And Yet Another Busy Day

View from the second story over my kitchen
All planted up except the herb bed in the middle

OK. I'm ready for a break now. My right arm hurts. It has been hurting for a week on and off. I have to give it a rest soon. This morning I was inside getting some soil blocks ready. The peppers were planted four days ago I think. It seems forever ago, but it wasn't. I wanted to have the bigger 2" blocks ready once they germinated. I made 72 of them. I don't think I'll need that many, but I'm ready one way of the other. They should germinate anytime now. Also this weekend I want to start the tomatoes and eggplant, but I don't know if I'll have time to do it, so I figured I'd have blocks all ready and they would be set to go. In addition I started some more cilantro in the 1 1/2" blocks. 18 more of those planted.

This afternoon was outside. I watered the peas, onions and spinach. I noticed that I didn't plant any turnips or radishes. So I put the turnips around the broccoli and the radishes filled the bed with the spinach. I didn't have enough spinach seed to do the whole bed. Two and a half 8' rows were done with radishes instead. It is probably way too many all at once, but I'll deal with that if they all come up.

Then I was going to plant my carrots. I fertilized the bed and started to dig in the fertilizer, but whoops I did the part with the fava beans too. I noticed just as I finished and saw a fava bean. The good part is that they are germinating well. The bad part is I don't know how many are too deep to germinate now. I don't really turn the soil over when I do this so there is a chance they will survive. If not I guess I'll have more room for succession planting.

Carrots germinating under various things

The carrots are being experimented on. I decided I wanted to see what worked better to make them germinate. I've always direct seeded them into rows and put burlap on top. In the distant past I used boards to germinate them. I'd love to chit them like I do for my spinach which is also a hard germinator. So I tried several things - totally unscientific as I should have some from each variety in each way of germinating. But no. That would be too smart. Instead I made seed tapes a la Granny. But not blocks like she does since I like rows. So I used TP and cut it into thin strips and pasted a SugarSnax seed every inch. That is currently under the burlap. Next is the direct seeded Mokum which is also under the burlap. Next is the direct seeded Purple Haze which is under boards, or is now, but once the peas start coming up one of the boards will have to be removed as it is too long.

The next is not planted yet. I made some TP seed tapes by folding over the TP. Then I rolled it up with some plastic wrap in between so it would hold together better. Then I soaked the whole thing. I'm hoping I can unroll it without it breaking up too much. I'll wait until I see some sign of germination from them. Not much mind you as I want the carrot roots to grow down into the soil, but the first sign from any of them and into the soil they will go.

View from the second story hall, one bed doesn't fit in the photo
Two and a half beds are planted up already

And not to be forgotten. I noticed there was no place on my plan for the beets. I'm not a beet fan, but my townhouse mates are, so I'm planting a few. I decided to use those little corners by the onions that weren't planted.