I was very excited to try and start my garden with winter sowing, but that didn’t work out this year. I’m not sure what happened, but nothing sprouted. I’d like to try again; we’ll see… Thankfully, my garden wasn’t centered around those seeds growing. The main crops I want to grow in my garden are tomatoes and cucumbers.
Tomatoes and cucumbers aren’t winter-sowing appropriate, so in mid-March, I started some tomato seeds indoors: A neighbor gave me a couple Brad’s Atomic Tomato seeds, and I still had some of my Best Boy seeds from a packet I bought back in 2013. I didn’t have high expectations for the Best Boy seeds to germinate, but 5 out of the 6 I planted sprouted! That same neighbor also shared some cherry tomato seedlings with me (some are labeled just “cherry,” and some “heirloom cherry”– I’m not sure if there is a difference! She mentioned that they were “maybe purple cherry”– I’m excited to see what they look like! Three out of the four seedlings I received survived… so I ended up with a total of nine (NINE!) tomato plants this year. I’m pretty excited.


But before we get to the tomatoes……
Toward the end of March I was getting excited to prepare my garden plot. I took advantage of the gorgeous weather one afternoon to clean out the hand-me-down planters I was given by another neighbor (the rectangular ones)… and I couldn’t resist direct-sowing some cool-weather crop seeds at the same time!

I had no idea if any of them would sprout (spoiler alert: nothing did!) The peas and lettuces were leftover from my 2008 garden. We’d tried starting some for last year’s garden experiment, and last year only the arugula (in the mesclun mix) sprouted. This year, nothing did! I did find evidence that a critter was digging in the rectangular containers, so that probably didn’t help anything!
In April, I began hardening-off my seedlings. I think that this year’s sprouts are the best I’ve ever had!
This spring, I started listening to the Joe Gardener podcast, and I learned a lot about separating seedlings and transplanting them. I wonder if that is why they did better for me this year than in the past? When the seedlings were establishing their true leaves, I upgraded them to separate plastic takeout containers with drainage holes as an intermediate stage before they went outside.
In the above photo, you can see the rooted basil sprig that my generous neighbor gave to me (the same one who gave me the Brad’s Atomic Grape seeds and the cherry seedlings!). I am so thankful for her generosity– she has definitely been a significant benefactor to this year’s garden!
On May 2, I decided it was time to get these plants outdoors. This year I’m using Miracle-Gro organic potting mix that I found at Costco. I started with three bags but didn’t have enough to fill all my containers, so I went back for two more to finish out the planting! I have some extra soil now, but I’m hoping to add parsley and lavender (and possibly other herbs) to my garden as the summer goes on.
First up, I direct-sowed some seeds: Ferry-Morse Tendergreen cucumber and Burpee Nasturtium. The cucumber seeds are from WAAAAAAAY back in 2011. I used some from this packet last year and they grew well, so I’m hoping they come up this year. However, I think that I’ve started early enough that if they don’t come up, I can still try again. I bought the nasturtium seeds this year, and I scarified them (using a nail file) as the packet suggested. Hope I did it correctly!
I planted out everything but three tomato seedlings… I got more potting soil yesterday, and this morning, I finished transplanting. Here’s the lineup for this year:
Last summer, my little garden plot was such a happy place for me. I’m hoping that this year’s garden grows just as well!
P.S. I frequently post about my garden progress in my Instagram stories– you can see them in my saved highlight called “Garden 2021”
[…] Last we left off, I’d just planted out the garden! I’d done the final transplant of my tomatoes into their large pots and direct-sowed cucumber and nasturtium seeds. […]