Getting Started

My mom was a major help lying the foundation for me, but the work is just getting started. Mom has already started the tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, lettuce, and peas. We still need to wait a few more weeks before transplanting the warm weather crops and sowing some of the others like squash, melons, cucumbers and beans, but there are some herb seeds I wanted to get started in the greenhouse, as well as some frost resistant crops I wanted to sow directly.

My first step was to sow some basil, parsley, mint, broccoli, and sage in some seed trays. I put them all in there with some nice store bought top soil, labeled them, and loosely covered them with a garbage bag to retain the moisture. I then put them in the greenhouse to keep them nice and warm. It's now been a couple of days, and the broccoli is already popping up.
My next project was to sow some of the frost resistant crops in the garden. Mostly these are root vegetables which are some of my favorites. I've got beets, turnips, carrots, potatoes, radishes and parsnips. I'm already learning as I go. I planted the first couple of rows by digging trenches and then covering them with our garden soil. Our soil is well worked, but it does have a bit too much clay in it, so I was worried about stifling the plants by covering them with even a thin layer of clay. I told my mom about it, and she said I should use the composted manure we have behind the house to cover them. I will be interested to see how big of a difference it makes.
I also wanted to give a little tlc to the frost resistant crops that mom already transplanted. I went out there and covered the soil with newspaper, and covered it with straw. I hope this will help keep the weeds down, and keep the soil moist.