Tag: Gardening

Building stone beds

Heat retaining stone beds for heat-loving plants

We hat a job working in someone’s garden where we should remove larger and smaller boulders. Of course we took these boulders home with us and made 2 beautiful plant beds with these stones. We used our wheel loader to position the larger boulders. Other than that it is manual work. A plant bed out of boulders is heavy and exhausting, but the result is worth the effort.

To start with my husband positioned the larger stones, after that we filled out the spaces in between with the smaller stones. Than what’s left is filling up the bed with soil, spreading out the soil and finished is the plant bed.

We had a lot of smaller boulders left, so we build another smaller plant bed. To get a curtain height it needs a broad base and then all that is left to do is stack the stones until all have been used. Again fill up with soil, spreading out the soil and finished is the plant bed.

The stones retain the heat of the sun and keep the temperature at night a little higher. I hope to have better results with tomatoes and eggplants in the larger stone bed compared to the normal beds with wood around them. First I am going to use the stone bed for early sowing under cover. Tomatoes and eggplants can’t be planted outside until the middle of Mai any how.

Starting plantlets from seed in doors

I started sowing

It is still a bit early for our region, but I have sowed the first vegetables and herbs inside the house. When the wetter is getting better I find it difficult to wait. I have a small indoor greenhouse and had seen by some one else who used empty milk cartons to sow in. I have used a few of those as well. They fit wonderfully on my small windowsills. I don’t have any seed soil, so I used regular plant soil.

Divide a good layer of soil in the trays, sow and cover with a thin or a thicker layer of soil depending on what was sown. Don’t forget to water carefully and mark what was sown where.

I have sown following:

  • Paprika Kapiya Vertus
  • Eggplant Violetta Lunga
  • Flat leaf Parsley
  • Tomato Gardeners Delight
  • Celery Porthos
  • Celery root Wiener Riesen
  • Real Chamomile
  • Chili De Cayenne
  • Pick lettuce
  • Romaine lettuce
  • Tomato Marmande
  • Wilde Rocket
  • Bush Basil
  • Sage

I have sown ratter dense, so that will be tricky to transplant. Unfortunately I do not have the space to do it differently. I hope the wetter will be useful soon, so I can transplant some of the plants outdoors under a cover, but first we will wait and see if anything germinates, which can take up to 3 weeks for some plants. Mean while it is important to make sure the soil will not dry out.

After 3 days the lettuce and the bush basil already have germinated. I took the milk cartons from the window sills to the table beside the small indoor greenhouse, because I think it is to cold at the window. A window is a cold bridge and it is still very cold outside.