potaoes in the ground

actually I went out and put them down last saturday, but they haven't shown up above ground yet so no cute potato seedlings to show off yet...

I pretty much just put out the beetlings out for good now since i don't have space to keep them inside anymore LOL... they'll get transplanted into the ground sometime this evening so the chance of them being scorched by the heat is less than if they were planted at midday :3

ah but what's this! I planted some basil a while ago and it's only just started to peek out now that it's been so hot for a few days :9 so out it goes to enjoy the sun with the rest of the plants<33

I didn't even manage to snap any pics of the squash when it was all tiny, it grew so fast! It'll probably end up taking over half the garden this summer 8''')

and my sisters brought home more seed packets, so i've gotta be quick with planting aubergines, more squashes, cucumbers and sunflowers!

phew it looks like it's gonna end up being really crowded outside this year<3

and last but not least, i've cheated a bit and bought some strawberry plants! hopefully they'll be able to fruit this season :9

hardening off begins!

most of the sites I've read suggest to wait for warmer temperatures before hardening seedlings off, but since they're growing quite big and crowded I thought I'd give it a try and see if they can handle it anyway hehehh

so far they've been outside in somewhat snowy weather (no frost tho!) and generally been subjected to a temperature of around 3 degrees, and they're doing really well<33 and as you can see, they've got some nice shelter so they don't have it that bad :9

but sadly the seedlings in the second pair of containers aren't doing quite as well, the soil is drying out too much in the white one and the black one is too tall and gets heated too easily by the sun (as black plastic usually does)

but the containers will probably end up being useful for some other purpose in the future :3

speaking of containers, I spent a bit of time with my dad's old (and charming) drill and some windowboxes and got to work on making better drainage in them :9

and since some of the seedlings are already showing tiny tiny true leaves, they're almost ready to go out into the garden and grow<333 can't wait!

preparing to grow

this year I've decided to really get my hands dirty with all sorts of food growing, mostly just out of curiosity to see what can be grown in this climate :3

I'm used to farming potatoes in the backyard (because that's what faroese people want to grow the most and because fresh potatoes are most delicious :9) and rhubarbs have been there as long as I remember, but other than that I hardly ever see fresh (local) produce in the kitchen :'( and I love fresh tasty things! /foodie

and even tho I wanna run out and buy all of the seeds and grow tons of everything, I'm just gonna try a few things that I'm hope will be easy enough to start with LOL

basically, I'm hoping that beets will do well since things tend to grow well underground here :9 I just picked them up at the grocery store, along with the squash seeds in the left corner (which I have no hope will do anything useful, but at least it makes tasty flowers)

the upper right is just sweet basil that I'm gonna try and grow indoors, and THEN we got the ones in the foil pack which are caraway seeds from a really old semi-wild species in Iceland which I've gotten from Nordgen (fancy!)

anyway, I haven't even started that many seedlings yet even this late in the season but it's cold enough here that I've got time to sprout them at my pace :3

hopefully this is gonna be a loooooooot of beets 8) several seeds in each pot of course

and here's my low-tech setup :3 the radiator and the sun will heat the seedlings, and the plastic baggies are to created a greenhouse effect (and to keep in moisture so I don't have to water them that much lol)

and here's a few days progress on how they've grown<3333

the brown stuff in the soil is powdered cinnamon that's supposed to preven damping-off disease, ie help keep them from dying. idk how effective it is, but doesn't hurt to try :9

the latest photo really shows that they love growing towards the sun, so I need to rotate the trays once a day hahaha

anyhow, so far the ones that have been doing best are the ones in the boxes to the left which are the round root beets *q* idk if it's because the seeds might be newer, or they're just easier to grow, but the long beets haven't shown as much growth as fast at these cuties :3a

can't wait to transplant them into the garden when they've grown up a bit more<33