Gardening

Well, it is sad to say that I have not posted in a few months.

Why?  There hasn’t been much to post about.

This year’s extreme heat in Central Illinois has nearly wiped everything out.  Added to that, the wildlife have been extra vigilant this year to find food – and have done extensive damage to the garden.

The back garden was a complete loss.  There were dozens of Kennebec potatoes that were growing back there, but all of them dried up and died by the beginning of July.  Only a few remained in the potato bin – which is just right next to the carrots.  Those were just dug up on Sunday and yielded about three pounds out of six plants.

The corn was a loss.  I worked very hard and made several plantings of Honey Treat corn.  Finally, a good amount of corn came up – but it was no match for the raccoons.  They broke down and tore holes through the deer netting and tore off most of all the corn.  When it was all said and done, around July 21st, we got about six ears of corn from 50+ stalks.  If that isn’t enough to make you give up, continue reading.

We have had a few gallon bucks of tomatoes that came out of the garden – but certainly not nearly as many last year.  The tomato plants were loaded with green tomatoes just waiting to be ripened up.  Then what happens – deer.  In the past couple of years, I have always had good luck with deer netting and it kept the deer out of the garden and away from the apple tree.  Not this year.  The deer were not afraid of it at all – and again, the ate the bottom 2/3 of the apple tree.  In addition to that, they took any potential opportunity to get into the garden.  And they did so one day that the netting was just a little bit lower than normal (netting is five feet high).  They got in and ate ALL of the green tomatoes and almost mowed down all of the tomato plants.

The plants are making a comeback now – and we do have some green tomatoes on them – so am hoping we’ll get more before the end of the year.

What about green beans?  At least 100 or more were planted.  The ones that survived either shriveled up in the intense heat – or again, the deer pulled them out of the ground and had a snack.  Not one green bean was collected this year.

The bright side that remains are the carrots.  They were looking pretty limp and not doing well – but finally the weather has cooled down, and they have perked back up.  There are some fairly good-sized carrots in there.  I just hope that it isn’t too late to pull them – because they were planted at the beginning of April.

It has certainly been a sad year for the garden.  I just hope that next year will bring a little more luck.

I took several pictures over the past week – and some last night as well.

The weather – again – has been extremely hot.  95 degrees or so over the past few days and very dry.  Humidity 45 – 60% is low for Illinois as it is typically 75% or higher throughout summer.  We did get a good rainfall at the beginning of the week to soak things down – and refill the rain barrels.  That was certainly welcome – but we still are under half of the normal amount of rainfall for this time of year.

Moving on to the garden.  All but three of the broccoli plants have now been cut down.  Basically the Green Goliath broccoli were all harvested.

You can see that I picked some of the broccoli a bit late – as the flowers were already opening up.

Here is a photo of one of the Green Goliath broccoli plants.  These plants were put in the side garden this year (as they were last year), and there is just not enough sunlight to make them happy.  They are going to have to probably go up into the flower bed next year.  Last year, some were planted in the flower bed and the heads on them were huge.  Full sunlight for broccoli makes a big difference (well, and soil composition too).

Now, compare the Green Goliath broccoli to a picture of the Premium Crop broccoli.

The coloring of the broccoli is different – and with the Premium Crop broccoli, ther eseems to be some leaves that are actually tangled within the head of the broccoli.  Not so pretty.

I have been growing Green Goliath broccoli for several years – probably over five years now.  The seed was bought at least five or six years ago, and with keeping all of the seeds in a ziplock bag in the freezer, the seeds are still viable and germination is still fairly good.

I prefer Green Goliath over Premium Crop.  It just seems that Green Goliath broccoli produces more – and doesn’t have those leaves in it like the above Premium Crop broccoli picture.

Alright, moving on to Snow Crown Cauliflower.  Four of them were located down in the flower bed that got full sun – and they did very well.  My first try at cauliflower was a disaster using the Snowball X variety – but the Snow Crown cauliflower variety impresses me.  Even through drought conditions and intense heat, every single plant has always produced a good-sized curd.

