Cold Hardy

Some of the peas sprouted today! No sign of the cilantro yet, but it has been cold, I wouldn't sprout either. I've been keeping all the sprouts I started indoors outdoors all day and overnight now. The plan is to keep them outside until I get back from the wedding (my sister, Kelli, is getting married in CA, in case I have readers that are not my grandma) and then I'll transplant them to their final pots. Then I'll check the forecast, if it looks good I'll sow the carrot seeds and nasturtium seeds.

Necessary Selection

I'm in the thinning stages with my sprouts. Only the biggest sprout per seed pod wins! I hate this part. It seems to me that if a seed sprouts and makes it, it should be able to make it. But that isn't how it goes. If too may are too close they will choke each other out and then no one wins. I've started doing this earlier than I did last year, I already know the outcome, there is no sense delaying the inevitable and this gives the winners a better start. Still, it hurts. The other confounding factor is space. I only have so many pots and so large a patio.

There was a frost last night, so we're not out of the woods yet. Despite that, the chives keep growing. I'd say they are about five inches tall now.

Indoors, to manage my basil mania I've been putting the clippings into shallow bowels of water to keep them fresh until I use them. Now some of those have grown roots and are growing! I'm thinking pesto is a good idea for supper.

Peas Rotate Your Crops

Today was cold and gloomy, but I did get some planting done on the patio. I planted the cilantro in half of its pot. The packet recommended succession sowing, so while I don't have rows of garden to do that with, I'm doing one half of the pot now, and I'm planning to sow the other half once the first batch gets established. I also planted the sugar peas. I really don't know what to expect from them. That made it hard to know how many seeds to plant in the pot I have designated for them, but looking back over the info on them I am thinking of going from two plants to four. I can always pull them out if they are getting over crowded as long as I do it early enough. (I've learned my lesson on overcrowding after the tomatoes.) Below is the info on the peas from the Baker Creek site:

De Grace New!
A lovely dwarf variety that was grown in America before 1836, and likely much longer ago in Europe. This variety has been extinct to the North American seed trade for more than 20 years, so we are happy to bring back this great pea. The pods are medium sized and sweetly flavored, crisp and tender. The vines produce over a long season and are more frost hardy than many modern varieties.

I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but the chives from Tracy that were on the patio have started growing. Making good time of it too. I didn't look at them for maybe three days and they went from nothing at all to three inches tall. Nothing from the strawberries yet. Also this evening I moved all the planted pots to the edge of the patio so they would start getting real sun.

I can really understand the Dust Bowl after readying my former tomato pot for the peas. The soil was nearly ruined. I was able to see that all the roots from the tomatoes had crowded the edges to the point of a near solid wall and the soil in the middle was kicking up serious dust as I tried to work it up and get some of it out of the pot to be replaced by new potting soil and some moisture control potting mix. I used the same soil in my other pots and they had not deteriorated nearly so extremely, certainly no dust choking me. I have never read anything about tomatoes destroying the soil and I know that I overcrowded them, however after seeing the number they did, when I start planting in the ground (some day) I will think twice before planting tomatoes in the same spot every year.

All Aboard

Good news! All my window sill seeds have sprouted. That answers my question about whether the seeds from last year were still good. The California Wonder Peppers took the longest, but they finally made it. I had no idea the sage would look so different from the rest when it sprouted. Its color is just like it will be when mature and the first sprout leaves are very round and thick. The violas are very tiny still. Fitting I guess.

Soon I'm planning to take the cover off the seed starting tray, at least during the day. That particular window gets a terrible draft even though we've sealed it up. The next step will be to give the seedlings some time outside.

The blog I did not link to before for lack of time was Grow Lively which I actually found through the Crunchy Con blog.

Springtime

Tomorrow is the beginning of daylight savings time and while for many that means one less hour of sleep, I find I can suspend my usual jealousy about my sleep and be nothing but happy at the prospect of more evening sunlight. To help the feeling along, it is a high of 75 today.

For the garden segment of this post: This morning one of the Roma tomatoes sprouted.

In case you haven't noticed, I've started using this blog as a way to document my garden. More for my benefit than anyone else's. Still I hope it is enjoyable to read about my garden. I got the idea from another blog. I'll link to that next time, I have to go eat breakfast. Waffles and bacon!

Signs of Life

Chamomile sprouted yesterday. Quite quick. The instructions said not to cover the seeds but I had no choice since they are in the same container as the others so I hope this is not a sign that they are getting ahead of themselves.

As Promised

Here are some pictures from last year's garden.

The cucumbers that never were. I couldn't keep them watered enough, the pots were too small. They grew long and thin and never made cucumbers longer than an inch. Then they were attacked by tiny spiders and were covered with a thin veil of web, which essentially blocked out the sun and killed them. All rather horrific. I decided not to try cucumbers on the patio this year. I'll wait until I can plant some in the ground. The tiny little sprouts are strawberries. I barely got strawberries, but I'm expecting that this year those plants will produce fruit.


These were the first fruits. Mini chocolate bell peppers, a mini red bell pepper, and very small carrots. The carrots eventually grew much larger and were quite tasty. I'll be planting those again this year. I'm going to let them have the whole pot this time instead of having them share with the green onions (which weren't very successful). I also used the carrot greens in stir fry for a little green addition and my plan is to use it this year in place of parsley. The mini bell peppers were great stuffed with cream cheese and herbs and baked.


This is the new patio in the process of the move. We kept our books on the porch for the first couple weeks. On the left are some of the bell pepper plants. On the right are the green onions and the carrots. Carrots make a lot of green.


On the right is one of the mini bell pepper plants. On the right is the California Wonder bell pepper plant. I had three of those. They don't grow nearly as large in a container as you find in the grocery store. However, they were a great size for a household of two. I have some strategies for my garden this year that might allow for bigger produce, or at least more of it.

That's the gist of it. In the end it was quite wild looking. I'm sure it will be even crazier this next year. Today I planted Broad Leaf Sage and Helen Mount Violas seeds in my window sill starter garden. Technically the Violas weren't supposed to be started indoors, but they are such a year round adaptable flower as far as I can tell that I decided to satisfy my impatience. It was a snowy day and it promises to be a cold week. Come this weekend it should warm up and I think I'll plant some of the seeds outside that are supposed to be able to be started outside before the last frost. That makes me nervous, but I'm trying to trust the seed packets. You have to start somewhere.