I’ve been going pretty crazy with gardening things lately and I’m beginning to wonder if maybe the crazy part of me that did over a thousand gardening experiments in Final Fantasy XI has suddenly transferred over to reality. My seed packet collection is well over 100 and approaching 150 very quickly.
I have some old seeds from 2008 that I can’t seem to bring myself to throw away. I keep planting them and even when they rot, I still plant them again in the hopes they’re still alive. I bought them when I had no real place to plant them, thinking they would store for years. Obviously I was wrong. Some are still alive though.
I’ve begun marking the good ones with a guesstimate percentage for germination. Some I just have no hope for by now, such as the lettuce and onion seeds, but I’ll try just tossing the whole packet into a tray of potting soil just to see what happens. Maybe I’ll try planting it in potting soil with vermicast mixed in, as that’s supposed to aid germination.
My swiss chard looked so good indoors but when I transplanted it outside, it dried up a little and then the wind came and owned it hard. One of the seeds that I planted directly into the bed looks to be doing a little better, I suspect because it’s planted deeper. Of the three chard starters I transplanted, only one is still alive. I’ll plant more seeds tomorrow morning before work.
This plant had one freaking oogly bell pepper on it, so I told Mr. Pikko we should just pull it out. He said to leave it, but then when I checked the plant today, all of the peppers on it are ugly like this one. Since it’s come so far, we’ll keep it and eat it, but yech!
Mr. Pikko’s first eggplant is coming out, even though the plant looks like it needs to be quarantined and burned. Hopefully it’s just the leaves and the fruit turn out okay. I started some white “egg” eggplant seeds the other day. It looks really cool, so I’m hoping that does well!
This is the Blue Vates Kale that I planted on February 17. It’s supposed to be ready to harvest one month from now. I started new seeds on the 17th. I think I’ll probably start seeds every month.
These are my cherry belle radish sprouts that I started on March 12th. I planted some of my Ark (2008) pink radish seeds and they took much longer to germinate and only half of them came up. I’ll probably start some carrots where nothing happened. My golden acre cabbage from Hometown Seeds sprouted up pretty quick, with 3/4 germinating. My parisienne carrots from Baker Creek peeked out after 5 days.
This is one of the only yellow alpine strawberry plants left. Birds maliciously stepped on top of the others and they’re struggling to recuperate. I have about six other sprouts that popped up after I broadcast some seeds in the same planter.
This cabbage is a serious trooper. It’s one of the Ark seeds I planted and got mauled by moths and then Max went and snapped one of the best leaves off. But look at it now!! I’m amazed! I can’t figure out when I planted it though… My best guess is around late January.
This is a pretty bad picture as I was using my point and shoot and the wind was blowing the ferns all over the place, but this was my weekend project. My asparagus starters ended up with a 100% germination rate and about nine of them were approaching about six inches in height, which is when you’re supposed to transplant them. I dug down really deep and then mixed vermicast with soil before planting them about 6-8 inches apart.
I only dug up half of the bed. Next weekend I’ll work on the rest and plant to transplant some of the baby basil plants and then plant some carrots, onions, and tomatoes as they’re good asparagus companions. I forgot to leave space for marigolds, so I have to figure out how to plant those too.
I yanked out my failed radishes and fed the tops to the bunnies. They loved them! The other set of radishes has two bulbs in the bunch, which I’ll try harvesting on Tuesday. My front plot that I dug two weeks ago has one amaranth plant that I don’t think will make it and a short row of sunflowers that are looking pretty good!