Secret Farm: A garden blog

Sorrel

This is Sorrel, it's a wonderful early spring herb/green that adds a delightfully lemony tang to any dish. I like to put a few shredded leaves on a good spring scramble. It's usually one of the first things up in the garden that you can cook with and it goes great with chives! I highly recommend it.

Hurray for the Crocus!

What a trooper! This is the lone Pickwick Crocus that still decides to bloom in my garden. I just don't get it. They all come up, but get no bud, and last year was the first year in 3 years that any bloomed at all, and I got 2 that bloomed out of 6 or 8 that came up. (There were 10 originally planted.)

This year, one. Oh well, I'm gonna need to dig up all the spring beds, because most of my tulips have all divided beyond recognition as well. I'm starting to understand the whole planting tulips as an annual thing. Two years ago, I dug up a bunch of the tulips that divided, and split them. I got some special bulb food and replanted and fed them. I got even less tulips to bloom the next spring though, and they seemed to divide more. Oh well, perhaps it's time for some new color anyway.

Anyone have any suggestions about bulbs? Anything I should be doing differently?

***Photo by Chuck

Tomato germination trouble?

Anyone out there having a bit of trouble getting your little ones to emerge from their dark little cocoons? well, I thought I'd share a few tips and secrets I've picked up over the years.

1. Get a heat mat.
You may think you don't need one, or they're too expensive, but let me tell you what a revelation it was when I finally got one last year. My seedlings used to take FOREVER to come up, and sometimes not at all. My germ rate was way too low. I thought it was just the seeds - but no, it was that they were too cold (and also packed in too tight, but we'll get to that in a minute.) Once you get a heat mat, your seedlings will be leaping up overnight. Yes, they actually will. If I don't check mine in the morning, sometimes they are already up about an inch by the time I get home from work.

2. Don't pack 'em in.
When I first started trying to grow tomatoes from seed, I got my little peat pots and I looked at the directions on the pack. Ok peat pot expanded, seed 1/4 inch in, cover up and squish that peat down nice and cozy. Bzzzt! Nope. Seeds need not only moisture, but air to come to life. If you pack them in there, they won't be able to breathe. Now, I put the seeds in and barely push the peat over the top. Works like a dream.

3. Put 'em in the dark.

Seeds need dark to germinate for some reason. I know it doesn't make much sense, I mean in the "wild" the seeds would just fall on the ground and have to sprout in broad daylight right? I dunno. Just cover them up with something opaque like a box top or some newspapers though, ok?

4. Plant at least 2 seeds per pot.

I know, I know you don't want to waste seeds. Well, I didn't either, so instead I wasted time. Precious, precious time. Time those seedlings could have spent getting big and strong and ready for the "real" world. Just this year I decided to plant at least 2 seeds in every pot, and I can tell you every peat pot I planted has a seedling growing in it. Now my problem is I have too many, but that's a different kind of problem. The problem of insanity - but that can be solved with medication. Your weak little undergrown seedlings cannot.

5. Don't keep 'em too wet.

This is kind of a tough one for some reason. It took me quite a while to get this just right. If you're using peat pots or a similar moisture holding material, you need to soak them in water to be able to use them. But this makes them too wet. You can solve this problem one of two ways. You can wait to plant your seeds for a day (who has the patience?) Or, you can plant right away and leave the plastic cover off the first or second night. Likewise, you can alternate between leaving the plastic cover on and taking it off. One night it's on the next it's off, you get the idea. This way you can avoid the bane of seed starting; a mysterious mold that creeps up in the middle of the night and pounces on the little buggers, ruining them. (Actually it's not really mysterious,and it doesn't actually pounce. I bet it even has a name, I'm just too lazy to look it up right now.)

Once your seeds sprout, you do need to remove them from their dark moist cave and bring them into the light. Be sure to check them daily - or twice a day is best. You'd be surprised how fast they can shoot up -I always am.

***Bonus tip***

If you've tried all the above and been a very good little girl (or boy) and your seeds still don't sprout, I have one secret that I use. I call it "fluffing". You just take your fingernail (or similar small pointy object) and gently kinda dig into the top of the pot sort of fluffing up and pushing the peat aside until you uncover the seed or seeds. Then, you very softly cover them up again, and don't add any water for a day. You can also make sure when you do this that the seed wasn't planted to deeply. They don't like that either. Too shallow is actually better than too deep.

