Seed Starting Set Up & First Sprouts

This year I decided I wanted more room for starting seeds. I loved the seed starting light my husband made but there was no room for expansion with it. It also took up a large floor space that is hard to find a spot for in our new house.

Thanks to some generous Christmas gifts I was able to buy a new metal shelf and outfit it with three light fixtures. Right now I have one fixture on each shelf with a tray in the middle of the shelf. In future years I can purchase more fixtures and put two on each shelf and use the entire surface of the shelf for seeds. The top two shelves are being used for storage.
After getting the shelf and lights set up in front of the window in my craft room (obviously a girl's bedroom for the former owners) and my seeds sorted last week I was eager to start some seeds. My spreadsheet doesn't have me starting onions and leeks until the second week of February and with all the snow we have out there I don't want to be dealing with leggy seedlings. So I decided to take my oldest packets of lettuce and spinach seeds and start some in hopes of indoor salads in two months. I sowed thickly and they have sprouted surprisingly well for 5 year old seed.
So here are my first sprouts of 2011. They're an encouragement in the face of the foot of snow predicted for Wednesday this week.

Hoop House & Winter Greens

I wasn't content with just my little cold frame in such a big garden for winter crops. The cold frame is full and I had more seeds I wanted to try to get to grow in the winter or sprout in early spring. In the cold frame I have, mache, mizuna, kolhrabi, lettuce, claytonia, beets, carrots, walking onions, spinach & arugula.

I had tatsoi outside the cold frame but it has been mostly eaten by slugs.

So I'm trying out the mini-hoop house idea. We went the cheap route, and bough 1/2" pvc pipe. It came in 10' lengths and was cut in half to be 5 feet. We got a long piece of threaded rod that fits inside and my wonderful husband cut it into 1' pieces.

Those 1' pieces went in the ground about 1 1/2 feet apart. We weren't exact. Then the pvc pipe went over top.
I already had some row cover which is currently being held down with the few stakes I could find and some rocks. We may use some clear plastic left over from a painting project to cover it more when snow comes. (Notice the forest of kale behind. We're not lacking for hardy greens)
Here's what went inside.

Transplanted Seedlings:
Bok Choy
Broccoli
Red Kale

Red Cabbage & Dandelion Green (not pictured)

Seeds:
Mizuna, Tatsoi, Purple Mustard, Chinese green onions, Chinese Cabbage, Sugarloaf Chicory, Spinach, Mache

This is all an experiment. I know it's too late for seriously starting seeds in my area, but maybe some things will sprout and over-winter and we'll get an early spring crop. If some things are successful, then maybe we can expand (and plan better) next year.

Harvest Monday 9/27/10

I harvested the rest of my row of yukon gold potatoes. It came to another 27 pounds of potatoes. That's a total of 35 pounds of yukon gold potatoes from a 10 pound bag of seed potatoes. I find that to be a good return, though I don't know how it compares to others.
My sweet potatoes (upper right corner on top of potatoes) were a sad harvest. They are smaller than my carrots. I had planted them in the row behind the cucumber trellis and in front of the tomatillo plants. I didn't realize how big the tomatillos would get and the sweet potato vines hardly got much sun. These little sweet potatoes went into a soup with carrots, leeks, and potatoes. I'll try again next year with a better spot.
This week I harvested our two apples from our apple trees. (6.5 oz) We haven't tasted them yet. The first two pie pumpkins and a mystery squash were harvested this week. They've joined the others in curing on the front porch. Spinach, Lettuce and Arugula are picking up and we're having more salads again.
The tomatoes continue to produce, another 15 pounds this week. They seem to ripen partially and then the strong wind blows some of them off. They finish ripening inside. The plants look rather ragged, but I'm going to let them hang in there until frost. We're already past our average frost date, and each day past is more chances for a better pepper and eggplant harvest.
Total this week: 54.29 pounds
Total this year: 352.19 pounds
You can see what other gardeners harvested this week at Daphne's Dandelions.

Harvest Monday 6/7/10

This week I've enjoyed running out to the garden to top my salads with fresh radishes. I've been bad about weighing them so my estimate is that I picked 5 oz of radishes.

We harvested 7.5 oz of lettuce this week. I pulled some of the oak leaf that is beginning to turn bitter. We have a lot more out there to harvest this coming week.
I picked the bolting spinach, 1.5 oz and the first swiss chard, 3.5 oz. I never have much success with spinach, but I will try a fall planting this year and see if I can get it to over-winter. We're happy to substitute chard for spinach in most recipes. This chard was started inside and put in the cold frame at the beginning of April. Its a few weeks ahead of the chard that was planted outside the cold frame at the same time and at least a month ahead of the chard I seeded directly in the garden.
Harvests this week: 1 pound 2.5 oz
Harvests this year: 3.5 pounds
You can see what other gardeners are harvesting at Daphne's Dandelions.