Seed Starting by Gary Emmett ~ A Review

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Mama Manuscripts

I’ve been gardening for a few years, but my attempts at starting my garden from seeds has only been moderately successful. We did not have rooms with a lot of light. The house was a bit drafty. We had cats that liked to nibble on the young greens. Yes, not perfect growing conditions by far. We recently moved into a new house with a lot more room. I actually have a whole granny suite that is empty, bright, warm and can be closed off from the rest of the house, keeping cats and “helpful” toddlers away. I was so thrilled that I went out and bought all my seed growing supplies early so I would be all set.

I also jumped on the opportunity to review Seed Starting – The First Step to Gardening, a Kindle e-book by Gary Emmett. I started it knowing that I had a fair bit of knowledge about starting seeds – just horrible conditions to do so. I loved that this book was written in easy to understand language and broken down into appropriate sections that bring you right from the beginning of the process to transplanting your seedling outside. Topics include planning your garden, providing the right soil and amount of light and so much more. Because of the organization and easy to comprehend language, I am planning to have my 10 year old read this book and take charge of some of the seeds on his own. I think it will be a good spring homeschooling project for him.

While most of the information was not new to me, I did learn some very important information that will be sure to benefit my seedlings. I was sure that my bright and sunlit granny suite would provide adequate light for my plants, but I had no idea how much light young plants really needed. My poor little seedling – despite my best effort – probably would have been weak and straggly without having read this book. I cannot wait to see the difference between this years results and previous years. The garden is what I’ve been looking forward to most in our country home so I cannot wait for the snow to melt to get at it! With the knowledge provided in this book, I know that by early April I’ll be able to plant my tomato and pepper seeds with the squashes to follow about a month later. I’m sooooooo excited!

If you are new to starting a garden from scratch then I highly suggest that you check out this e-book which is currently selling on Amazon.com for 2.95$US. I love it’s step by step instructions and think that anyone would be able to use this book to start growing a successful garden from seeds. Please check back to see what other Mosaic Review team members thought of this book. as well.

Hydroponics – The Set Up

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Mama Manuscripts

I know that I’ve promised you this post on our hydroponic set up for a while but I logged in yesterday to see that the draft I thought I had written up had somehow disappeared so I’m beginning again! Please know that we don’t really have a clue what we are doing so follow out methods at your own risk, you have been warned!

What you need (for deep water culture method):

20 liter rubbermaid tub (ideally with an opaque lid)
Spray paint (black works best)
spring water (municipal tap water has chemicals added that plants just don’t like)
aquarium air pump and opaque tubing (to prevent the growth of algae)
oxygen rock
seedlings (we started in paper towels)
yogurt containers
perlite/vermeculite
drill and bits

The basic requirements for hydroponic growing

First thing you are going to need to do if your container is not opaque is paint it with black paint. You are also going to want to let this air for a few days if you plan on putting your hydroponic system in a closed in area, such a a small green house. We nearly killed out tomato seedlings with the fumes.

You’ll want to very carefully plant your seedling into a perlite mixture contained in your yogurt cartons (the leaves will be too small at this point to be able to suspend the roots directly into the water so we stabilized our plants in a perlite mixture (you can use sand or gravel but perlite is very light and the roots are easily able to grow in this medium)). You’ll then want to drill holes into the cover of your container that are just the right size to fit your yogurt containers. The nice thing about these is that the ledge will keep them from falling into the system so you don’t have to worry about creating any kind of system for the containers to hang on. They’ll fit just perfectly.

Ruadhan demonstrating how nicely the yogurt container fit in our system.

You’ll also drill a hole just the right size to fit your tubing into. You want to keep all your holes are small as possible and you to not want light getting into the water of your system as that we cause algae to grow. Thread the tubing through the hole and attach it to the oxygen rock at one end and the aquarium pump at the other.

