tiny seedlings

As you can probably guess, since I love to garden and it is spring, I have begun sprouting seeds indoors getting ready for summer.  My first planting was on March 17th and I began to see sprouts from some seeds on Thursday the 19th... yay!  Sometimes I feel like I pot seeds with my shoulders down having done my part and leaving it to nature now, wondering if any of them will come up.  I always feel such a relief to see little curls appear from the soil.

Shaun and I are doing a repeat of last year and not planting our big garden until the first week of June when the ground is good and hot and seeds sprout up overnight it seemed.  Plus there was less tilling to do because the plants grew so fast.  Needless to say, I have not started any seeds that will go in our garden yet because the first week of June is much more than six weeks away and plants would be too leggy and hard to take care of.  And I am practicing patience.  So, the seeds that I have already begun are for flowers and herbs that will live through the summer in pots and such.  I did actually start some tomato seeds on Monday for Mom, Mary Evelyn and my friend Melia who all want them to grow in pots.

When planting seeds it can be very hard to keep up with what's what until there are leaves to identify.  Some of the seedlings I know from their first leaves but most have to be their second set or real leaves before I can tell good.  In the past I have labeled pots and made little markers to go on tooth picks to stick in the soil.  This year I gave in and simply drew a diagram of my starting tray and that will do until I start moving things around... then I will lose track of what they are!

My greenhouse is simple and portable.  I have a heater with a thermostat that cuts on and off by itself so as to keep a certain temperature for the seedlings and create a humid environment.  I also have a thermometer hanging inside the greenhouse to make sure it doesn't get too hot or too cold for them.  Later on, when plants are bigger and ready to harden off I can move the entire greenhouse outside, most of the time with the front flap zipped open.  Although I do have to seriously tie the little greenhouse down tight or a swift wind will knock it over.

So back to the seeds, so far I have planted basil, oregano, caraway, rosemary, petunia, snapdragon, dichondra, craspedia, lettuce mixes and tomatoes (for friends).  And here is my diagram in my journal.

basil

snapdragon... so fragile looking aren't they?

I may have over done it a bit with the oregano!  Look at all those seedlings!  I haven't had much success starting oregano in the past so I over compensated.  I hate having to pluck out the weak when it comes time to separate.

Seeds

Am I finally getting to this post??  I ordered new garden seeds a few weeks back and have actually already received them!  I haven't, at this point, gotten around to starting any indoors as of yet.  We are planning on setting out the garden the first week of June again this year.  We used to put it out on May 10th or there-a-bouts.  But it really seems to take off faster and better and really needs less tilling when the ground is truly warmer and ready.  So there's really no rush on starting my tomatoes this soon.  Boooo.  However, I do feel that the seeds I will begin to go in pots do need to be started very soon.  If I put them outside earlier I can always bring them under the porch eave if there is frost in the forecast or pop them into the house for the evening.

Two years ago I was given a tip for a good company to order seeds from that offers a wide variety of heirloom seeds and are non-GMO, non-treated and non-hybrid.  Just good seeds.  Their catalog alone helps get me through the winter and the last one they sent out was just beautiful... cover to cover and featured pictures of their employees.  My orders are easy to place and arrive by post very speedy.  If you are looking for a good spot to purchase seeds I highly suggest giving them a try.  All of the seed that I purchased from them last year came up and grew very well.  The bell peppers were ever as huge as they said they would be and I have had problems in the past with bell pepper plants... not these!!  They offer herbs, flowers, vegetables and more!  And they were nice enough to allow me to use their photos for this post!  Thanks a buncho!  Visit Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds at www.rareseeds.com

Here are some of the seeds I purchased.  The following I bought to try this year.  They are all plants that I've not grown myself before.

Crosby's Egyptian Beet

I have fallen for beets and they and I always say that things are just better when you grow it yourself.  I fully intend to try it with this one!

Calabrese Green Sprouting Broccoli

A friend of ours remarked last year about how good the broccoli was from their garden.  It's been on my mental list to try and grow.

Chantenay Red Core Carrot

The kids at the day care wanted to grow carrots in our garden this year.  We shall give it a go then!

Caraway

Ah caraway... I love to use caraway seeds when baking bread and also in my cabbage.  I can't wait to collect my own seeds for next winter.

Oregano Vulgare

I've not grown oregano from seed before that I can recall.  I think I've always bought a plant from the garden center.  Hopefully.. not this year!  And I've been out of homegrown oregano for a few months and I sure miss it and need to grow more this time.

Apple Blossom Snapdragon

I had such success growing snapdragons last year that I thought I'd try another color this year in addition to the seeds I will sprout that I saved from my own plants.  They bloomed all summer and I so enjoyed them!

