A Rake and A Hoe - Backyard Gardening

It's April!! Time To Start The Seeds

Trying to grow a great garden, in my backyard, in the city.

I started gardening two years ago when I bought some pumpkin seeds for my kids, it seemed like a fun project at the time. Watching those pumpkins grow was so fun and rewarding, for me and the kids, I got addicted. The next year I grew pumpkins, watermelon, corn, carrots, and onions. Everything thrived but the carrots and onions.

While pumpkins made me fall in love with gardening, I have abandoned them this year because they take up a lot of space, and my yard really isn't that big. (Sad fact: I still have a couple of bags of frozen, pureed pumpkin in my freezer :,(

After searching the seed sections at the grocery and hardware store, here's this years list of fruits and veggies.

Cantaloupe
Watermelon (small bush variety)
Bell Peppers (Carnival Mix)
Organic Carrots (Danvers 126)
Organic Tomato (Gardener's Delight)
Organic Cucumber
Sweet Basil
Organic Lettuce (Black-Seeded Simpson)
A kit with three types of spicy peppers
A strawberry plant, already started at the store.

All the seeds are from Burpee, with the exception of the peppers.

I decided to start all of the seeds indoors because, well, I'm in Minnesota and you really don't know what's going to happen with the weather before May, and I think I was right because it's been snowing, over the past week.

I'm not really sure where I'm going to put all of these plants once they're ready to move outside. My yard is pretty small. I guess I'll have to do some research on how they grow. I'm sure I'll figure it out, or I'll learn, the hard way, what not to do.

3-Days Later

So, I put the seeds in the dirt, water them well, covered them with their respective domes, and waited. Three days later and I see the first signs of life. The lettuce is the first to grow. It is also the quickest to harvest, 45-days.

10 Days After Planting

The tomatoes (left), cucumbers (middle), and carrots, are doing really well. I'm a little worried about the other ones, but I know I can't expect them to all be the same. Let's hope the rest with start sprouting soon.

I realize that I planted the tomatoes sort of thick in each starter pot, that would be because I hate having to plant one or two tiny little seeds so I just throw a ton in one pot and pick out the smaller ones when they start growing. It sort of makes me sad to have to weed some out, but you have to do it or they won't thrive.