Waiting for Spring

Rain, snow, ice, sun, snow, sun, rain, sun. This is a day in the life of an Ohio resident. My yard has been completely water-logged, then dry, then frozen all in one week. I planted one hundred and fifty peas a couple weeks ago when the ground was perfect and the temps were mild. I am glad the peas knew better than me and did not germinate. Three days after I planted them they were under two inches of snow. I heard the spring peepers, so that is my excuse. =) 

So while spring and winter fight it out, we are moving forward with the garden preps. Below is an update on the plants we started indoors a few weeks ago.

The top row is mostly tomatoes. They are doing well. We are still having some germinate, but even if no more came up, our germination rate would be good. 

Here is a close up of some tomatoes. I really like these smaller bins. It makes moving and rearranging the plants so much easier.

I recently had to raise the lights up. These tomatoes are growing fast. Smells like summer every time I touch one.  

This is an experiment. I collected hundreds of Allium seeds at the end of last summer. I broadcast seeded these two bins with the collected seeds, a mix of leeks, red onion and green onion. I also had a bunch of Brassica seeds in the bottom of a bag and decided to throw them in as well. 

I am not sure what is growing, could be broccoli, cauliflower or cabbage. The plan is to pull them out soon and transplant them into peat pots to plant in the garden as soon as possible. The soil is very sandy, the mix is 1/3 compost 1/3 sand 1/3 peat moss. Once the Brassica's are out I will let the onions grow to "set" size and transplant them into the garden.

Here are some cabbages. As soon as these go in the ground I plan on planting more from seed directly in the garden. We eat a lot of cabbage so, in my opinion, you can't grow enough.

This bin is full of odds and ends. There is Walking stick kale, tobacco for pesticide, cabbages, broccoli, salt bush and some volunteer Curcubit that didn't germinate last year but did this year. These soil cubes are left over from last year.  

This bin has various flowers like cosmos and zinnia. You can tell these are left over soil cubes from last year due to the moss growing on them. 

The full set-up. I am so excited to get back in the garden. Every year we have done a better job and learned many new things. We will have garlic this year and we can harvest our three year old asparagus patch. Can't wait!

Starting seeds indoors with soil cubes

 This is the Soil Cube Tool, designed and sold by 

Clayton Jacobs. ( www.soilcube.com )  

This is a pretty simple design that is practical and

 easy to use. Basically inside the white squares are 

metal plates attached to the bolts. When you push

 down on the handle the plates compress the soil

 medium into cubes and leave a divot for seed
placement. The springs push the handle
 back to the starting position. 

These are the components of the soil medium. The ratio is:

          3 parts peat moss

       2 parts compost

          1 part garden soil

1 part sand 

  1 part perlite

           Add lime if desired

You can also add fertilizer at this point if you wish. 

I would personally use worm castings and some compost tea. 

You can tweak this mixture for making soil cubes 

but I would stick to the ratios and use medium

 similar to the products in the picture. 

I mixed everything together dry in this large "hose" bucket. 

You can get these at your local box store for $4. I then split 

the mix into three buckets so I could make sure it gets mixed 

consistently. Add just enough water to get a thick oatmeal 

consistency. Once the first 1/3 is mixed add more dry soil 

mixture and repeat. I make a lot of this once a year, saves

 time and it doesn't hurt to have extra.

 Press the tool into the mix and press it against the 

side just filling the inside of the tool with the soil mixture. 

Press down on a hard surface, hold for a second then push 

the handle through the tool and the cubes will fall out. 

It takes a bit of practice to get consistent cubes but if you

 mess up just crumble the bad cube back into the mix.

Here is a close up of the cubes when they are done. 

They hold together very well and readily absorb water. 

Here are the same cubes growing tomatos. 

We have 188 cubes started right now. We are growing

 8 types of tomatos, 7 types of peppers, eggplant,

 celery, leeks, 3 types of onions, broccoli, cauliflower, 

brussel sprouts, green cabbage, red cabbage and kohlrabi. 

Place the cubes in a tub like this, it is very 

easy to move them without handeling them. 

You can pour water in the bottom of the tub which 

the cubes will soak up and wick through the cube. 

Don't let them sit in a pool of water, 

use just enough to saturate the cubes.

This is many varieties of lettuce, spinach, cilantro and amaranth. 

They are growing in trays filled with the grow medium. 

You can grow salad greens all year round without 

them bolting or going bitter in the heat.

Here is the whole set up. The lights are full spectrum

 4 foot fluorescents hanging on chains from a stainless

 steel shelving unit. The lights are on a timer set to come

 on at 5am and go off at 9pm. I have heating pads under

 the peppers and tomatos to help them germinate. I use a 

one gallon hand pump pressure sprayer to mist the cubes 

gently so the seeds are not disturbed.