Orange King Zinnia

I'm gonna tell the truth here when I say that I decided to order seeds for orange zinnias instead of stopping to steal some from the gardener up the road.  Not that he would have minded.  I never could seem to catch him out there to ask permission and going late at night just felt wrong.  I can't wait to see these big orange beauties gracing our garden!

I also ordered Henderson's Black Valentine Bean, Glory of Enkhuizen Cabbage, Bonny Best Tomato, Crimson Sweet Watermelon, Blue Lake Bush 274 Bean and Basil - Genovese.

These are the peppers that I grew last year and extremely pleased with.

Emerald Giant Pepper

Here is a shot of their beautiful catalog.

Click on it to order yourself a copy!

The 2015 ones aren't available anymore but you can get on their December mailing list!

But you don't need a catalog to order online!

They also have a larger catalog for sale that is amazing.

I was in awe when I saw the collage of seeds adorning the entire cover of their catalog.

Amazing and beautiful I found myself trying to name the seeds and beans.

Thanks to Baker Creek Heirloom for allowing me to use their pictures for this post!

All credit goes to them!

Remember to click the pictures or names to be directed to that item.

What do you intend to grow in your garden this year?

Really!  I want to know!

Trying anything new to you this year?

Happy Birthday to readers Kathy and Katety!

botanicals at the dc

I seriously don't know what I would do if I were cut off from growing plants.  In recent years I have been blessed with the knack of starting plants and flowers from seed.  Our veggie garden at home has fifty-something tomato plants that I started from seed plus sixteen bell pepper plants.  Other than that, this season I began lavender, dill, rosemary, basil, stevia and am now working on my oregano, catnip and parsley.  There's just something near to my heart about knowing a plant from beginning to end as the seasons go by.  Here's some of the plants at the day care that we are growing outside of the garden.

Herbal Itch

It is not even two weeks in to the new year and I am already craving the 2014 growing season.  I have been on Burpee.com for days now picking out new seeds for herbs, flowers and some vegetables.  Some places around here won't have seeds for another month or two.  Walmart already has some.  I know because I bought two packs.  My garden plans are a little different this year.  I will start with this post about the new herbs I will be growing (new to me).  Then I will stretch it out a bit in the next couple of weeks.  I won't start sowing seeds indoors for at least another month... if I can wait that long.  The problem with starting them early is leggy plants for me.  Especially since I don't have a greenhouse where they can live full time until planting time.  So I really have to be careful not to get out of hand.  I feel it will be safe to begin some of my herbs and flowers that will live in pots.  That way I can bring them under the porch eave or inside if the weather gets too chilly this spring or lasts too long.  I really love having something to nurture.

So here are the herbs that I will be trying to grow this year.

Stevia is a natural sweetener and I am very excited about this one.

Chamomile I would like to find a spot in one of the fields for.  The seed packet only has 1500 seeds.  I want this one for teas mainly but who knows what else I will come up with.

Lavender... oh lavender.  I have tried three times now to grow lavender from seed and I am not about to give up.  I can envision it on the outside of the iron gate around my secret garden.  Good luck to me.

Rosemary I always buy but who's to say I can't grow it from seed?  I'm going to give it a shot anyway.  I love the smell of rosemary and like to use it when cooking and on buttered rolls.. yum!


By the way... is anyone interested in a seed exchange?  I will be inventorying my seed shelf really soon and I know I have lots to share.  I will be sure and post what I have plenty of and if you are interested maybe we can swap seeds with something you have saved from previous years.  How fun is that!?!? Stay tuned!  

Also, I am thinking of making Thursdays my garden post days.  Because....... I can!  So if you are mainly interested in gardening inspiration Thursdays will be your day on Peppysis!  Love ya mean it!

literally on the library hold shelf

 

here I go again... trying desperately to find natural, herbal help for my awful skin.  by the looks of the books it probably looks like I am about ready to start casting spells!  not true.  hexes and hemlines is the third book in a series I picked up this fall.  I just finished the second one and am ready for more.  it's extremely fictional but fun to read.  there are several songs on the best of doobie brothers cd that I've wanted to hear lately.  I appreciate the fact that the library has such things.  I am so readily interested in what the healing arts of American Indians has to say.  it may be made up hogwash or it may make sense.  you just never know.  I feel that some person some where in time had skin problems long before modern medicine and feel there are plants that grow wild on our farm that I can use to help in some way.  I tend to get desperate this time of year.  I am still learning and soak it up.  I would love to take an herbal class or something but prefer to study it in my own time.

