hyunjoo82's Blog

Herb and Vegetable Garden, Part 2
Mar 9, 2010 | 1:42 PM PST

Today, I started Part Two of my vegetable and herb garden. I sowed seeds of tomato, cherry tomato, green beans, cucumber, zucchini squash, yellow squash and more rosemary. I made a plan of how to lay out my garden and realized I don't have as much space as I intended to have so I reduced having three plants of each vegetable to two plants. I also decided to grow the tomatoes in their own separate huge plant pots to have more room for the garden plot. I have Part Three coming up which will consist of lettuce and broccoli seeds which I'm hoping to just plant directly into the garden in a few weeks (if I think it'll work).

 My radish sprouts are starting to show signs of true leaves which is very exciting. I figure that whether all of these seeds grow or not, it'll be a great learning experience to see various vegetable and herb plants growing from seed. I wish rosemary had a better germination rate but at least I have one that sprouted. If I am successful and it actually grows into a productive plant, I'll raise it and take cuttings and grow more rosemary from it instead of starting from seed. I also really wanted rosemary so I decided to plant the rest of my rosemary seeds in a makeshift pot (it's an empty instant coffee container that I split into two, top and bottom, and used as pots) since the seeds were a couple of years old and needed to sow them in case I had a chance of growing any rosemary from them.

I'm getting really excited and I'm feeling very productive. The fact that I even have any sprouted seeds growing is an accomplishment for me so the rest is going to be a wonderful journey, however it ends up. It's time to do more research of each individual type of plant so I will be able to increase the chances of my success. Some of my friends have been very impressed with my recycling idea of using eggshells as plant starters and to use old plastic containers that we don't use anymore as seed starters. It's a very "green" way of doing things which I am glad I was able to do. I've also inspired some friends to follow in my footsteps and try growing their own plants this year. :) 

First Vegetable and Herb Garden
Mar 3, 2010 | 4:38 PM PST

Veggie and Herb Garden, Part One

Greetings everyone! I am pleasantly surprised at discovering such a website and joined immediately. I am a newbie when it comes to gardening but I have developed an interest in it during the past few years. This year I decided to become more proactive in working on an actual garden. I've picked out a few herbs and vegetables that may be good to grow as my first gardening attempt.

Rosemaryp>

I have always loved basil and rosemary so those are the herbs that I am attempting to grow from seed. I know rosemary is difficult to germinate and sprout but I have managed to get one plant shooting through the soil so far (out of sowing about 18-20 seedlings). I have to keep reminding myself not to get too zealous with the watering and let the soil dry out before re-watering rosemary and to not get discouraged. I would love to give some away as gifts if I can manage to get 2 or 3 good plants growing.

 Basil

I've sown a total of nine seed starters with about 4-5 basil seeds in each starter; three starters each of lemon-lime basil, lettuce basil, and sweet basil for a total of nine starters. Since these can be grown throughout most of the year, I plan on sprouting these seeds quarterly on an as-need basis. These would also make good gifts. I was thinking about gifting herb pots where I include basil and rosemary in a medium/large pot and letting them grow to a decent size but I don't know if those two herbs go well together. Basil and rosemary are my most favorite herbs to use fresh in the kitchen and I'm excited to see how they turn out.

Lavender

>I know you can't really cook much with lavender but I just like the plant and aroma. I've never really been successful in growing them but I figured that I could keep trying. I am trying to sprout them in a mini clay pot until I see little shoots. Then I'll try to transfer them to a larger pot and just grow them on the kitchen windowsill. I must have sprinkled about 15-20 seeds so I can have a lot to choose from and my seed packet was about two years old.

 Jalepeno and Bell Peppers

 My mom has always bought jalepeno plants to transfer into our vegetable garden and they've always worked well. I wanted to be adventurous and start them from seed and I've discovered they are quite easy. After two weeks of starting my seed-sprouting journey, My jalepenos are the most actively growing besides my radish seeds. We use a ton of jalepenos when cooking (my family is Korean and we love spicy dishes) and we always hate buying bell peppers from the store because they are one of the more expensive veggies at the grocery store.

Radishes

I decided to start radishes because I heard from a friend that they may not be too difficult to grow. Then my mother told me that one seed only turns into one radish (which I'm not sure if that's true). So in case that is true, I germinated about 30 seeds and put them in seed-starters. I wanted to experiment a little by seeing the differences in planting the germinated seeds right when they start to germinate versus when they have germinated quite a bit. I planted about 18 seed starters immediately after germination and 9 starters about 3-4 days after when the sprouts have grown a lot more (I planted them with the shoot already poking out the soil and the roots directly down). My family doesn't really eat radishes but it would add more variety to our garden and they don't take up too much space. The only drawback is that I would have to keep growing radish from seed every time I want more. 

 Future Plans

In the next few weeks, I plan on starting more seedlings for "Part Two" of my garden. I will be sowing broccoli, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumber, and green beans. I'm trying to germinate lettuce, cabbage, and spinach but it's been almost two weeks and I have barely seen any sprouts (because these seeds are also about two years old). We have about a 10 x 20 plot of land that we use outside that we have been growing tomatoes, cucumber, and jalepenos for the past two years. I will probably work on Part Two of our garden at the end of March when it gets a little warmer here in Georgia. I need to figure out how my garden is going to work and plan the layout for this year and I also need to eat more eggs so I can save the eggshells for Part Two. I've got about 56 more eggs to crack open. ;)

If anyone has any tips or comments, they would be greatly appreciated! 

2 Comments

 

Add a Comment