The Seedlings are Grounded!

My seedlings, which I lovingly grew from seed were placed into the ground this past weekend. It was one week past my intended planting day of Mother's Day. My husband plants my garden every year with direction from me :-)  for Mother's Day. This year, while visiting his mom the day before Mother's Day (as is our tradition), he was trying to imitate some martial arts moves that his younger brother was showing him. While he impressed his brother with getting the moves right, I knew that the old guy was going to be in no condition to be planting the next day. I was right.... as usual :-)  As luck would have it, there was even a late snowfall on May 16th that my seedlings missed, not being in the ground. Talk about thankful!

It took all week to get the husband back to normal. We were excited to get things started. We have the back garden along our fence that used to be just all tomatoes. No tomatoes this year!! That garden is in 3 sections. The first section has my 3 brussels sprouts seedlings. First time ever trying to grow these.

The middle section has a poblano, habanero, cayenne then another poblano. The cayenne had already grown a flower on it before we even put it into the ground. I did pinch that flower off. Those plants have some growing to do before they are ready to flower!

 

In the third section of our back garden, we have my 3 cubanelle seedlings.

 

And here's the entire back garden

 

Then we moved on to the garden right behind our house.

 

To the far left, we planted our herbs. The only thing that survived this past winter were my 3 huge bunches of chives. Goes to show, not much can kill those suckers! Rosemary, thyme, parsley, etc... didn't make it. We had to buy basil, parsley, sage, thyme, tarragon and marjoram. For some reason, cilantro and rosemary were not at the garden center. I still have to get those, as well as mint. 

 

Last, but not least, we planted the giant jalapeno seedlings. This is the first year that we decided to go with less and spread out the jalapenos.  We have 13 (don't ask why 13, it just came out that way) this year, when we usually go for 20+. We've never had a problem crowding in the jalapenos before, but the husband wanted to experiment. So why not see if our jalapenos yield as much or more than the past. It would be real sweet if it's more!

While the husband was planting the garden, I made up a quick snack. When he was ready to sit down (all right, he took a shower first), I brought out a tray of cheese and crackers, with some of our chives from the garden. I gave him a little dish of ranch dressing on the side. And brought out his favorite chilled Lynfred Winery Sangria Rouge Wine. It was like a taste of summer. Perfect!

And here we played with designing our cheese and crackers.

 Time to sit back and watch our garden grow!

Seedlings First Day Out!

Temperatures in the Chicago area hit the 70's today for the first time this year. It was time to put my seedlings outside to start and acclimate them. I put them in the shade so as not to shock the living daylights out of them since they've never been outside before. I would hate to have the sun scald them before we even begin! It must be done slowly. One year, I mistakenly put them in the sun right away and they just keeled over. I caught them in time as I put them in the shade and gave them water and told them to man up. Can't be having weak plants! They perked up. Nice to have something listen to me for once. LOL!

These are my giant jalapenos outside on the deck.

Cayenne, habanero, cubanelles, poblanos and brussels sprouts.

My seedlings are outside and just loving it. Tomorrow is set to be another gorgeous day as well. But my little seedlings better get as much sun as they can because they are calling for possible snow Monday morning. Got to love the midwest!!

My Seedlings are Growing! Indoor Seed Update 3/27/2014

It started out at 30 degrees this morning with a little snow coming down. But we are expecting temps close to 55 today! Up and down with the temperatures. Makes you wonder how summer temps will be.
Let's check on how my seedlings are doing.

Above is my tray of giant jalapeno seedlings. They are growing so well. Most of my seedlings have grown to over the height of the cup. They all have their second set of leaves in. I added about 4 tablespoons of new dirt in each cup to help strengthen my seedlings. They are all standing tall!

My second tray of seedlings carries brussels sprouts, cayenne, habanero, poblano and cubanelle peppers. Sadly, one of my cubanelle pepper seeds didn't come up. That's ok, I still have 3 more which is plenty for us.
Oh, and my habanero seed never came up either, so I replanted and have two small seedlings growing in the same cup. That's ok too. They will catch up once they are in the ground. I found that out last year. My brussels sprouts were the first to come up of all the seeds and are looking mighty fine.  All these seedlings are not as tall as the jalapenos yet. But I did add 2-3 tablespoons of dirt in each cup to help them out.

Here are some closeups of my seedlings.

Giant jalapenos growing extremely well. Aren't they looking good? I love the giant jalapenos because we stuff them with cheese and herbs, wrap in bacon and grill them. I can just taste them now. Bring on summer!!

