Putting Maggie to Work

Following last year's failure to get any seeds to germinate, and the subsequent building of the Magical Potting Shed, we finally got to put Maggie to work. I'm not finished insulating Maggie, she's about 60% complete, and I need to buy a couple more sheets of insulation to get her to the point that Chief can put up the OSB walls. However, between the insulation I do have, and the warmer nights, L.E. and I decided it was time to start our seeds.

Not only did Maggie get to work, but we got to use the re-purposed potting bench! I've been looking forward to this day for a long time. Maggie isn't a large shed, but she's big enough for the three of us to work in there side-by-side. The pull-out dough board was perfect! It allowed me to work between L.E. and the Bionic Cowgirl without us bumping elbows.

This pull-out dough board is the
reason I fell in love with this piece.

Mom donated vintage trays to use.

L.E. getting going on her seeds.

L.E.'s seeds happily hanging out in a
south window.

My seeds in the other south window.

L.E. always plants a much more diverse garden than I do, but I'm getting there. This year, I'm attempting sugar snap peas, potatoes, and onions, which are already in the ground. The peas are starting to come up, but the potatoes and onions aren't doing much. They went in a week after the peas, so I expect to start seeing something in the next week or two.

The seeds I planted are San Marzano, brandywine, and cherry tomatoes, along with some small watermelons. I've become such a hoarder re-purposer, that I couldn't let L.E. get rid of a pallet stand thingy that her house windows came on. Instead, I'm going to enclose the bottom pallet, add dirt, and plant the watermelon so it can climb the pallet-formed trellis. 

I realized that after I plant the watermelons, I will still have a lot of area in the pallet that was going to be full of dirt, and I can't let that be unused. I looked up companion plants for watermelon, and found that I'd planted most of those elsewhere, but did find that they do well with peppers, so I'll buy some jalapeno and serrano starts to keep the watermelon plants company. 

I've also been trying to figure out what to plant on the north side of the pea patch, because I can't let that good dirt go to waste. I think I've settled on glass gem popcorn. I have a couple of varieties of sweet corn that I planted last year, but we have a very generous neighbor who allows us to harvest his sweet corn, so it seems silly to grow my own, if I can get some guaranteed good stuff from him. My glass gem popcorn didn't do well last year, but maybe this year, with more space it'll do better. Also in the pea patch, I'll plant cucumbers.

This is a huge increase from my attempt last year, but I've made some tweaks to my gardening plans, which basically means container gardening is out and in-ground gardening is in. 

Send all of the green thumb juju my garden's way, please. It'll need it.