Seed Sowing List 03-30-10

Calendula Pacific Beauty (American Seed)
Coleus, rainbow mix (Ferry Morse)
Peruvian Pepper (Seeds of Change)
Sweet Pea, royal mix colors (unknown)
Nasturtium, jewel mixed colors (Bentley Seeds)
Marigold, crackerjack (American Seed)
Lettuce, garden babies butterhead (Renee's Garden)
Onion, white bunching (Bentley Seeds)
Sweet corn, early golden banthan (American Seeds)
Tomato, micro tom (Seedman)
Poached egg plant (Thompson and Morgan)
Lamb's ears (Groco  Seeds)
Eggplant, white bianca (Seedman)

Seed Sowing List 03-29-10

 Picture of lettuce, tomato, and garlic in Spring 2009

Today's seed sowing list is full of herbs,corn, lettuce and flowers:

Herbs:

• Lemon balm (Groco Seeds) 
• Cilantro (American Seed) 
• Sage (Burpee) 
• Oregano (Groco Seeds) 
• Fennel, Florence (Burpee) 
• Dill (trade) 
• Asparagus (trade) 

Lettuce:

• Baby romaine (trade) 

 Flowers:

• Snapdragon first ladies mixed (Sow n Grow)
• Morning Glory giant mixed colors (Sow n Grow) 
• Four o Clocks mix (Burpee) 

Corn:

• Popcorn (my own kitchen) 
• Corn Chinese baby (trade)

Today's Seed Sowing List

Today, I planted carrots in one of my raised beds. I planted Ferry Morse Long Imperator #58 and Chantenay carrots. I read that carrot seeds take longer to germinate because of a natural growth inhibitor in the seeds. I will have to wait 14-21 days to see any signs of growth.

The other day, I planted the following:

Tomatoes:

• Beefsteak x4 (American Seed) 
• Tomatillos x3 (Renee's Garden) 
• Red current x3 (Burpee) 
• Jelly Bean x3 (Walmart Gardens) 
• Supersweet x3 (Burpee) 
• Marglobe x4 (Groco seeds) 

Peppers:

• Pimento x4 (Ferry Morse) 
• Jalapeno early x3 (Burpee) 
• California Wonder x8 (American Seed and Ferry Morse) 
• Habanero x3 

Eggplants

• Rosa Bianca x3 (Renee's Garden)
• Beatrice x3(Renee's Garden)
• Nadia x3 (Renee's Garden)

Today's Seed Sowing: Carrots, Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants

Today, I planted carrots in one of my raised beds. I planted some Ferry Morse Long Imperator #58 and Chantenay carrots. I read that carrots take longer to germinate because of a natural growth inhibitor in the seeds. I will have to wait 14-21 days to see any signs of growth. I can’t wait.

The other day, I planted the following:

Tomatoes

Beefsteak x4 (American Seed)

Tomatillos x3 (Renee’s Garden)

Red Current x3 (Burpee)

Jelly Bean x3 (Walmart Gardens)

Supersweet x 3 (Burpee)

Marglobe x4 (Groco Seed)

Peppers:

Pimento peppers x4 (Ferry Morse)

Jalapeno early x3 (Burpee)

California Wonder x4 (American Seed)

California Wonder x4 (Ferry Morse)

Habanero x3 (unknown)

Eggplants:

Rosa Bianca x3 (Renee’s Garden)

Beatrice x3 (Renee’s Garden)

Nadia x3 (Renee’s Garden)

Hydrofarm Seedling Heat Mat Mini Review

Tonight I broke down and bought a Hydrofarm Seedling Heat Mat at my local garden store.

It was $24.95 and I had a 15% coupon making it around $21.00. On Amazon, they are around $25.00 dollars as well. I think it's a good deal if it works. I read great reviews on this product and am excited to try it out and provide my own review.

Most of the reviews on Amazon, people said to place a towel underneath the mat to draw heat upwards to your seed trays. I placed the mat on a cookie sheet on the floor, followed with a towel, then the heat mat, and my trays. After a couple of minutes of it plugged in, I could tell it was warm but I expected it to be much hotter than just warm. I placed my eggplant, tomato, and pepper seed trays on top and now we wait and see. The company claims it will raise the rooting area 10-20 degrees over the ambient temperature in the room. Regardless of what it says, I just want to get my tomato, pepper, and eggplant seeds to germinate faster.

This will be my little experiment over the next couple of weeks to see if this product really does work. Wish my luck everyone!

Potting African Violet Suckers

In February, I had written a post about African Violet suckers and I thought it was time to update you on the progress.

