Van Oort Tiny Farm

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Van Oort Tiny Farm

Growing food and living sustainably on a "tiny farm" Welcome! We moved here 2.5 years ago and are now entering our third growing season on the property.
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I have started this page to document our attempt to grow most of our own food on our 1/3 acre "tiny farm". Many of the structures and beds that came with the property are old and a few have had to be removed for safety reasons. We are rebuilding and modernizing what we feel we will need to effectively continue to "farm" our small space. Our intent is to inspire others as we share what we do throug

hout our year-round growing season. We hope that more people see that growing your own food is a very achievable way to obtain fresher, healthier food with a much smaller ecological footprint.

14/07/2024

Early summer update

Time has been stuck on fast forward since we posted last. Summer holidays have now begun but there has been so much to do in and out of the garden.

Some crops are doing well, others not so much, and others are in a wait and see state. Please send positive energy to our zucchini plants! Lol

I was able to pick enough of our own strawberries to make a batch of jam... first. time. ever! It tastes like summer in a jar! ❤️

I started the big job of pressure washing the cement in the backyard. I started with the area where we have our dining table, it came up so well I'm very pleased. Now I want to move on to the other sitting areas and then on to the mile of pathway. Lol

I am trying to reduce the areas of lawn that are awkward to mow. Under the bay tree was one of those areas. A layer of cardboard and mulch now creates a nice straight line which is much easier to mow around. There is bindw**d in that grass so I will be keeping an eye out for shoots coming up along the edges.

The boho garden is very colourful at the moment. The lupines, cosmos, zinnias and marigolds were all planted from seed in the Spring. I recently added a white and an orange Mum, several clumps of blue Siberian Iris and more Sunflowers and marigolds.

The Nasturtiums in the herb garden are so vibrant! I don't think I have ever had so many flowering at once either.

The pole beans are one of the crops that are very happy this year.

The tea pots are also doing well. I have taken the first harvest and dried the teas. I hope to get 1 or 2 more harvests before the fall. Spearmint, licorice mint, chocolate mint, lemon balm and chamomile.

We left the row of volunteer sunflowers in the veg garden and they are now starting to flower. You can never have too many sunflowers! 🥰🌻

The greenhouse is very full with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, carrots, kale as well as the citrus bushes. The w**ds are also growing very well too!
Unfortunately we lost our first tomatoes, cukes and peppers to a very large rat. 😢

The holey greenhouse is producing lots of Swiss chard and kale, along with lettuce and spinach which are now starting to bolt. I let the green onions flower so I am now saving the seeds. There are leeks and celery in there as well.

The 2 potato patches are catching up after a late planting. Behind them are squashes being trained to grow vertically.

The raspberries aren't producing as well as they did last year so I don't think we'll have enough to freeze. The blackberries will more than make up for it though! I'll be making jam from them later on.

In the Spring we were surprised with some mini daffodils that came up in a planter that we got from my mother in law that passed away last Fall. The daffodils eventually died off and then a tiny viola appeared in the corner of the pot. I dug it out and repotted it and it's growing nicely. Another nice reminder of her. 🩷

I bought some white sage seeds this spring from a local small farm with the hopes of growing our own smudging sage. Only 1 seed germed, so I have been babying this plant along inside. It's now graduated to outside and is looking stronger so I hope that it will overwinter OK.

We had a cute visitor in our front yard the other day 🐇....I really hope that he does not venture out back though!!

We hope that your garden is rewarding you with lots of veggies, fruits, herbs, teas and flowers! 🐞

PS. It's time to start the Fall/Winter seeds so I will be back with a post about what we'll be growing this year.

17/06/2024

A bit of w**ding, harvesting, trimming, planning and waiting

It was a busy weekend! Hubby w**ded many different areas of the yard and planted many seedlings out into the garden that we had not got around to planting.

We harvested the first cabbage and broccoli. 😋 We had some of the cabbage stir fried last night and I made quinoa broccoli patties for tonight's dinner....so yummy!

We have also been picking lots of peas! I blanched and froze 2 bags of the snow peas for stir fries. We have been enjoying snacking on the raw snap peas.

The strawberries are small but there are lots of them so I had some on French toast this morning!

The lettuce continues to produce huge amounts. For lunch lately I have been making herbed cream cheese rolls with the large leaves.

I love being able to eat such a variety of foods from our own backyard!

The kale also continues to produce large harvests so I dried more in the dehydrator today and made a soup with the stalks.

