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Monday, April 15, 2013

My daughter Maya and I arrived at Melina's house just past the designated pick-up window--we were very excited pulling up, and within 3 minutes felt overwhelmed by the various seeds and supplies in front of us.  This is a completely new venture, although judging by the myriad of books I own on container gardening, it's clearly been on my mind and my list for the past 15 years.  Luckily, Melina showed up and saved the day (although I can only say we were just slightly less overwhelmed leaving her house with a trunk full of seeds and containers!).

Maya and I set out to plant seeds on Sunday, while my husband Rich put together the raised bed. Since we don't have a lot of spare space, we opted for the "dining room table by the sunny doors" method, which I continue to question.  How much sun are these seeds actually going to get? Enough sun comes in that way that it ruined a painting we had up on the wall, but is that enough to sprout seeds??  I have no idea.  Other questions that came up--are we supposed to push the seeds in and/or cover them with more soil after we miraculously manage to get them into the little cups? And, is it ok to start summer squash in this way, or should they be planted in the ground (or in our case, the raised bed)?  And about those raised beds, we've placed it in our patio area, but it seems that we should be putting some kind of cover on the bluestone before we put the soil down. . .

Despite all these questions, it's been a lot of fun so far.  Tomorrow I plan on planting herbs in the hanging baskets, and hope to fill the raised bed with soil and begin planting the seeds that appear to be ok to plant at this time.

2 comments:

  1. Well done Sharon and Maya and Rich on your sterling efforts, you will no doubt be rewarded by numerous seedlings popping their little heads up in a very short time.

    To answer your questions:
    Should be enough sun indoors to get them started.
    The seeds should be covered lightly once you have removed them from your fingertip and they are sitting in the soil of the little pots.

    Protect your bluestone by all means. In yards I put down cardboard as a weed barrier, you could also use the plastic like weed barrier you can buy in any garden center.

    Yes, yes, yes, start your squash indoors.

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  2. SO helpful Melina. . . thank you!!! I'm off to the garden center.

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