The first seeds are in! - Update

After two weeks the green and jalapeno peppers are not doing well. One 6 pack of green peppers has mostly germinated, but that is it. None of the other 18 are showing any signs of growth. Although I may have jumped the gun a little, I went ahead and bought some replacement seeds and planted them this past Wednesday.

For the bell pepper I chose "Big Dipper", and for Jalapeno, "Gigante" both from Burpee. Although I did get some bell's from my existing seeds to sprout, I chose to plant a full 12 cells of each. If I end up with extra they could always be given away.

I knew the lettuce seed I was attempting to use was old and unlikely to germinate, and I was right. I have a total of 3 plants started. I threw in some additional seed as a hope against hope measure.

Two of the onion varieties are growing well, the third is struggling. I think I have been keeping them too moist which the Australian Brown and Ailsa Craig handled fine, the Noordhollandse Bloedrode has not. There are lots of malformed sprouts that won't make it and overall a lower level of germination than the other two varieties. I may add a follow on planting to boost the overall success rate.

I am also considering direct planting some onion seed to see how that does in my southern New England climate.

The broccoli came up very well and are growing rapidly. Perhaps too rapidly. I was fearful when I planted them that it was too early. Their rapid progress is proving that out...

The first seeds are in!

Planted my first seeds of the season on Saturday, February 26. I had planned all along to get the onions started early, but decided to give my peppers an earlier start than usual on some hopefully good advice from the manager at Comstock, Ferre & Co. To round out my plantings, I threw some assorted lettuce seed that had been given to me (and which is several years old at this point) into a spare planter and added a 6 pack of broccoli.

I'm not honestly sure if it was time to start the broccoli, but even if it is too early, I find the idea of using a cold frame intriguing, and this might be a way to force me to try it. My only trepidation is knowing that I'm not so good at remembering to check the weather each day to ensure I open and close it as necessary to avoid freezing or baking the plants.

For this year I have started 12 cells each of green bell, jalapeno and Corno di Toro Giallo. the bell and pepper seeds are now 3 years old. To compensate for the likely low germination rate, I planted 4 in each cell. Since the Corno di Toro Giallo's are new this year, I only planted one in each.

Since I am trying 3 different varieties of onions (Ailsa Craig, Australian Brown, Noordhollandse Bloedrode), and each variety is listed as containing at least 300 seeds, I roughly split each packet into thirds and planted 1/3 of each. The onions are all planted in the bottoms of one gallon milk jugs, cut off at the bottom of the handle. I then drilled eight, 1/8" holes in the bottom for drainage.

I have struggled in the past to get good germination from my peppers. To help things along I have set up the top rack of my light stand as a mini hot house with cardboard forming the walls and roof to hold in the heat produced by the florescent lamp. To this I have added a poor man's grow mat.

This consists of two 2x4's to set the planting trays on and a string of 100 Christmas lights spread out under the tray in the gap in between the 2 x 4's. With the two lights going 24/7, the inside of the "hot house" stays in the 70-71 deg F range.

Visit to Comstock, Ferre & Co.

I am lucky enough to have one of the most historic seed companies in the country less than a 10 minute drive from where I work. Comstock, Ferre & Co. celebrates 200 years of continuous operation this year! And yet, until this week I had only attempted to visit it (unsuccessfully) one time a few years ago.

I had lost track of time and didn't realize until this week that I really need to get my onions & peppers started ASAP. I wanted to try the Wethersfield Red Onion from Comstock this year, and so I made a trip to check out the store.

Comstock changed hands this past year, being bought by the owners of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. The timing of the sale, after the busy spring season, and the vastness of the building complex leaves the store a little underwhelming currently. The process of re-stocking the store appears to be a work in process. I suspect this is hindered by the desire to carry only products fitting with the owner's principles.

That said, the collection of seeds available for sale was rather impressive. Instead of the typical small and crowded rack in the seasonal area of most stores, here the Baker Creek line is permanently on display in the main room of the store covering 3 walls and a central divider. The newly resurrected Comstock line of seeds is located in an upper room that also serves as the processing station for mail orders.

Unfortunately, I am not the only one interested in the Wethersfield Red onions as they were sold out. I will have to get my act together a bit earlier next year. For those not aware, Wethersfield Red was a very popular onion that was grown in the CT area and shipped around the country in the 18th and 19th centuries.

I walked out with a handful of seed packets:

Corno di Toro Giallo Pepper
Dakota Black Popcorn
Purple Podded Pole Beans
Envy Soya Bean
Straightneck Squash
Noord Hollandse Bloedrode Onion (in place of the Wethersfield Red)
Australian Brown Onion
Ailsa Craig Onion
Golden Honey Watermelon

I am not yet certain where I stand in the heirloom vs hybrid vs genetically modified debate. But the idea of being able to save seeds my own seeds to plant in the future is intriguing. In fact, I am planning to try a few saved seeds from last years jack o' lanterns and a butternut squash as an experiment.

If you are in the central CT area, stop by Comstock, Ferre & Co. The great variety of seeds are worth the stop and you can just feel the history when walking into the building.

A new home

This spring we undertook the monumental task of selling our condo and purchasing a house in a neighboring town. As a result, I gave up our community garden plot in anticipation of a much more convenient backyard garden.

