Transplant

This locavore blog seems to be turning into a lot of gardening entries. But bare with me, it is that time of season. Spring! The weather outside is lovely, affording me full days of working outside. Getting my own garden plots going and helping neighbors with their ambitious efforts putting up greenhouses and such have kept me away from the Farmer's Markets and other locavore consumer havens. I'm still waiting for the asparagus to poke its little spikes up so I have an official marker to my locavore endeavor.

My next research project is to decide which local CSA to join. There is also this guy Sam who has a backyard garden operation over by the community college and my neighbor has organized a modified CSA with him as well. Last year we got a few bags of produce from him, it was pretty good. Stay tuned for more on local CSAs.

Both me and my plants are not from here. We are growing slowly accustomed to the desert landscape. But transplants take special care and special measures to make sure they survive and succeed.

A couple weeks ago my husband and I built a seedling growing shelf. They cost anywhere from $500 - $800 new. We built ours for about $120 - lights included - in about three hours. A bunch of 2x2s and screws are all it took really. It is great when you want to increase the amount of seedlings you are growing and don't have a greenhouse, sunroom, or otherwise. We found the design online and added a foot of width to support the size flats we are using. Two weeks later the plants are doing great.

This weekend (5 weeks before last frost date) I transplanted tomato, eggplant, and broccolli seedlings from the flats to small individual plots. The survived and are recovering from the move back on their shelves.

I also planted peas, a strawberry patch, and four bushes including Western Sandcherry, Currant, and a third edible bush I can't remember at the moment. (Too much sun I guess). I'm a little behind as last year I was successful in starting peas the first week of March. These were seeds saved from my 2008 garden. I hope they come up.

Back to the work week...onward.