First Garden Post

I decided to do a garden this year. I have a raised bed island for flowers in the front yard which I'll take pictures of later. I'm planting a lot of my own seeds and I've had Brett help me build a raised vegetable box for the backyard.

Here's my kitchen window sill herb garden: (yes it snowed today)

 I'm regrowing green onions that I got from the store then used the top part of. All you do is put them in water and they grow like a weed.

You can also regrow celery that you buy at the store. When I first planted this used stock it was almost flush with the dirt. This is about a month later:

 My parsley is just doing okay. I figured out recently that I've been over watering the poor things and that's why they are so wimpy.

 Above is my dill in the same state and below is my mint, which is doing great.

 I just moved the aloe plant back to this window yesterday when I noticed the shoots turning brownish. That means they were getting too much light in the other location.

 Here is the basil I've managed to keep alive for a while now.

 

I bought a four foot grow light on Amazon and here are my little seed trays below.

 Below I have jalapeno, red pepper and tomato seedlings growing.

 I'm proud of this seed pot creation. I had read that you can do seeds in an egg carton but also read that it was too shallow for many seeds. So I saved paper rolls and stuffed them into the egg carton holes and voila! In here are broccoli, rose mallow, cucumbers, and columbine flowers growing.

  Here is a Cafe Rio tin and some homemade newspaper seed pots with more tomato and jalapeno plants inside. And of course the monster tomato plant that I already had to transplant. I'm really hoping that one makes it.

 

 Big Roma!

 Please Live!

 

I also just planted Nasturtiums, Lavender, and Impatiens in old plastic packaging with a lid and some more of those nifty newspaper seed pots.

Outside I've got some more seeds growing. In this hanging basket are mesclun seeds (like a spring mix).

 And in here some butter crunch lettuce.

 Spinach in this makeshift plastic container.

 I bought two rubbermaid containers. I haven't decided what is going in there yet.

 Here are some milk/water jugs that I'm "Winter Sowing" in. You plant seeds in them over winter and they act as little green houses.

 What's growing in these? Purple Coneflowers, Zinnias, Shasta Daisies, and Four O'Clocks for the front island raised bed.

And then of course this baby! A 2X8 foot redwood raised box for square foot gardening.

I've never done any of this before so it's all an experiment but so far it has been really fun.  Wish me luck!