I just had some of the cauliflower last night as a treat – dipped on some ranch dressing.  The rest went into the freezer so we can use it down the road.

Movnig on to Cascadia peas.  The peas are all dying off now becuase of the heat.  We didn’t get nearly as many peas this year as we did last year.  I didn’t take any other pictures of them, but here is one tkaen right after they were harvested on the 18th.

I like the plump, edible pods.  I’ve seen other varieties where you either can’t eat the pods – or you can’t allow the peas to get large.  Cascadia snap peas is the variety of choice for me and it does fairly well.  The sweet taste of them makes for a nice treat in salads or even as a side with it’s crunchy texture.

These other photos were just randomly taken last night while in the garden.

I left the strawberries uncovered this year in the strawberry pyramids.  The deer have obliterated them – and there is nothing left but stems.

The tri-star strawberries look deathy ill as well.  I’m not sure yet what to do about this issue – because we just were not happy with the size of the tri-star strawberries anyways.  They were quite small and didn’t meet our expectations.  They are an everbearing strawberry though – meaning that they produce continuously through the year.  Well, that didn’t happy either.  So, I am OK with the deer eating them down.  The strawberry beds will most likely be gutted and new strawberries planted next spring (if time allows for that!).

The front garden is growing very well.  Finally after planting Honey Treat corn about four or five different times, the corn area is full.  Although the plants that sprouted first are overtaking those that were planted last, they do all appear to be slowly growing.  Those planted first already have the tassels beginning to emerge – and have one and even two side shoots that look to be ready to produce an extra ear of corn.

In the front you will see the California Wonder peppers to the right and also the tomatoes on the left.  The tomato plants have a huge amount of blooms on them – so we’ll see how the tomato crop is this year.

And lastly to end the entry, I was quite surprised with the grapes.  The grapes have really grown everywhere this year – and I am surprised just how fast they came back.  We had a late freeze that killed the grapes earlier in the year (didn’t affect anything on the ground).  But, under the grape arbor, the vines are loaded with grapes.  The question will be if they are edible though and if we can get to them before the birds do.  I tried one of the grapes a few years ago and it wasn’t pleasant – and they had seeds in them.  When I put my order in for them online, I specifically got seedless grapes – but apparently the business that sent them to us didn’t even send us the right variety (and on top of that, two of the four were dead).

Wow, two posts in a month!  Well, this one is a pretty simple post.

I see a lot of questions on message boards asking – what is bolting lettuce – or what does bolting lettuce look like?

Well yesterday morning, I went out and picked a huge amount of lettuce.  Most of it already had some brown spots in it and wasn’t worth keeping – but I did get a large container full of lettuce that we kept.  Filled four one-gallon freezer bags.

Unfortunately, the lettuce is bitter now because of the hot temperatures.  Anytime lettuce begins to bolt, it will cause the lettuce to be bitter.  However, there isn’t any sense in throwing away the whole thing!

The key is – cutting out the stems.  The main stem in the lettuce leaves are what contains the bitter tasting stuff.  So when cutting up the lettuce, just discard the stems and the rest of the leaf is just fine.  Otherwise, it certainly would be a shame – because we got about a 5-week supply of lettuce.  Now with this last batch, that should last another three weeks and push it up to an 8-week supply.

After the lettuce was all picked, this makes for a perfect view of the lettuce plants that are bolting.

Notice the New Red Fire lettuce – the two on the left.  Then there is the Red Salad Bowl lettuce just in front of the blue container in the background, followed by the row of Simpson Elite on the right side.

You can really see how the New Red Fire and the Red Salad Bowl lettuce has bolted.  This still isn’t the greated picture, but the lettuce is at least a foot tall (or higher).  They look like miniature trees after I have removed the bottom leaves.

