Vegetable Gardening
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23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Look for cedar fence pickets. Cost around $40 for me to make a bed that is 18 ft x 4 ft x 11 in
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-Incense-Cedar-Dog-Ear-Fence-Picket-Common-5-8-in-x-5-1-2-in-x-6-ft-Actual-0-625-in-x-5-5-in-x-72-0-in-458830/202703421?MERCH=REC--NavPLPHorizontal1_rr--NA--202703421--N
Something doesn't sound right with the peppers... tomato and pepper cotyledons are fairly hard to distinguish and of similar size. What varieties are they?
They look like this: http://bunchfamily.ca/watching-little-things-grow/20130404tomatocotyledons/
Chinese 5 Color, Poblano, Peach Habanero, regular and purple Jalapeños, Shishito, and a few others I can't remember at the moment. Yeah, that's how my tomatoes look. It's not quite this extreme, but the peppers look more like this:
https://mountainplover.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/pepper-cotyledons-vs-leaves-lah.jpg
You will probably want to check out all the FAQs on the Growing from Seed forum here as well as those on the Growing Under Lights forum as they cover your questions in more detail.
But if you wish to use the fish tank and if you can get the light close enough to the plants (no further above them than 1-2") it should work. Enclosing them in the tank isn't necessary, just the light, and it could get too hot for them in an enclosure so watch the temp.
For future reference - plants are supposed to be removed from any heat mat just as soon as they are germinated. They should not remain on heat mats after germination begins.
Dave
For seeds you want to germinate you would measure at about the depth the seed will be planted or a bit deeper. For transplants you measue at the depth you are putting the root ball. As for the time, it doesn't matter. Unlike air temps, soil temps don't change that rapidly.
Dave
There was a sale on Bonnie's at Home Depot this weekend, and we are probably not past LFD yet and the soil is still very cold, people buying overgrown tomato plants flowering in the pots with frost damage and sunburn, peppers, eggplants, basil, there were ravenous hordes, I don't know what they were all thinking. I sincerely doubt they will take back any of the plants.
They were also had this crappy black dyed mulch on sale, that lost its color in 1 rainstorm for me last year, and there was a line out the door for it, I don't know why people buy that junk either.
We stocked up on the cheap colored mulch at HD (no lines, early bird and all that). I use it to keep weeds down around my raised beds, don't really care much if the color stays or goes as long as it keeps the weeds down and the dogs from pooping where I walk while gardening.
It's good to see that your concrete blocks are still in pretty good shape after years of being your raised bed border. In fact, they can be used again, which might not be possible to say about some wooden raised beds.
So that means you just need to clear up the surrounding area to make the garden look not like it was thrown together, as you put it.
I would suggest to hoe or remove the sod/grassy parts between the beds or between the bed and driveway (the curved part). You can then mulch it or put those crushed granite/rocks there.
Having some kind of border edging material or weed guard would be fine also. I just worry about any car accidentally driving over it (which being grass now, is OK, but being edging, would hurt it)
You can also buy some covers for the square or round beds, and that will help make them look more finished also, as well as increasing the height. Giving it some additional height from the ground also helps a raised bed look more pronounced.
An example of the mulched look is here in this thread, which you might like to follow also for some additional discussion on almost a similar topic.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/2981580/reconfiguration-of-my-garden
You have a pretty nice area to work with. With all gardens it's a matter of budget and design. If you want to re use the blocks I would definitely recommend doing some leveling. If you could find spare lumber or have the budget, I always like to use wood beds. Treated is the best but a lot of mine are just old 2x6's I could find for free and treat myself. In the case of between your beds I would recommend using weed cloth and mulch. It REALLY helps with the weeds and gives your garden a nice clean look. Here is the mulching I just did this weekend. 
I buy my mulch by the truck load so all this was about 100$. Like I said earlier you have a really cool spot to work with. You'll get out of it, the time you put into it.
If you pull up all the photos Jon Hughes has posted here of his many concrete block beds you can see all the things he grows in his block's holes. Green bunching onions is one of them but most any shallow-rooted plant will work. Carrots might if you stick with the small Nantes varieties.
Dave
I mined my entire garden with snap traps this spring after suffering through the same issues last year. Fifty dead mice (and a few voles) later, the amount of mouse damage has greatly decreased. Use PB. I think a mouse or vole is a more likely culprit than a squirrel, esp. for brassicas.
Thank you, I understand they need space. Unfortunately, I do not have much of it and my husband really wants a watermelon - I have to try to let him see for himself we can't do it and never ask about it again) He already won 1 melon every year - it did work well right in the turnip bed. But watermelon is too much for our tiny yard. By the way, are there any variety of bush watermelon?
Yes there are several varieties of bush watermelon. Easiet to find is Bush Sugar Baby. It is not really a bush but has short stubby vines that only run three ft or so. Another option is to grow a persomal size melon on a trellis. Yellow Doll, Red Delicious, New Hampshire Midget etc.
Menu at the top. "View" -> Zoom. Also reading glasses (which I use routinely).
Dan the print was 3 times smaller than normal. It has corrected itself now. Thaks to the others for the advice to correct it. If it happens again I will know what to do.