Garden – Page 2 – Sunrise Farm Project

Sprouting, Hardening, Planting: Getting the Spring Garden Started

After what was shaping up to be an unseasonably warm and early planting season, we had a few frosty mornings that kept delaying our planting. I was totally convinced that I was never going to get my garden in, and all my seedlings were going to die before I could transplant. Obviously that was a bleak outlook, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. But now the warmth has returned, and this past weekend, I was able to get most of my garden planted.

This year’s garden has been nearly 5 months in the making. Back in January, I started planning the vegetable garden, perusing catalogs while also trying to keep from going overboard. I settled on 5 heirloom varieties of tomatoes, 2 varieties of pepper, 3 varieties of pumpkin, 3 varieties of beans, plus cucumbers, carrots, and summer squash. Compared to last year’s garden, I am being way more adventurous. I have never grown peppers or tomatoes before, and had to do a bit of research before I started them indoors. Our indoor grow setup was put to the test, and proved sufficient.

Testing out the new sprinkler for easier watering

As the weather got warmer, I hoped for early planting, but wanted to avoid last year’s seedling failure. Most of our vining plants were stunted, and it wasn’t until this spring that I realized a lack of hardening off was more detrimental to my plants than I realized. But we also didn’t have a great set-up for bringing plants in and out until the weather improved. This year, I just used spare boxes, and as seedlings became acclimated to the weather, they took up residence on the back porch. Per my research, hardening off seedlings that were sprouted under grow lights should take at least a week, as one gradually exposes the seedlings to more natural sunlight and the elements. I’ll be the first to admit that I was not super scientific about the whole process, but I’m hoping it makes the difference.

Many of my plants are direct sow, meaning that they are not planted until the soil is consistently warm and out of danger of frost. Of my vegetables, I didn’t sprout the beans indoors, and of my flowers, only amaranth was an indoor sprout. This past Friday, the weather was beautiful and I started to move my seedlings to the garden. Six amaranth plants and a variety of peppers and tomatoes went into the ground, intermingled with marigold seeds to help keep off some of the pests. The following morning, I planted carrots, all of my beans, and some of the vine plants. I sprouted a few of my vines inside, and they are still in the midst of the hardening off stage, but I hope to get them into the garden this week.

My green beans already starting to sprout

Over the course of the last few months, I consulted multiple websites and books for inspiration and help. My favorite resource has been the Family Garden Plan, a book that I found through one of my social media accounts. The experiences of other people have been really useful to me, and I appreciate social media for those connections. One of the biggest learning curves for me has been figuring out how to grow and maintain seedlings. I had to repot several sets of seedlings as they outgrew the original pot I had put them in.

I would love to answer questions about our set-up, or hear your story about starting seedlings indoors!

Dirt Improvement

We had quite the date night this past fall: a trip to the hardware store for ground contact 2x6s and lots and lots of dirt.

the layers of soil, peat moss, compost, and mulch in our blueberry boxes

After my huge disappointment over the initial testing of our ‘orchard’ soil, Evan and I decided on building raised beds for our blueberry bushes. Twelve holes are now twelve little raised beds, filled with peat moss and a compost/manure soil mixture. It was really fun to reveal the very defined layers of the raised box dirt when we planted the bushes the other week.

Between the blueberry patch and the vegetable garden, our dirt has been astonishingly disappointing, and we are hoping our amendments in the fall will produce a better crop this season. The vegetable garden did not need as aggressive of amending for the upcoming season, but still received a layer of compost and mulch back in the fall.

Improving the soil is a slow process, and obviously only time will tell how much more work we will need to put into it. In order to keep the improvements coming, we are also more aggressively composting and mulching. Anything that doesn’t get fed to the chickens goes into the compost heap, and every few weeks the chicken bedding gets added in as well.

As we continue to test the soil and grow our plants, the literal fruits of our labor will be apparent. I am optimistic about the adjustments we have made since last summer, and am excited to see what sort of harvest we will have this year. Want to know more about our processes or just want to chat dirt and gardening? Leave us a comment or check us out on one of our social platforms!

Garden Planning

With the building of basement grow shelves this winter, I was able to start some of my newly planned vegetables in the house. I was bitten with the winter gardening bug, and may have gone overboard in my seed ordering. New additions to our garden this year include multiple varieties of both tomatoes and peppers, and new varieties of beans, pumpkins, gourds, and flowers. I attempted to only buy heirloom varieties, because I enjoy the challenge of harvesting seeds for next season, and used MIGardener, Territorial Seed Company, and Baker Creek seeds.

Starting seedlings indoors was not a new idea for me. Last March in the early weeks of our pandemic lockdown, we started our plants indoors as a science and math lesson for our oldest. However, leggy plants and limited window space led us to pursue a different method this year. We visited family last summer, and they had an extensive growth light set up that inspire ours. Multiple shelves with lighting to encourage early growth in two hard-to-start from seed vegetables: peppers and tomatoes.

If you’ve been following along on our social media at all, you’ve caught a bit of the saga of my seed ordering and subsequent planting. Based on my research, and the seed instructions themselves, the peppers were the first plants I started. We are trying two different varieties this year: Hungarian Sweet Wax Peppers and Mini Bell Peppers. I anxiously awaited the first sprouts, which took much longer than I had anticipated. (Had I done all of my reading properly, I would’ve realized that the germination just does take that long.)

In addition to the peppers, I am trying a new variety of flower for the farm stand after research into cut flowers: Amaranth. Eagerly, I ordered three different varieties from Michigan Gardener, and so far they have not disappointed. Their germination rates are excellent, and it’s fun to see the different colors of the seedlings. I ordered two red varieties, so seeing those seedlings next to the green pepper plants is fun.

The second and third rounds of seeds were planted in mid-March. Tomatoes are a totally new plant to me, and we’re still figuring them out. Seeds have sprouted, but the seedlings quickly wilted. I’m still troubleshooting those issues. The flowers that I planted in the third round of seeds seem to be doing well however, and right before Easter we finished up the new flower bed.

The remaining plants are all direct sow, though in my eagerness to get plants started, I may still try to sprout a few inside before May. We prepped the garden plot last fall, and are excited to see the literal fruit of our labor as we move from spring into summer.

If you have any suggestions for my wilting tomatoes, I’d love to get some feedback! Also, I’m super interested in learning more about heirloom seeds and seed harvesting, so any research/books/sites you can pass along would be appreciated.

Summer Wrap-up!

It’s hard to believe we are deep into autumn already! The back-to-school time found us busy juggling new schedules and trying to find a new routine.

I was pleasantly surprised at the responses we got over our roadside flower stand, and disappointed that our fall vegetables were mostly a bust. The flowers were almost a fluke; we grew them because I wanted something pretty. Once the zinnias started blooming, they hardly stopped. However, given the revelation of our dirt issues, I was not surprised that our vegetables didn’t do so well. The only real vegetable success we had was the bottle necked gourds. Those were fun to watch grow, and a fun harvest as well.

Our big summer building project was the chicken coop, and Evan is already planning a “next time”– what to do to make it better and maybe bigger.

As we head into fall and winter, our focus moves inside. In addition to a few home improvement projects, we also have to start planning for next spring. Hopefully, we’ll make some soil adjustments and have a more productive vegetable garden. We also have to look at getting our apple trees trimmed sometime in January, and order new bushes and trees to continue our orchard expansion.