First Time Detroit Garden - How Are We Doing?

[Dreaming Detroit]

Halfway through the rehab process on the Detroit house we bought at auction to live in, and I realized "Hey, I wonder if now would be a good time to start our garden seedlings"... So, 2 weeks ago, I threw together an indoor greenhouse setup made out of empty boxes and trash, planted seeds in rolled up phone book pages à la gardenbetty.com and a week later, found out I was right on schedule.

4 days later, we had a mess (an actual MESS) of lettuce and cauliflower happening. Plus fungus. Too wet, no circulation, and not enough light getting down into this beast of a box. So, the next weekend, I started moving single seedlings into more conventional trays with heating pads and grow lights.

Today, we have just about everything sprouting, and it's all very leggy because I only have the one grow bulb, so I'm filling the cells the rest of the way with potting soil up around the stems, and it's looking better now. Also, I made the decision to remove the domes and place the seedlings outside in the sun since it's warmed up this week. I guess, depending on how they do, I may just start leaving them outside and covered inside a garden work bench at night or something, and only bring them in when it's going to freeze.

I've made a garden plan for raised beds and decided where everything will go. It's going to be a lot for a first try, but I guess this is how two people with ADHD try things (see our house project...) This plan is to scale with the distance between two lines on the page being 6"

So what do you think? How big a disaster is this?

 

[Kansas Terri]

If it works it works, and I never argue with success!

 

[pandora]

I would call it a successful start! It is all about experimenting with what you learn. I mean after all, you already learned about the issue and importance of lighting. Plus you added more soil (much needed). Some plants need to be bumped up to a slightly bigger pot (not sure what you are planting, maybe I missed it - but loved all your pictures), or when transplanting them into your very organized plan raised garden bed (loved the diagram, too) make sure you plant them deep enough into the soil. Hope to see more pictures of your progress!