No, not peat moss, please! It’s environmentally terrible and adds little or nothing to the soil. Get mushroom compost or something like that.
Is it adult boy choy or that annoying baby bok choy? I’ve had no luck with the mini stuff.
Mushroom what?
OK, if you don’t like peat moss what would you suggest? Other than the mushroom whatsit.
Adult bok choy
OK - now for today’s question. My plan for potatoes was to use some of the potatoes I buy from Aldi’s as starters. Now, when I say that someone invariably says “But - they spray those with stuff that keeps them from sprouting!”. Um… I doubt it. And if they do, they should get their money back because it doesn’t work. Anyhow - I have several that are sprouting VERY nicely. How soon can I plant potatoes? Or can I stash them in a cool, dark place for another fortnight or month without a black mush melt-down?
Potatoes can be planted early. You might be able to plant already. You can plant later also if you like. Sprouting beyond nubbin sized is not good before you plant them.
Mushroom compost is what is left of the growing medium after it stops producing mushrooms.
My local grocery store has “organic potting soil” in 40 lbs bags, 3 bags for $5.
Still have $10 left in my garden budget, so I could buy 240 lbs of topsoil… but maybe I’d be better off getting some screening to protect seeds and sprouts from wildlife like litterbox seeking feral cats. After all, I have compost from last summer, plus new compost “cooking” in the back yard but I don’t have really great protection for the newly turned beds.
Opinions?
And it seems I am inheriting my late mother’s gardening tools and gloves, so that will help without costing me anything.
Update: my landlord now has a rototiller!
He bought it off craigslist, got it cleaned up and working, and used it on his garden patch. The plan is for him to come by this week (maybe even today) and churn up some of the back yard. Yay! Sooooo much easier than doing it by hand.
My first planting is coming along. The radishes are leading the pack, looking like actual vegetables now, and the rest got big enough I could distinguish them from the weeds so the spinach, lettuce, bok choy, and kale have been thinned.
The second planting isn’t above ground yet - I expect it will be by the end of the week. I fret because of a snowy night we had, but the other strip is still surviving, I’d expect seeds below ground to do so as well.
Third planting in my Grand Plan is supposed to be this week as well, but obviously it will be post-rototill. (I’m doing plantings about 15-20 days aparts, weather and schedule permitting.)
It is and it isn’t easier. It’s certainly quicker, but I’ve yet to use one for more than a short time without spending the next day or two feeling like I’ve been kicked down the stairs. But hey, if he’s doing it for you… 
I wish you good luck with your garden; last year I rototilled and spent hours raking out fern roots before planting, and the ferns still won.
This advice might be too late but next year use egg cartons (if they’re cardboard) to be seed starters. You can start the seeds off 12 at a time in cardboard egg cartons with grow lights on top. When the plants are established and the weather conditions permit, you can separate the individual seedlings and plant them in the ground, without taking them out of the cups. Easy!
That presupposes I have ROOM to set out egg cartons with seeds. Seriously, between dashing off to Detroit for mom’s final days and the multiple pickup-loads of stuff I inherited I can hardly move in my apartment this spring. If it had been mandatory to start seeds inside this year there’s no way I could have had a garden.
I realize that by planting early I was taking a risk of losing the early plantings. I found it an acceptable trade off since, between leftover seeds from last year and knowing where to go to get cheap seeds this year I could easily replace anything lost to frost.
Yay!
The second group of radishes poked their heads above ground today. The cold weather might have slowed them down a bit.
I’ve never been a really good gardener, but I like to put in tomatoes and cucumbers, and usually some beans. I just started composting last year. From the cafe I work in I can get all kinds of melon rinds, lettuce leaves, onion skins, and other assorted veggie waste. Last fall I dug trenches and buried it, as well as leaves. And when I’d turned over the soil I covered it with leaves.
I’ve now given the soil a turning again, and it’s amazing how much lighter and better the dirt feels, than it ever has before. And there’s lot of worms in there, the robins couldn’t wait for me to finish digging so they could have lunch. Another couple of years and I’ll have good dirt!
Haven’t done any planting yet, as it’s been a cool and wet spring here in NE Kansas. But I’m looking forward to trying again, as hope springs eternal. I’ve never had much luck with bell peppers either, but I’ll try again. But the main thing is tomatoes. Nothing better than a fresh, vine ripened tomato. I have had good luck with cucumbers, and may try zucchini this year.
Yes, he’s doing it for me - which means it’s easier for me
I have one planting of peas done half a week ago. The daffodils started blooming less than a week ago. I did a painting marathon and have covered much of the flood brown foundations and siding with white paint. I didn’t do much prep work, but the main thing was to get rid of the stains.
FIRST HARVEST!
