Happy St. Patrick's Day!

On this lovely warm St. Patrick's Day, Kevin made me an amazing lunch of beer bacon biscuits, shepherds pie, and Guinness! Biscuits and beer below:

The seeds are coming along nicely too. Almost all of the Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, and pink tomatoes are up, as well as one Yellow Pear. Still waiting on the Amish Paste. Every herb has at least something going on, including marjoram which has been the slowest to germinate. Sage is looking beautiful in the mason jar:

And finally the Nardello peppers have germinated!

In Like a Lion

After Thursday's snowstorm, we had some gorgeous weather on Sunday and Monday, enough to coax some of my seeds to start growing. I'm excited (and relieved) that some seedlings are coming up even in the potentially-dense soil. Yesterday some Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, and pink tomato sprouts appeared, along with one eggplant seedling.

Chamomile and lemon balm have been joined by thyme, basil, and oregano. Still no sign of lemon basil. Chamomile keeps wilting and shriveling up, even when I adjust sun and water. Not sure what the problem is there.

First Seedlings!

I've seen a few chamomile seedlings emerging this week, and now we have some lemon balm and marjoram coming up too. These are in the egg carton I planted about 2 weeks ago.

The night scented stock flowers are coming up too, or at least two out of three pots that I planted.

I also saw one tiny Nardello pepper seedling today! I'll post a picture later this week.

Starting Seeds

I am finally getting around to starting seeds indoors this winter! It's about time. I usually start in mid-February for herbs and others that you can start 8-10 weeks before the last frost. Unfortunately I'm a little behind, so I did the Pingtung Long eggplants plus a few herbs last Monday (chamomile, thyme, lemon balm, and marjoram) and the rest today (sage, chives, oregano, lemon basil, sweet basil). The only ones left are parsley (I'm going to soak the seeds for 24 hours before planting) as well as dill and cilantro, which I direct seed outdoors in early spring.

We are a little tight on space, so I have only a few shelves on which to start all of our seeds. Therefore I don't have an elaborate layout with tons of cells and bottom watering etc. Maybe someday!

I've taken to starting all of my herbs in egg cartons. I cut the carton in half, line the top with aluminum foil, and punch a small hole in each of the bottom "egg" sections. Then I place the bottom part in the aluminum foil-lined portion to allow for water drainage. I like to label some of the sections with an initial so I know what herbs I planted where.

The rest of my planters consist of a hodgepodge of mostly-reusable containers: old planting containers from plants I purchased, a few random objects (a Mason jar with a hole in the bottom that Kevin drilled, plus a pretty tree-decorated pot), and mostly old yogurt cups... because I eat a ton of yogurt. I used to eat the small Chobani yogurts, and those containers are a great size. I've experimented with larger yogurt cups too (closer to three times the size), and both seem to work fine. Today I started 5 kinds of tomatoes (Amish Paste, Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Yellow Pear, and Pink), 2 kinds of peppers (Jalapeno and Jimmy Nardello), and some Night-Scented Stock flowers which are supposed to smell amazing at night. I'll wait a few weeks to start the Minnesota Midget melons.

This year the garden store only carried Espoma organic seed starting mix. It's not nearly as fine as the seed starter I used last year, so I hope it works. I'm just now reading some reviews and they aren't positive, so now I'm getting worried it's too heavy. Oops. I guess I have to prepare myself to be frustrated... Perhaps I'll buy some lighter seed starting mix to start some onions and leeks soon.