Arugula still rocking

The same day that the squash decided to bust a move, the arugula was still looking fierce. I will definitely have to thin out these plants once they get a little bit bigger.

Meanwhile, in the seed flat next door, the eggplant seeds have not yet shown themselves. Here's a boring picture of nothingness:

 

I have been watering all the seed flats the same amount, most every day (at least 5 times a week). Now that I'm seeing movement in these flats, I'm getting a little antsy! 

Squash joins in

Sorry, folks. Long time no write. Sometimes, life happens in between gardening and blog posts. Who could imagine?

I skipped a day seeing the garden, and when I finally made it there, what did I find in the greenhouse?

Eep! That's the yellow squash sprouting! Giant cotyledons out of nowhere. (Ok it came from just below the soil.)

Check out the exxxxtreme closeup:

This is possibly the most exciting thing to happen so far. Glad to know these seeds aren't duds.

We have achieved cotyledons!

OMG, you guys! It had been roughly a week, and already I have little green sprouts popping up in the arugula seed flat! It's not like we have full plants already, but those first two little cotyledons (remember from freshman year Biology in high school?) are busting a move.

Pretty cool, huh? I did put several arugula seeds in each well, and you can see that there are some growing pretty close together. I'll have to separate them out as they get bigger. All I did was water them every day, and here we are! After the cotyledons come the "true leaves", and then I'll get mega excited.

XTREEEEEME CLOSE UP:

You're impressed, right? I can tell you're impressed.

Could it be? Is it so?

Not to be a big tease, (I'm being a big tease) BUT we may or may not have things sprouting from one of the seed flats...

STAY TUNED...

Plot 24 at dusk...

I usually go to my plot right after at work. The garden is officially supposed to be off limits a half hour after sunset. Thankfully our days are getting longer, so I always make it there before dark now. 

This is the latest and greatest photo of the plot. I got it at a pretty good angle, but it definitely needed the flash:

We can see (in order from left to right) the black kale, romaine, white onion, pak choi, sugar snap pea, broccoli, and in the top of the photo, artichoke. That bag next to the 'choke is a bag of compost I bought last weekend. When I planted the 3 new rows I put a little compost in the trenches first and also sprinkled some around the already planted dudes. I have tons of compost left but I plan to incorporate it into the rest of the plot so that soil can be nutrient rich by the time I start planting more goodies.

Speaking of the good old artichoke, look how fabulous he looks! (With comparison shot from his first day in the ground.)

Quite the improvement if you ask me...nice and spiky!

Swapping seeds...sort of.

Saturday, January 23rd was the 2nd Annual Community Seed Swap, held in Alameda Park in Santa Barbara. Folks were welcome to bring seeds, cuttings, and/or skills to share with others. Even if you had no seeds to share (like me!) you were welcome to come and sample the offerings.

I actually walked to the park from my house, about 1.7 miles, because it was the first sunny day after a week of rain. Beautiful day with no clouds to be found!

There were about 25-30 people there when I arrived and there were several tables set up with info and most importantly, seeds!

Boxes of conventional seed packets like you would buy in the store were accompanied by little baggies and packets of home grown and saved seeds. Some folks had even brought a bunch of sealed envelopes (mostly the kind that come with bills for you to send back your payment in) that had been cut in half. You found the packets or bags of seeds you wanted a few out of, put some in a half envelope and wrote on it what it contained. In the ultimate act of brilliance, someone brought glue sticks so you could seal your new packet so the seeds didn't get out!

I picked up the following: Shasta daisies, arugula, black beauty eggplant, gold rush hybrid squash, and coriander (the seed for cilantro). Yay free stuff!

I used old 6 packs from the last plants I planted. I used basic Gardner and Bloome potting soil. I planted the arugula, squash and eggplant to start with. I'm lucky that the garden has a small greenhouse I can keep my seed flats in, since space is at a premium in my apartment (recall the amount of house plants I have).

Here are my flats:

And here's a look at what other folks are growing:

Here's an exterior shot of the greenhouse (more of a clearhouse, really). Note that there's a brick thing we have to keep in front of the door so critters don't get in!

Stay tuned, hopefully things will sprout forth from those flats...

New veggies

I went to Home Improvement Center on Saturday intending to get a good plastic container to start making my worm composting bin. Turns out, they didn't really have any good ones that had a tight seal. I decided to take a gander at their veggies and see if anything looked worth buying and planting.

I bought a 6 pack of Pak Choi (aka Bok Choy) that looked really healthy and strong. I also got a 4 pack of broccoli. I'm a little worried about the broccoli because even though it looks healthy, everyone else's broccoli is several feet high right now and bearing florets. These dudes are 4 inches high! Oh well...

I decided to put the pak choi and broccoli in rows next to the onions. There is still so much room in the plot, so I'm able to still give each plant a lot of room. Always keeping in mind that I need to make space for the hula hoe to get in between each plant.

Here is a closeup of the pak choi:

And the row from afar:

And my small but mighty broccoli:

And the little row of four:

Before I planted the kale, sugar snap, pak choi and broccoli, I went over the whole plot with a hula hoe. The soil was obviously very moist from the rains and it was easy to work through. There were lots of little weeds sprouting up but they are easy to loosen and pull out with the soil wet.

Lookin' good, Plot 24. Lookin' good.