With all the work involved in settling a new house, there has been precious little time for gardening. However, I did manage to find enough time to supplant an existing flower bed with a small vegetable garden. The plantings are as follows:

1 Bloody Butcher Tomato
1 Brandywine Tomato
6 Roma Tomatoes
6 Bell Peppers
6 Jalapeno Peppers
100 White Onion Sets
100 Red Onion Sets
10# Red Seed Potatoes
2 Hills of Summer Squash
~10' of Green Beans
~20' of Wax Beans

With the exception of the potatoes (local sources of seed potatoes only came in 10# bags), the garden is quite a bit smaller than in years past. Given the length of my to do list, however, this is all I can handle for this year.

Finally, Some Peppers are Up!

It took 2 plantings and 5 weeks, but I finally have some pepper plants starting to come up. Just barely though as they aren't much more than poking up through the dirt. I don't remember having this much trouble getting them to sprout last year. Keeping them alive, yes, sprouting, no.

I only have 3 or 4 out of 2 dozen up. The rest should come along shortly, at least I hope so. Timing wise I should still be ok for a late May planting. If the spring stays as cold as it has been the last week or so, they'll WANT to be delayed to let the soil warm up.

Looking forward to getting some flowers started this weekend!

Seedling Update

Three weeks into my seed starting exercise and as with most gardening exploits, the results are mixed.

All varieties of tomatoes are up and growing extremely well. Shortly, I will start applying periodic wind (via a fan) to help promote strength of the young seedlings.

The broccoli and onions are also growing quite well. I had a bit of an issues with the onions, however. I am using the bottom of gallon milk jugs for my 'pots'. I did not put any drain holes in the bottom and managed to overwater them a couple times. Unfortunately that has led to one of the four pots losing almost all of it's seedlings. Another pot lost about half its seedlings. Lesson learned, be certain to include drain holes in all seedling pots. Be careful not to overwater your seedlings, they are very sensitive to 'drowning'.

I've had mixed success with herbs this year. Most of them have come up, however, I managed to kill off quite a few seedlings with careless watering. Today, I tossed in some additional seed to make up for the losses. In the end I am not as concerned about the herbs as I am the vegetables. We use some oregano and basil in our tomato sauce, but the remaining herbs (cilantro, parsley & chives) have not found a regular use yet.

Lastly, are our poor pepper seeds. I thought my light setup would warm the plantings enough to enable all the varieties of seed to germinate. It seems however, that it was not sufficient for the peppers. After 2-1/2 weeks they still showed no sign of germination (I dug up a few seeds to verify). I have replanted them and moved the trays out of the basement grow area to the solarium. There's still plenty of time for the pepper plants to grow sufficiently for a May transplantation. But it is disappointing that they weren't successful the first time around.

Seedlings are up!

In just over a week's time about 70% of my seedlings are up. Almost all the tomatoes, onions, broccoli and basil have sprouted. The peppers, both green and jalapeno varieties are lagging. But that is to be expected. What is unknown is if the green peppers will come up at all.

I had a bunch of seeds given to me that dated as old as 2002. So I planted several of them in each cell, we'll see how many actually come up. A year or two isn't a big deal, but 7 is asking a lot. I probably should have done a germination test in some wet paper towel, but I didn't think of it in time.

If they aren't up by next weekend I'll throw in some of the seeds from last year that I had left over.

I had also started some lettuce that is beginning to pop up. Lettuce and I have a long and tortured relationship. I had one awesome crop 3 years ago, I've tried every year since, sometimes both spring and fall to repeat that success. I might have succeeded last year but I seeded the window planter too heavily and never thinned them so they crowded each other out and died off.

I'm not exactly doing myself any favors this year. I threw the seeds into a window planter full of garden dirt from last year. Needless to say I have about as many weeds coming up as lettuce. But, I didn't want to waste a lot of effort on something that will probably fail once again.

Time to Start the Veggies!

The time to plant is upon us!

At least in my part of the world, (Connecticuit) that is. Last year I started my seedlings the first weekend of April. Unfortunately, only the onions thrived and the rest weren't ready when I wanted to transplant them. So this year I decided to move them up to the second weekend of March.

It might be a little early, but I'm willing to take that chance. The worst that can happen is I buy plants, again.

That adds nearly 3 weeks of growing time to the peppers and tomatoes. I snuck the onions in even a few days earlier. They can use all the time I can give them and more in our cold climate.

Some day I will try store bought sets. For this year I had some left over onions from last year, some of which had started sprouting, that I am giving a shot as stand in sets. My onions got cut short last year, I think due to thrips. They stopped growing between dime and quarter size. They tasted good, but were small. So some of them *should* work as sets, we will see. I suspect many of them will bolt, but they were inedible anyways.

For now I have planted them in a window planter to give them an early start. I am hoping they can provide an early harvest. If so, maybe I'll give intentional sets a try in the fall.

I'm also giving broccoli from seed a start for the first time. We did plants last year and they did ok, although we got mini-heads instead of nice big heads.

Plant counts:

Green Peppers - 12
Jalapeno Peppers - 12
Roma Tomatoes - 12
Orange Tomatoes - 3
Cherry Tomatoes - 3
Broccoli - 6

Herbs:
Oregano
Chives
Cilantro
Parsley
Basil

Red Burgundy Onions - one package