We’ve been busy on the weekends getting the Upstate garden ready. This weekend we put lots of hard work in, and next weekend will be even more harder. The good thing is a day of Upstate work equals a week’s worth of workouts (research done by me). I’m going to have such strong muscles one day. While we’re busy doing manual labor, there’s labor going on here, but the plant kind. The seeds were planted, and they burst through the soil at record speeds. We built a new grow light cart his year (DIY coming soon!) and it’s been majorly effective. In the past we’ve had to wait about a week for our broccoli and bok choy seeds to come up, but this year within 2 days they already broke through the soil and were waving hello. As usual, we planted double seeds in each pot, and as usual every seed came up. It’s always the difficult choice of killing a seedling, or doubling your garden. We have garden parent guilt syndrome (aka GPGS) so we usually can’t kill the extra seedlings. Matthew is like “You cut them” and I’m like “No way! You do it!” and then noone does it. Just today we were planning on getting rid (that sounds awful) of the double plants, but we decided to “hold off”. That means we’ll never do it.
We always grow our vegetables from seeds. Not only is it worth it to watch them grow from seed to vegetable bearing plant, but it’s much more economical. A pack of seeds averages on $2-$5 and that can sometimes get you up to a few hundred plants! A baby plant at a nursery usually costs a few bucks (if not more with heirloom) and you don’t even know if it’s going to survive, so you can see how much money you save. Since we started growing the rooftop garden we’ve learned that it’s important to have good quality seeds, ones with high germination rate and successful growing. Johnny’s Seeds are our go to seed company. We’ve been buying off them for years and have never been disappointed. We have a list we usually stick with every year from growing experience, but occasionally we try something new (lots of new pumpkin varieties this Fall!).
Our Spring plants are: Broccoli (Arcadia) Cauliflower (Skywalker) <– Amazing name! This is a new variety we’re trying. Onions (Candy) Brussels Sprouts (Diablo) Cabbage (Tendersweet) Kale (Starbor) Collards (Flash) Bok Choy (Mei Quing Choi) New Variety we’re trying. Let’s just take a minute and talk about how awesome it is that you can grow vegetables from a itty bitty seed. One little seed can give you tens (or hundreds) of pounds of vegetables. Seriously, think about how awesome it is. Brussels Sprouts, Kale, Collards, Broccoli, Cabbage, Bok Choy and Cauliflower plants (top to bottom). Really. Look at how tiny a seed is. Let me grab a green crayon to really show you.
And it grows into this.. Bok Choy larger than my head! Or hundreds of pounds of tomatoes! Sigh, I love you plants. All of you. You amaze me. Onions were planted.. 2 days later, the first one shows up to party! Then more show up… Then all of them show up! And some of they invited friends. The bok choy was up in record speeds. This year we’re growing mini bok choy because I’m having a baby bok choy moment. I eat about 10 plants a week.
Here’s the baby kale. It looks like… kale! And tons and tons of broccoli. Follow along with my seed calendar if you’re in the Northeast and need some help figuring out what dates to plant your seeds. Soon enough we’ll be planting Summer seeds. You always need to think ahead when you’re starting from seeds. Check back in a few weeks to how the seedlings are doing! What are you growing? Make sure to tell me in the comments. I love talking vegetables. And thanks to our seed protector, Mister Goblin, who sleeps next to them. I believe why they’ve been growing so good this year is because Goblin is sprinkling magical powder on them. Happy Gardening!
