Ten days ago I showcased my newly built planter boxes and babbled about starting my own vegetable and herb garden.
Today I intend to babble a bit more!
Although the planter boxes were all built and ready to go about two weeks ago, my son and I didn't get around to seed-planting until Saturday the 13th. So it's been a whole five days since they were planted.
Here he is, moistening the soil.
We sowed direct, where they're going to live. I had the option to plant them in those little seedling pots, but I decided that I would prefer the alternative. Just get them to where they belonged and let them thrive as nature intended.
I'm only new to this. Learning as we go along. Don't judge me too harshly.
We have roma tomatoes and large-leaf basil in the left planter. Flowers in the front of both.
In the right planter are 3 rainbow silverbeet bunches, 3 carrot bunches, 2 brocolli bunches, and 2 onion bunches. The onions I have a large spanish onions which apparently can grow up to half a kilo, so thought only 2 would suffice for that area and judging by seed spacing recommendations.
The middle square pot has garlic chives, and the square pot on the side has spring onion.
It turns out that the new owners of this house are planning on removing the in-ground garden beds that I was going to clean up and utilise, so those are out of my planting equation now. Sadly.
Two days after sowing my seeds, we had a very unexpected rain. The town I live in is built on flood-plains beside a river and every 10 years or so experiences flooding. Of course. It was built on flood-plains!
We've been warned since about September last year that we should be expecting rains to rival that which caused the 2011 floods, however, there has been nothing. Until two days after my seeds were placed in their new homes.
200mm in under 2 hours. Right on school pick-up time. At 2:30pm I was literally wading across the street to get to the school, it was up to my calves. After 3 as we were hopping into the car, there were ambulance and police sirens all around, rushing to get to multiple accidents and emergencies.
The one thing going through my head? "Shit! My poor little seeds! That soil is going to be swept half out of the planters! My seeds are going to be washed out! It's all ruined already!"
Got home. Rushed out into the backyward. And breathed a sigh of relief.
Turns out our soil drains well and the planters drain well also. The soil was where it belonged and to my uneducated eye it seemed as though it hadn't disturbed the seeds too much.
However, after that deluge, it rained for a couple days solid and, having had problems with overwatering seeds that were destined to die in the past, we made a makeshift cover for them as pictured. And moved the two square pots to the verandah until the sun came back out... today actually!
Yesterday morning when we covered the seeds, I saw all of my new friends were sprouting! 😄🌿
And it appears as though maybe the rain did knock the seeds about a little bit. They're no longer in my neat little rows.
I had the tomatoes all along the back in one row, and the basil all along the front in another row. Now they're all over the place. Well, it looks like the tomatoes are where they belong, but the basil is everywhere.
When they get a little bit older, stronger, I might gently reposition them a little? Maybe? I'm a garden newbie! I don't know what to do! I guess I will see how it goes.
These little guys are from a mixed seed packet simply labelled: Beneficial Flowers. I thought they might be good since apparently they attract beneficial insects that eat/repel pests. I was simply going to grow some marigolds since I know they're beneficial -- turns out marigolds are included in this mix! Haha.
They're absolutely rocketing!
The first photo of them was yesterday, the above photo is today. They definitely want to live, haha. I just want to say that they are less yellow in person. They are definitely more green and less yellow.
At their current rate, I'm guessing they're going to be double that size tomorrow, haha! They're just zooooooming along.
Everything seems to be surviving so far. I'm mostly worried about the garlic chives and the spring onion. I have tried to grow those before, as window-sill plants in the kitchen... they never worked out. I'm hoping that direct sown, outside, they might have a better chance.
Fingers crossed!
All photos in this post are courtesy of me, 
