Indoor Sowing Day

On the 16th of March I signed up for my garden plot - section 89! There was a long line at the Department of Recreation at the Municipal building that morning. I showed up at 8:36am (they opened at 8:30), and there were only a few spots left once I got to the front of the line. I think I got a good spot - near the center aisle, and with good sunlight.

The past few days, Kurt and I have been gathering soil, peat pots, a watering can, buckets, tools (from his dad), and other necessities from some garden stores in the area in preparation for my seeds that were scheduled to arrive from the Seed Savers Exchange. Several days ago I had placed the order online for seeds and transplants. The transplants are coming around May 7th or so - in time for Zone 6's last frost.

I ordered:
Seeds -
Red Russian Kale (organic)
Provider Beans (organic)
Early Blood Turnip Beets (organic)
Scarlet Nantes Carrots
Five Color Silverbeet Chard (organic)
Early Fortune Cucumber (organic)
Black Beauty Zucchini Squash (organic)
Lettuce Leaf Basil
Triple Curled Parsley (organic)
Lettuce Mixture (Amish Deer Tongue, Australian Yellowleaf, Bronze Arrowhead, Forellenschuss, Lollo Rossa, Pablo, Red Velvet, and Reine des Glaces)

Kurt and I planned out our garden plot - 20' by 20' with 2' pathways, marigolds interspersed for (hopefully) pest control (keepin' it real - organic style!)

So today, when the seeds arrived, we decided to sow them indoors right away (though being a new gardener, I didn't realize that many of the seeds can be sown directly into the soil and don't require starting indoors). The ones that can be started indoors are kale, cucumber, basil and parsley.

I planted 3 seeds of each into 4 peat pots per veggie/herb.  Once I determine the strongest seedling, I'll thin the rest and leave one plant to grow.

We bought a "full spectrum" light (which Kurt will use as a reading lamp once we no longer need it for the seedlings) to help with the germination. Our apartment has a nice little balcony, but unfortunately it faces north and doesn't get any real direct sunlight until about 3 or 4pm in the summer. Our south facing windows are ok for some plants, but I'm hoping that the lamp will work until it's time to transplant.

Speaking of transplants, the ones we chose are:

Tomatoes -

Brandywine (large for slicing)

Stuppice (2", extremely early, good yields)

Hartman's Yellow Gooseberry (yellow, small cherry-size)

Mexico Midget (red, small cherry-size)

Peppers (all sweet) -

Sweet Chocolate (brown, but "red" flavor)

King of the North (best variety red)

Orange Bell (great flavor)

More on the transplants once they arrive.

We're waiting for the "rules and regulations" of the community garden to arrive any day now - tonight when we drove by, we saw that they had plowed the land (tilled the soil? plowed under the ground cover? I don't know farmer-terminology!), so I know that we'll be able to get on to the land soon and start planting!

By the way, we bought a 5-gallon bucket with a lid that I want to use for composting our vegetable scraps. I think I just need to drill or punch some holes into it, maybe throw in some worms or something - I need to research it more, but I'm excited about it!