Backward and forward

Looking back over my old posts, I mention that everything we planted is growing. However, I never said anything about us planting in the first place!

Last weekend, my daughter and I planted a bunch of seeds in peat pots and saved egg cartons. Lots of flower seeds for her, Delphinium, Zinnia and Cornflower. I planted lots of tomato seeds, green beans, peas, jalapenos, cantaloupe, honeydew, green chile and pumpkin. 

As of Thur, many of those seeds had begun to sprout. Much faster than I had anticipated. The ones taking off fastest are the flower seeds but some of nearly everything planted is now showing to some degree. Except for the chiles. (That's okay. I'm from Texas, not NM. I see chile as a spice, not a necessity to sustain life.) Things I'm happiest about are the tomatoes and green beans.

The raised bed is still going, though slowly. Only produced enough spinach to eat a few small leaves so far but they seem to be picking up as the weather warms. The wind blew the cold row cover to pieces, as well. So, I went back to the sunroof domes I was using before. Garlic is apparently growing, as you can smell it when you raise the cover. I know one problem is lack of CO2 inside the covers. In such a small space, plants consume any available CO2 very quickly. Haven't found a solution to that problem. Maybe if I have to use cold row covers again, I'll save a space at each end to place a container of compost or even ferment a cold beer batch (with careful covering for sanitation) to produce needed CO2. Fermentation is cheap, so maybe just a sacrificial batch of fermenting sugar water would be good. After use, let the alcohol evaporate and it could be recycled in the compost. Then sterility isn't so much a concern, since it's not meant for direct consumption. 

There are still more things I want to plant for this coming season. Still want to get some seeds for corn, cucumbers, strawberries and watermelon.

Because of cost and how long the permanent solarium will take to build, I know I will have to make some kind of temporary plans for this summer for the garden. One idea is, as I build the columns and get the 4x4's in place, to put small slats in place for partial shading. They could be placed in an alternating pattern, one on top, one on bottom. As I place polycarb panels, the bottom slats could be removed, while the top ones maybe stay in place for more stability of the panels. Still giving it some thought.