The before picture shows the tiny suckers not looking like much. I must admit, I was not hopeful to see these little things survive but this experiment is just a testament to show that anything is worth trying. They were very easy to root. I mean simply easy.

After 3 months, this is what it looks like:

Follow these steps to root African Violet suckers:

What you'll need:

-Small pot

-Moist potting soil or seed starting mix

-African Violet suckers

-A large zipper bag

-1 Straw

1. Gently pry the suckers off the mother plant. You can use anything from a pencil eraser, popsicle stick, or an exacto knife (that's what I used). If you don't know what a sucker looks like, click here for a picture.

2. Put the moistened soil in a small pot. Insert the sucker into the dirt. Make sure there's ample contact between the base of the sucker and the dirt.

3. Put the pot inside the bag and if you need to, insert the straw in the dirt to prevent the bag from resting on top of the suckers. This is important since if the bag touches the suckers, the condensation from the bag will cause the suckers to rot. Put the pot under some bright lights and...

4. The hardest part of this process is: patience. It'll take a couple of weeks for it to take root and a couple more to show signs of leaf growth.

Results:

At two months and a couple of days, here's what the suckers should look like. At this time, you can take the bag off and keep them underneath some strong, indirect light.

After several more months, they should like like a new plant. The picture is of 75 days.

Growing Swiss Chard: the Colorful Spinach Substitute

Last year, I started growing swiss chard for the first time. I only grew several plants because I wasn't for sure if I would like the taste or not. Anywhoo, it grew like crazy and I was able to make one dish with it. I cooked it like spinach, sauteeing it with some olive oil and garlic. After it wilted a little, I added some lemon juice and red pepper flakes. It was a great side dish. Swiss chard is such an easy plant to grow and the varieties are endless. They have a variety called rainbow swiss chard and the colors are amazing. They're a perfect addition to any vegetable garden or a side plant in the front yard. They're a vegetable that I can't live without. What do you guys think about this one?

This year, I was determined to grow continuous crops of swiss chard. The first batch, I started in January. January 1st to be exact. They took a week to sprout and grew like mad. At first they were leggy and spinly but after a couple of weeks, they grew thick stems and strengthened up really well.

Swiss Chard Seedlings at 31 days

I moved them outside in the ground in an area that gets late morning sun, a couple of weeks before my last frost, around February 11th. They looked so puny and defenseless. To protect them from critters like the dreaded slugs and snails, I would cover them with plastic cups for the next two weeks at night and uncover them in the morning before work. It worked. The snails didn't get too much of them and they grew very well.

Swiss Chard Transplanted

So they grew and they grew without too many problems. Not a pest to be found. I'm still crossing my fingers! Here they are a month and a half later, still growing steadily:

Swiss Chard 59 days

And grew they did. I'll probably harvest these soon and make some yummy side dishes.

Swiss Chard 90 days

Here are some pics of the other swiss chard plants I have laying around the garden. I plan on planting them in a spot near my fence that gets regular morning sun. They really enjoy full sun but part sun wouldn't hurt them much.

Happy gardening everyone!

How to Germinate Bean Seeds: A tip

I thought I'd share a little tip I learned this week regarding how to germinate beans. They are the most peskiest seeds I've attempted this season. The story goes as follows: earlier last month, I tried sprouting some top crop beans in a six pack and before they had time to sprout, they rotted in the soil. I was saddened and disheartened.

I almost gave up trying but my coworker was telling me about these interesting purple podded pole beans that have purple pods and when cooked, the thing turns green. It was so intriguing to me. I had to go and find some. I received some seeds from a couple of my garden buddies via seed trades but I also bought a packet of seeds a week ago when I was at Lowes just perusing around and I saw on the Burpee's seed rack that there were some purple colored beans. They're a bush variety called "Sequoia" and they turn green when you cook them! I had to buy them! However, with my past history of unsuccessful attempts at sprouting bean seeds, I was a little weary that this packet of seeds wouldn't sprout and instead rot on me. I had a wondrous epiphany! In 2nd grade, I remember sprouting seeds-in fact bean seeds-in a wet paper towel in a jar. I was so excited that I finally found a way to sprout beans without wasting any seeds.

All you need is a jar or a zip lock baggie and a wet paper towel. Wet the paper towel and lay the seeds you want to sprout on top of the towel. Fold the towel over the seeds a couple of times and insert into plastic baggie. Place on top of a warm place. I use my fridge. Lastly but not least, you wait!
So, I tried this technique with some Italian Pole beans I had. And within 10 days, they've all sprouted. Here's a picture:

Italian Pole Beans Sprouting

Eureka, as those Californians would say! It worked. So a couple of days ago, I attempted putting some of my precious, hard to find Sequioa purple beans in a wet paper towel in a plastic baggie. I also wanted to try some Scarlett Runner beans as well. I hope to have beans all over the place!