Now all that is left to do is add water and your nutrient solution. We are currently using an all purpose mixture as we are in Cape Breton and no one has heard off the ideal concentration for hydroponics. We are also adding Epsom salts to the water and are on a hunt for calcium nitrate (which we also cannot find in Cape Breton). Our plants seem to mostly be growing though not near as quickly as we were promised in all the hydroponic websites we were visiting. We are a ways away from eating a salad (though we could manage a sandwich or two right now!) If you can get to a hydroponics supply shop I highly recommend that you do so. Add the water, turn on your pump and put your seedlings into their new home and you are all set.

Nice and bubbly…you want this so that your roots are oxygenated and do not rot.

We grew our seedlings for about a month is this system and over the past weekend we’ve transplanted them into their final growing spots (I’ll blog about that soon…I’m just waiting for my plants to come back to life before I lead you astray).

Lettuce just before final transplanting.

Despite the slowness of the process (not the right nutrients and lack of sun to blame), this has been an interesting experience for us and we hope to continue to grow our food like this for years to come! I hope you’ll continue to check back to see how it’s going for us (and maybe give it a try for yourselves….it isn’t hard and great science experienment for you homeschoolers out there!)

Hydroponic Gardening – Germination

Posted on April 9, 2011 by Mama Manuscripts

We don’t really have a clue what we are doing, but we’ve decided to give hydroponic gardening a go. The thought of fresh from the garden lettuce and spinach, year round, was just too tempting. I plan on documenting our journey so that firstly, we can learn from the experience and second, hopefully you can learn something, too.

This week’s topic is seed germination. We decided to go the paper towel route. Basically we sprayed down some non-bleached paper towels with water and laid down our seeds (spinach and lettuce) and folder the paper towel back over the seeds. We wrapped the towels in paper to keep the humidity inside and three days later we took a peak to find this….

Spinach (Day 3)

As the the plants sprouted and their heads came out of the seeds we folded our paper towel into quarters lengthwise and lined up our little plant with the roots in the paper towel and the little head out. We then rolled the towel up jelly roll style and placed it in a little container of nutrient rich solution (we are currently going the commercial plant food root…next year, if we get good, maybe we’ll figure out the organic method).

Day 3 (lettuce from seed)

1 week (lettuce)

10 days (lettuce)

Our largest plants are about to find their way into the hydroponic system that we are setting up using yogurt containers, a rubbermaid storage box, an air pump and an oxygen stone. I will post more about our set up in the next week or so. Our little seedlings have already started a good root system so now it is time to move on and see if we can get our wee ones to grow.

Make us proud, little ones…..make us proud!

Friday Fave Five – March 25th, 2011

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Mama Manuscripts

It’s time for Friday Fave Five again. Please be sure to hop over to Living to Tell the Story to share your blessings and joys from the week.

1. Reading aloud to the kids in the in middle of the day. We used to read aloud a lot when we were using Sonlight (before wee baby) but we’d kind of given up on it and instead read mostly at night. Unfortunately, wee boy us usually exhausted at the children’s bedtime so reading had become more of a shout over the whining baby experience than something enjoyable. Early this week, I decided that we need to start reading in the day and it has been a lot of fun. We are currently reading Ida Early Comes Over the Mountain. What a character she is!

2. Being the type of Mum who serves her kids homemade cookies and milk on a blustery spring (?) morning. It makes me feel like a decent housewife and the kid’s (and Daddy) love it. Recipe will follow soon for my very own spicy ginger cookies. I’ve been working on it all week (so, yes, we’ve had LOTS of cookies).

3. Sewing. It’s not my forté but there’s something quite soothing about it.

4. The fact that my hubby is in the kitchen whipping up bread pudding right this minute. He’s been craving it and I have to say that the particular recipe that he chose sounds yummy. Yes, as always, I am blessed to have a hubby that likes to cook from time to time. You have to love Daderday!

5. Seeds, dirt and a wee mini greenhouse. I hope to get my garden started. I love making things grow so I hope to have lots of success this year. I haven’t done so well with starting from seeds in the past but there’s always hope and I’m looking forward to trying again. My goal is to be able to eventually grow everything from seeds I’ve saved from previous years. We’re also looking at hydroponics and aeroponics so that will be a learning experience for us as well and maybe we’ll be able to grow some things year round.

