The first time I planted a vegetable garden, I couldn’t resist adding flowers for cutting. I knew nothing about growing flowers but was enthusiastic about having bouquets of cut flowers all season long to decorate my home. I saw a photo of Cosmos and added it to my seed list. Although started indoors months in advance, the effort turned out…
Tag Archive for seedlings

Recycling Olivia’s Organics Containers
I am not a hoarder per se. But I do come form a long line of old northern Yankees. Making do, reusing and “don’t throw it away” are not a new terms for me but ingrained into my personality. I innately look for connections, I love to create circles of things and rebirths of items that redefine their use. That…

Gardening Series #9 Footpaths in the Garden
I don’t make raised beds. Although a very popular method of gardening and one I keep promising to try, instead I find that I stick to what I know, to what I was taught. I have the garden rototilled into fluffy smoothness and then I create foot paths in the garden by walking in the newly turned soil. I purposely…

Gardening Series #8 Hardening Off
OK, so your seedlings have had a lovely Princess-like start to life. They have grown quietly and nicely on a wonderfully warm mat under a steady supply of grow lights, where there is no wind, no bugs, and no plants bigger then they are. As they grow, they need to head to the garden. So far, their world has not…

Gardening Series #7 Growth Rates of Seedlings
When I started growing my own vegetable plants, I was told that they grow at different rates. I learned that that is an understatement. Let me tell you what I learned about the growth rates of seedlings. Different grow rates means that seedlings may germinate in hours or it may take a whole month just to germinate, that much of a…