Newbie in Las Vegas, year 1!

sanderson wrote:Flowers like in volunteer marigolds or flowers as in female cucumber?

Cucumber seedlings indoors are flowering...   

Guess the dirt and the light are maybe TOO good!

What have your daytime temps been like?  I've seen starts at the store blooming but I worry that your plants will get too far ahead of themselves.  Here is a chance for an experiment but one thing I would surely do is start a few more seeds immediately in case all goes south.  Try planting the blooming cukes in 5 gal buckets that can be set outside in a protected area during the day and moved back inside at night.  You can stake them up with shorter stakes until they can go out permanently then add taller stakes. Cukes grow very well in buckets.   And if some female blossoms appear, hand pollinate them.  Who knows, you might have some really early cukes     And you still have a month to get more plants.  Remember, seeds are fairly cheap.  If I transplanted mine out with 30 days to go, my luck would be to get a late frost.  Happy gardening whatever you decide.

Kay

So as far as the cucumbers flowering, I just pinched them off and the plants seemed to get back to work growing.

I'll probably be transplanting the cukes, tomatoes, and maybe hot peppers to the garden tomorrow.

My tomatoes just started trying to flower, so I pinched those off as well.

But here!  Let me show you them!

Garlic!



Cucumbers!  Sorry it's blurry...



Tomatoes!



My carrots are already sprouting!



Radishes!  They sprout so fast!



Peas!



Black Hungarian peppers!  (Basically a jalapeno that turns blackish)



California Wonder bell peppers!  (the small lighter green plants in the foreground; terrible germination, gah!)



Other stuff that isn't pictured:

All my Red Bottle/Red Torpedo onions are sprouted, but they look like wimpy grass, so I didn't take a pic of them.
I have a nice cluster of sunflower volunteers in the gravel outside the bed where the sunflower was planted...gonna let them be there.

I planted out last night!

(2) Black Krim tomato plants to Plot A
(2) Cherokee Purple tomato plants to Plot B
(2) Straight Eight cucumber plants to Plot A
(2) Straight Eight cucumber plants to Plot B
(3) Black Hungarian hot pepper plants to Plot A
(3) Black Hungarian hot pepper plants to Plot B

Still left to deal with (some for Plot C)...

(4) Black Krim tomato plants (will likely need a pot or two)
(4) Cherokee Purple tomato plants (will likely need a pot or two)
(2) Straight Eight cucumber plants
(3) Black Hungarian hot pepper plants (one of which likes to fall over, but is otherwise doing well)
(4) California Wonder bell pepper plants (too small to plant out yet)

Pictures later when I get home, if I have enough light!

brainchasm I love reading about your garden and hearing your enthusiasm. Thanks for sharing all the pictures! Everything looks so wonderful and healthy. Congrats.   

Forgot to take pics, sorry!  Yesterday was extra set day in the gym, so by the time I got home it was getting pretty dark out.  Today I should get home in plenty of time though!  I'll get pics of the beds, and I have to build a new grid for Plot C (and likely then plant some stuff out into it).

Pics!

Plot A:



Plot B:



Plot C (I made a new grid right after I took this pic, but by then it was too dark to take a new one):


 

sanderson wrote:   I still have lots to get in the ground.  Are all of those your own home-sown / grown seedlings?

Yup, I start everything from seed.  I did the same last year, except the basil I got from Fresh&Easy (sortof organic grocery store)...it was one of those "live basil" things you stand up in water and keep getting basil from for a while.  I decided to just stick it in the ground, and it went bazonkers!

So no store basil this year...but the girlfriend wants basil, oregano, cilantro, and parsley, so I have to figure out someplace to put all that.

brainchasm wrote:

sanderson wrote:   I still have lots to get in the ground.  Are all of those your own home-sown / grown seedlings?

Yup, I start everything from seed.  I did the same last year, except the basil I got from Fresh&Easy (sortof organic grocery store)...it was one of those "live basil" things you stand up in water and keep getting basil from for a while.  I decided to just stick it in the ground, and it went bazonkers!

So no store basil this year...but the girlfriend wants basil, oregano, cilantro, and parsley, so I have to figure out someplace to put all that.

Idea for Cilantro, altho' your boxes are so neat you may not want to do it.  If you don't mind things looking a bit messy, scatter a handful of Cilantro seeds throughout a box or two.  They are not picky, will shade some crops you might want to have a bit of shade in your area, and when they bloom they attract pollinators like crazy!  They also reseed themselves so you never have to plant again.  You just have to thin the volunteers to control them to where you want them!     The seedlings are very distinctive, so they are easy to spot and pluck if they get too thick.

GG

As far as the herbs my girlfriend wants, I am thinking about using the holes in the brick in the Plot B garden.  The drip hoses pass over those holes, and drip every watering session into them rather nicely.

I don't have to build anything new, I just need to make a little Mel's Mix, and it all looks like it would just work!  Might try and plant those today!

Left side




Unrelated...my peas are just starting to bloom!

Please don't waste the cinderblock holes, especially since they are getting water.    Only plants that need 1 or 2 squares wouldn't be happy in one.  Although I would try 1 pepper plant just to see if there is enough nutrition and root space.  I have a rose garden built out of block that way and I'm going to try tall sunflowers on the west (fence) side, a medium height flower on the north and south sides and portulaca on the east side.  The whole bed gets full sun.

Had portulacas in the holes this past year and they went nuts. 




Kay

Here's a newer pic of Plot C, properly gridded and planted.

Just ordered from rareseeds - genovese basil, purple basil, italian parsley, slo-bolt cilantro, oregano, and broad-leafed sage for those block holes for the girlfriend's herbs!

sanderson wrote:Love rare seeds, aka Baker Creek.

Yup. Was $4 cheaper than Seed Savers too, for basically the same order.

Was weeding yesterday after work, and while I pull any I find, I especially pay attention to the garlic, since it can't shade out any competition...

And lo and behold, I found a volunteer tomato seedling!  I didn't think it was quite warm enough for them to be germinating on their own, but what do I know!  He looked a couple/few weeks old, and had his first true leaves out.  It might be a Black Krim, but the Black Krim from that bed last year made weirdly small fruit (but a LOT of them, and tasty!), so I'm not 100% on whether to keep it.  I did pull it gently, and transplant into one of my pot-up trays, so we'll see what happens,

brainchasm wrote:Just ordered from rareseeds - genovese basil, purple basil, italian parsley, slo-bolt cilantro, oregano, and broad-leafed sage for those block holes for the girlfriend's herbs!

And when the basil blooms you will have bees galore.  Plus the thai basil that I put into a flower bed of impatiens looked great and basil usually reseeds itself.



Kay

Say hello to my little friend!