Seed Sowing Update

The seeds I planted approximately 2 weeks ago have begun to sprout. I planted bok choi, 4 o clocks, broccoli, carrots (a round variety), spinach, mesclun mix, peas, beets, and more. I cannot remember everything I planted though. I always do this every year. I plant all these things and find out later I cannot recall what I planted. I’ll just wait until they’ve grown enough to distinguish what it is! I hope it’s not weed seeds though. For a great seed starting book, check out All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space!. I love the details and the precise information it provides.

Carrots Gardening and Growing Tips

Carrot Growing Tips

The story:

I began growing carrots last fall. I probably have 2 dozen carrots in the ground. Of course, I cannot recall what variety I grew. I have never had the pleasure of eating carrots from my own garden so this was a wonderful experience. When I planted them in fall, I crowded the seeds and never thinned them. This; however, has worked out for me. Out of the 6 I have already eaten, all of them were decent size, a quarter size I would guess or a tiny bit smaller than a quarter.

The first carrot we ate from the garden was a month ago in a salad. I decided to see how big the carrots had gotten over the winter and to my surprise it was a decent size one. It was terrible trying to get it out of the ground but after all the tugging, a beautiful orange, dirt-covered carrot appeared. I immediately went inside to show my husband and he was amused and bewildered with my excitement of my first carrot! I washed it and took a bite out of it. It was the sweetest, crunchiest, and freshest carrot I had ever eaten. I cannot describe the sweetness of these carrots. From then on, I vowed to have carrots in my planning guide for my garden always.

I have decided to plant both radishes and carrots together. Radishes are similar to carrots in that they are both root crops. Radishes; however, germinate quickly and mature faster than carrots. By the time the carrots need more space, the radishes will be ready to harvest.

Here are some tips I have learned in the past year of growing my own carrots!

-Thin seeds to 2-3 inches apart or sow 2-3 inches apart when setting seed out

-Carrots need well-drained and well-balanced soil to thrive. Any compacted soil filled with debris and rocks will produce deformed carrots. My soil is very sandy so the carrots did well

-Sow carrots as soon as the hard frost has passed. If you still have some frost, don’t worry, carrots can handle light frost

-Carrots aren’t picky with fertilizer. Good compost should be enough. Stay away from nitrogen rich fertilizers. Nitrogen promotes top green growth and less root development. Roots=carrots

-Watering: carrots hate being water-logged or being watered too much. Light watering will suffice

-For continuous harvest, stagger your plantings every two weeks.

-Pests: I didn’t have much pests around my carrots. However, carrots are prone to be infected with carrot root flies (they feed on roots) and flea beetles (they will attract other pests). To get rid of this, I would make a mixture of 2 tablespoon dish soap and 2 quarts of water and spray the areas that are affected.

What Vegetables are Good for Freezing? Handling and Storage Ideas

The plan this growing season for me is to can, freeze, preserve, and dehydrate fruits and vegetables we do not consume and have an abundance of (i.e. peak of tomato season where we have lots of tomatoes). This is a big endeavor for me since it will be my first time preserving what I grow. I have gotten a lot of books detailing how to preserve vegetables from your garden. I have been busily reading and noting what techniques to use. A great reference book I would recommend is Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. It details every vegetable you can grow and how to preserve them. It’s an invaluable resource to any gardener who wants to pursue this adventure.
I have read a lot about preserving vegetables by blanching and freezing. Freezing is a great way to lock in nutrients. Blanching is the process of dropping your desired vegetable in boiling water for a set time (typically for 30 seconds to 3 minutes). After blanching, you will take the veggies out and place them in an ice bath consisting of water and ice cubes. After they have cooled, you can freeze them flat on a tray in the freezer before packaging. Since, you’re not completely cooking the vegetables you keep the nutrients and texture of the vegetables. Happy gardening everyone!
What you’ll need to freeze vegetables is simple:

-desired vegetable you want to preserve

-pot

-water

-bowl

-ice water

-bags (sandwhich or freezer) and/or small containers (1 quart)

-freezer

Here’s a chart of vegetables that will do well freezing, when to freeze, and how to handle and store them:

