March 2011 Archives

This morning as I was waking up, this thought popped into my head: "Hey - don't squash and cucumber seeds sprout really quickly?"  I did some quick day-counting and realized that it's been four days since I planted the seeds. 

So I stumbled off to the laundry room to check on the seedlings.  Behold! Some of them have sprouted!

I'm most pleased about the zucchini sprout (back row, left) and the Lollipop tomatoes (front row, left) because those are the seeds I saved myself.  Hooray! ^_^

They all look pretty anemic, and so I immediately put them in the sun so that they can start making some chlorophyll.

The reason they're so pale and ghostly-looking is that they sprouted in the dark.  I can't remember exactly why I started sprouting the seeds in the dark. o.O  I'm starting to rethink it, since the seeds come up all stringy and starved for sunlight. 

The Lollipop seeds that I bought are coming up as well, and they'll probably go in the sun tomorrow.

I love watching the little seeds grow - it's like magic!

And I really need to remember to check on the outdoor sprouts (the lettuce & radishes) when I get home. :-/

I planted the plant beh-behs today! ^_^

My seed-starting practices are pretty heavy on plastic, but the idea is to keep moisture sealed in so that I don't have to disrupt sprouting plants by dumping water on them.  When they sprout, I'll remove the plastic parachute that's taped over them.

Yeah, so they don't look very exciting so far. :-/

I'm too lazy to walk into the laundry room, pull the black plastic bag off of the seed tray (to block sunlight), and look at exactly what I planted, so let's see how well I can remember:

• Lollipop tomatoes
• Illini tomatoes
• Hungarian Italian Paste tomatoes
• Chinese Five-Color peppers
• Cayenne peppers
• Jalapeno peppers
• Hungarian Hot Banana peppers
• Thai Hot peppers
• Doe Hill Golden peppers
• Orange Bell peppers
• Suyo Long cucumbers

And I planted three kinds of seed that I saved myself from last year's garden:

• Lollipop tomatoes
• Jalapeno peppers
• Zucchini

The Lollipops & jalapenos I planted twice - one set from bought seed and one set from saved seed.  This is the first time I've ever tried to plant seeds that I saved, so I made sure I have a backup plan. 

The zucchini were kind of an accident.  When I was cleaning up the garden a few weeks ago, I found a zucchini that had been on the dead vine all winter.   There was a little hole in it, and when I picked it up, it rattled.  So I punched a bigger hole in it and confirmed that there are dried seeds inside it.

In the background of this picture you can see yet more plastic - my garden beds are currently covered in it to prevent weeds and kill the weeds that had already sprouted through last year's landscaping fabric. Grr.

It's interesting that all of the green color bleached right out of the zucchini and it looks kind of like an overgrown butternut squash rather than a zucchini. 

The plants are waking up!  The hydrangeas and lilac started putting out buds last week, and this week the ume started.  The poor ume is unfortunately half-dead due to an unfortunate encounter with the weed-eater last year. Oops.

The daffodils have also been growing above ground for about a week.  As I drive around town, I notice lots of daffodils that are already blooming.  I suppose mine are running late.

I finally prepped the garden beds this past weekend.  Now I'm all sore - I guess my gardening muscles got soft over the winter!  I turned some aged horse manure into the raised beds and then stapled black garbage bags over them.  The idea is for the black plastic to prevent weeds from sprouting until I'm ready to plant, then the plastic is going away.  This year I'm going to try using wheat straw as a garden mulch.

I haven't planted my seeds yet, that's next on the list.

While cleaning up the garden, I found a zucchini left over from last year.  Some sort of critter had chewed a hole in it, and the insides appear to be pretty much dried out.  I'm planning to plant some of those seeds to see if they'll grow.

As far as wild herbs go, I have a nice crop of chickweed, and the cleaver's situation looks promising.  I also think the violets are reappearing, but the leaves are so small now that it's hard for me to be certain.  I've definitely got to harvest the chickweed soon because the yard is looking kinda furry and the grass needs to be mown!  (I'm not looking forward to starting that up again, either. *sigh*)

Most surprising of all is that the tulips have reappeared!  I was thinking they were dead since the dear munched on their leaves last year.   But over half of them came up!  I actually haven't seen any sign of deer this winter.  I hope last year was a fluke.