Hubby makes the prettiest patterns with string when he sets up the pole bean trellises.

He wants to try growing all of our squashes vertically as well. We tried it once in the past and it work out OK, hopefully we get great results this time.

The last batch of succession spinach has been planted in the holey greenhouse along with a few more lettuce. Spinach doesn’t like the heat so hopefully we get a harvest before it starts to bolt.🤞 I have some romaine seedlings to be planted out this week.

The potatoes are starting to form leaves. We delayed planting these because of the cold wet weather but I'm sure they will catch up quickly. There are 50 in one row and I think we'll add another 50 this week.

The red, yellow and white onions finally got into the ground today. I usually plant them earlier but I hadn't got around to it, thankfully hubby got the job done!

The thornless blackberries are flowering and the raspberries are starting to form. So glad that we put these berry rows in as soon as we moved here!

I bought a new edger to do the lawn. I love the look of neat edges especially along the cement path.

I found a roll of bamboo fencing on Marketplace tonight so we propped it up behind the Buddha garden to hide the ugly fence. It needs a few adjustments and I will need to find another roll to complete the whole garden.

I hope that your gardens are bringing you joy! 🐞

14/06/2024

The harvests are starting!

We are starting to harvest some of our Spring/Summer crops. Today I picked a bowl of snap and snow peas and strawberries from the garden. I hope to be able to freeze some bags of sugar peas for winter stir fries.

The basil is still indoors but needed a trim so I harvested and dried the first cutting. I actually may keep it indoors under the grow lights as it's doing so well and is protected from the weather and pests.

The greens under the hoop rows continue to do very well. The kale is due for another big harvest and we have been eating steamed pac choi and cabbage leaves for dinner.

In the holey greenhouse we picked a large harvest of Swiss Chard the other day which we froze, and the lettuce has continued to fill our fridge with bags of salad! Visitors are now often 'pressured' to leave with a bag as well! Lol

I have begun harvesting and drying the sage and oregano. These 2 herbs are always our biggest producers so we have a continuous supply of dried herbs throughout the year.

I mentioned a little while ago that this year we were expanding our efforts in producing our own compost. This past weekend I cleared a new area that was previously buried under years of sticks, pinecones and debris from the previous owner's shed and wood storage that we removed. I rearranged our wood storage and voila we now have room for 3 more compost bins! I have one more bin to assemble and this second composting area should last us another year. We have 2 other bins in another spot that are full and will continue to decompose over summer. Hopefully by Fall I will be able to empty those bins and we'll have some compost to start us off next Spring.

Next to the new bins I built a sifting/storage space from cinder blocks that is divided into stalls so that we can store extra soil, compost, leaves, sand, mulch, sticks to be chipped and the garbage cans that we use for w**ding. It's kind of like having a mini garden supply store on site!

The zinnias that I planted from seed are blooming right now. I hope to save seed from them as I really like the variety of colours that they come in. I was gifted a gerbera daisy and will be adding that to the Boho Garden as well. It's so nice to have the pops of colour in the beds.

I hope that you are getting some nice harvests from your garden whether they be veggies or bouquets! 🐞

06/06/2024

Name the flowers

When we moved here the veggie beds were empty (hard to believe looking at them now!) and the perennial beds were FULL! Since then we have identified many of them but we still have a few that we don't know the name of.
Can you help us out? 💕🐞

30/05/2024

A basil experiment and more succession planting

Several months ago I watched a You Tube video of Charles Dowding experimenting with growing basil seedlings, that inspired me to change my ways.

My method has always been to heavily scatter seeds into 4" pots, growing lots of closely sown seedlings (like the pots that you buy at the grocery store). I would then transplant the whole pot of seedlings into the garden or into large pots. Once the majority of the plants reached about 12" tall I would harvest the tops to encourage the plants to bush out. I always felt that I would get a decent harvest...until now.

With Charles' experiment he purchased three 4" pots of heavily sown grocery store basil and tried a few different ways of growing them. One pot he thinned out some seedlings but still left quite crowded, the second pot he pruned the tops off the leggy seedlings to try to encourage the plants to bush out. The third pot he transplanted 4-5 of the plants into new pots creating four pots from 1 grocery store plant! As the plants grew, he weighed the harvest from each pot. The end result was that the plants that had more space to grow (so fewer plants per pot) FAR outperformed the pots that contained more plants.

So this year I planted our basil seeds individually into 4pks. Once they had established their first leaves I transplanted 4 plants into a 4" pot. I am blown away with the results! The pots have fewer seedlings than in the past but each plant has much larger, healthier leaves!

