Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Seeds in the Greenhaus!

(cute mini greenhouse from Ikea my husband purchased and assembled for me years ago as a gift.  A little broken up panels, but still lovely and useable)

Now, it's just time for the waiting. 

I say this every year to my husband, "It's only a week of actually real hard work each season, prepping it all and planting seeds..." then it's all just maintenance from there on out.

"Uh huh," he replies tactfully.

I like being outside though, and need to be outside when it gets warmer 1) because I need the vitamin D as I don't drink real milk any more  2) it keeps me sane and 3) it's really my only form of exercise.

Once I start being unable to heave 50lb bags of soil over my shoulder I know I'll need to hit a gym (or a trainer, sorry, I hate gyms to be honest).  If it wasn't for the garden or walking the dog (or hiking when possible), I would never be outside sadly as wifi at the house doesn't extend 2 feet from the walls of the house, if I'm even that lucky.  Granted I don't need internet all the time, and this year, my netbook has an average battery life of 4 hours vs the 20 minutes of my old clunker, hurrah!

But back to seeds/seed starting:
 
-I have planted 2 cells of each kind of tomato seed I have/saved/been given: Amish paste, Stupice, Italian Heirloom, Tiny Tom, Brandywine, Nebraska Wedding, and Green Zebra striped.

-2 cells each of 4 different types of bell peppers (unfortunately no official names... but as I received so many seeds, I decided to plant them despite my poor luck in the past with peppers): purple, red, green thick walled and tiny orange ones.

-1 cells of tomatillos that I recently saved and am super excited about.  Oddly delicious, bust your mouth open with green apple taste.

-I can't not plant hot peppers, love them so, so I used some leftover seed w/one pot each of: Chinese Ornamental, calico/tricolore garda (I had an extra pod lying around and I can't tell which), cubanelle and serrano!

In the mail today came SIX more tomato varieties that my Mother in Law had extras lying around and I had professed interest in, so now when I have time (and can buy/eat/finish a plastic dozen grocery store bakery container of donuts to make a greenhouse from) I will plant those lovelies and round out my tomato plan to THIRTEEN varieties of tomatoes this year!   It's a little overwhelming, but exciting.  I need to note which are determinate and indeterminate though before I plant them out or it'll be the mess of last year's "Gurney's Oop's we dropped a pile of tomato seeds, let's sell them as a set!" incident.

I tended to put 3-4 seeds/cell or pot, though sometimes more got in.  I'll just thin them out later if they go crazy before transplanting to bigger pots.  Some of the seeds we're the plumpest, so I wasn't sure if they'd be healthy enough to germinate. 

I was thinking of one variety of tomato plant apiece in my backyard garden... maybe trellis a few along the fence if  I need room, but I think I may need to grow tomatoes in the front yard this year!   Ooh, DRAPED over my brick mailbox... I think it might like that.  I think it would be nice to also give the mail man a treat whenever he likes too.  He always puts candy in our mailboxes too as odd as it is and milkbones for the dog.  Am I supposed to tip him?

The weather is supposed to warm up in the low 50s this weekend, but then goes down to lows in the freezings.  Dagnabbit! (sp?)  I want to plant some seeds outside! I know that some of my peas and other kales and things can germinate at low temps (I actually have some peas that have hung on/sprouted despite the weather that I planted earlier this winter outside!)... I just hate working out in the cold and worry worry worry about screwing up germination still.  Cold wet soil, never good.  But some plants can handle it. 

March is coming along soon, and if the past is of any worth, I can ignore "proper" planting time and just get seeds in and put milk jug cloches on top if I'm really worried.

I'm going to watch my seeds now, k'thanx, bye ;)