Seeds!

I planted my first round of summer seeds on Saturday. I’ve been liking the seed snails so far so I used more seed snails but this time I tried a new material which was some like really beat up cardboard. I folded it like every direction so be easy to roll. I haven’t had any problem with the paper I’ve been using for the seed snails dissolving but it also hasn’t been very long since I made them so I figured I would do a couple cardboard ones too test which material I love more. Plus it’s convenient right now to use cardboard because I have a big stack of cardboard broken down on the porch waiting to get used to expand the gardening beds. I was actually supposed to do this seed starting the week before, but I completely forgot about it even though I wrote it on my calendar so I’m about a week late but I think it’ll be OK.

I did tomatoes and peppers and eggplant today. I used up a lot of seed packets which is my intention this year because I have a lot of seeds and some of them are quite old. Like this pineapple tomato seed packet is from 2015, as you can see. I don’t actually know if these will grow. They were double sealed inside the packet was a smaller wax paper packet. So the seeds might still be viable, we’ll see.

I’m trying a new variety of tomato this year called blush. My sister bought me this packet as part of my Christmas present and they look really beautiful so I want to try them. You may be saying. – but Mycie I thought you don’t like tomatoes- so why are you planting so many?- Every year I plan to grow tomatoes because I really wish I liked tomatoes and multiple people I’ve told me fresh guardian tomatoes is a gateway into loving tomatoes. So every year I grow tomatoes to try. This is year 3 and I still hate them and I end up preserving them or giving them away but I still have hope. Maybe this is the year that I learned to love tomatoes.

I also don’t really like eggplant, but I planted these anyway because I wanted to finish the seed packet. I’ve never actually successfully grown an eggplant in my area. They are absolutely destroyed by aphis every single year I try. But I guess the great thing about seeds is my stakes are very low so I don’t mind trying to grow something from seed and failing as much as I hate buying a expensive pre-grown plant from the store and then having a die.

I also did not manage to grow any peppers from seed last year though I think that’s a combination of me starting everything too late and I had major loss to my seedlings from chickens. I was keeping my chicks and my seedlings on the porch and as you can imagine that inevitable happened and my chicks escaped to containment and mowed down all my seedlings and I had to start everything over again which was very frustrating. I got the final revenge though because all those chicks are in my freezer. (Don’t freak out they were meat birds.)

I also spent some time cleaning up the porch which I fear had grown so clogged with packages and in progress projects that it was almost impassible. A lot of the stuff that was in there just needed to get moved somewhere else to its final resting place. Some of the stuff I ended up moving back in because it was some bulk pasture seeds of like barley and buckwheat and a field peas that I’m gonna put down on the side yard for the animals.

I also I’m still working through my pile of things that need to go to the donation centre so I filled my car and I completely forgot to go so now my car is just full of stuff – oops.

Sad to say this is the after photo. It was packed almost to the ceiling before with empty boxes and such. Unfortunately I could not find either of the brooms that we possess. We own two brooms – one for inside, one for outside – and I could not put my hands on either of them on Saturday. I feel like I looked everywhere so I have no idea where they went so I had my wife pick up a new broom on her way home.

Planted these peas outside against the fenced in dog run.

Red sorrel that I planted in the fall wintered over well! Can’t wait to try it. I heard it has a lemony taste.

This baby spinach I planted in the fall wintered over well under a low tunnel. It’s been frosted quite a few times since it popped up, which will make it sweeter. I can’t wait to eat it!

These were planted by the previous owner!