I was thinning out the lettuce and thought - well, they’re just baby lettuce leaves, why not use them in a salad? Then I noticed the dandelions were up - the leaves more than the flowers. And I pulled the first two radishes from my first planting. So we had a salad with some garden editions (not nearly enough baby lettuce for two servings, it was mostly store bought along with the peppers, mushrooms, and carrots).
So far TWO people have volunteered to rototill my garden plot and neither has yet. In their defense, it was been soggy, wet, and thunderstormy. Well, no hurry I suppose. If they never do it I’ll just make adjustments.
I realize I haven’t updated this for awhile - well, the neighbor did come over to rototill (actually, he had his son do it) and they were nice enough to do it again a week later).
Just finished my “June 1st” planting in the garden (obviously, the date is approximate) which means I got in the cucumbers, okra, malabar spinach, watermelon, carrots, parsley, and beans most of which can’t go in until all danger of frost is past. Which, around here, is May 30-June 1 (yes, we can get frosts in mid-May). The potatoes, beets, and turnips are finally up. The 2nd round of spinach, radish, lettuce, bok choy, and kale is about ready for the table. Also put in yet more spinach, radish, lettuce, bok choy, and kale because we eat a lot of that stuff around here.
The beds alongside the house I finished harvesting, then put in marigolds. Was going to add the forget-me-nots, but (please don’t laugh) I forgot where I put the seed packet. I suppose they’ll turn up in January and I’ll put them in next year.
Next up is trimming the rose bushes (again!), which are blooming nicely right now.
The downside: perma-dirt on the fingers, gritty fingernails, scratches, and a little sunburn. Also a little achy again today after all that. The real chore is the garden area which is freshly broken ground - that takes some serious working to get out the clumps of sod and rocks so I can plant something. 2/3 of that bed is full, now. I’ll do the final third somewhere between June 15 and July 1, probably with more beets, turnips, and carrots. If we’re having a cool summer I can put in yet more of the green leafies, but if it’s hot I’ll have to hold off until mid-August for the fall crop of the same.
We are well into “wilted lettuce” season - yum! Finished planting sweet corn (double yum!) and the tomato plants are finally growing well with warmer weather (triple yum!).
Went to thin the first lettuce out again last night, as it’s getting nice and bunchy. Figured I’d supplement what I picked with the last of the store-bought lettuce and make a modest salad.
Of course not - didn’t use the store-bought at all, wound up with two HUGE bowls of lettuce (mmmm! Smelled so GOOD!) and added in peppers, carrots, radishes (from the garden, too), green onions, feta cheese, etc. and had those for dinner. Except there was too much to finish, so the leftovers are in the fridge.
Now, I am having issues with the radishes - the second planting is attempting to bolt arleady, but about half of them never plumped up into radishes, they’re all greens with a stringy red taproot. Did I plant them too close together? Well, pulled out every other one, got a few small radishses out of them, saved the greens for another meal.
June 1st plantings are starting to come up already - 3rd radishes, 3rd bok choy, first hint of the beans emerging. 2nd bok choy and kale are nearly ready for the table. The 2nd spinach is… small still. About 3/4 of the 3rd spinach just never came up. Am not having a good year with the spinach, go figger.
All my fretting over the beans was unnecessary - they started breaking through the soil this morning and by nightfall they were at least an inch tall. Go beans!
Had a stir fry of chicken with fresh bok choy, kale, and spinach tonight. Mmmmm…!
Nothing like home-grown food for freshness and taste …
Broomstick, radishes have always frustrated me. It’s obnoxious because they’re always recommended as “the easiest things to grow! Grow them with kids - the seeds are big and they grow fast! Nothing could be easier!” Ha!
I’ve planted radishes three times and have only once got about half a crop of decent ones. Sure, it could be my soil or conditions, but I’ve never had much luck with them - I usually get exactly what you described. And it’s such a pity - my grandfather taught me how to love radishes; whenever I have some I think of Papa, and I can’t grow them for nothing. Stupid plant.
Well, since we eat the tops as well as the bottoms even stringy-root radishes are not a complete loss for us, although my husband really does like to eat the round radish roots, which I grow mostly for him. Sometimes I get really nice, round, plump radishes and sometimes I don’t. They seem to do best in cool weather, but as near as I can tell they just sometimes don’t want to form round roots.
The guys who grow vegetables for the commercial market must have some tricks I don’t. Bok choy, for example - mine looks quite a bit different from what I buy in the store, or even what’s on the seed packet, being more stringy and tall rather than a nice bunch of green-leafed stalks. But hey, it tastes the same, so what do I care? I eat it cut up anyway. I assume commercial planters have their tricks for getting the plants to grow a certain way, or else quite a few wind up as waste of some sort or chopped up and blended into other stuff.