Month: January 2012

January Planting Update

My dwarf tomato is doing beautifully.  It’s really happy in my window, even though we’ve had more grey and gloomy days than sunny days.   I really like the pot it’s in too- bottom watering is great!

My ghost peppers have finally sprung forth.

I was so excited when I saw a sprout finally start poking out, only to have it quickly joined by seven others.  I swear, I planted seven seeds, and I have eight peppers.   I have plans to put two in my garden, one plant in a pot, one plant goes to my dad, one plant is to give to a friend… but beyond that… I have three plants that are going to need homes.  I feel like I need to be responsible with these peppers- I don’t want to give them to anyone with pets, or with small children who could be curious.  The heat of these ghost peppers can be painful… So we’ll see where these end up.

I also have some Thai Basil sprouting up.

I’m really anxious to start garden planning!  I have all the tomato seed I’m going to get.  I think.  I still have two seed orders to put in, as I have plans to grow a lot of beans and lettuce this year.  I have at least six different varieties of romaine that I want to try, as romaine is our favorite lettuce.  I can’t tell you how many kinds of beans I have- mostly pole beans, but some bush beans.

And eggplant.  I’ve remembered that I want a few eggplants this year, so I have a few new, small varieties to start.

I’m excited!  I didn’t even come close to maximizing the potential of my garden this past year.  I’ll be able to harvest from my rhubarb plant as soon as it produces, and I’m excited to see what the blackberries, raspberries and asparagus do.   I definitely have some dirt amending to do in the raised beds, so that will need some attention first thing.

It’s going to be a very good, very productive year.  I’ll be going through seeds in the next week or so here.  It will be something to do while we wait for warm weather.

New Beginnings

January.  Synonymous with cold, snow, frigid temperatures, and dark days.

And yet there are the little things that brighten our days and get us through this long month as we wait for seed-starting season.

Take this tomato plant, for example.

A gift from the Minnesota gardeners, this is a dwarf tomato which seems very happy to be in my care.  Rumor is that it will produce tomatoes for me before I can even think about working in the dirt this spring.  I’m very excited to see how it does.  It grew a lot last week, despite the fact that it was grey and gloomy out all week long.  Yesterday and today we’ve had some sunshine, and it’s really looking good.

I also have started just one round of seeds.  I was also gifted with some Ghost Pepper seeds this Christmas.  I gave these super-hot seeds an eight hour soak in warm water and then put them in a pot of seed starting mix.  I have seven seeds in this pot.

They could take a good three weeks before emerging, but I’m hopeful that the soak in water gave them a bit of a jumpstart.  I have the pot in front of the fireplace for now- it’s keeping them toasty without being too toasty.   These can take a full 160 days to harvest, and since the can be so slow to germinate, I wanted to give them a good head start. One of these Ghost Chilies has a date with the salsa pot.  Just one.  The rest?  Gosh, they scare me just thinking about them, but I’ve recently become obsessed with finding out what kind of flavor these super-hots actually have.  One of THE hottest in the world with scoville units off the charts, I may be insane for even thinking about trying them.

I can’t wait.  🙂