Wednesday, April 1, 2009

No Babies for YOU

I'm resisting the will of the people today and NOT posting photos of any of the various miniature animals toddling around the pens and pastures of Blackrock. I can do that because this is MY site, and while I am a benevolent dictator, I am still a dictator. And today, I want to talk about the garden. So there.

So! I've been planting things! Yay! Indoors, obviously, as we do not live in California (Finny) and will not be able to set our precious baby plants outside for another month and a half. But there are quite a few things that we grow from seed that need to be started indoors way before the outside planting season starts. Like eggplant. Which I planted way back before I left for Arizona, along with hot peppers. I planted two varieties of eggplant, one called Rosa Bianca that produces these cool roundish pink stripey eggplants, and one called . . . um, the name escapes me, but it produces albino eggplants. Kinda creepy. The hot peppers came from a packet helpfully labeled "Hot Pepper Mix," which means there's no way to tell what you'll get until the peppers form. And even then, no way for ME to tell, since my pepper identification skills are severely lacking.

Not that it matters, since none of the hot peppers have sprouted. The albino eggplant hasn't either. Bastards. But the Rosa Bianca is up and running! Well, running as much as is possible for plants in tiny seed starting containers. Which is . . . not at all. Because plants don't run. Duh.

BUT ANYWAY.

When I got home from Arizona, I planted the bell peppers, yellow and red kinds. No signs of life from them yet. Yesterday I planted leeks and onions in a flat. And today? The tomatoes go in. DUN DUN DUUUUUN. Let the Tomato Crazy begin!

You know you missed the Tomato Crazy.

All these little seedlings currently reside in the MiL's bathroom, which is the warmest room in the house because of the space heater in there. There's a grow light in there. Also the lovebirds, but they aren't much help with the seed growing. So far, all the seeds have been planted in seed-starting pots I make from empty toilet paper rolls (directions here). They work okay, and I like them because they can be put directly in the ground and the pot will decompose into the soil, but be warned: If you make these, learn from my experience and tie some kitchen twine around each one to keep it from falling apart at the seams when you soak the pots with water. Because that totally happened to me last year.


From tiny seeds mighty gardens grow.

There were a lot of questions about the lambs yesterday, and I'll answer them all. Tomorrow.

5 comments:

Sara said...

Wow, that's impressive...making pots from toilet paper rolls? Genius!

FinnyKnits said...

I was planning to use TP rolls, but didn't have any empty ones when I set out my experimental six seeds (experimental since I usually direct sow thanks to CA weather - hehehe, sorry.) so I used an egg carton.

It's starting to fall apart a little, but I think I'll be able to scoop the small babes into the soil without destroying them. Maybe. Maybe not since I usually kill them one way or another.

Good luck with your bastard seeds. Eggplants are such prima donne anyway.

Carrie said...

This is the first year I've had a garden and I am more excited than any normal person should be. You'd think these seedlings were my children and said children had just won the Nobel prize for physics or something.

We are doing mostly tomatoes with some peppers and onions thrown in for good measure. Yes, there will be salsa this summer.

Susan said...

If plants don't run, why do they get leggy? Bah dum dum! All I'm planning to grow this year is a watermelon patch.

Daisy said...

I tend to kill plants indoors. Maybe the space heater is what I need! I usually buy seedlings for tomatoes and peppers. Maybe a little extra heat + a few toilet paper rolls will help.