Taking the Tomatoes to the next level

The tomatoes are growing so fast! (Surprise there...)

It's soon coming to the point where I will need to graduate them and their fast growing selves from egg carton holes to TOILET PAPER ROLL TUBE POTS!

 

Big step for these guys.  I contemplated shoving the whole kibosh (seedling with egg carton cutout) into the toilet paper roll tube, but as I have yet to meet a not hardy tomato seedling, I'm just yanking the seedling out of the paper egg carton and carefully moving it into a more vertically soil rich environment of the toilet roll tube.

Such an easy cheap little pot until I move them to spacious digs such as the NEWSPAPER pot, but I'm try to keep them at bay for as long as possible as the garden-garden outside needs time to fill up.

These toilet roll tube pots are so simple.  Take one toilet paper roll tube and cut 4 little snips at one end equidistant from each other:

Bend into each other until they hold and are flat and will stay relatively upright when filled w/dirt and a plant.

Voila! (Viola!):

Instant drainage too is pretty sweet.

Their roots will grow nice and deep in this for a while and I'll let them get a bit "tube pot bound" before their next move.

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 ;)

Prepping for massive soil attack

I have SOIL (and humus)!

I have SEEDS!  

Let's get this thing rolling.


Seed starting tomatoes,peppers, newly grocery store harvested tomatillo seeds and maybe a few herbs tomorrow.

I had bought a few horseradish roots on the cheap from the a grocery store some months back and had stored them in the refrigerator only to find some lovely shoots beginning (even when wrapped in plastic wrap!)

So I'll be planting that in a barrel relatively soon while I let the wound scar up so it doesn't rot when I plant it.   Hopefully horseradish galore this year!

 The seeds will be planted in saved cardboard egg cartons (for the sake of room until I can move other houseplants around) and then transferred them to handmade newspaper pots.  Nice to replant/repot the tomatoes anyways and get those roots strong and deep.


As stated previously, only some super cheap local mom and pop store seeds would be purchased along with the necessary soil needed.  The kindness of strangers, gardening family members and past saved seed has filled out my other seed needs with no seeds purchased online/via catalog this year which will hopefully save on costs.

Many things will be direct sown later such as okra, peas, beans, kohlrabi (new one for me, but as I can eat it ALL, I thought it was a good choice), cabbage,  basils, and etc.

I'm pretty excited as I think I gain more life seeing seeds sprouting and growing.  There's just that excitement of seeing things developing that is motivating... hmmm... that's a good analogy I should use for writing.  As with many things in life for me, I need momentum and if I get on a roll, I can keep that energy up.  If I start slacking or give myself a break then it's all down hill from there and then I get annoyed at myself and yada yada, so growth and spring=good.

I'm not a fan of Valentine's Day at all, and am happy to say that my husband and I have never celebrated it.  Every end of January/beginning of February when I walk into a store I say, "Why are there giant stuffed animals on sale?"  then it's "OH... Valentine's Day."  I'm just not a fan of one holiday meant to "truly express your love" or whotnot.  Make it everyday.  Going all out on one day does not make it special, showing your love a little each day, that does it (for me at least).  Maybe it's just my middle school/high school angst showing, but it seemed like an impractical holiday to me.

BUT, as there's some softies out there and my begonia's blooming some conveniently shaped heart like flowers, I will indulge:

Thanks for sticking with me!

Seed starting.... ROIGHT.

.The dog and I have been making the best of the cold by taking luxurious sunbathing occasions together by the only large south facing window.

It's been hard really :)

Of course, my husband has to be the practical one and seduces me out of the warm sun by saying "It's 10am on the weekend, you just woke up! You don't want to fall asleep again already!"

Bah.

So I am attempting to be good (but not being very good) by blogging about my lack of seed starting so far.  I'm trying to be a little more financially savvy about my gardening (garden start up costs can always been a shock, but as start up is past already for me I just need to focus on plants/seeds).

As I've been stupidly whining about finances as of late, I've been taking a hard look at what I really need and thinking about putting the Soil Blocker thing on hold until maybe next year's gardening. 

I will be attempting as well to limit my seed purchases to my local mom and pop b/c they're cheaper, will save me in shipping and handling and generally have a good idea as to what is good to grow in the area.  As I have seed saved a good number of varieties from last year (though I still need to check viability levels), I hope this will work out well.

A few things that I might purchase outside of the mom and pop are particular tomato seeds because this is a matter of true garden happiness!  I want me some delicious tomatoes and mom and pop doesn't always have luscious heirloom varieties, so I might need go out investigate those further elsewhere.

A couple of other things I really want to grow would be tomatillas and luffa, but the luffa might need to be put on hold LIKE MY OTHER STUPID SQUASH (*note the annoyance here?) I probably would just be attracting vine borers AGAIN.  Damn, when will I be able to grow my own bath supplies?  Can you imagine how cool if would be to have a bubble bath bush? (Would that be like soapberry?)

The tomatillas I will hope I have no problems though and I am excited about salsa verde and tomato-y like things with their own wrappers and can keep relatively well.  It's like they're tomato candy :)  Think the kids will like that on Halloween?

A couple of plants I generally don't seed start are peppers and eggplant because they take so darn long to get going and I don't generally use much of.  I can usually get $1 or $2 plants started already at the mom and pop (and as much as I'd get more plants to seeds if I bought a packet, I don't think I'd use them fast enough), so I'll just tend to few plants of each and be happy.

Another plan to keep me mostly sane this year (gardening is all experimental, I'm just trying to figure out if this will be what's best for me for now or in the future) is to direct plant more, rather than seed start as much as I have in the past.

I've found that my okra, peas, beans, cucumbers (which I really shouldn't plant this year...), mustards and others do MUCH better direct planted and as I am in limbo about a million things now it would be hella better to not have to tend to these all winter to get them going.  Seed starting is tough as I have very limited lighting and can't afford kick-ass grow lights (I hear you can use fluorescent or Christmas lights though) or or heat mats or etc. so I'm going to rid myself of the usual pain, sadness and drama of taking care of little seedlings during the cold wee winter months in the awful indoor conditions of my home and focus on maybe a nice little tray of a dozen tomato plants to prepare for the outdoors. (and maybe a few tomatilla plants)

AND THAT's IT.

No fuss gardening for spring is the plan (and hope).  A little tomato and tomatillo preparation soon and a week or two of crazy planting in the spring and hopefully I can sit back, weed a bit and not go nuts and work on my writing and get that GAN (Great American Novel) out and make some money to afford fun plants again :P

ROIGHT?