All the free recycled coffee cups one could ever want...

These have been rinsed with a 10% bleach solution and are sitting out to dry.

We got these free for the asking at our local coffee shop (Thinkers Cafe on 20th street in Potrero Hill.) The nice folks there left a basket with a sign out for the customers to place used coffee cups in a milk crate. They call us when the crate is full. This is the 2nd load of cups in a few weeks.

Roll Call

As of today we have (above ground) in our Square Foot Garden:
2 Musk Melons (Cantaloupe)
1 Watermelon
2 Spinach (of 9 seeds sown)
7 Broccoli (started indoors)
7 Snow Peas (of 8 seeds sown -- I actually pushed a snow pea seed into the ground in the place of the missing snow pea today.)
X carrots (16 seeds sown .. none sprouted but I had some sprouting indoors that I transplanted. I'll consider these a wash for now)
1 Zucchini
3 Cucumbers (of 6 seeds sown)
1 Coriander (aka Cilantro - of 4 seeds sown)
16 radishes (woohoo)

Went into the ground (date):
1 Chico III Tomato transplant (3/29, Determinate paste/roma-type)
1 Costoluto Genovese Tomato transplant (3/30, Italian Heirloom)

Separate, in 5-gallon planters:
9 Blue Lake Bush beans (Sounds exotic, almost, but they're just green beans. All started indoors and transplanted in their newspaper pots.)
1 Green Zebra Tomato transplant (3/29, green 'mater with stripes!)
1 Chudo Rinka Tomato transplant (3/29, a Ukranian Determinate -- bush-- tomato)

Into 2-gallon hanging basket: Tumbling Tom Tomato transplant (3/29, dwarf cherry tomato)

Elsewhere:
4 - Beauregard Sweet Potato Slips (taken from an organic sweet potato purchased at Whole Foods that happened to start sprouting)

Future (what is still under grow lights and sitting, pampered, indoors):
Eggplant
Sweet (California Wonder) Bell Peppers
Pumpkin (a lone seed -- but I have peeked and it has sprouted..)

The next set of seedlings: tomatoes, eggplant and carrots

For whatever reason, the top level of the grow center maintains temperatures of 75 degrees. The lower level only gets to 65 degrees. For this reason I've started using the top level to germinate seeds. (Center: eggplant seedlings and 2 young tomato plants)


Carrot starts in little fingerling starter pots. The carrot seedlings are so tiny and delicate that I developed this tiny starter pot to accommodate them. They also take up a lot less precious space under the grow lights this way.


Eggplant


Tomatoes (in 50/50 soil and vermicompost mix)

Saturday Morning, March 28 - Progress Photos

Snow Peas taking off -- now there are 6 of 8!


1 of 1 Zucchini Plant - these require 9 squares in the square foot garden. I'm sure they are worth it!


There's a little melon seedling peeking through here (1 of 2)


Cucumber (1 of 6)


Broccoli (7 total, started indoors)

Stuff is Growing!

These photos were all taken this morning. By the time I returned from work, there were two more surprises (not pictured): 1 of 1 zucchini and 1 of 6 cucumbers.

Snow Peas (above)


Radishes (above)



Blue Lake Bush Beans (above, and so you knew about these already...)

OT: tomato plant progress and grow light setup.

Chudo Rinka Tomato plants (above) on March 10. These were sown on February 28.

Same tomato plant today (March 24) 2 weeks later. I guess I have been a bit impatient with my thinking that they don't seem to be growing too fast.

Grow Center: $30

If anyone is interested in the setup that I have to grow my tomato plants, I used an old microwave cart. I have been meaning to freecycle this microwave cart (FOR YEARS NOW) and finally came up with the idea to turn it into a grow station. The cart rolls around on wheels and has a shelf underneath. I purchased 2 undercounter fluorescent lights (about $15 each, one for each pocket) and lined the inside of the shelf with aluminum foil. However, the shelf is already white which is highly reflective, so in hindsight, I could have skipped the aluminum lining step. I used packing tape to tape heavy cardboard over the big opening in the back of the cart. Then, I used an old sheet to cover the entire thing. This keeps the plants warm at night -- recently, they've been growing in 75 degree temperature!

OT: (sorta) newspaper seed starting pots

What's not in the ground right now are tomatoes, eggplant and maybe a few others. I started tomatoes in little newspaper pots as early as February 7. Those wound up in our daughter's Preschool classroom and they did not fare too well (not enough light.) I was able to rescue a few plants by bringing them home and sticking them under a grow light.

A few subsequent batches (Feb 28 and March 2) of tomato seedlings are doing MUCH better because I kept them warm (in the house) during germination and I placed them underneath the grow lights as soon as they emerged.