Overall Growth!

Raised Garden Bed #2

I'm really loving these raised garden beds!  They are perfect for South Florida suburban backyard confinement and can be customized to your hearts content.  Again, I layered newspaper, old leaves, and then soil and plants. Waa-laa...#2!

And planted...

Cucumber

Spring Onion

Sage

Hot Pepper

Getting Bigger! + Basket Pot

Oooo! Check out the growth after only about 1 week!  The cucumber leaves are almost double in size and the tomatoes are really taken off-- I'll have to construct a more suitable trellis. 

Basket Pot Project

I was wandering around my house looking for a project to create and found this old basket.  I got a garbage bag and poked a bunch of holes in it for drainage and then just lined the basket.  I added some broken pottery and rocks for drainage, filled it with soil, and added two sage seedlings and some Mexican Sunflowers.

It's super easy to do!

Transporting Mysterious 'Tea Mix'

This 'tea mix', as the packet read contains lemon balm, chamomile, and sage. But it seems only one seedling has really taken off which I cannot identify as any of the 3! Maybe it's a mystery mix? I can't wait to see what grows!

Anywho, it was time to transport them to a bigger home.  I used a terra-cotta bowl and filled the bottom with broken pottery bits (taken from my pottery class's damaged pieces). It's a great material to use for drainage.  

Then I added some manure and garden soil and started carefully spooning out the seedlings into their new homes.  I'd say about 75% of the seeds sprouted, but next time I won't be using these low, shallow containers. I think using a full size plastic pot is much better and less hassle when you are ready to transport.

Ready For Your Closeup?

The larger leaves are called 'seed leaves' and provide extra nutrients during the seedlings development. The next leaves that sprout are called 'true leaves'.

This is a cute baby sage seedling!

Here's some cucumber! Yum!

Can you hear the Bells of Ireland ringing?

Ehh, me either, maybe a few more weeks :)

This Bell of Ireland has really taken off! 

In The Beginning

I started off with seed packets of the following:

• Tomatoes (Super Sweet 100 Hybrid)
  
• Cucumbers (Early Pride Hybrid)
  
• Spring Onion (Evergreen Bunching)
  
• Sage (Salvia officinalis)
  
• Mexican Sunflowers (Tithonia rotundiflora)
  
• Bells of Ireland (Moluccella laevis)
  
• Chamomile 
  
• Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis)
  
• Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)
  

They were planted in old egg cartons (with holes poked in the bottom for drainage), and plastic pots, which were kindly donated to me from a local nursery! 

Two kinds of soil were used; your regular potting soil from Home Depot and then a 'special' blend soil from another local nursery. This soil contains more wood chips and chunky organic matter- my guess is that it's probably palm tree matter.

The seeds were then covered with plastic wrap to better retain moisture.  

Surprisingly within less then one week the seedlings began to sprout!  The plastic wrap was quickly removed because if the sprouts hit the plastic and curved downwards that would be the end of them!