**Warning: the following post will bore you to tears if you aren’t a gardener! 🙂 **

Yesterday (February 4) marked ten weeks before Augusta’s average last frost date. Therefore, it is officially seed starting time!

Below are pictures (since I don’t know how to post a document!) of my two 4×8 garden layouts as well as my reference sheet (which plants correspond with which number), and a helpful seed starting chart that I made this morning. The only plants that need to be started 8-10 weeks before the last frost are cabbage, kale, celery, and bell peppers. I did not have very much luck with the seeds I started indoors last year. I’m hoping for better results this year. I did read that it can be helpful to transfer the sprouted seeds to small, individual pots before hardening off and transplanting outside. This prevents their roots from getting intertwined with the other seedlings. I found these pots at the garden center down the street for $.15 each!

Bed One:

Bed Two:

Plant Reference

Seed Starting Chart

My third and final bed will be 4’x6′ and will be strawberries only. I read all sorts of great info online today about how to maximize your strawberry bed. I will only plant one per square foot, even though the real square foot gardener says you can plant up to four per square. Here is the general info that seemed most helpful:  If I will cut off all runners and maximize nutrients to the mother plant, I will have a nice 12-18″ plant in each square and each plant should put out about a quart of strawberries.  Once harvesting is complete, trim plant down to about 3″ above the crown, cover with a heavy layer of mulch for winter, and you’ll be good to go for 3-5 years with the same strawberry plants!

I know I’m a nerd.  But I figured some of you may be as well!  I hope this was helpful.

~audrey

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 5th, 2011 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.