What to Freeze	Time to Freeze	How to Freeze
Berries	Spring to Fall	Wash your produce, air dry and freeze
Broccoli	Spring and Fall	Cut into bite-size pieces, blanch in boiling water for 30 seconds to 1 minute, cool in ice bath for 2 minutes, drain and freeze
Chard	Spring, Summer, and Fall	Blanch until wilted (several minutes) It will look like wilted spinach. Cool in ice bath, drain, and freeze in small batches
Edamame (soybeans)	Summer to Fall	Simmer pods in salted water for approximately 5 minutes. Cool in ice bath for 2 minutes, drain, and freeze
Peas	Spring to Fall	Blanch in boiling water for a minute. Cool in ice bath for 2 minutes, drain and freeze
Peppers	Summer to Fall	Slice, blanch in boiling water for 1 minute, cool in ice bath for 2 minutes, drain and freeze
Snap beans	Summer to Fall	Blanch in boiling water for a minute. Cool in ice bath for 2 minutes, drain and freeze
Spinach	Spring to Fall	Blanch until wilted (several minutes) Cool in ice bath, drain, and freeze in small batches
Sweet corn	Summer	Cut kernels from cobs, simmer in hot water for 2-3 minutes. Cool in ice bath, drain, and freeze in small batches

Gardening Books to Review

I just checked out a couple of gardening books from my local library. I will provide a in depth review of them in a week time.
In the mean time, I have added my cursory, first glance review below:

Homegrown Vegetables, Fruits & Herbs: A Bountiful, Healthful Garden for Lean Times

by Jim Wilson

(picture credit: www.amazon.com)

First-glance review: I love the pictures. I was salivating looking at the pictures. They look as if I could just grab them! The advice is easy to read and more aimed at a gardener just starting out...like me.

 

by Mel Bartholomew

(picture credit: www.shopping.yahoo.com)

First-glance review: When I looked through it, Mel, the author is very knowledgeable in many different styles of gardening. He also provides how-to's to better improve your garden. I really like the graphs especially the seed-starting graphs.

Grow great grub

by Gayla Trail

(picture credit: www.growgreatgrub.com)

First-glance review: Gayla Trail, author of You Grow Girl has done it again. She has great projects and tips in this new book. It is for the every day gardening: beginning, intermediate and advance.
Happy gardening and stay tune for a full review!

Spring Seed Starting

Yesterday, I started another tray of seeds. I love starting seeds and seeing each little seed's progress through the upcoming days.

Here's a list of what I planted:

Tomatoes:

Patio Tomato (Burpee)

San Marzano Plum Tomato (Wintersown)

Oregon Spring Tomato (Wintersown)

Campbell's Tomato (Campbell's)

Beefsteak Tomato (American Seeds)

Marglobe Tomato (Groco Seeds)

Sweet Gold (Tomato Growers)

Supersweet 100 Tomato (Burpee)

Eggplant:

Little Prince Eggplant (Renee's Garden)

Peppers:

Cubanelle Pepper (Lawn and Garden)

Sweet Banana Pepper (Ferry Morse)

Jalapeno Pepper (Ferry Morse)

California Wonder Pepper (American Seeds)

Others:

Sunflower tall (Groco Seeds)

Baby Pumpkins-Mini Jack (Renee's Garden)

Sugar Pie Pumpkin (Lily Miller)

Lunaria (Burpee)

Flax (Groco Seeds)

More Houseplants and Seeds

Today, OSH (known as Orchard Supply Hardware) had a buy one get one free houseplant sale. I was super excited because I have never seen a houseplant sale like this before. So I got up this morning and went to my local OSH and there were racks upon racks of houseplants that were BOGIF.

I picked up two pothos, one coradatum philendendrom, and one creeping Charlie plant which is also known as ground ivy. I plan on putting the philendendrom in my master bathroom which gets lots of morning sunlight. One of the pothos and creeping Charlie plants I plan on putting in my craft room and the other pothos in my living room. I hope my husband does not mind! Hehe. I’ll post pictures later.

I also got some seeds and Atlas fish emulsion for my veggies and seedlings. I’ve never tried this brand before so we’ll see how well it does in my garden. I’ll post a review later this season.

I got five more Renee’s Garden seed packets. The varieties are called: Renee’s Caeser Duo (green and red romaines), Mini Jack (baby pumpkins), Two Color Fiesta (Mexican tomatillos), Sweet Armenian (cucumbers), and Neon Glow (rainbow chard).

I also noticed that the corn, bean and cucumber seeds I pre-germinated have sprouted. I’ll have to pot them up in their own six pack later tonight. I was surprise at how fast these sprouted because I’ve heard they take a while. By pre-germinating my seeds, I’m not wasting space in my trays. One my biggest pet peeves are putting trays of dirt underneath the grow lights only to have 20-30 percent of seeds that have germinated. This year I am being proactive and making sure that all the spots on the trays have a plant. We’ll see how that goes though....Until next time, happy gardening.