 

what are you reading right now?

drying parsley

This is my first summer to dry Parsley correctly.  Where the bright green color stays and it crisps up just right.  I finally figured out that it has to dry in a dark place.  I was hanging them in the window at home and at the dc.  Which was the wrong thing to do.  They got oddly limp and turned black.  Not good.  So this time I used a coat hanger and twist ties.  I carefully yet tightly twisted each branch with w tie and twisted it on a coat hanger then hung it inside a closet at the dc in the big kid room.  A week and a half later I checked it.  It was perfectly green, perfectly dry and wonderfully held it's flavor and smell.  I got it now... look out Parsley!

 

 

 

 

 

Funny fact... I read a Farmer's Almanac from the early 1900's that said "Only a witch can grow parsley from seed."  I'm sure it was just a tale because it's not really difficult to do.

Late May Garden

Shaun has been heard to say that with the success of planting our garden much later than usual this year that we may wait to plant every year!  We actually had to put off planting for a few weeks because of the moisture in the ground where our garden is, plus our work schedules, but mostly the moisture.  We planted last Sunday, May 26th, and because of the moisture still in the ground and the ground temperature being much warmer our plants were sprouting up by Thursday with no rain or watering.  By Friday almost everything we planted was showing signs of life above ground.  Amazing.  Our corn is up, green beans, black eyed peas, rattlesnake peas, zucchini, squash, and pumpkins.  I will venture out this morning to see what else is up and begin hoeing the weeds that are trying to sprout.  I also planted my new herbs and zinnias and cleome that I raised from seed.  I will also proudly state that out of about 65 tomato plants and began all but a six pack from seed this year and they look fantastic so far.  I also began our cabbage and eggplant indoors.  My garlic will be ready to pick on the longest day of the year, June 20th, and judging by the size of the stalks we should have a good crop this year and that's good because I am almost out!  Gardening is so satisfying and so much fun but is a lot of work and maintenance but the rewards can't be beat.  I absolutely cannot wait to have a big fat homegrown tomato sliced up with supper.

 Slight update: my dill pictured is gone and the teeth of a rabbit and it hurts my garden heart.  It ate the stalks and left the leaves and luckily I caught them before they wilted so I can dry them.

Friend or Foe

We are talking gardens here.  Friend or Foe? How do you know?

Well it's like this.  Our garden looks horrible right now.  It is full of weeds and tiny things blooming that should not be allowed to bloom there.  Things that will drop little seeds that will sprout after the garden has been turned which will hopefully be very soon.  But the truth is, it has just been too wet to till up the garden.  Never-the-less, it will be done this week.  At least the potato patch.

I am going to narrow this down to the one corner of our garden, to show you what is Friend and what is Foe.  I truly should be shot for letting weeds grow around my herbs.  If I had nothing else to do this wouldn't happen right?!?!

It is pretty basic.  If you have herbs in your garden, learn to identify them.  Learn which ones will live through a mild and hard winter.  We had a very mild winter this year in Tennessee, so lucky for me, a bunch of my herbs made it that would not have during a heavy winter.  If you are new to herb gardening then some of this will just be a long learning experience from season to season.

Having herbs is very handy, very healthy, very tasty and can be very rewarding.  Here is a rundown of  your basic garden herbs.  These are on the Friend list.

Basil

wonderful on tomatoes and in pasta sauces

does not make it past a hard freeze in fall

easy to start from seed and will reseed itself in the garden if allowed to bloom

freezes well in ice cubes, dries like a dream for later use

Oregano

 my oregano made it through the mild winter here but has not in previous years

good in tomato-based sauces and on pizza

dries very well for later use

Cilantro

made it through the winter

grows fast and will flower and reseed itself in various places

the seeds will be Coriander - and can themselves be ground and used in dishes

freezes ok, dries well, better used fresh

Thyme

this is the third season for my Thyme plant

I use Thyme in meat dishes, in soups, you name it

dries well and freezes well in cubes

Dill

Dill is easy to grow from seed and will reseed itself in the garden if the seeds are not collected

dries very well

seeds can be used in dishes as well as dried sprigs

Parsley

last year was the first time I had planted parsley in the garden

it made it through the winter just fine and is the thickest little thing

can be used in many dishes as well a garnishment

can be grown easily from seed

Rosemary

very good in dishes and on yeast rolls with butter and salt

this plant made it through the winter but my last one did not and you can tell this one suffered a bit even through the mild winter we had

I've not grown this one from seed, only bought plants

freezes in cubes well

There are many more varieties of herbs, these are just the ones I have experience with.  

Now here are pics of the Foes.  I don't know their names, just their faces.  And as they are pretty, as shown here, in their lovely blooming state, they can be vicious in the garden and must be removed.

So, basically, if it is in your garden and you didn't plant it.... get it out!

It's not a pretty little gift from the plant fairy.  Weeds will take over... kill them.