It's still too cold to transplant the basil out into the garden so they are still inside. At this rate we may have our first harvest before they get planted out! Lol

The succession planting continues so we have leaf lettuce, spinach, romaine lettuce and pac choi babies that will get planted out in a few weeks. This will be the last batch of spinach as it tends to bolt quickly in the summer temps.

In the past we have grown New Zealand spinach in the summer and had amazing harvests from it. The spinach is thicker and has a very 'green' flavour but is great for cooking and freezing. In fact, just talking about it, I think I will plant some seeds tomorrow!

The cukes and squashes are also still indoors until it warms up some more. We had very good germination this year and the plants are strong and healthy. We have grown green and golden zucchini, 2 types of long English cukes, pickling cukes, Sweet Mama squash, Butternut squash, Kuri squash, Large white and orange pumpkins, mini white and orange pumpkins, Turban squash and a star shaped gourd.

I love decorating with homegrown gourds and squashes in the Autumn. I don't have to store artificial store-bought decorations throughout the year and they can go into the compost at the end of the season to eventually feed next year's garden. Win win win! 🎃

It looks like we have at least another week of cool, wet weather but hopefully summer weather will start soon after that!

🙏“The secret of patience is to do something else in the meantime.” —Croft M. Pentz

For those of you on southern Vancouver Island we currently have extra veggie seedlings for sale, many only $1! Message us for more info if you are interested. 🐞

26/05/2024

Garden growth

Everything is growing so quickly right now. Our days haven't been overly sunny and warm but we have had enough rain to keep the plants happy. We have found over the years that plants are most happy when they are regularly watered.

Under the row hoops the brasiccas are continuing to feed us fresh greens. The pac choi is starting to bolt so we will harvest the lot and then plant the next round of seedlings that I succession planted.

In the greenhouse the citrus have been flowering. There is evidence of lots of baby lemons and limes. Unfortunately we haven't been able to get a good percentage of them to full maturity, but we are still happy with whatever we get.

Hubby planted 22 pepper plants in the greenhouse today. The temp is holding above 10° in there now and some are starting to flower so it was best to get them in the ground. He has marked out where the pickling and long English cukes and melons will eventually go with pots. The kale plants that we cut back have started to regrow, while the two plants we left to collect seed from are drying.

Down the centre path of the greenhouse are trays of seedlings waiting to be planted out into the garden - onions, tomatoes, celery, marigolds and mescluns.

I mentioned before that the pole beans have been planted in 2 of the rows but a large group of sunflowers have self seeded in the third row. We don't have the heart to pull them so I think we'll keep the patch and plant tomatoes in the rest of the row.

The row of snap peas growing in the strawberry patch is flowering, as are the sugar and snap peas that I planted in pots to extend the harvest if we had an early summer. (it doesn't look like we will be getting heat waves anytime soon though)

In the herb garden the thyme sadly didn't recover but a quick stop to the nursery not only solved that problem but also added 3 more herbs to the patch. We welcomed a lemon thyme, curly parsley and Italian parsley to the bed!

The other herbs are doing well, the oreganos and sages are massive so I should start harvesting and drying the leaves soon. The dill and nasturtiums that I added this year appear to be happy. We had our first nasturtium flower the other day!

Also in the herb bed are 2 types of grapes. A concord purple variety and pinkish sweet variety. We were concerned that they weren't leafing earlier on but they have started now so I think we'll be OK.

The peach tree that we planted 2 years ago is going to produce this year! There are lots of baby peaches and the leaves are looking good. Beside the tree we have an open compost test area so I think the tree is enjoying the nutrients that are watered into the ground when it rains.

The older peach tree against the house is also covered in baby peaches. It drops the smallish ones on its own so that it produces about 100+ good sized peaches each year.

Finally we uncovered the bed that was planted with Winter Rye and then covered with black plastic. Underneath we found a nicely mulched bed that can be planted in. Now to decide what to plant there!

We appreciate each and every one of you that comes to our page to read about what we are growing. We hope that we have inspired some of you to try new things in your garden or even better, work towards food self sufficiency in your yard! 🐞

22/05/2024

Garden tour

We had several days to work in the garden this past weekend. While there is a lot to be done, I try to make an effort to take photos of the other parts of the garden that are at their peak, partly so that we don't miss them!