I’m not sure if we will get any more lettuce since the plants have already been bolting for the past week – but I don’t want to pull all of them out just yet.

We have experienced some very odd weather this year.  However, I will have to say that for the past two years, we have not had any major storms like we typically have.  We live in tornado alley – and therefore typically have the sirens go off a few times a year.  But, the sirens never went off last year – nor this year thus far.

The weather in Illinois is changing – at least the past two years have seen it as well.  A few weeks ago, we actually had temperatures of approximately 97 degrees for a couple of days.  Then a cold front moved through and the temperatures have now subsided to more normal temperatures for the past couple of weeks.

But, we still are lacking rainfall.  Illinois – or at least Central Illinois – has had less than half of the normal rainfall up to this point in the year.  Not good.  However, it is a good thing that I am somewhat prepared and have a 660 gallon rain barrel system behind the garage to store water to keep the garden hydrated.

Moving on.  It has been another three weeks or so from my last post – and things have certainly changed around the garden.  It is getting harder to find time to take pictures, resize them, and then create a blog entry.  Back on April 6th, we had our baby daughter – and she certainly does consume a lot of time.  In addition, I also started a new job and it takes me longer to get to work.  In addition, I was spoiled at the previous job by not having to take a lunch – so I worked a straight eight hours and went home.  With the new job, I do need to work the full schedule – so I get home about an hour and a half later (because of driving time as well).

Starting off – here is some lettuce that was picked back on May 13th.  We have only picked lettuce twice this year.  This past batch took another six 1-gallon ziplock bags to fill.  The harvest was so large that I decided it would be easier and faster to clean it in the bathtub.

Now, the lettuce needs picked again – and I’ve just not done it.  We gave two bags of lettuce to our neighbor – and it is now three weeks later and we still have a bag of lettuce in the fridge.  Amazingly enough, it is holding well over the three weeks – but it is to the point where it almost needs tossed out now.  The lettuce has begun to bolt – but there is a lot out to pick.  I probably need to get out and pick it all tomorrow (Saturday).

Over by the carrot area, the Sugarsnax carrots are doing well.  I don’t know how many died off due to the weather, but it does look like it is a full load for the year.

Due to lack of time this year (well, and the fact that some things we just didn’t eat), I didn’t put out any watermelon or cucumbers this year.  Last year, we certainly had a good amount of watermelon – but we didn’t eat it very often.  It was full of seeds – and when you have to constantly pick seeds out of watermelon, it makes you not interested in eating it.  I did choose a seedy variety though because it was not a hybrid.  I might try a seedless hybrid at some point – but that does mean continuing to purchase seeds each time we need to plant.

The cucumbers – well, I kind of forgot about them.  I’ve always put out about five or six plants – and end up with more cucumbers than we can eat.  So, in place of the watermelon patch this year, I planted some green beans – because there isn’t a lot of space to plant green beans this year.

Behind the green beans, I sowed a row of sweet basil – because again, I forgot to put it out.  Only three plants came up.  Better than nothing I suppose.

Over at the side garden, the Cascadia Snap Peas are doing OK and the broccoli is doing well.  We have already picked two helpings of peas.  The weather really has zapped the peas since it has been so hot – but it does look like there are a few blooms just starting to come on again.  Maybe we can get one more picking of peas – because only about three pounds have been picked this year (compared to about 12+ pounds last year).

The back garden is also doing good with the Kennebec potatoes.  Unfortunately this year, I don’t have any leaves to mulch the potatoes – so I just hope that the potatoes stay under the ground.

Moving to the front garden, the Copra onions and Ventura celery are doing well.  I do need to potentially cut one or two stalks of celery to start that process – since there is about 12 of them planted.

The onions down by the road in the flower bed are also doing well – maybe even better than those in the front raised bed.

In addition, the four Snow Crown Cauliflower in the flower bed are doing well too.  They all have a small cauliflower curd growing.

Back to the main front garden, here is a total view of it.  You can see the tomatoes and California Wonder peppers over on the left and the Honey Treat corn growing on the right.

