April 25, 2021 by shannonkiedis

March 2021 Garden Journal — shannonkiedis

Zone 5b, NY State

Lights: 2 x 2-Light T8 Fluorescent Residential Shop Light fixtures with Feit 18W 4’ LED Tubes, 6500K

Heat Mat: Viagrow 20.5" x 48" Heat Mat

Soil block mix: 12 c coco coir, 8 c compost, 4 c vermiculite, ⅓ c Espoma Garden Tone, 2" blocks

March 4

This year marks the beginning of my gardening adventure! My partner and I moved into our current house in the fall, but by that point I was too tired from painting and moving that I barely even thought about landscaping or gardening. I started doing my first gardening research in February. I got the supplies for a pretty basic seed starting station, and I’m grateful I took the plunge early, before stores started selling out of supplies. I created a (very detailed) spreadsheet of all my seeds and when to plant them. Now, after a long winter of sitting inside and wishing for warmer days, I finally got to test out the techniques I’ve been reading about! I made my seed starting mix and started soaking some of my seeds for the next day’s sowing.

Basic seed starting rack with shop lights installed! I used the box the shelves came in as a very primitive cover for my rack.

March 5

I sowed my first seeds! I filled a tray and a half with soil blocks and started asparagus, some alliums, parsley, alpine strawberry, and celery. I was so nervous for the little seeds; I didn’t know what kinds of germination rates to expect!

March 13

Throughout this week, most of the seeds I sowed in my first two trays germinated. The alliums came up first (3-5 days), and the celery took the longest (9 days). Once my seeds sprouted, I removed the humidity domes and moved them from the heat mat to under the grow lights. I tried to keep the lights within a couple inches of the tops of the seedlings, since my lights aren’t the strongest.

Little yellow onion babies! I was so excited to see them growing!

Asparagus babies

This week, I also spent a lot of time cleaning up in my yard. It finally started warming up outside, enough for most of the snow to melt, and I got to see my yard in its spring state for the first time. My neighbor told me that the original owner of the house spent a lot of time gardening, so I was extremely curious to see what kinds of perennials would be popping up throughout the growing season. In the last few years, the garden had been neglected due to the previous owner’s declining health, and it really showed in the amount of debris and dead matter that had built up in the yard. I started raking out as much garbage and old growth as I could. I identified creeping charlie, along with some other weedy perennial growth, but still needed to see more growth to identify most of the other plants.

These brambles and vines are pretty out of control. I didn’t get the chance to ID many of the plants in the fall, so I’m very interested in seeing new growth. I’ll probably have to mow down most of it just to clean the yard up a little.

The first signs of green under the snow are popping up!

March 19

This week, I took advantage of my access to a laser cutter (via my partner) and made some laser engraved plant tags! I know, super unnecessary, but I thought I might as well save myself some writing time. I’m really happy with how they turned out!

Laser cut plant tags for various vegetable varieties.

During our inaugural Sip & Seed event, I was actually able to get some sowing done! According to my spreadsheet, it was time to sow my pepper seeds, along with some flowers (echinacea, pansies, snapdragons) and herbs (oregano, garlic chives, lavender, lemongrass). Some of the seeds from this round of sowing were sent to me by Xenogerm and were saved from a previous harvest, so I had no idea how well they would germinate.

The weather was really nice this week, so I spent more time in the yard, cleaning up. I noticed some flowers growing by the stream on my property; turns out, they’re snowdrops! How adorable! This got me even more excited to see what perennials were in my garden.

Precious little snowdrops amongst the debris in my yard.

March 26

Most of the things I sowed at the Sip & Seed event germinated, except for my Autumn Bell Peppers, for some reason. The lavender and garlic chives are also taking a while to germinate. The hot peppers all came up shockingly quickly; I was pleasantly surprised because I’d heard many folks having trouble with germinating hot peppers. The Buena Mulata seedlings have a lovely purple hue to the leaves. I accidentally sowed way too many oregano seeds in each block, so now I have four blocks of mini oregano forests! I’ll have to figure out how to thin out all my plants soon, as they’re growing faster than expected. I was able to find more light fixtures, so hopefully I’ll have those set up shortly.

Oregano forest

Asparagus seedlings starting to fern out

Echinacea and snapdragon seedlings

Various pepper seedlings

Onion and celery seedlings

My neighbor, who loves to garden, gave us a gorgeous tulip plant, with a note telling me to plant them in the ground in the fall! I can’t wait to talk to her more about gardening once it’s warmer out.