Above far right and the plant in front are my 3 cubanelle peppers. Growing well. In the way back to the left are my 2 little habanero plants. My 2 poblano plants are between the cubanelle and habaneros. Certainly not as tall as the jalapenos. But they will get there.

In the far left hand corner is my one cayenne pepper. It was the first pepper seedling to come up. Still kind of short. This is the first time growing this pepper. I'm hoping for lots of cayenne peppers so I can make my own cayenne powder. We use that quite a bit here.

And here is my biggest brussels sprout plant. I have 3 of them. One is kind of puny, and the other is big, but doesn't stand up straight. First time growing these as well. Always interesting growing something new.

Keep on growing! You'll be in the ground one of these days, my little pretties!

Preparing for Spring. Planting Seeds Indoors.

 

Who's ready for spring? With all the snow and cold we've had this winter, I really shouldn't have a need to ask! This past weekend, we got 4 more inches of snow, and now the chill factor came back to greet us with subzero temps again. #Chiberia is a fun place to live!

I usually plan to start my seeds indoors about 2 months before Mother's Day. Around the Chicago area, Mother's Day is usually a good day to plant outside. Of course, give or take a week or so, depending on this crazy weather we have. This past weekend was the time to start my seeds indoors. Time to get my hands dirty!

My setup is extremely simple. I have a small shelving unit with three shelves. This year, I'm only using 2 shelves. A couple of years ago, my husband and I bought 2 growing trays with the covers and little heating pads that goes with them. So we will use those. The bottom tray is so very light plastic, that I've noticed it has started to crack and break. Something to worry about next year.

Usually I start my plants in small clear plastic cups (with holes drilled into the bottom of the cup). Then I transplant to a bigger cup with more dirt when the seedlings are big enough. This year, I sent my husband on a mission to get 16oz clear plastic cups. I will add dirt as the seedlings grow in the same cup. Well, the husband came home with clear green cups. He said that was all he could find in the size that I wanted. The stores probably just had the green cups out to try to sell for St Patrick's Day. Ah well, we go with the flow!

The husband was kind enough to drill the holes in the bottom of the cups. I labeled each cup with a black Sharpie pen, as to what seed was going to grow there. I mistakenly didn't label last year. What I got was a habanero growing in amongst my cubanelle peppers. So this year, I labeled!

Filled each cup halfway with gardening soil. Then it was time to plant the seeds. In went 13 giant jalapenos, 4 cubanelle, 3 brussels sprouts,  2 poblano peppers, 1 cayenne and 1 habanero. Added some water to each cup. Placed the lid on the plants and made sure the little heating pads were plugged in.

I don't have grow lights. Maybe one day I will, but it is not this day! My plants face the north. Not optimum for the best sun. But it is the best and biggest area available to grow my seedlings. They do tend to grow "leggy".  When it's time, I just place them deeper into the ground, maybe stake them up for awhile, and they take off like crazy. Never had too much of a problem with "leggy" plants. Leggy meaning spindly stalks.

Now comes the best part. Waiting to see my seedlings pop up through the soil. Let's do some growing!

January 1 musings...

It's the first of the year. I'm tired of snow. I had put in my request for snow only on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but obviously my request was ignored. It is time to fight back and start thinking about the warmth and pleasures of springtime.

Is it too early to think about what I want to plant in my garden this year? I don't think so. This year we will do some more experimenting. We'll put in different veggies!

One thing is for sure, we won't be growing tomatoes this year. Basically, because we suck at it. We had great luck with tomatoes for about 2 years, then BAM, we suck. Blossom end rot all the time. We tested the soil and it's good. We watched our watering. We changed from roma types to regular round tomatoes. Bought plants instead of growing from seed. Nope, we just suck. So instead of wasting our time and money on growing tomatoes, we're going to change things around. Mix it up a bit.

Must haves in our garden are peppers. What kind? Large jalapenos, cubanelles, poblanos and a habanero. We had 2 habanero plants last year. This year, only 1 will suffice. We had so many habaneros from 2 plants that I ran out of things to make with them. I made habanero hot sauce which was a hit with my whole family. But an even bigger hit was my habanero mint jelly. Ok, I forgot to put the mint in there and the jelly didn't 'set', but I added red pepper flakes to give it an interesting texture and color. It's fabulous on meatballs and shrimp, probably on just about anything.

More herbs this year for sure. They did great in the ground. Better than in my deck pots. Maybe we'll try our hand at brussel sprouts or lettuce or beans. I received my big Burpee catalog and another catalog called Jung Seeds & Plants on New Years Eve. It's time to look through them and come up with my 2014 garden wish list.

Happy New Year!