sprouts a-sprouting

[lindaj]

The outdoor garden (such as it exists so far) has things coming up. One of the snow peas has poked up its head, and few of the spinach, radishes, and turnips. I assume these are the advance guard, and their brethren will be along shortly. Some scallions are up, too, but since they were planted as sets, not seeds, it doesn't seem as exciting.

I always get paranoid about the seeds I've planted, until they actually poke their heads up. I always come close to convincing myself that Something Horrible has happened to them all, in spite of the fact that growing seeds simply isn't that hard. However, sea_dark_wine's recent post gave me hope, which paid off just a couple of days later.

No sign of any weeds in the garden yet, in spite of the reasonably high ratio of existing soil and well-aged horse manure in the beds. Grass seems to grow everywhere in the yard, as soon as there's a bit of moisture (yes, I've heard people rant about people growing grass in the desert...but really, there is grass all over our yard, through no action of ours).

New Mexico gardens in the Springtime need much more watering than New England ones, and this will take some getting used to until I get my drip irrigation set up. The 7-minute light rain yesterday morning had pretty much no effect.

Comments

[sea-dark-wine.livejournal.com]

Glad I was able to give you some hope... I have to say, though, that I'm still watching *one* brave pea sprout reach for the light, and waiting impatiently for the several dozen others I planted at the same time. We've had some light frost recently, so maybe it's night time cold that's been delaying them? The ground is pretty well thawed, though. I can sink a pitchfork all the way through the compost, three feet deep.

Meanwhile, indoors, I planted some oat grass (for Nike the cat) a few days ago and it's already sprouting.

[lindalee.livejournal.com]

I have to say, though, that I'm still watching *one* brave pea sprout reach for the light, and waiting impatiently for the several dozen others I planted at the same time.

That's exactly the situation I'm in. This being a desert, our days have been up in the 60s lately, but the nights still drop down to the mid-30s. My peas are planted near a cement wall that absorbs lots of heat during the day, so I imagine the soil never gets too cold. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, indoors, I planted some oat grass (for Nike the cat) a few days ago and it's already sprouting.

I did that, too (though mine's a mix of things like oats, barley, rye, wheat), a couple of weeks ago, and the cats totally love it. It's about time to plant a second round, so that when this pot dies its inevitable death, there will be another to take its place. My plan is to have two pots in rotation.

[sea-dark-wine.livejournal.com]

Next day, 8 a.m.... three more pea plants are up. Maybe I just planted them extra deep.

[lindalee.livejournal.com]

Well, my morning check shows that I'm still at the "one brave pea" point myself, but again, your reports give me hope. :-) There are many more radishes, turnips, and scallions today. Spinach is about the same.

One thing about this stretch of garden is that I over-judged how much space I had to fill in the raised bed, and therefore how much organic matter I'd need to add. This means that the deeper layers have loads of organic matter (nearly 2:1 with the existing clay soil), and the upper layers not nearly so much (1:2.5 or more). We're starting out with a 1:1 ratio for the next stretch of bed, and we'll see how that works out when we get to the "running out of soil and space" point.

Of course, the organic matter issue will settle itself out in time, as mulch is added and more organics are worked in (and especially if we add another row of stones to the raised beds next year, making them deeper). In the meantime, though, the seeds are struggling with a higher clay content than I'd intended for them, but I'm sure they'll do OK. Seeds have succeeded in far worse.