adam. Are you putting in everything this year or just the vegetable boxes?

 

it's far to easy to plant things too early indoors. can't wait! any longer!
I want to do as much as possible this year. so far I have is one 4x8 bed from last year.
I might not have the greenhouse up this year, and maybe i'll skip corners here and there and plan to really fix it up how i want the following year. My priority is to have a small fence and add 2 beds ASAP. last year there was groundhogs that ate everything in my garden after I transplanted, so a fence is a must.

 

We have rabbits here and I have a pot belly pig and goats so I put up a 3ft fence around my garden that seemed to work great until I watched a chipmunk climb the fence then start stripping my pea patch of peas......not sure the solution for that haha. Luckily the groundhog we had has seemed to move on. Adam you could do a inexpensive A frame with plastic for a greenhouse to start. What kind of growlight are you using indoors? My new lights came yesterday but are too hot for comfort so I'm not keeping them.

 

I have 2 fluorescent shop light fixtures each with 2x T8 lights as shown in pic above. this will grow about 33plants if it was filled with big red cups only.

for the greenhouse... the deck used to have a pool next to it with a higher deck to get into the pool, this part of the deck has 4 big 4x4x8 beams, the pool is gone and this part of the deck is useless and has to be removed. I plan on removing it but leave the 4 big beams as 4 corner supports for the greenhouse. so i think all i will need to do it build a simple roof and cover the whole thing with plastic, putting in a door might be tricky.

the hardest part will be removing all the grass, someone gave me a tip... if i plan on having tight spacing in between each bed, i need to remove ALL the grass or I won't be able to cut the grass in the walkways. so it sounds like i have a HUGE area (~20feet x 20feet) of grass the remove. that's going to take a few days of hard work for sure.

for the fence, I might cheap out on it for the first year to just get it up quick, maybe ill just drive wooden stakes just to loosely support chicken wire.

my plans are all doable, its just a matter of putting in the hours to get it done.

building greenhouse - 2-3 day job
ripping out grass - 5-6 day job ( 4'x4' striped each day )
building all the boxes for the beds - 1 day
filling beds in with soil -1 day ( my boxes are just a few inches off the ground, didn't want to spend $$$ filling 1foot high boxes -_- )
building a makeshift fence with chicken wire - 2-3 days

so I should be able to get this all done in 2 weeks provided I work at least a few hours each day.
probably will end up taking a month because i will run out of steam and only end up working at it every other day.
can't wait to get started tho!

 

For the trellis between your beds you might try growing squash on them. I did this last year and it was great fun.

 

I'm thinking pole beans and or cucumbers ( maybe tomatoes too?) climb up.
I'm not a fan of squash.

 

I bought another growlight but I will take a look for 2ft shop lights and T8's this weekend (thanks!), it sounds much cheaper.

I LOVE your squash arbor SamIam!! Do you find the squash drop off if they get too heavy?

Look up sheet mulch. You basically put down a layer of cardboard, put mulch on top and keep the mulch moist. Kills the grass. No digging up the sod at all.

 

@adam & @tindi...I was going to suggest laying down cardboard and mulch on top....very easy and yes it kills the grass/weeds.

Oh @adam...you are so organized to draw it out. I've been trying for 2 months now....lol. crayons here i come...supposed to rain for a day or 2, so that would be perfect.