Rows of snap and snow peas in the porch containers with a central olla. Two of the varieties of very old seed didn't germinate so I had a few empty sides (there are 3 containers). But! I found some shelling pea seed that I had seed-saved a few years ago so I just reseeded those rows (and the blank spaces in the sidewalk raised bed) with those.
Got the new spinach seedlings transplanted into the Tidy Cats litter bucket planters in the cold frame. I'm letting the overwintered Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach (leaves seen at the bottom) go to seed (hopefully) as it's my only heirloom variety. I harvested the Double Choice Hybrid (also overwintered) this week and filled a gallon ziplock bag full of leaves. It will probably want to bolt too, but I'm hoping not until the new plants have sized up.
The direct sown radish seed (free, scavenged) is coming up and doing well. Eventually I'll have to thin it and give the extras to the chickens, but these are being grown for the flowers primarily because I'm not fond of radishes to eat. The beneficials were ga-ga about the flowers last year though. And the chickens liked the leaves once they were done flowering and setting seed.
Volunteer cornflower/bachelor's buttons. There were also half a dozen volunteers in the cracks in the sidewalk that I very carefully pulled and replanted—I think most of them will make it so I decided I didn't need to sow any of the seed I saved from last year.
I did get about six packs of other flowers started though. I have them in the cold frame instead of inside on the heat mat because there is no room thanks to the warm season starts. I also direct sowed a row of calendula in the in-ground bed in front, this time right next to the stepping stone path instead of the sidewalk.
I also sowed a row of Red Cored Chanteney carrots in that bed because why not. We'll see if any actually germinate. It was also from the free scavenged seed stash so no biggie.
The seedling on the left is what happens when roly-polys decide that your bok choy is more delicious than eating detritus. The right is one they left alone for comparison. Just a reminder that they will 100% eat your seedlings and don't listen to any gardeners that tell you differently. I caught them in the act and picked them off before thinking to snap a pic.
Seedlings are now up in all three of the part-shade earthboxes—Yedikule lettuce, Red Ruby Swiss chard, and mixed kale (in with the replanted green onions). I still need to make caps for the fill tubes so I don't get mosquitoes breeding, but they've been foiled by the wild weather swings so far so I have time.
A bag of these new potatoes was included in the food waste for my chickens, but were sprouting a little too much for me to feel good about feeding them out. So I planted them instead in a bed that I was planning on mostly letting the sunchoke have this season (plus some cosmos). If they don't come up or introduce fungus to this soil, no big deal, which is the main concern with planting grocery store potatoes.
And finally, at least two of the strawberries in the earthbox survived the winter. No berries this year though—need these to make lots of runners to make lots more plants. If they reproduce enough then I'll transplant them into the deck box planter to make a whole strawberry bed for next year.
