Planting: Week 1

We officially started our planting season! Last Saturday we started our very first round of seeds.

On top of the left bucket is the seed flat that we are using to start all of our seeds. We are planting in a 4:2:1 parts sawdust to sand to perlite.

First we mixed the sawdust, sand, and perlite together and added water to moisten it.

Next, we leveled the mixture and drew lines every 2 inches to mark where the rows will go.

Then we used a piece of wood to make our 1/4" deep rows. Sam wanted to take a picture of me to prove that I "actually helped." It is true he does most of the work but I really do try to help. The tiny human we created tends to take up a lot of my time and energy... but she was asleep so I was able to help :)

This is how it looked after I was done.

Then voila! Seeds are planted. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and 5 varieties of tomatoes.

We threw some burlap on top to prevent the seeds from getting disturbed while we water prior to germination. 

Today we officially saw a few plants making their way through! Pictures to come. Plus, we will be planting more this weekend! Stay tuned!

New and Improved Garden

Well, it has only been almost a year since we last posted - that's not that long right?! I guess that is what happens when you have a baby...

Last year's garden was mostly a flop, most likely due to the fact that we were figuring out how to keep a human baby alive (which we did, thank goodness!). But we were disappointed with the results of our garden since we put quite a bit of time (initially) and money into it.

Therefore, we decided to go all out this year! 

Sam has worked extremely hard building this awesome greenhouse so that we can start our growing season early - we will actually start some of our seeds in about 2 weeks!

This is what the inside looks like. We have two 4' x 20' grow boxes. At the top of the T-frame there is wire running the length of the box which will enable us to grow many of our plants vertically instead of taking up so much space in the grow box.

We have decided to use the Mittleider Method for gardening. We chose this method for its reliability and to maximize our chance for success. 

Inside the greenhouse is the seed table, which is kind of like a mini greenhouse/hoop house inside of the big greenhouse. On top of the table is the heat mat (black with green writing) which serves to help keep the seed starts warm. 

We planted some 'practice seeds' January 7th, just to see if the environment of the seed table was warm enough to allow for proper germination and growth. So far it is working really well! We planted a bunch of different things - beets, zucchini, pumpkin, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, turnips, peas, etc etc - and everything is looking awesome. There have even been a few days where the temperature has gotten up to over 95 degrees inside the seed table hoop house! And actually, that is almost a little too warm :)

This is what the seed table hoop house looks like when it is all closed up.

One thing I want to make sure to highlight is Sam's raspberry pi. He has spent countless hours programming the raspberry pi (which is a mini programmable computer) to track the air and soil temperatures. He has attached multiple probes to track the temperature of the air inside of the greenhouse, the air inside of the seed table hoop house, the outside air, the soil inside the greenhouse, and the soil inside the seed table hoop house.

If you are interested in seeing this data, click the following link: Greenhouse dashboard

We also have two more 4' x 20' grow boxes that we decided to cover with hoop houses. We will not be able to grow vertically in these boxes but the hoop houses will still enable us to start our plants earlier. We will start all of our seeds in the seed table hoop house and when they are ready to be transplanted, we will transplant them into their respective grow boxes.

Just in case you were wondering, our chickens are alive and doing really well! Millie likes to watch them :)

We will be posting regularly again, documenting our successes and failures as we embark upon this journey towards self reliance!