Revisting my Gardens

Posted on March 20, 2011 by Mama Manuscripts

Well, spring is in the air (or well, kind of in the air) and while it will be nearly another three months before we’ll safely be able to plant seedlings in our gardens I’m already beginning the thing about what we’ll be growing this year. Last year was the first time that we did raised bed square foot gardening and it was a learning experience for us.

Our humble little garden, mid growing season, last year.

This season after two years of growing vegetables at home, we need to make some changes. We haven’t saved a penny, yet, from our own gardening adventures and unfortunately we had a fair amount of waste as well. Here are some things I plan to be mindful of this year.

1. Grow things that grow well in the area. Well, according to everyone we spoke to, the things to stick to are root vegetables but we did not find this to be the case. We had more success with tomatoes, green peppers, and our greens. Beets did not grow at all and we only have very mediocre success with onions and carrots. Our first year with potatoes was very sad indeed. We will not try these vegetables again this year. We can easily get them locally at a fair price without using the space in our gardens on things that would grow better for us.Check your local farmers market and if you have limited space in your garden grow the things that grow best in your area and buy the the more finicky things from a local farmer.

2. Plant things early in the season that have a short growing season. We will grow bush beans again this year and will plant them in early June so that when they are done producing we can take out the plants and start another set. Last year we did this but we started the second set a little later in the year so they didn’t produce as much at they would have just a couple weeks earlier. We’ll also grow radishes. You can’t beat a 30 day growing period. If you have a long growing season take advantage of it by growing quick growing vegetables two or three times!

3. Grow things that you’ll eat. I had visions of the kids eating Tiny Tim tomatoes by the handful but that didn’t really happen. Tiny Tims aren’t as cute at little grape tomatoes and somewhat feel like eating a big tomato and the kids just weren’t into them. If we can get little cherry tomatoes I might give them a go but for the most part I thing we’ll stick with Scotia and Roma tomatoes. They were good in sandwiches and we’re easy to can for the winter. We also tried red cabbage but I couldn’t get over the cabbage worms sharing with us and found they had way too much of an earthy taste for my liking. We ate two and despite how long they can be stored, I recently tossed the others that were on their last legs. Cucumbers, zucchini, and peppers are all also favorites in the house and can all be canned for the winter so we’ll stick to these plants. I vow to actually use the green tomatoes that didn’t get a chance to ripen this year as well!

4. Don’t over estimate your needs. We did this we spinach and chard and I swear we had greens coming out of our ears all summer (and fall, we picked the last chard out of the snow in November). The spinach unfortunately went to seed because we just couldn’t keep up with it. We’ll plant about half as much as we did last year and still have more than plenty, I think. I also planted 16 squares of different herbs and only use about half on them on a regular basis. A lot will grow back this year but some will not. I’m think it may have been a good idea to have the herbs in an inside kitchen garden and this is something we may attempt this year.

5. Start plants with a long growing season inside (especially if you live in an area with a short growing season). You’ll maximize your yield this way. It’s a whole other learning process but it is really worth it when you eat the produce that you started right from seed. It’s even better once you start keeping you seeds from the previous year. A full cycle. Beautiful.

6. Try something new. You never know what might grow if you give it a chance. Last year we tried corn that we were given. It didn’t grow, but you never know. We were pleasantly surprised but how much our tomatoes ripened last year when we were told not to even attempt them in Cape Breton. This year we’ll be putting up some chicken wire for plants to grow on and we’ll try peas and other varieties of beans.

7. Have fun. It’s a learning experience. Don’t stress over your garden. Get the kids involved. Get messy. ENJOY!

This post was written for The Christian Home blog carnival. Be sure to visit to read this week’s edition and get inspiration from other Christian homemakers.