I have had a hard time with the corn this year.  I ensured that it was planted after the ground temperatures warmed up – because sometimes I have planted it a bit early with poor germination.  So, this year I waited a bit longer to plant it – thinking I would get better germination.  Anything short of that!  The first round, there was about 100 Honey Treat corn planted.  Only about 20 came up.  A second round of around 75 was planted.  Only around 10 came up.  Then I planted yet another round of 60 or so.  Only four or five came up.

I was getting a bit ticked – so I pulled out the germination containers that I use to start plants in.  I planted another 144 last weekend and they are in the house.  So far, about five have come up – still far short of what I need.  The front garden can support about 75 stalks of corn – spaced 8 inches apart in the row – and the rows spaced about 18 inches apart.

And lastly, I decided to take a picture of the grape arbor and the strawberry pyramids.  The strawberries completely need torn out – and a new variety tried.  The Tri-Star strawberries did great the first year – then production was lost by about 50% – and this year, negligible.  Maybe 8 ounces total for the year.  We haven’t been very happy with the small size of the Tri-Star strawberries either – and certainly want to try something else that has a larger berry size.

Well, that takes care of the garden update for this week.  Hopefull I’ll post again before the end of the month!

On Saturday evening, I got out into the patio garden and began picking lettuce.  I certainly didn’t know how much I had – until I was done.

That is a HUGE bucket full of lettuce.  Here is a better perspective…

That takes up our entire kitchen counter in the corner!

There are three varieties – Simpson Elite (the green), Red Salad Bowl (the red/purple), and New Red Fire (combination/mixed green and purple).  When it was all said and done, I managed to pack them into six one-gallon ziplock bags.  I don’t know how I got it all in there – but I did.  Well over seven pounds of lettuce (I think).

I stopped weighing and keeping track of a garden journal this month – as it was simply getting too tedious and taking a lot of time away.  Heck, I’m barely able to keep up with the journal once every two weeks!

Earlier on Saturday, I got the five California Wonder peppers, five Best Boy tomatoes, 1 Red Cherry tomato, and two Roma tomatoes planted in the front garden.

The onions and celery in the very front of the garden are still growing well.

And the Snow Crown cauliflower down by the road are doing well too.

Also not pictured – the corn went in on Saturday as well.  A total of 100 were planted.  I planted 25% more just in case I need to fill in dead spots.  I am planting the Honey Treat corn for the second year – as it did pretty good last year – well, before the racoons got into them!

On Sunday, I took some more pictures.  After all the lettuce was picked, that reduced the plants down to:

I also picked probably a half pound of strawberries.  There would have been double that amount if I picked them sooner – but a lot of them were rotten or bug-infested.

The carrots are coming along nicely as well.

The side garden boasts several broccoli plants that are doing well – and the peas are beginning to flower as well.

And behind the garage, the peas are doing well – and the Kennebec potatoes are really taking off.

Well, that takes care of this edition.  We have had a lot of rain lately – so the rain barrels are staying completely full.  We had another rain shower last night as well.

The weather has been all over the place too.  On Saturday and Sunday, the temperatures were around 92 degrees.  Yes, 92 degrees for the beginning of May.  But, after the storm front came through Sunday night, the temperatures were in the lower 70’s on Monday and lower 70’s today as well.

The past two weeks, someone put the brakes on the weather.  It has been cooler between 60 and 75 degrees.  There was a couple of nights it also got very close to freezing.  At least it didn’t damage any of the plants near the ground, but unfortunately the coolness killed all of the vegetation on the grape vines – that are about six feet into the air.  I’m sure they will come back – but it was sad to see so much growth on the grape vines – and now they are back to looking dead again.

It has been a while since my previous post – and I’ve found that I simply don’t have the time to update my garden journal anymore.  This may be the year that I simply stop doing the journal.  I’ve really liked doing the journal so I could go back at the end of the year and tally up how much was grown of each veggie – and see how long things took to sprout – amongst many other stats and data.

