Well we had a storm scare but the garden is officially up and running! Our hearty Spring vegetables have been planted marking this the official start of the gardening season!  

On April 1 we planted all of our broccoli, cauliflower, pak choi, onion, kale and lettuce seedlings which just sprinkled the empty garden with green! I love this time of the year where you watch the empty garden transition into a green wonderland, cheering on every single seedling to grow big and strong!    When we transition the seedlings into Spring we always spend a few days to harden them off, and then we spend one long afternoon planting everyone in their new home. 

With your instructions for how to build a container and how to plant a raised bed garden box all read already (I hope!), alongside your seeds you’ve been growing for months (you have been, right?) then we’re ready to push the garden into Spring and wait for baskets full of harvest!

First let’s say hello to our baby garden beauties (aka the seedlings).

First, we have our 12 broccoli seedlings! 

Oh they’re just adorable when they’re so little.

Then we have our 12 cauliflower seedlings, equally as cute (of course).  Note that they are in sets of 4 as we will grow 4 plants in each container.

Then we have 6 kale plants which I always get so excited to watch grow.   We’ll be planting these in the long container but I’m spoiling the pictures below by telling you this already.

Well, we were only going to grow 4 lettuce plants but we ended up with 8 because we couldn’t kill of any of the seedlings.  We are horrible at killing off seedlings, it hurts our feelings so bad.

There’s a ton of onions, so many I forget.

And there’s 6 pak choi plants which are just gorgeous with their purple and green colors!

Now let’s take a look at each as we plant…

Hi broccoli.  Are you as amazed as I am to know a little seed turns into this which turns into a full plant producing a giant head of broccoli?  I’m like a broken record about this but it’s just really special to think about this and watch them grow.

Broccoli baby, you are growing to grow so big!

Cauliflower you guys are going to grow big too!  When planting, we cut 4 X’s in the plastic and then plant in them.

Broccoli and cauliflower is all planted!

In the first few weeks when we’re unsure of the nights might get too cold we’ll keep them under the greenhouse.  We always put filled water bottles inside the greenhouse.  The water bottles will warm up with the sun during the day, keeping the warmth to last through the night heating up the seedlings.

The kale was planted next to it’s 6 older brother kale plants.  We found that the kale grows much better in this long wooden container than in a plastic container so we’re going back to that this year.  This box is located in front of a big wall so it helps keeping them in shadow during the Summer, keeping the roots cooler.

The onions are always crazy looking. Each long green piece is a onion, so we have to separate them all to grow individually.   To do this you just carefully shake them out, while gently (!) pulling it away.  After a while you’ll get quick with this, it’s a technique you’ll learn to love! 

I’m holding what’s going to be about 6 onions just between my fingers.  Awesome, right?

Onions are planted!  There’s 2 batch of them this year, but here’s one of them.  In the back of this box 2 rows of sugar snap peas are growing.

Lettuce is planted! Off to the left some carrots will grow and to the back more sugar snap peas! This is going to be a happy box!

Now I just have to figure out what I’m going to do with 8 lettuce plants…!

High 5 garden boy, now our garden is ready to grow! (We don’t plan on matching.. I swear!)

Have you planted your seedlings yet?