Review: Renee's Garden Seeds

This year I decided to purchase some seeds from Renee's Garden.

My local garden center has a large rack of Renee's seeds and I tend to migrate over to this rack because of the beautiful and elegant seed packet design. The front of the seed packets have the name of the plant and a neat colored illustration of the plant. The back of the packet has the usual growing instructions but unlike other seed packets, they provide notes, tips, harvest and use instructions which is very helpful to a new gardener like myself. In addition, the back of the packets includes an insert that thoroughly describes what you're growing.

Since I am mainly a veggie grower. I picked out some veggie seeds to buy. I bought some little gem lettuces, tri-color pole beans and little prince eggplants. The price was $2.00 a packet (they were on sale this week...the normal purchase price is $2.69) and the quantity of seeds was surprisingly abundant. The tricolor pole bean packet was full of beans, the little gem lettuces had plenty of seeds (so much I don't expect I'll have to buy another packet for years!), and the little prince eggplant came with around 30-40 seeds (enough for a couple of years of plants).

I was pleasantly surprised with Renee's Garden seeds and would recommend them to any gardener! I'll post updates on how well my plants grow this year. I hope for the best. Thank you Renee's Garden Seeds.

My New Spider Plant

The weather here is just so lovely. It's been in the high 60's and low 70's and nice and sunny. My only hope is it will last. Unfortunately, the weatherman said that it will rain this Sunday :( It was good while it lasted though.

For Valentines, my fiancee bought me an African Violet. I don't like the idea of buying cut flowers since they'll be dead in a couple of days. An African violet will last me much longer than cut flowers. He also got me some gardening gloves, bearded iris bulbs, and a gardening pot (for the bulbs). It was a lovely and thoughtful gift!

In this weekend's ads, OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware) had a 10% off sale on all seed starting supplies so I stopped in before work this morning. I didn't see anything I really wanted but instead i saw this beautiful spider plant. It was in a huge hanging pot and was so heavy to lift. I bought it for my grow shelves. It already had some baby spider plantlets, which I hope to pot up and make more spider plants as gifts. I'm going to try the propagating technique known as layering. I'm excited to see if it works!
I also transplanted some seedlings in bigger containers. I was using jiffy peat pellets and the roots were hanging out of the netting so I moved them to red plastic cups.

Tomato Seeds I Started

I started some tomato and petunia seeds the other night. I find seed starting relaxing and fun. I spent over 2 hours in the kitchen preparing, planting, and labeling. Here's the list of things I planted:

• Tiny Tim Tomatoes
• Patio Hybrid Tomatoes (they're designed to be placed in pots)
• Supersweet 100 Tomatoes
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Roma Tomatoes
• Marglobe Tomatoes
• Petunia Seeds I collected last year. I hope they sprout!!! Fingers Crossed.
• Petunia Seeds from a packet

Over the weekend, my bf bought me a grow light set up and since he's an electrician, he wired it up so there are switches for me to turn on and off. He's so sweet! I'll have to post some pictures! I love it!!!!

Propagating African Violet Suckers

A couple of days ago, I repotted the suckers from my African Violet I got from the Dollar Store almost 8 months ago. They stopped blooming and I kind of forgot about it until I noticed that it was overly crowded! After the suckers grow a little bit, they're much easier to handle. I popped them off with an xacto knife. The following picture is what I believe are suckers.

Here is a picture of the suckers that were removed and potted up in seed starting soil. I hope they root and make me more African Violets.

Here is my African Violet free from all the suckers.

First Gardening Experience

My first gardening experience was in 2005. I went out and bought a Jade plant and a Hawaiian schelferra for my apartment. I then wanted to grow some chives so I went out and bought some seeds for $.79 and a jiffy pellet set with 12 spots for peat pellets. Since then, I have been hooked with gardening. At first, I was more interested in vegetable gardening but now I'm into anything that grows! I soaked the little pellets and planted the chive seeds being careful to get at least 1-2 seeds in each pellet. I stuck it on top of my fridge and a couple of days later, they sprouted. I left them on top of my fridge because I wanted them to get bigger. That was my first gardening mistake. The seedlings became leggy and to correct that error, I used an old college lamp I had to give it some light.

Here is a look of my chive seeds when they sprouted.

This is my first plant I grew from seed! Chives. They were super easy and it looks like they're growing quite well.