Garden Semi-Update

This is a semi-update because a lot got done today, but all for naught.  I intended to start more seedlings today with new soil because my first seedlings were overrun with mold.  I had reused soil from last year – apparently it wasn’t sterile.  So I took the kids to Home Depot, bought some begonias for my daughter’s garden, a bag of what I thought was organic potting soil, and two transplants (a tomato and a bell pepper) for good luck.

 

Turns out I grabbed some very much not organic garden soil – which I figured out after I’d already started 18 seedlings.  This time I was using toilet paper rolls as starter pots, and as I was labeling them, my eyes traveled back to the bag I had just finished scooping out of to notice this admonition: Use Gloves When Handling Soil.  Yikes!  Why would that be?  Because the soil was saturated with a bunch of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK).  And of course I was using my bare hands to set those seeds in the soil.  Yay.

 

So what have I learned about gardening so far?

 

1.  Use sterile soil when starting seeds, or else you get mold.

 

2.  Leave the 15-month old at home when buying things that are stacked next to really scary chemical-filled things.

 

I do have one happy piece of news: three (out of five) of the bare-root raspberry bushes I planted have started growing!

 

 

They were sticks when I planted them, now they have leaves.  Let’s just hope they actually fruit at some point.