Garden 2012: It begins!

How is my garlic doing?  Well I'm not totally sure but I think it's still alive and growing.  It seems to be drying out a bit but I'm not sure if that's good or bad and it fell over quite a long time ago:

I'm not sure if this is good or bad or what but it's a bulb, so I don't think I can really kill it unless I overwater it too much right?  I'm nervous to dig them up to check but maybe I should - like I said, it's a bulb.  Maybe this is a project for next week so stay tuned.

What are those little plants at the bottom of the picture?  I started some of my summer plants already!  Hooray!

A few weeks ago I started my Goyo Kumba eggplant, which I learned from trying to grow eggplant last summer, probably need a big head start on the tomatoes.  Most of the plants are poking through the soil now, with a few late bloomers still coming up.  I'm not totally sure if this experiment will work but I'm excited to at least try!  A close up:

One thing I'm doing with all my indoor starter pots is filling them completely with vermicompost from last summer's harvest instead of dirt from the store - I'm hoping this ensures a super healthy head start!  Seems to be working fine so far, and I've actually had to weed the pots a bit because random seeds from other things that got composted last year are sprouting in the fertile mix.

Today (note: this post was scheduled - I actually wrote it last weekend) I got impatient and with an okay from a plant scientist I decided to start my tomatoes!  I think this is okay because at the rate spring is coming, I imagine I'll be able to start keeping my plants outside a lot earlier this year than last year, so starting them a couple weeks ahead of time this year should be okay and will actually give them a good head start.

This year, even though I don't like to mess with a system I know works, I decided to buy a Jiffy Greenhouse for my tomatoes to save space and so I wouldn't have to go through the whole separating of plants like I did last year:

So that's 24 little starter pellets in a compact little tray (and I added a bunch of vermicompost for the nutrients) that when the seeds are ready for transplanting, I just pick up the dirt clump and plant it in a bigger pot!  I'm hoping there's no downside to this.

I'm doing the same variety of tomatoes as last year, plus the spoon tomatoes I talked about a while ago, and a really dark, almost black variety that I can't wait to taste.

I also planted something REALLY COOL today that I really hope works:

That's cauliflower!  (Source - I ordered from here too.)  It looks so cool and I love cauliflower anyway so I wanted to try it out.  Because cauliflower is in the cabbage family I'll have to be careful about maggots, but I'm prepared.

I think this might be it for my vegetable planting this year, since I also want to plant flowers for wedding use (post coming about that soon).  No doubt I will have all my usual herbs, and I'll probably be too tempted to not pick up another vegetable seedling or two at a greenhouse sometime in the spring (it's seriously an addiction) but these are my major food-growing projects for the summer.

I can't wait to see how these all turn out and I hope this is interesting (possibly inspiring?) for you to read!  Planting things is so much fun.