As you can see from the photo below, the peppers are doing wonderfully!

I’m really impressed with the germination of the peppers this year.  I think it’s worth noting that many of the seeds I started this year are from older seed.  Here’s a tally, including the age of the seed.

Hot Peppers:

• Black Hungarian: sowed 3, sprouted 3- new seed for 2010
• Hungarian Hot Wax: sowed 3, sprouted 3- new seed for 2010
• Chile de Comida: sowed 3, sprouted 1- old seed from 2008*
• Anaheim: sowed 3, sprouted 3- old seed from 2008
• Serrano de Tampiquino: sowed 3, sprouted 3- old seed from 2009

Sweet Peppers:

• Red Marconi: sowed 3, sprouted 2- new seed for 2010**
• Ace: sowed 6, sprouted 6- old seed from 2009
• Cascabella: sowed 6, sprouted 5- old seed from 2009
• Sweet Stuffing Peppers: sowed 6, sprouted 6- old seed from 2008

As you can see, over all I have an excellent rate of germination.   Many of the plants are now displaying their true leaves, and I’m starting to consider the idea that I may have to be potting up these peppers before we move at the end of next week.  I was really hoping to hold off a few weeks, but I’m thinking it may get done in a few days here.

*The Chile de Comida had a 36% germination rate two years ago when I ordered the seed.  The fact that I had one germinate is right on par, and is excellent.  I plan to save seed from this plant, as it is no longer available.

**The Red Marconi looks like it may have a 3rd to germinate, but it’s taking its sweet time, and it’s a little too soon to call it.

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Now for the tomatoes.

The first seeds to pop up yesterday were the Yellow Pear tomatoes- which are from seed from 2008.   Today I was very pleased to lift the lid and find a whole slew of sprouts- excellent considering that sun the last few days has been sporadic at best.

As of right now, here is what I have, just one week after seeding the tomatoes:

1 Malakite, 1 Green Zebra, 2 Woodle Orange, 1 Sungold Select, 1 Arkansas Traveler, 2 Brave General, 1 Manomakh’s Hat, 1 Amish paste, 2 Cosmonaut Volkov, 1 Fox Cherry, 1 German Red Strawberry, 1 Black From Tula, 2 Ananas Noire, 1 Gold Medal, 1 Nature’s Riddle, 1 Golden King of Siberia, and 2 Yellow Pear

We are supposed to have a gorgeous sunny day tomorrow, so I expect many more sproutlings to pop from the soil in the next day or two.

Time for a tomato update because they just keep going!

My plants are now at the six feet tall mark.  How do I know this?  A few weeks ago I had to upgrade my support system from a single 3-foot bamboo pole to a 6-foot bamboo pole, plus a 3-foot pole for the side branches.  These plants are massive.

They have plenty of baby tomatoes sitting there pretty and green, and so many more blossoms waiting to turn into tomatoes.

These two plants each take half a gallon of water a day… I’ve fertilized twice so far, and am thinking I may have to do it again soon.  The plant downstairs is still doing well, but it’s a squatter plant- it has more side shoots so it’s not growing as tall.  It also is covered with blossoms and fruit.

Any day now the first tomato is going to start changing color- I truly cannot wait.   My mind is reeling though from the possibilities.  Providing I have the space next year, I’m planning a full out experiment with tomatoes year-round.

But we’ll see. One step at a time.  As it is, I’m not so sure these big guys will survive a move, as they are six feet tall and quite heavy, I don’t know how to successfully move them without harming them…

I’m also trying to root a sucker.  We’ll see if that takes.  And if that does… well, that opens up a huge world of possibilities in the arena of tomato propagation.  Who knew this could be so fun!

I planted pepper seeds yesterday.  I was only going to start the hot ones, but then I read the sweet seed packets and saw the germination time was about the same.  Four pepper varieties are new to me this year, the rest are old.  One in particular, the Chile De Comida is a hot pepper that I got two years ago, and it had poor germination then- down to 36% according to the packet.  So we’ll see.  This particular variety wasn’t even available from Baker Creek this year, so I’d like to get a plant to save seed from.

The hot peppers this year are:  Serrano, Anaheim, Chile De Comida, Hungarian Hot Wax, and Black Hungarian.  The sweet peppers are:  Red Marconi, Cascabelle, Ace, and the Sweet Stuffing Peppers.

Two more weeks, and the tomatoes will also be started.  The only seeds I’m starting ahead this year are the peppers and tomatoes.  As soon as the overnight lows get above 40, I’m also planning on trying some Broccoli Raab in a pot.  Never had it, never tried it, but I thought it was time.  It likes cool weather to grow, so I’m hopeful I’ll get a little something out of it to try.

It’s a little strange to think that in the nearly five years that we’ve been living here, I’ve been using the view to the shed to tell the story of the seasons.  And now, now we’re watching and waiting, and with the next season, I will have to find something new to meter the view with. Exciting and strange all at the same time.

