How does your garden grow, Part 1

In anticipation of spring's arrival, I bought a bunch of seed packets at the store a couple of months ago. I hadn't counted on having snow on the ground in the final days of March. Snow = cold ground = no planting happening. We were forced to take matters into our own hands, and we're starting seeds indoors for the first time. Here are a couple of sites with info - Garden Web and good ol' Ed Hume This isn't actually the first time we've started seeds indoors, it'll just be the first time we've done it right. Last year I started them inside in the kitchen greehouse window. The seedlings turned out skinny and spindly, and promptly keeled over when they were relocated to the outdoors.

This time, we bought some large seed trays, a light ballast, and a couple of grow lights. We spent about $30. I even hung the fixture all on my very own, drilling pilot holes (let's not count how many) into the ceiling out in the garage. The kids and I planted bell peppers, green leaf lettuce, spinach, golden tomatoes, romas, walla walla sweet onions, and basil. We're watering them with warm water for the first few days, and we have the light suspended about one inch above the surface of the soil. They get light for 12-14 hours/day.

Also in preparation for the growing season, we are expanding our garden plot. For the past two years it's been about 3'X6' - not very big, but big enough to grow a little of this and a little of that. We're doubling that space this year, and taking advantage of containers (for example, transplanting tomatoes into pre-existing tire planters). I was curious about the composition of our soil, so I bought a Planters' Pride soil test kit.

First we tested the pH...
Apparently our soil is alkaline/neutral. Whatever that means.

Then we tested a few of the components of the soil (nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash - what is potash???). We followed the directions very carefully. Here's Nat shaking up the soilwater in one of the little vials before we let it sit for 10 minutes.

And here's what we ended up with at the end of the 10 minute wait.

Hmmmm... something wasn't right. They didn't look anything like the colors on the packaging!

Being the proactive person that I am, I promptly contacted Planters' Pride to try and find out what might have gone wrong. Here is the email I received in reply:

In regards to the test that didn't work I would suggest to try them
again. The one thing you need to make sure is that your soil is
completely dry when you administer your tests or they will not work.

Ha... ha, ha. That's funny. Where am I going to find dry soil in the Pacific Northwest in early spring? I guess we'll have to dry it out ourselves next time we have a desire to know how much potash is in our dirt. Maybe next year.

Be sure to keep checking back for more on our experiments in gardening....