A Gardening Update

Posted on September 6, 2010 by Mama Manuscripts

After a rocky start, my garden has finally started producing for us. We’ve had decent success with pretty much everything that we’ve grown this year. We did loose our corn but I wasn’t expecting that to amount to anything. Our chard didn’t quite survive it’s encounter with fungus (or something) though it is still trying to come back . The lettuce was not terribly successful as we’ve come to realize that earwigs love it as much as we do. I’m not sure that we’d plant it again next year. We got our money’s worth but that’s about it.

Each morning we are able to go out and harvest green beens, cucumbers, zucchini, herbs…

and finally tomatoes fresh from the vine.

Here are a just a few we rescued after Earl.

We also have red cabbage that is ready to be picked and onions, too (they taste so good but we didn’t get as many as I anticipated (I know very little about gardening and thought we were going to get bunches of onions). One batch of carrots look great, a bunch in another box didn’t grow at all. We are enjoying our leeks very much and are hoping for beets (though if what I pulled today is any indication then we are going to be VERY disappointed). We have peppers galore just getting a wee bit bigger. Spinach was most definitely worth it, though we would plant less next year. I would say it has been a pretty successful garden and if it grows as well next year then we will have made back our money and more with the start up costs we had this year.

MUCH better than last year and that is all we could have hoped for.

How are your gardens doing? Are you enjoying your produce? Let me know!

Houston, We Have Vegetables

Posted on July 29, 2010 by Mama Manuscripts

Soon to be green bell pepper

Soon to be Tiny Tim tomatoes

Just about a zucchini

Bush beans next week

Nice, as our spinach has now gone to seed, earwigs ate our head lettuce, and we’re just about done the leave lettuce.

What is WRONG with my Garden Wednesday

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Mama Manuscripts

Help! There’s something wrong with my garden. One of our 4 x 4 square foot above ground containers seems to have come down with something and it is even jumping the container and heading towards my spinach in the next box over! It appears to have started in the swiss chard with just a few leaves looking dried

and then spread from there…..

to my bean bush, and like I said, seems to have jumped the container to the first couple leaves of spinach nearby.

I’m not a gardener so I’m looking for answers from those of you that know more than I do. The problem started in the container that has sweet corn and I know that they are known for having diseases so I am wondering if that might be the problem. Also, in case it’ll help diagnose the problem, it’s been pretty wet here.

I’d love some advice. I’m going to go out there and take off all the affected leaves and hope that helps.

Help me….

SAVE THE CHARD! SAVE THE CHARD! SAVE THE CHARD!

What’s Growing in my Garden Wednesday

Posted on June 23, 2010 by Mama Manuscripts

Well, since I no longer have a baby belly to update about weekly, I’ve decided to update on my other little project, the square foot garden. I’ve been quite impressed with it’s growth. I think the mix of warm days and on and off showers has done wonders for it.

The only think we planted from seeds were bean bush and they have popped their heads above ground in the past couple of days. The cucumbers are doing well and so is the leaf lettuce (already being enjoyed in our sandwiches). I wish the chard was doing more but it is still early in the season. I’m anxious to eat it and a sure I will be sick of it come fall!

Strawberries are indeed trying to take over the beats and new year we will definitely give them their own container! My Cauliflower looks really good but we had no success with it last year so I’m up for any advice on how to keep the heads from going to flowers so easily. There’s a row of tomatoes along the top as well and they are the smallest I have but I have hope!

These are my peppers and Tiny Tim tomato plants. The pepper plants have buds not and the Tiny Tim’s are starting to flower so there will little fruits there soon enough!

My Scotia tomatoes and some Romaine lettuce doing will. There is a lone pepper plant looking a little sad and I think cucumbers and carrots as well.

My yummy and successful spinach! We’ve been eating up the baby leaves and have some maturing quite nicely as well. There’s also three pepper plant being taken over by carrot tops and some leeks that I am no so sure about. I’m hoping to actually get some heads of iceburg lettice this year but didn’t have success with them last year.

My herbs are doing well but I won’t post pictures as they won’t change much from week to week with us using them.

I hope you all have beautiful gardens as well!

Mama Manuscripts

Balancing the Wild and Wonderful World of Parenting with a Passion for Writing

Category Archives: Gardening