Round one... Sort of.

Last year I had a decent garden going. It was my first real attempt at a garden. Between the raised bed in the picture and some individual pots I had corn, tomato, okra, cucumber, green beans, garlic, and banana pepper. Cutter worms kept destroying the corn at the same rate it was able to heal itself, so it never really did much. The garlic died, and I have yet to really figure out why. Everything else produced quite a bit over the season. Some of the excess I tried to can, but did not have much luck (we will explore more about canning later).

When I initially started this garden, I started some seeds in those expanding peat pods. Other seeds were started directly in the garden or I purchased an already growing plant from the farmers market. With the exception of the two things that I died I feel like I had a decent success with this garden. I only used Epsom Salt as a fertilizer. This was a trick taught to me by my Uncle Bob who was a farmer for years in upstate New York. He swears that Miracle Grow is nothing but Epsom Salt with coloring in it. I have never seen anything to actually prove this, but the man knows farming so I just went with it (it should be noted that I will probably quote my Uncle Bob and Aunt Arlene frequently. The have been homesteaders for years and done everything from make jellies to slaughter a cow).

Sadly, as tends to happen, the garden died out over the winter. We had a good run, but now it is time to start over and try some new things! One thing I learned from last time is that starting the seeds in the garden is a waste. You dig a trench, pour out a ton of seeds, then later have to thin out the seedlings and waste quite a few plants. This time around I am starting pretty much everything indoors.

I also mentioned that I used those expanding peat pod things to start some of the seeds. The problem with those is that they cost money and never seemed to really break down in the garden. While mixing up the soil the other day I was finding peat pods in the soil from last years garden. Not a huge deal, but I feel like they really should have broken down entirely.

This year I am trying something totally different. I found an article online about using newspaper to make pots to start seeds in (I'll include the instructions at the end of this post). The benefit here is that old newspaper is free, and the whole pot can be planted in the garden. The pot breaks down after a while and actually becomes food for the plant. 

What I have done so far is start the seeds in plastic bags. I do this by wetting a paper towel so that it is soaked, but not dripping. I sprinkle only a few seeds on the paper towel, as many seeds as I want to grow plus a few extras as back ups. Not all seeds will germinate. After a day or two roots start to stick out of the seeds. This is when I move them into the newspaper pots. By doing this I know which seeds are viable and which are duds. When you just pour everything into the ground it becomes a guessing/waiting game. This also saves me seeds. When the seeds are started the garden you eventually have to thin them out according to each plant's needs. Sometimes this requires ripping out many of the seeds that sprouted. With my new method I have one, already growing seed in each pot which I can easily space out appropriately once it is time to take them out into the garden. So far I have started zinnias (not a food, just a pretty flowering plant), broccoli, and cantaloupe. I am germinating bell pepper, cucumber, and spaghetti squash in plastic bags. 

Don't forget that when you start a plant indoors it is not exposed to the heat of the sun or the force of wind and rain. For this reason you have to "harden off" the plants. You do this by leaving them outside for a little bit at a time. Gradually you increase the amount of time they are outside so they get used to it. If you just throw them outside they will die. I have never really hardened off plants before (not properly anyway) so we can explore that subject in detail when it comes time to move the plants out to the garden.

So this is the end of the post, and I know I promised instructions on how to make the newspaper pots. After thinking about it for a bit a decided to make a separate post with pictures so you can see how to do it. I have always been a visual learner so I know the importance of educational pictures when learning something new. Stay tuned, and happy gardening!