Starting off over in the lettuce patch – they certainly have grown substantially in the past few weeks.

The Sugarsnax carrots have sprouted in the past couple of weeks.  When I counted last weekend, there were about 320 carrots that had sprouted – out of 500+ that were planted.

The potatoes in the potato bin have also sprouted – all but one of them anyways.

Moving to the side garden, the Cascadia Snap Peas have grown a bit as well – and you can also see the row of broccoli that was put in two weeks ago.  This includes Premium Crop broccoli towards the back and Green Goliath – my old favorite – in the front.

The back garden has seen the same growth of the peas – and the Kennebec potatoes are coming up as well.  I’d say at least 80% – if not more – of the potatoes have sprouted and are now up.

Going to the front gardens – the onions and celery have still been growing – but at a snail’s pace.

And the strawberry patch certainly has greened up.  I wonder if we are not getting as many strawberries because the deer netting is covering up the strawberries.  Two years ago, we had a great amount of strawberries – over 20 pounds.  At that time, the deer netting actually completely covered the entire grape arbor – and so the deer netting wasn’t wrapping the strawberries.  So, I bet the pollinators cannot get in to pollinate the strawberries as much.

That is all for now!  I still have the California Wonder peppers and three varieties of tomatoes downstairs in the germination station.  It is going to get down to about 34 degrees again tonight – so we are not out of the clear with the frost yet.

It has been a very busy week – and I unfortunately didn’t get the opportunity to post this last weekend – when the pictures were taken.

The weather here in Illinois has been unseasonable warm.  Would you believe that it is targeted to be 90 degrees in two days on Monday?  Yes, NINETY degrees!  For the most part though, the temperatures have been between 64 and 80 though.

Last weekend I purchased the potatoes.  I was a little later at purchasing them this year – but about two weeks earlier getting them planted.  I went to our local Rural King – where they had Kennebec / white potatoes for 35 cents a pound – and got about 13 pounds worth.  Just cannot beat those prices!  I remember when I bought a five pound bag of potatoes for over $7 at another store a couple years back.

So, the potatoes were planted a foot apart in the garden areas.  Last year they were planted about 10 inches apart and the yield wasn’t great – so I am backing off a bit to the more recommend 12-inch spacing.

In addition to the potatoes, I got the final number of copra onions transplanted to the front flower bed.

Lastly, all of the lettuce was transplanted outside.  When I seed the lettuce, I always plant three seeds in each black seed-starting container.  That way I only need 33% germination to ensure at least one comes up.  Well, even though the seed is at least two years old now, almost all of the lettuce sprouted.  In the very first seeding of lettuce, I did thin them back to only one per cell – but in the second planting, I left all of them in.  Amazingly enough, that allowed me to fill the lettuce bed with two weeks worth of lettuce – and I was able to get them out of the sprouting containers without damaging them!

Even a week later, all of the lettuce is still alive.  I have more lettuce that I started which is still under the fluorescent lights downstairs – so in the event that I need to replace any, I have some spare.

Lastly, the other thing that was done was the tedious process of planting the Sugarsnax carrots.  I had to use the garden claw and manually cultivate the carrot bed on the driveway.  I then made small holes in the soil with a pencil and dropped in one seed of each.  It took over an hour to plant approximately 487 carrots.  None have sprouted yet!

To finish off, I have some other pictures of around the garden.

First is the grapevines starting to bloom.  I had a scare when I saw the vines dripping with water after I pruned them – but the water has now stopped and they are growing.

Next is the strawberry patch.  They certainly have perked up – but there are still patches of dead areas.

The Granny Smith apple tree has also began putting on blooms.  I had to get the deer netting put back around it to keep the deer away – as they have been trotting through the forest area behind our house for a week now!

The front garden still is hanging in there – not a lot of growth in the celery or onions.