I took this picture yesterday- March 15.  I believe my words to Andy yesterday were along the lines of almost annoyance.  As I looked at the snow-free land around us, and basked in the 50º sunshine, my thoughts drifted to the fact that here we are in the midst of an early spring- the one I’ve been waiting for for three years now, and it had to be this year.  Talk about trying my patience!  This is the perfect weather for experimenting with sowing early peas, and I can’t sow early peas because of the impending move! Annoying, yes.  But still exciting, and there will be more early springs in my future.

Inside the house, tomorrow I’ll be starting peppers.  But I wanted to give an update on my indoor tomato garden.  All three plants are growing like gangbusters. Here’s a photo of the one downstairs:

And here’s a photo of the ones upstairs.

They are all doing very well in their pots, although it’s amazing how much water they take in.  If I continue with this idea of cherry tomatoes in the house in pots, I’m afraid that in years to come I’m going to need an even bigger pot yet for them to truly be happy.

But what do we have here?

Yes, my gardening friends, see those tiny green orbs?  Those are tomatoes.  One of the upstairs plants is pushing out the very first Sungold Cherries.  I can practically taste them, I’m so excited!  I started these plants on December 31.  On January 7, I found sprouts.  I cannot believe that these indoor plants are going to produce fruit!!

I had one more thing I wanted to show, but my picture turned out a little fuzzy.  Well, here it is anyway.

See that blob of green in the middle?  That would be a rosemary sprout.  Everything I have read about rosemary indicates that it’s totally not worth it to start it from seed, so of course, I had to try it.   I started with about a dozen seeds, and put them in a small dish with some water overnight.  In the morning, I had something very interesting.  I still had seeds, but they looked more like tomato seeds- with a little sac around each seed.  I filled a cup with potting mix, added the seeds, and added a tiny sprinkling of dirt to cover, followed by some water.  This went into a modified greenhouse to soak up sunshine.  I want to say it was about two weeks later I found something growing.  Just one- but it was definitely a sprout.  I’ve been babying that sprout for a good two weeks now, and it finally looks like it might be pushing some true leaves.

Unfortunately, the soil in my little pot was growing moldy fuzz, and today I decided I should probably give this little guy a new home.  It’s awfully small to be transplanted, but we’ll see how it likes the fresh dirt.   If my sources are correct though, and the sprout survives the transplant, it could be years before I get anything producible off this one sprout.  It’s still fun to try though. 🙂

Potager Vegetable Garden

I’m in love.

This is exactly how I want to garden.

Now that I know it has a name…I’m beyond excited.

I should have known.

Tomatoes are self-pollinating- they pretty much take care of themselves when it comes to pollination.  However, once I have blossoms on my plant, if I give the plant a shake every once in a while, it could assist the pollination by encouraging pollen to fall to right where it needs to.

So.  Tomatoes may be in my future yet. Looking forward to them.

I’ve been going through my seldom-written in notebook from the past three growing years.  My, how the obsession has grown!

Three years ago, in 2007, the bulk of my garden was planted by April 30th.  A second planting of lettuce, turnips, and red beets in July that year failed.

That was the year I tried growing my tomatoes in pots.  That was also the year I swore I would never grow tomatoes in pots again. My note says “next year, herbs in pots, tomatoes IN GROUND”.

I also have a note to do a better job reading seed packets- followed by some angry eyes.  Lol.  I remember that one.  I tended and nurtured some melon plants that year- wrestling with disgusting ground squirrels the whole time too- only to find that the melons I grew were not actually going to get any larger than a baseball.  While cute, they weren’t especially juicy and sweet, and one melon was enough for one person.  I devoted about 16 square feet of garden space to three tiny baseball sized melons.

The following spring I hatched a plan to expand my garden by adding a third bed to the yard.  I was torn between one on the side of the house, and one on the blank side of the shed.  It turned out the shed side had more sunshine all day long over the side of the house.  What a good move that was! That fall we had landscaping installed and would have lost an entire garden’s worth of produce.

In 2008 I determined I was going to figure out this multi-season gardening thing.  I have a neat and tidy list telling me what seeds I had- what seeds were being ordered, and a schedule as to when I should plant.  2008 (just two years ago!) was the first time I started seeds instead of buying tomato plants. (Who knew what THAT was going to lead to!) I started tomato seeds April 4th, and they were potted up already by April 17th.

On April 17th I started Okra, Tomatillos, Peppers and Eggplants

I started two pots as well- one pot of radishes, one pot of spinach, hoping to get a jump on spring.   I also started, on April 24th, onion, scallion, leek, radicchio, broccoli, kale, basil, bunching onion and celery.

Shelling peas and snap peas went IN GROUND May 1st.

Starting the radishes and spinach in the pot a month early ended up being a waste.  By the time they were ready to harvest, the spinach and radishes in the garden were ready to eat- and of a better quality.

Big discovery that year: Heirloom tomatoes are worth every ounce of energy and money that goes into them.  Big time deliciousness.

Other notes: Fennel, while delicious, and one of my favorite vegetables, not so worth it for the home gardener.  No herbs or vegetables like to grow near fennel.  So in order to successfully grow it, you must have a space devoted to just fennel.  Also- the Di Firenze  variety I grew two years in a row does not produce a big fat delicious bulb.  It was edible, but the stalks were more valuable as an herb.