Here's what we accomplished:
*Pole bean seeds planted in the garden and soaker hoses installed.
*A few tomatoes planted in the greenhouse, sea soil applied and mulched with straw. Waiting to plant peppers, melons and cukes.
*Harvested leeks and spinach in the holey greenhouse. Planted more Swiss chard.
*Mulched the Boho Garden and added more annuals.
*Compost bin area tidied up and new bin installed in a second area.
*Hubby lifted the arbour and wisteria back up and reinforced the temporary supports to buy us some more time!
*Berry patch rows and paths w**ded....again.
*Added a couple more "tea pots" - chocolate mint and lemon balm.
*Herb garden mulched, cilantro, dill and Nasturtiums planted. Soaker hose on timer. Looking for a replacement thyme plant.😞

Jotting down this kind of list and/or taking photos helps to keep us motivated to keep going with the never ending projects. Photos can also be helpful when referencing specific plants and the different stages of the garden.

I hope that you all had time to spend in your gardens this past long weekend. If you happened to take some photos of a certain project or space that you are proud of, please share them in the comments. 🐞

17/05/2024

Gone with the wind.

I am really not a fan of strong wind. I don't like it when it blows my hair into my face but I especially hate it when it blows something down in our garden. When we first moved here every wind storm resulted in something coming apart - fences, greenhouse panels, a massive tree falling down ON the fence...

So we have proactively taken down two glasshouses, 2 sheds and multiple arbours that were safety risks. One thing that we wanted to keep was the wisteria arbour. It came apart last year so hubby built a temporary support to keep it up until the job made its way to the top of the priority list.

Yesterday afternoon Mother Nature helped that job reach the top of the list as the strong gusts blew the whole thing down. 😑

Thankfully the wisteria is quite bendable so I don't think it has done too much damage to the tree, but it has created an awkward mess.

So today, to balance out yesterday's destruction, I am planting more seeds and hoping for better things to come in the future. I thought I was finished with seed sowing for the next couple of months but hubby wants romaine lettuce so of course I couldn't say no. 🙄

I will also do a walk about to check on the rest of the plants in the garden to assess any further damage, but fingers crossed that all is fine and I can get back to spreading mulch on some more garden beds.

Even on "tiny farms" there are things that happen that throw you off course and rearrange your intended plans. When you have a dream you have to take the good days with the bad days, but always keep the ball rolling to get on to the next great day! 🐞💚

12/05/2024

Planting under row cover hoops

We grow veggies under 2 kinds of row cover hoops. I recently ordered some small, lightweight hoops from Amazon and they have been working out great in the holey greenhouse. I have written several posts showing these hoops. The larger hoops are made from 1" galvanized metal conduit and are able to withstand harsher outdoor weather.

Row cover hoops are handy for the following reasons:
They extend your growing season in the late winter/early spring and again in the autumn/early winter.
They protect your tender seedlings from harsh winds and early frosts.
They protect your crops from pests like the cabbage moth.
They prevent birds from eating freshly sown seeds or pecking seedlings.
They provide protection from sunburn.
They allow the rain to water the plants while also helping to reduce surface water evaporation (but a thick layer of mulch is still important)

We wanted to try the metal row cover hoops outside in our veggie garden to sheild from the cabbage moth. A few years ago we purchased a set of 4 hoops from a neighbour to create a row approximately 4' x 18'. The neighbour no longer make the hoops, so hubby built a device so that we can now make them ourselves. The hoops are a bit of an investment because the pipe is not cheap, but we feel that because they will last years, plus what we are able to save in food costs, they will easily pay for themselves within 1 season.

We also preferred to use permanently shaped galvanized metal over bending a straight length of PVC pipe for several reasons: metal is stronger, will outlast the plastic, won't leach or breakdown into microplastic and is easily recyclable.

This year the first row was planted on Apr 13th with seedlings that I grew from seed indoors. Hubby planted the seedlings closer together than he has in the past, as a test to see if it will affect the individual plants' growth.

The second row was planted on Apr 28th with more of our own seedlings (succession planting!) plus 2 packs of cauliflower seedlings from the nursery. (there always seems to be one plant that just won't grow well!)

So in these 2 rows (approx 144sq ft) we are growing Red Russian and Lacinato kales, green, purple and Sui Choi cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, Pac Choi, and Golden Beets. (and possibly a few Collards?) One month in, we are now harvesting large piles of kale to try to keep the plants a manageable size as they grow very quickly.

It's a good problem to have and keeps me looking for different ways of cooking with and preserving brasiccas.

