Sowing the seeds

The weather this year has been quite strange. It's mid May and the past few weeks have been chilly. Luckily it is just starting to warm up. The rain has also been constant. Every day is dreary and rainy.

While this weather is depressing to me I am pretty sure it is good for plants. I haven't had to water much at all and I have tried seeding some new plants in the hope that it is not to late to start. Previously I had direct seeded in the ground.

This turned out badly in most cases:

Poor little plant. Some of the plants have done ok but I have decided that it is much more difficult to control conditions when direct seeding and that planting in pots and then transplanting might produce better results.

Here is what I do to plant my seeds. First my dog Kramer helps me arrange my little pots. He is especially interested because he needs to decide what to trample after I plant them. I reuse pots that used to contain store bought plants. 

For small seeds like lettuce or the onions below I put them in a little container rather than pouring them from the packet:

I use organic soil with some peat mixed in Then I press the seeds into the soil at the recommended depth. 

After seeding I cover them with a clear plastic cover to keep the moisture in. I am pretty sure this has really helped the seeds grow and the soil not dry out.

As one would imagine, waiting for the seeds to grow is very exciting. It is great when they start to pop out of the soil. I am still waiting for the onions to emerge but here are some pictures of a few melons after two weeks:

Here they are after a few more weeks:

And this is how they looked this weekend:

Now I need to figure out how to keep the melons from rotting after they grow. I have seen some interesting trellis' to keep them off the ground but need to build one I suppose.

On another note here is a carrot I pulled out of the ground this weekend. What is wrong with that carrot? It had been growing for months. Its a good thing I am not a carrot farmer.

A Jedi's weapon

Every Jedi Gardener needs a weapon against unwanted weeds. My favorite is called the stirrup hoe. 

It makes short work of getting rid of weeds and other things that you don't want growing in with your good plants. Moving it back and forth with the stirrup under the dirt dislodges the weeds from the roots.

It is not as clumsy as a blaster against weeds. Its an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. Here is a picture of mine against my red shed.

A second gadget I am trying this year is a water timer. In previous years I would water when I got home from work. I think this contributed to some of my problems as I think that I should be watering in the morning rather than in the evening. 

With the water timer I can set it to water early in the morning for a certain amount and time. It will repeat either a few times a day or every few days depending on how its configured. Currently I have it setup with a sprinkler. After my plants get a little bigger I will run it with soaker hoses to reach the roots rather than sprinkling the leaves. I am pretty sure this is a good idea. We will see how it works out.

I bought the Orbit 91213 single spout timer from amazon. In the future I might get a two spout timer so I can set two different programs. I am not sure if my well has enough pressure to run my whole soaker hose setup at once.

Even with the stirrup hoe I have a ton of weeds that have started to take over. I have had some recommendations of a spikey claw tool to take dig out the weeds among other things.

I would be interested to find out how you take care of your garden weeds?

Here is my most recent picture of the garden. My dog is busy protecting the plants from the squirrels. Important work.