2014 Gardens

Just got my first sprouts of hot peppers over the weekend. These are Carolina Reaper and Trinidad Moruga Scorpion sprouts. Anyone else already antsy about gardening season?
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I’m so antsy I tried to cheat nature here and speed up the melting process. My garden had a foot of snow on it at least. On our first warm day, I spread a very thick layer of peat moss across a few beds (including the hops). Three days later with strong sun and I was looking at bare soil, while the rest of the garden was still buried. It totally worked!

I was congratulating myself quite a bit until we got pounded once again with a fresh foot of snow. Ridiculous.

But yeah, I’m at least started. We have a ton of onions and leeks going inside under lights, along with some lettuce and kale just for fun. Bought a soil block maker and ingredients for the soil block mix, and this weekend we’ll start some celeriac, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, kale, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, and beets.

We’re sprouting some sweet potatoes too and plan to root the slips and give those a shot this year.

Also this year I’m partnering with a retired teacher to run a huge plant sale at our school. The proceeds always go to a family with cancer bills. Last year we raised over $1200, and the leftover plants went to local community gardens and helped to feed over 70 families! Best of all, I get to fiddle around with plants at work too. It’s neat to see 8th grade kids getting excited about sprouting plants and worm bins. One of my previous students, who is now a junior, has come back to work in my classroom and so I’m getting a chance to teach him something new again- hopefully something that he’ll take with him in life.

My wife and two young boys are taking a bigger role in the garden this year too. The guys are going to plant a “Kids Only Garden” and also a pole bean teepee and a sunflower house. I think it’s going to be a great year in the garden!

Sounds great! And kudos for making a difference in your community and spreading some gardening knowledge!

That sounds great El Captain!! I am lucky enough to live far enough south that I already have my garden going in the ground. Green beans, purple hull peas, sugar snap peas, onions, potatoes, bananna peppers, jalapenos, corn, garlic, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I need to figure out how to post some pictures as things are really taking off already. I planted most everything on 3/15 so this weekend will be 4 weeks!

Still getting decent harvests from my garden. Hope everybody elses is doing well!
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Carolina Reaper and Trindad Moruga Scorpion
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Harvested this 6lb 2oz Sweet potato this week. And yes, that is a full sized dinner plate! :wink:
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Wow that sucker is huge. Bet it would make some good sweet potato fries.