It’s that time of year again!!

Well, I’m back!

It’s been over a year since I have made a post on this blog, because last year I made a New Year’s resolution not to do blogging. That’s probably the only resolution I actually was able to keep ha ha! I’m back, but in a non-committal sort of way. I will post when I feel like it and not when I don’t… That sounds self-explanatory but keeping a blog updated regularly can become all encompassing, and that was my issue before. My other responsibilities would fall to the wayside because I was too focused on the blog.  So, I will do my best to keep this up to date, but my family comes first, and so does my sanity ha ha!

Speaking of family, if you are someone that I don't know in real life, and you’re just following along on this blog, our family has expanded! Last January I had a third baby boy, to complete our family. So now we have three strapping boys, for my husband’s construction crew someday ha ha!

A YEAR IN REVIEW:
Last summer I really didn’t try very hard I’ll be honest. I gardened three rows in the garden, and they did not do very well. I think it was mostly due to  the irrigation being on too long.

If you recall, it was an incredibly hot and dry summer this past year. Most people reported having poor results in their gardens even with proper effort. But with having an infant, and using the irrigation more than common sense would dictate, my garden was practically a disaster. We basically didn’t get any cucumbers, we got maybe a handful of tomatoes for fresh eating, a few carrots, no beets, nothing in the crucifers Family (broccoli, kale, cabbage, kohlrabi...), no onions, Maybe a third of the beans that I ought to have gotten… All in all a real flop!


My flowers on the other hand did really well!

 We added some soil to the front flower bed, and the perennials thanked us enthusiastically with tons of beautiful blooms!

 
  I will leave it at that for a year in review and move on to the present time!

THEN...AND NOW!:

Ah yes! It is the time of year where I get my gardening mojo going. I have decided to start my seeds EARLY again this year, as that paid off big time a couple of years ago. I haven’t done too much yet, just some peppers and flowers but it’s a start! 

Flowers seem to do good no matter when you start them, so I’m giving mine the earliest start so I can enjoy blooms earlier in the summer. All my flower seeds are from dollar tree and I paid $1.25 for 4 packages of seeds. Like I’ve said in the past, I trust these seeds a lot, and I had excellent results with them! I recommend dollar tree seeds for both flowers and vegetables.

I have about five varieties of peppers this year, I concentrated mainly on heavy producers that have a shorter growing season. I’ve never had a lot of luck with peppers, so it’s a Hail Mary effort for me to do them at all, but I do remember two years ago I started some in January and some in March, and the January ones were by far healthier bigger and better plants! 

And then I also decided to try Thyme this year, as I love using that spice all year round! Again, dollar tree for the win!

LEARN SOMETHING NEW:

I'll end off this post with a few little seed-starting tips! I bought my trays and my dirt from Canadian tire. The bags of seed starting mix are miracle gro... normally i'm all for home-made, recycle, use-your-own-dirt sort of stuff, but I lost SO MANY seedlings two years ago from "damp off" (see my earlier posts from two years ago if you want to learn more about my experiences with that). The solution is a STERILE environment! Miracle gro may not be organic, but its sterile, and it still has some sort of nutritional value for the seedlings, unlike using straight up vermiculite or peat moss.  So I really like that feature about it. Plus one 8.8 Liter bag fits one of these trays exactly when it's all wetted up (dry its much fluffier, but settled and wet, its a perfect fit).

I am taking several efforts to  combat damp-off. All my water I am using, i've pre-boiled and cooled. This sounds like a lot of work, but we have untreated well water... so it's entirely possible that some kind of bacteria in our water is what caused the damp off! So Sterilizing the water I must! :) 
Then with subsequent watering, I am going to add a little bit of peroxide to my watering can, which not only eats bacteria in the soil, it also does its' foamy reaction and adds some nice air pockets to the soil which roots love!

Here you can see i've covere my seedling trays with saran wrap (because I'm way too cheap to pay $2 for a cover i'll only be using for a week!! c'mon people! I'm still a mennonite! haha). This saran is not air-tight, it's cracked at the edges, and doesnt fully cover the opening. It's just tacked in place with some painters tape at the ends so it's not resting directly on the soil. The purpose of the cover is simply to keep the moisture in, until germination happens!

as you can see, i've labeled the different varieties along the side. What you cant really see in the photo is that I've used clear scotch tape overtop of those labels so that as I water the plants, the labels dont wear off. I've also labelled them on both sides for extra assurance.

Along the top you can see i've got some green tape and clear tape alternated with some little notches on them... This is marking my rows of seeds in this seeder tray, and each change in tape, shows where i've switched varieties of peppers/flowers. This stage, it's so important to clearly label your plants! as they grow you'll be able to tell the differences in your own plants, simply because you're watching them every step of the way. But before they sprout, no chance! :) Once they have two sets of leaves, they will get transplanted into their own containers and will each have their own label in their own pots.

And here they are! Only taking up one of my 3 rows of lights. But they will expand exponentially as they are transplanted! I plan to be very selective in my transplants too, and not save every little sprout... just the strongest ones. 

Well, that’s it for now! Just wanted to do a quick update and hello howdy to everyone, as this gardening season gets back underway!