Well, that's all I got for right now. I hope some of these help. Lemme know 'eh?

Green Infants

Well, here they are so far. Most of the tomatoes are up, most of the peppers too. Just a few stragglers that I'm trying to coax/force to sprout. The Blondkopfchen Tomato seeds I got from Seed Savers last year are still a no go. I tried them last year as well, and got nothing. Anyone else try these? The other problem child is the Early Yellow Stripe from Tomato Fest, also a last year seed. According to my notes I got one to germ last year, but I think it got lost in the shuffle, because I don't recall any yellow stripey tomatoes. Unless that was one that was lost to the hail storm? I'll never know.

Tonight I planted 6 more Blondkopfchen and 7 more Early Yellow Stripe. Not sure why the 6 and 7, numerology? I dunno. That's just what I ended up doing. I only used 2 peat pots between 'em though, I through wasting peat pots on those suckers! Grow, or you can forget about it! (or, I'll try again next year.) Peat pots are cheap, but come on.

I also planted some Peruvian Purple Chiles  I got from a friend and  a couple Orange Mini Peppers, and one more red one. Oh, and one more tomato - I swear it's the last one! A Black Plum Paste from my friend Kelly. They are 2006 seeds from Seeds of Change, freebies I guess. We'll see if I can tell why they were freebies.

What's up in your pots or patch?

First Seedlings of 2007!

Well, it has begun. The first seedlings of 2007 are already crowding each other for precious fluorescent juice. Most of the peppers I've planted are up - though some are having a bit of trouble getting their seed casing off, so hopefully those will make it. Several of the 30 tomato peat pellets I've planted have sprouted as well. And the Romanesco Broccoli that I originally had atop the fridge sans heat, was moved last night to the basement heat pad and - viola! They were all up and crushing at the plastic dome when I got home from work! Hurray! And here I was worried they weren't going to germinate. I guess they just wanted a little comfort was all.

So far here's what's germinated:

Alma Paprika Pepper (2)

Thai Dragon Pepper (2)

Sweet Chocolate Pepper (2)

Red Mini Pepper (1)

Jimmy Nardello Pepper (1)

Cherry Roma Tomato (2)

Pineapple Tomato (1)

Romanesco Broccoli (4)

Starlight Scentsation Flower (4)

I'm pretty sure I'll have an update tomorrow as there were a few white specks poking out that I just didn't want to put under the lights yet. And of course, I'm going to check again before I go to bed!

New Friends / Old Favorites

Here's some of the new packs I got from Seed Savers Exchange the other day. The are a rather nice place to get seeds, I might add. They had missed a pack of spinach seeds in my original order and just sent it to me today free of charge and I didn't even have to ask! Plus, they have a HUGE selection of the most exotic heirlooms. I found them when I was looking for my "tiny melons" which looked exactly like tiny watermelons in every way, but turned out to be Mexican Sour Gherkin cucumbers. Anywho, they're good. Give 'em a try.

The other seeds you see pictured here are 2 Mini Sweet Peppers (bought from a co-op and saved) and a Thai Dragon Pepper from the garden last year. (I'm crossing my fingers that it is not cross-pollinated, though it might make for an interesting surprise pepper!)

Others I planted already, but not pictured here are:

Romaesco Broccoli (better than the finest broccoli!)
Beams Yellow Pear Tomato
Amish Paste Tomato
Cherry Roma Tomato
Starlight Scentsation (fragrant night blooming flower)

And that's not all, I got lots more - stay tuned!

 

Update! The first pepper up this year was............The Alma Paprika! Congratulations to you!

Basement Mint?

I went donw in the basement the other day looking to get my seed starting set-up going, and what should I find? Basemint! Some of the lime mint from last year's crop is newly growing in the pot. Miraculously without light or water! I guess that's why you can never get rid of mint in the garden huh?

I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep the mint going though because with all the roots in that pot I usually have to dig it up pretty good to plant the new stuff - we'll see. Or, maybe I'll just make some early spring Mojitos?