Hardening off

Our first round of little guys have made their way outside to begin the process of hardening off!

Organized Planning

So, we are officially nerds. We made an Excel spreadsheet to plan out where our transplants go.

April Growth

    

Our corn and tomato plants are at least 5" tall and their stalks our growing thicker under our lights. The sugar snap peas are over 12" and climbing toward the ceiling at an alarming rate!

The hardest part of all this has been the thinning of the plants. It is so hard to see the new growth and then snip it down to just one plant so that it will have enough nutrients to survive.

We have planted our second round of spinach and lettuce. Our new green bean seeds are already bursting open with new life. We will have to thing these soon.

MOBOT Inspiration

I was fortunate enough to get a few days off of work and we decided to have a day trip to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Besides the daffodils and blossoming trees, we found beautiful lettuces, spinaches, and cilantros growing in their small garden section. I found my new favorite sculptures that I want to try and build for our future farm. Lastly, we stopped off in the Climatron for a walk through the tropical atmosphere of plants and waterfalls.

Count them... one...TWO Reflector hoods!

Okay, so our garden plans continued to expand and we required more light! This time, we are experiementing with the Plant & Aquarium light bulbs offered at Lowes. I haven't gotten around to making the outside beautiful, but the plants seem to be digging the new light!

Helping our seedlings grown BIGGER & BETTER

Since winter never seems to end in Missouri, we decided to hang some extra grow lights inside the apartment to move our seedlings from the Aerogarden to 2"x2" biodegradable starter pots. It was warm enough one day that we took our Aerogarden outside and helped our seedlings make the switch from hydroponic to soil pots. Inside, the plants were put under two cool white lights and my homemade reflector hood - enhanced by aluminum foil on the inside and beautiful magazine collage squares on the outside.

So, this is why we do not plant in March...

I woke up to 3" of snow this morning. I am glad we waited to start our garden! I am wondering when winter will ever end!