seed starting - NOT an easy task

I told myself I wouldn't buy very much for planting in general...I mean why do plants need to be pampered? They have done without for a long time...Well, since seed-starting this year, I've bought 2 (yes, TWO) shop fixtures and 4 bulbs for them, and one seedling heat mat. *sigh*, talking about breaking down! but my entire setup has been under $100. The shelving unit that I am using was already in place in our garage.

After all this, I must be having a bunch of seedlings growing crazily, right? well, read my title for this post again. :-( out of about 36 peat pellet "pots", less than half have sprouted. okay, so some of my seeds are 1 - 2 yrs old, but wow, I expected at least half!

Well, one thing is for sure...this whole experience has humbled me. Seed starting is not a simple process.

But I am not an easy quitter...I have planted a few more seeds, in hopes to get more germination from snow peas (the earlier bunch had 0 germination (that is a ZERO), jacob's cattle beans (also a ZERO germination from the previous planting), butternut squash (I got 1 out of the last planting, yay!), cucumber (I had 2!), I believe it is a celebrity tomato (I haven't planted any of this type before, but I have at least 4 tomato plants from the previous planting), and butternut squash (I may have 1 plant from the previous planting). So, we'll see what the end of the week brings.

*keeping fingers crossed!*

PS: the weeding and bed preparation in my garden is well under way, but I have only managed to finish 1 out of 7.

More Seed Starting

Yeppers...last night, since I actually bought myself a seedling heat mat (*gasp*...I never thought I would buy one of these things...but it is freezing in our garage!!), I decided to plant more seeds:

snow peas
sugar snap peas

and the rest are all bush beans:
blue lake
tendergreen
slenderette
royal burgundy
dragon langerie
jacob's cattle

Jacob's cattle is the first shelling bean I am planting. I chose this one because if I wanted to, I can also pick them early as a snap bean and eat whole.

why bush beans? well, basically because the trellises/cages that I do have, I use for grapes, tomatoes, and peas. plus none of my cages are big enough.

so far, only one of my previously planted seeds have sprouted...I did log what I planted where, but there seems to be a mix up. That peat pot log states that it is a sugar baby seedling, but its too small for a watermelon seedling...it looks more like a sage. we'll see soon. (and fingers crossed that all my seedlings will now grow because of the extra warmth!)

Harvest 2010

Snow Peas: 4.5 handfuls (1 handful = 30 pods)
Super Sugar Snap Peas: 2 handfuls (1 handful = 30 pods)
San Marzano Tomatoes: 200+
Australian Yellow Onion: 30
Zucchini: 29
Strawberries: 27
Corn: 17 ears
Eggplant: 27
Jalapeno: 16
Zucchini Squash: 11
Garlic: 9 (tiny heads)
Anaheim Pepper: 10
Lettuce (various): 6 salad bowlfuls (adult, side salad amount)
Bell Pepper: 9
Apples: 4
Cucumber: 4
Beans (blue lake, dragon's tongue, royal burgundy): 9 lb(s)
Soybeans: 0.5 lbs
European Plum: 2
Nectarines: 2
round tomatoes: 15
Charantais Melon: 1
Concord Grapes: 0.5 lbs
Broccoli: 2.5 lbs
Carrots: 2
Asian Lettuce: 2.0 lbs
Almond: [EATEN BY ANIMALS]
Spinach: [FAILED]
Cherries: [NONE THIS SEASON]

Season 2011 has begun

Whoa...it has been waaayyy too long since I last posted to this blog. since September 2010? Shame on me!!

Life has had its moments since then and since my work life deals with me being on the computer all day, I kinda lose the interest of going on to a computer when I get home. But, that's besides the point!

The point of this blog is to keep a log of my journey into edible gardening. This year, I am starting my plants from seed...I tried to do that last year, but a trip overseas made me donate my plants to a school's garden. And I ended up coming back and buying most of my veggies.

Why the sudden post? Well, I actually started my seeds today...actually I just finished it a few minutes ago...yippee!!! I bought a jiffy greenhouse thingy (very flimsy but I had excellent results with it last year) with 72 peat pellets. I also set up a light fixture to place lights above my seeds to give it some natural-type light. It won't offer heat, but rather just the light. I know that the seeds need more warmth than anything right now so i've kinda snuggled them onto a warm towel under the light and have the plastic cover over the seeds. they are in the garage right now. i may have to bring them into the house during the night tho...it will get too cold.

What have I started? well, of the 72 peat pellets, I have only started 24 of them. (Can you imagine planting all 72 at once?! that would be overkill...think succession planting!). I have started:

Peppers:
Jalapenos
California wonder
Kaleidescope Pepper

Note: I've had really bad problems with sprouting and growing peppers in the ground...I don't know if it's because I don't water enough, the soil is not their type or what, but I'm trying again. I'll plant them in a different spot this time.