If you would like more information about the metal hoops that we make, feel free to message me.

Enjoy this lovely weather! 🐞

08/05/2024

Holey Greenhouse harvest!

I went out to the holey greenhouse last night to pick some supper and I discovered quite a haul! I may have even let out a small gasp as I pulled back the remay cloth! 🤭

The spinach that was getting nibbled, fought back! Nice big, tender leaves with a mild flavour. This variety is West Coast Seed Monstrueux de Viroflay. 40-50 days, or baby leaves in 21 days. A 5g seed pack has kept us going for 2 years, for less than $4! Gotta ❤️ that!

Side note: I noticed a few bite marks on some of the lower leaves so I feel that it's likely the lizards nibbling the leaves. I planted out 2 rows of baby seedlings about a week ago and they all disappeared! No sign of scratches in the soil or forced entry so it must be them. The next batch of spinach may have to go in a different location as the netting will not stop them. Oh well I guess we have to share some of the harvest with them as they do a great job at keeping our slug damage to a minimum.

The lettuce is from Hudson Valley Seed Co. and has also kept us going for the past 2 years. It's called Metta Lettuce Mix and includes Flashy Butter Oak, Rouge d' Hiver, Buttercrunch, Tango and Hyper-Red Rumpled Wave. The packet says 28 days to baby leaf. Last year I was successful at saving seed from the Flashy Butter Oak, Rouge d'Hiver and Tango varieties so we will literally never have to buy seed again. I find that temperature is key when trying to germ these seeds, they prefer the air temp to be around 20+°C and slightly damp (not wet) but once they germ they are amazing! I love the colours and textures of these soft leaf lettuces.

We have been succession planting the spinach and lettuces so I will be planting yet another tray of all of these seeds so that they will be ready to go out in a shady location in a few weeks.

It's a good idea to move these crops around as the temperature rises. A sunny winter location may be fine for lettuce and spinach, but a partial shady location is more ideal during the summer.

I didn't pick any kale last night but was pleased to see how quickly it is growing as well. We are still eating the kale that I picked a couple weeks ago from the other greenhouse so we won't have an in between time of being without kale. This variety is WCS Red Russian. 50 days.

Also under the hoop are Swiss chard seedlings. They are taking their time to get started but our past experience has been that once they get going, they will produce until Christmas. This variety is WCS Silverado and I saved seed from a past crop so again, we didn't have to buy the seed.

Lots to do today in the garden. I had better get out there! Thanks so much for reading our posts about our "tiny farm". 🐞❤️

06/05/2024

Sorry no vacancy...

Our indoor seedling accommodation is getting a wee bit desperate!

The growing tomato seedlings were really packed in on the metal shelves that have the grow lights, which isn't ideal. I like to keep good airflow between all of our seedlings so I decided to temporarily move 3 trays to another spot to allow a little more breathing room on the shelves. On another shelf unit I clipped 3 photography LED lights to shine on 3 trays of seedlings. Because we are expecting some warm weather we will be starting the transition to the greenhouse very soon so I'm not too concerned about the lightbulbs not being full spectrum.

I have also now planted all of the seeds for our long English cukes, pickling cukes, cantaloupe, green and golden zucchini, kuri squash, sweet mama squash, butternut squash, turban squash, jack o lantern pumpkins, large white pumpkins, white and orange mini pumpkins and star shaped gourds.

These seeds will germ and grow quickly so we generally wait to sow these seeds until early May so that we can plant them out into the garden in about 3 weeks time. We simply don't have the space to repot large squash plants and keep them indoors.

The covered hoop rows are doing a great job protecting the brasiccas from the cold and more importantly, the cabbage moth. Covering the young plants saves us a lot of time, not having to check each plant daily for signs of eggs or caterpillar destruction.

We now have the ability to bend the 10' lengths of metal conduit pipe ourselves so we can make up more hoops if we decide to expand the covered rows.

I think today is the last rainy day forecasted so get your running shoes on, I'm sure that many of us will be very busy in the garden over the next few weeks! 🐞

03/05/2024

Herb garden tidy up

About 4 years ago I redesigned this bed to be our herb garden. I put in a rock pathway and planted a variety of herbs that we had been growing in containers - oregano, green sage, purple sage, chive, rosemary, winter savory and thyme.

Last year the herb garden was terribly neglected. I honestly don't remember w**ding the bed at all and we didn't get around to hooking up an automated water timer so the plants dried out many times throughout the summer. 😔 I'm only showing these embarrassing "before" photos of how overgrown it was, to inspire you about how much can be accomplished in a relatively short period of time.