And Cascadia Snap peas!  About 75% or more of them have now sprouted and they are coming up very well!

That is all for this edition.

It is unseasonably warm this week – and has been in the high 70’s to low 80’s.  It is to continue next week as well.

So, it was time to get some things planted outside.

About 308 Cascadia Snap Peas were planted behind the garage and next to the house by the chicken wire fencing.  Here is the back garden all ready to go:

In addition, the 11 Ventura Celery plants that have been downstairs under the ‘germination station’ were all planted in the front garden – all one foot apart.  I gave them a little bit more room this year – and we are not planting nearly as much since it went unused.

I also got all of the rain barrels connected up and so they are ready to go.  We got a little bit of rain last night – amounted to maybe 75 – 80 gallons of water total – so not a lot of rain.  But, it allowed me to ensure there were no leaks in the system this year – and also flush out the dead algae.

Next, I got rid of the soil in the large tote container that the Anaehim Hot Peppers grew in last year.  It was mixed in with the patio bed.  The Oregano overwintered very well and is adding more greenery again.

Next was looking at the strawberry pyramids – but I think they are well past gone.  Well over half of all the strawberries are now dead.  I just hope that there will be enough runners this year from the other Tri-Star strawberry plants to backfill the dead areas.

At least we have some nice-looking daffodils in the bed alongside the road!

And the Granny Smith apple tree also has some small leaves starting as well.  I’m going to have to get the netting back out to put around the tree to keep the deeer away.

And this then leads me to the final picture of the post – the grape vines.  Last week, I severly cut the grape vines back.  One of the grape vines (flame bunch supposedly) has been taking over the grape arbor and the concord seedless vine has been growing much slower.  So most of all the vines were trimmed way back.  I also had to get the grape arbor straightened back up – as it was leaning on one side (a little bit of concrete and it is good now).

Well, I was in shock when I went out to look over the garden yesterday – and I saw several places where the grape vines were dripping water!  Wow – it was almost like the vines were nothing but a big straw from the ground and there was a pretty good drip of water from the vines.  The water was dripping from where I had pruned them just the week before.

Because this year has been unseasonably warm, I pruned too late in the season.  Finally when I went out there today, it seems like some of the pruning joints have “healed” by sapping over.  Below is a picture of one of the larger cuts that I made.  Kind of hard to see since I couldn’t get the zoom to work right.

There is a somewhat transparent sap that has formed over the cut.  But, there are still at least a half dozen other places that are still dripping water.  Hopefully they will heal up soon as well.

This has been an exceptionally strange winter – never have I remember a winter in Central Illinois being as mild and warm as it has been here.  Heck, just this past week, we had a day where it almost got to 70 degrees.  Unfortunately, with that strange weather, there have been many bad storms hitting the midwest and leveling complete towns.

Therefore, the title of this entry is – ‘8 Weeks Until Last Frost’ – but is it?  Today is is only 34 degrees outside – more typical for this time of year.  But because of the mild winter, will the last frost be pushed back more this year?

Anyways, today most of the other main vegetables were planted.  I planted four Red Cherry Tomatoes, six Roma Tomatoes, six Best Boy Tomatoes, five Premium Crop Broccoli, five Green Goliath Broccoli, five Snown Crown Cauliflower, and 13 California Wonder Peppers.  I also did plant six each of Simpson Elite Lettuce, Red Salad Bowl Lettuce, and New Red Fire Lettuce.

Last year I planted twice as many broccoli and cauliflower as I am this year.  That is because I learned last year that they were planted too close together.  Thinking of planting them closer together, I knew that the product would be smaller – but I expected it would increase overall yields by placing them closer.  Nope – didn’t work that way.  Really could have also been due to the low levels of light in the areas planted as well.