Butternut squash (dated 2008 and 2010)
8 ball (dated 2008 and 2010)
zucchini vegetable marrow
zucchini gold rush
black zucchini

Note: I've had great success with the vegetable marrow and the black zucchini. I wasn't too diligent with the others, therefore they failed for one reason or another last season. This season, I will be (at least try harder to be) more careful with these guys and hope I get to see some on my plate this season.

Tomatoes:
Banana legs
Riesentrauben
German orange strawberry

Note: I found that I LOVE my paste tomatoes. Of the three listed above, only the banana legs are said to be a paste type, but the Riesentrauben (translated to "huge grapes") is a large grape tomato type (duh) which I also love, and the German orange strawberry (name sounds weird, doesn't it?) looked really beautiful and I wanted to try grow it myself. I actually don't have any other paste tomato seeds...I'll have to look for some. I've tried the roman candle, speckled roman, san marzano, and the roma. All great! I really loved the roman candle, however, because of its beautiful yellow color and firm flesh. I do want to grow a black tomato type...we'll see if I get my hands on one.

Golden Bantam Corn

Note: I had a blast growing these for the first time last year. I bought it as small plants and all 12 plants gave me at least 1 ear each. They were super tasty and I would pick them, shuck them and throw them directly into a pot of boiling water to par boil them (to de-ear them) or boil/steam them to eat, OR even better, just eat them straight from the garden. yummy! my son and I enjoyed the latter the best. With growing them, I also learned a lot of how they grow and develop the corn kernels. I didn't know that each silk strand was connected to a corn kernel and it's the silk that catches the pollen (that grows out of the top of the corn plants), fertilizes and becomes a plump kernel. amazing. its one of the reason why I love to plant new things!

Burgundy okra

I don't know if I like okra (I shudder at all the comments from people who complain about the slime....ewww), but I read that this plant is also very ornamental. So even if I decide that okra is not for me, at least I can enjoy the beauty of it.

Cucumbers:
Diva
Suyo TK

Last year I was lazy at watering them often, so some of them came out rather bitter. This year I will try harder (much harder) to keep them happy and productive.

Sugar baby watermelon

Two years ago, i had some success at planting this from seed. I realised that they need to be watered EVERY DAY. I'd like to eat some watermelon again, so here goes nothing!!

Ping Tung eggplant

I kinda like eggplant...but last season we had too much so I'm making sure we don't plant too much.

Sage

I missed having this in my garden last year. i didn't realize that they are perennial plants. I had them in my garden back in 2009, but i guess from not watering them often enough, it died. I'd love to use fresh sage in my cooking again.

Well, that's all the seeds I planted in my 24 peat pots. I'll plant more (different things) next week, and do a double sowing of this week's seeds in 2 weeks.

Can you say "corn pics"?

yeah....FINALLY. (i know).

these got boiled for about 8 - 10 minutes, and shocked in ice cold water for about 16 - 20 minutes.

European Plums

My 15 month old son and I ate the very first 2 plums picked from our tree that I planted 2 yrs ago. It was not the type I expected but they were just as sweet and yummy! My son and I seem to love to graze the garden and papa barely gets a glimpse of some harvests we have. ha! that's what he gets for not coming out into the garden with us.

I know there is a third plum on that tree somewhere...we will have to find it...and possibly take a picture of it before it is eaten!

Finally.....CORN

Yes, folks...since eating my first ear of corn, that I grew, with my 15 month old son, I decided to do more corn harvesting today. I picked the largest ears, which came out to a total of 12 ears.

I researched how to best preserve this corn, since there is no way 2 adults and one toddler can eat 12 ears of corn in one sitting, and I chose blanching. Blanching is a technique of quickly boiling and quickly cooling down the item being blanched. My ears of corn varied in diameter between 1" to 1 1/2". So blanching time is around 8 minutes, cooling time 16 minutes. I didn't have much ice to cool down 12 ears, so after bathing in some cold water, i put the ears of corn on cookie sheets in the fridge.

After they cooled for a while, I cut the corn kernels off the cob, packed them into 2 - 3 serving sizes in quart freezer bags and put them in the freezer. my husband ate a blanched corn cob and i ate a fresh one, so from 10 left over ears of corn, I got 3 quart bags.

This was my very first time growing my corn and watching them grow, as with everything else that is edible, was a great adventure! would I grow them again? Maybe. if there is nothing else I would like to try to grow next season, then I might just plant some corn, since I do have some seeds. They are very easy to grow, and I have to admit, I was lucky since there were no worms in my corn (I didn't use any mineral oil to prevent them from getting through to the corn).