The rest of April’s gardening activities included starting potatoes, kale and butternut squash outside and many types of tomatoes inside.

For the regular non-sweet potatoes, I planted 5 pounds including 4 varieties of big potato and two types of fingerlings in 5 gallon buckets.

A selection of 2.4 kg of various types of potatoes to plant.

Planting potatoes.

Then I covered up everything with a tarp until it can germinate and to keep the dogs out, hopefully. I also constructed a makeshift trellis for beans using some of the wire fencing I got for the catio I have yet to build, and some steel poles I had on hand from past Burning Man structures.

Makeshift bean climbing poles using the 10 foot steel poles I got from someone off Craigslist years ago for Burning Man.

First garden bed, planted.

This was the first of many supplies of “garden soil” I got from Home Depot. Unfortunately it turned out to be less soil and basically just wood chips.

Ruffie felt comfortable near the garden.

Ruffie sleeping in the sun next to the garden.

Meanwhile inside I started a bunch of tomatoes, sweet potatoes and various beans and squash.

Garden status 2025-04-20: My first indoor seed starting setup is pretty janky, but seems to work. I've got tomatoes in the back and various beans in the front, and sweet potatoes in the salad container.

Garden status 2025-04-20: Tomato seedlings at 7 days.

I quickly decided to upgrade my small rolling shelf to a better 2x4 foot one that I could mount my longer plant lights and a heat mat in.

Garden status 2025-04-27: I upgraded my indoor seed starting shelves a bit. Now I can do a full 2x4 foot heating mat.

The seeds I directly sewed outside started to sprout as well, yay!

Garden status 2025-04-18: The kale and butter nut and acorn squash are sprouting.

Garden status 2025-04-18: The kale and butter nut and acorn squash are sprouting.