Last week I also planted six each of the Simpson Elite, Red Salad Bowl, and New Red Fire lettuce.  I will be planting as such until they are ready to be put outside.  Last year I planted two other varities – Buttercrunch and Parris Island.  I opted to not use them this year – as I’m not too fond of the storing capabilities of Buttercrunch and Parris Island.  Parris Island is a romaine lettuce – but it seems that you can only store it for four or five days in the fridge before it goes bad.  Buttercrunch seems to last a few more days, but it also starts to go bad.  The other three – those I’m planting this year – seem to stay upwards of two weeks in the fridge.

Now for some photos.  The Copra Onions still are manging to survive – even though the “bulb” is out of the soil and the roots are burrowing down in.  I didn’t do an exact count, but there are about 100 Copra Onions that are remaining out of the 300+ that germinated.  Again, DO NOT put onion seed right on top of the soil – always burry about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch.  Lesson learned.

I had to move around the ‘germination station’ today in order to add another fluorescent fixture – and get prepared for all of the new containers going in.  So, I decided to take the Ventura Celery out and bottom-water them (allows the water to soak up through the holes at the bottom of the containers).  This helps prevent any kind of diseases or fugus growth on top of the soil.  The celery is doing very well.

And lastly, here are the lettuce seedlings that were just planted last week.  Growing pretty good!

Well, welcome to the 2012 gardening season!  This is the first post of the season – and it is about the germination station and getting some seeds started.

I am starting a bit earlier this year with the celery and onions.  Last season, I did a test planting of some Ventura celery and Copra onions back around December 20th.  I did also start some celery at the beginning of the year – but the Copra onions were started around January 20th.

Here is the germination station setup so far this year – with two lights on over the onions:

This year, I started the Copra Onions on January 1st and Ventura celery a day later – as I let it soak in some water overnight.

I planted two Copra onion seeds per each black plastic cell.  Last year, I just filled a large tray with soil and planted the onions – but when it was time to plant them in the garden, their roots were all tangled up and they were hard to pull apart.  So I went back to planting them in black plastic containers that have nine cells in them – so I can fit a total of 72 cells in a tray.

Two total trays were planted with two seeds each – for a total of 288 Copra onions.  In years past, I also lightly placed some soil over the top of the onion seeds – but this year I simply placed the seeds on the top of the soil.

That was a bad idea.  So far, about 221 of those seeds have germinated – not too bad!  However, as you can see by the below pictures, onions should ALWAYS be planted and NEVER placed on the top of the soil:

Yes, the onions are reaching up – but not all of them.  You can see how some of them are going nowhere.  Really sad – but I’ve also seen many of them that have already detached from the soil and will die soon.  Some others have had their roots withered up and are not gonig to make it either.  Here is a closer view:

So, take it from me and my trial and error – DO NOT put onion seeds right on the top of the soil.  They need to be covere with a very thin layer of soil to do well.  I’m just really hoping for the best – and hope that I can get at least 100 – 150 viable onion plants out of 221 that have sprouted.

Next on the agenda are the Ventura celery seedlings.  They were planted on the 4th of January.  I was getting quite worried – because up until yesterday, I did not see one of them sprout.  As from my research last year, you get MUCH better celery germination results if you follow these two tips:

1. Soak the seeds in water for 18 – 24 hours
2. Sow them directly ON TOP of the soil – DO NOT cover them

It has been said that celery seed needs light to germinate.  I’ve read this on many forums and I have to say – this is the TRUTH.  When I put the celery seed under a layer of soil, the germination results were terrible.

So, I just counted the celery germination so far – and a whopping 20 of the 24 have already germinated!  Yes!  That meets my quota!  I am downsizing on celery this year and only planting about ten plants out into the garden.  That will give them more space between plants without being crammed like last year.  Plus, we only harvested about half of the celery last year anyways.  No reason to plant more than we will use – especially since it will take all the nutrients out of the soil.

So, when planting onions and celery – the moral of the story – celery should be placed ON TOP of the soil and needs light to germinate.  Onions should be COVERED with a thin layer of soil so that they have some kind of base for growth.