Despite last year's neglect, the herbs have grown so much over the past 4 years. Today I felt it was necessary to reposition the "entrance" to the garden bed due to the plants closing in over the old pathway. I have always found it very difficult to w**d between the stones so to make life a little easier, I decided to pull out all of the stones, add one at the new entrance, and I'm going to simply mulch the entire bed with leaf mulch. The leaf mulch works very well at keeping the soil moist as well as reducing w**ds.

I also moved two of the herbs to allow for more space between the crowded plants. Unfortunately I'm not sure if the thyme will survive, it may need to be replaced.

The next step is to add the mulch and connect a soaker hose to the timer. After that, this bed should, aside from harvesting, take care of itself for the rest of the year.

I am really pleased with the new layout and was surprised how much I accomplished in just half a day. I often find that seeing even a small improvement encourages me to keep plugging away at the tedious jobs like w**ding an overgrown bed.

One more bed done, several more to go! 🐞

27/04/2024

Final tomato repotting

After writing out an entire post on the final repotting, Facebook glitched and posted a video reel instead and deleted my written post. So let's try this again....take two!

Timeline:
In mid March I planted 17 varieties of tomato seeds into two 120 cell trays in a seed starter mix.
In early April I repotted the small seedlings into 2" pots and large 6 packs in a potting soil/sea soil blend. (ratio 2:1)
And now 2-3 weeks later I am starting the final repot into 4" pots using the same soil mix as above.

Each time I transplant a seedling I plant up to the bottom 2 leaves which stimulates additional root growth and strong stems. We keep the seedlings indoors at a fairly constant 20°C under full spectrum grow lights. (note: at our last house we grew tomatoes in a sunny window and had equally good success)

The seedlings will remain indoors as they recover from the shock of the repotting (usually about 3-4 days) and then we will begin the hardening off process in early May.

'Hardening off' is gradually introducing the young plants to cooler temperatures. Similar to us adjusting to the first cold days in Autumn after enjoying the warm Summer days.

To start the process we move our plants outside on the first of a string of warm days ahead. We keep them in a protected area (that avoids wind) for just a couple of hours per day. Gradually we increase the number of hours outside until they spend the entire day outside, continuing to bring them all back inside every evening.

During the hardening off process outside we ensure that the plants are in trays with a bit of water in the bottom so that the 4" pots don't dry out completely. Sunburned leaves is another thing to watch for if the days are particularly sunny, just like us plants need protection from too much sun.

Once our nighttime temperatures are consistently 10°C (usually around May long in our area) the plants can be transplanted into their final home in the garden or into large pots with saucers. If the greenhouse reaches 10°C before the outdoor temperature does, we may plant a few earlier if we figure that we will have room in the greenhouse.

When we transplant the tomato seedlings we once again plant them deep up to their bottom leaves. We sprinkle compost or sea soil around the base of each plant and then mulch the surrounding soil with 4" of shredded leaves, grass clippings or chipped compost.

The mulch is key to ensure that the soil stays moist. Allowing the soil to become too dry during the summer causes the plant to become stressed which affects its ability to absorb nutrients. Not absorbing calcium is what eventually leads to blossom end rot. Adding additional supplements are of no use, if the plant itself cannot absorb them.

So this is what we'll be doing over the next month with our tomatoes. There are so many other plants getting close to being planted out as well so I will likely report back with what's next on the planting schedule.

It's coming up to a very exciting time of year! Yay! 🐞

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More pots tidied up and ready to be planted in the garden this year.

Hostas, strawberries and fig pots tidied up and will be planted this year.

Seed planting day! I admit that I am a little late starting some of our seeds, but I look forward to seeing tiny sprouts come up in the next couple of weeks! Today I planted: 218 tomatoes - 10 varieties! 17 broccoli 18 cauliflower 18 cabbage 180 more onions (I started leeks and other onions about 12 days ago) 24 chard and I am trying a random "sprinkling" method with the small seeds: lettuce spinach collards sweet peppers. Planting this way will mean more time doing the finicky separating step, but it really cuts down the space needed during the germination stage under the grow lights. Tomorrow's job will be to organize the greenhouse with a potting table, trays, pots, mixed soil blend, labels and tools needed for the next stage of transplanting the seedlings into pots. So when the seedlings are ready, I will be too! Let the fun begin! 🐞

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