Tomatillos are awesome! They grow okay in pots, but will thrive if planted in pairs in the ground in a nice sunny place.  Given enough time, I suspect they will also produce two harvests in a year.  Will do these again when space allows.

Onions: Not worth it to start from seed.  Scallions and leeks- yes.  Bulbing onions- not so much.  Buy onion sets and use those if bulbing onions are desired.

Okra: Rumor is that if I can find the variety Pentagreen, that I can get a decent harvest this far north.  However, trials of the variety Cajun Delight produced small pods just two or three at a time- hardly enough to do anything with.  If I ever find the pentagreen, I may try them again.

So just now I went to water one of my tomato plants.  It’s very interesting- I have three plants, and two look drastically different from the third.  Drastically- I’m beginning to wonder if they are actually different varieties or…what?  I dunno.

Anyway, as I’m watering this plant, I noticed that a blossom is on the verge of cracking open.  A tomato blossom! On the first of March! But then the realization struck- I have three tomato plants- and NO POLLINATORS!

I have research to do- because I’m pretty certain my tomatoes are not self-pollinating, but I’m not sure.  I may have to don my bee suit and grab a paintbrush in a few weeks.

I’ll post a picture later of my plants.

Was it just a week ago I mentioned that I was going to buy established herb plants this year instead of starting them myself?

I’m seriously missing my herbs!

This past weekend I had some rare time all to myself to peruse the seed racks at my favorite garden center.  I took my time- I was alone after all.  I picked up a few varieties of herb seed that I knew I didn’t already have, as well as a few radishes, an organic orange delicata squash, and a chiogga beet.    I just couldn’t help myself.

If I attempted to grow all the herbs from seed that I already have seed for… well, I would have about 14 varieties of herbs (give or take).

Which has me re-thinking seeding some herbs. (Can you see me rolling my eyes here?) I’ll tell you, what I wouldn’t give for a good 14 feet of undisturbed south-facing window.  Then I could line the windows with 12 x 12 pots, fill ’em up with soil and seeds and start on some herbs.  In a perfect world, they would do fine in the pots in the cold weather, and then once it got nice out, I would set them outside.  As cold weather comes back in the fall, the plants would come back inside.  In my mind, this idea has merit.  And a lot of it.

I just really, really am missing fresh herbs.  Mostly parsley, interestingly enough. And while I can buy that reasonably priced, it just doesn’t last long enough.

Maybe I’m just yearning for spring.  But just for fun, these are the herb seeds I have:

• Sweet Basil
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Winter Thyme
• Dill
• Italian Parsley
• Chervil
• Summer Savory
• Marjoram
• Lovage
• Cilantro
• Genovese Basil

Of these, I know the dill won’t do too well in pots, and rosemary is tough to start from seed.   Sage and thyme will winter over just fine, so if I can get them established in the ground I won’t have this dilemma year after year.   It just occurred to me that I don’t have any chive seeds.  I will have to fix that, as my chives never popped out of the dirt last year.  It didn’t affect me too much, I simply used a bit of scallion in place of the chive.  But still.  I’d like to pick up some chive seed and some more specialty herbs.  Things like Thai basil, lemon thyme, and cinnamon basil.  I would give my right arm for a bona-fide tarragon plant- but those cannot grow from seed.  Real tarragon grows from a cutting.  I don’t care too much for oregano, so I’m not sure I want to be growing that.

I feel like there’s something missing… what am I missing?

The first year I cracked open my Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog, my chin literally dropped.  As I leafed page after page and saw heirloom tomato after heirloom tomato, I was instantly smitten.  I wanted one of each.  There are literally hundreds of varieties from all over the world!  It can be so easy to just randomly order a few handfuls of seeds to try, but I have found over the last few years that there are a few things key when it comes to selecting varieties to grow here in Wisconsin.

The main thing is to look at the origin of the seeds you are looking at.  Chances are if the location they are grown in says “warm climate” or “tropical” or “favorite in the south” it might not do so well here in the frozen tundra.   Tomatoes that are bred for Texas or Florida or New Zealand may not do so well here.  On the other hand, I have had amazing success with tomatoes from Siberia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.   And of course, ones bred right here in Wisconsin or next-door Minnesota.

I find this true with many plants other than tomatoes, sadly.  Exotic Asian eggplants don’t seem to like our weather too much- it just doesn’t get hot enough.  My experiments with okra proved less than desirable.  If I had space to grow several dozen plants I could get enough okra to do something with, but growing one plant and yielding five little pods is hardly worth the gardening real estate.

It’s all trial and error- and it’s not to say that maybe YOU won’t have some success with that beautiful Israeli tomato seed, but your odds of success are better if your tomato seed comes from a region with a similar climate.

Oooh, have to come back and add something.  If you’re not like me, and you don’t have an addiction to starting your own tomato plants from seeds, there is nothing wrong with buying your plants already started.  If you go to a reliable garden center near to you, they should have plants that will grow well in your climate.  Ask if you have any questions about it.  If the people working there can’t answer your questions,  find a different garden center until you find someone who can answer your questions AND assure you that the plants they have will grow well in your climate.