Testing my thumb colour
I’ve started a little vegetable patch in the backyard this year. I heard some folks at work talking about square foot gardening, so I thought I would give it a shot.
So far I’ve had mixed success.
Plants started directly in the garden have done great so far. These include red and white onions, garlic, carrots and radishes. I think 100% of the garlic, radishes and carrots I planted have sprouted, and about 85% of the onions have sprouted.
Germinating seeds has also gone fairly well. Almost all the seeds I’ve started indoors have germinated and gotten to the point where I want to transplant them either outside or into a larger container…and it’s this transplanting thing that’s the hardest part so far.
None of my broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, swiss chard, cantaloupe or eggplant have survived transplanting. Four (out of four) tomato plants survived going from seedlings into bigger pots, and I just put them in the ground yesterday. This evening 3 of them were still upright, so I’m hopeful there. One of two basil plants is still alive…the other one looks like somebody came along and cut it off at the stem, which is a bit strange.
It’s not the end of the world, I’m planning on getting some already started plants at our local farmer’s market in June to make up for any of the plants that I couldn’t get started. I just had no idea that transplanting was so tricky!
Anybody else noticed how computer “hackers” also tend to be interested in hacking other parts of their lives? Gardening or cooking or photography – all allow you to have really fine control over parts of complicated processes, and let you play with how changing one piece affects the whole.
hmm.. I’m no gardening expert or anything, but I am pretty sure that after transplanting plants, that you need to give them extra watering and nutrition, because the transplant is rather straining on the plant.
So my tip would be to try watering them a little more regularly right after they have been transplanted, and then to slower ease back of to the normal watering cycle you use.
That last paragraph there indicates to me that you need to give this a read, and pass it along to others:
http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/11/11/the_nerd_handbook.html
I think you’ll find it elaborates greatly on your observation.
I just recently read Michael Pollan’s book Second Nature and he comments in there that if you pull some of the leaves off a plant when you are transplanting it that it eases the burden on the roots and helps get them established.
Just looking for information on maintaining the lawn and possible more extravagant things as I’m a new gardening enthusiast; Excellent activity for pastime I might add, anyway excellent, I found it insightful and informative.
indeed…this process is very tricky. I tried it last year but failed and many of my plants didn`t survive… I suppose one should become a gardening specialist before transplanting one`s plants to avoid these unpleasant moments