Winter Sowing Has Started - Part I

I have the winter blues! I decided to start my vegetable seeds over the week-end. Planning my garden takes the blues away.  This year, I decided to try winter sowing. I've been saving plastic liter, juice and milk bottles. Anything that I can cut and punch holes in the bottom for drainage. I started about 20 bottles over the week-end. Tomatoes, dill, zuchinni, squash, sunflowers and petunias. Tomatoes, dill and petunias reseed, so hopefully I will have a successful germination rate.  Research showed that the squash and zuchinni will also do well. l will continue winter sowing through-out February. I'll start a few tomatoes, cukes and greenbeans inside to ensure I have something to plant.  I set these bottles outside my kitchen door, but will eventually move them to my picnic table.  It had just started snowing, so they received a nice coating.   

Stay tuned for additional posts.  If you are a gardener and use the winter sowing method, please share your experience.

Hardening Off My Veggies

Finally set out a few of my plants today for a few hours. Everything is looking good with the exception of the tomatoes.  I have a few that are hanging on for dear life.  I lost 3 Cherokee Purple, but started a few more last week.  They've sprouted and doing well.  Hopefully I will have better luck with these.     

My peppers are doing great.  I have 20 cayenne, Hungarian wax, chili, and jalapeno that look healthy and are ready to go.  Two sweet minis are finally taking off.  I will definitely have to start those earlier next year.  I didn't realize how slow they are to grow.  When the packet states to start them in February that's what they mean!

Here's a few of my tomato plants, a beefsteak and Hillbilly.   I have a few others that are doing well, but others are struggling to make it.  Not sure what has happened with the tomatoes, as I provided the same care and maintenance for all of them.  Next year, I will plant far more that I need to ensure that I don't have to start over.  I'm sure somebody at the office will take the extra off my hands.  I still have a few weeks to see how they progress.  I won't put my garden in until the end of May and may stagger the planting through mid-June.  We've gotten frost in these parts in the middle of May.  So my philosophy is, when it's warm enough to swim it's warm enough to put the garden in. 

The squash, zucchini, watermelon and pumpkins are doing great.  I need to get them in the ground soon.  My guest room is starting to look like a jungle.  I've had to move most of them out of the pots and into these Hefty cups.  Thanks to Granny at Annie's Kitchen Garden, I used her idea of punching holes in the bottom of the cups with a glue gun.  We drink out of these cups regularly because Mama don't have time to be washing dishes all day, so we have plenty of plastic cups around.  The hot glue gun works wonderfully for the holes, and they're nice and deep and strong.  Perfect for the plants once they take off.   

This was my first year starting seedlings.  I have to say,  I really had a great experience.  I'm learning bunches visiting your blogs and taking a tip here and there.   Next year, I'll start the peppers and tomatoes a little earlier and the squash and zuchinni a little later.  I need to invest in another 4 foot grow light, other than that I'm getting the hang of things.  

I'm Seeing Green

The tomatoes aren't doing as well as I like, but I'm still seeing lots of green.  I have plenty of zucchini that has come through, but only 1 squash has sprouted.  I started a few more last night in hopes that I can at least plant 4 of each in the garden.   I decided to build 4 x 4 trellis' this year for the squash, zucchini and cukes.  They produce delicious veggies, but they take too much room in the garden.   I have several ideas for the trellis, so stay tuned for future posts. 

In my last post, I mentioned trying to start dill for my pickles.  I have 2 sprouts.  I started six, hopefully the others will germinate.  

The chili and cayenne peppers are doing great.  I have 12 that have sprouted.  I'm hoping for 16 chili, cayenne, Hungarian, and jalapeno. 

I've started several varieties of mixed sunflowers in newspaper pots and Mexican sunflowers in the peat pots below.  I love the orange color of the Mexican sunflowers.  I hope they germinate, I want to plant them behind my tomato plants.   

Making Newspaper Pots

Have you tried making newspaper pots?  I watched several videos on Youtube that I just found too complicated, but I found another that was right down my line.   I love Patty Moreno, The Garden Girl.  She has great tips on vertical gardening, making raised bed etc.  She also had a great video on how to make newspaper pots.  I've modified a little, but here it goes:

In the above picture, I'm using a 1/4 sheet of newspaper folded in half.  You will want to fold it across not length wise.  Next,  I used a pint size canning jar, leaving about a 1/4 of the mouth of the jar out of the newspaper and roll the jar until all of the newspaper is used.  Using biodegradable tape, tape the ends of the newspaper together.   If you don't have biodegradable tape, you can remove it from the newspaper later and toss the newspaper in the compost bin, which is what I plan to do.  I actually used scotch tape, but duct tape will work too. 

Turn the jar upside down on the opening of the jar.  Fold the bottom of the newspaper as if you're wrapping Christmas gift.  Tape the folds down.  

Remove the jar from the newspaper, and you have a great newspaper pot.  You can adjust the opening of the pot to the height you would like by just folding the top inward.  Fill with seed starter or potting soil and you're ready to go.  The newspaper will absorb water just like a peat pot.  I used the newspaper pots to try to start my sunflower seeds.  So far, so good. 

More Sprouts

I have more sprouts, but not as many as I would like.  Next year, I will start the germination process earlier.  To date, I have 2 jalapeno, 2 Cherokee Purple, 1 Beefsteak, 2 Boxcar Willie, 1 German Johnson and 1 Kaki Coing that have germinated.  None of the sweet or hot peppers have germinated or the Hillbilly or Paul Robeson tomatoes. 

Tomorrow, I'm going to start a few more Cherokee Purple and Beefsteak pots since they germinated quickly so I can have a few extra heirlooms on hand just in case the other tomato seeds don't germinate.

I'm loving the grow lights.  I need to pull out a banquet table to set it on this week-end.  It's setting on the floor in one of the guest bedrooms now.  I can say that purchasing the light was money well spent.  The seedlings seem happy at this point.  I set a few pots of dill under it a few days ago.  It seems that dill needs light to germinate, so I'm hoping that it will warm the soil enough to germinate the seeds.  I found the perfect stand in my attic last week-end that I plan to turn into a germination station next year.  It has 4 tiers, and is wide enough to hold several flats per tier.  Sure wish I had spotted it earlier.  (I really need to clean my attic out, lol).   

Any experienced dill growers out there?  I need dill for my pickles this year.  I had a few dill plants in the garden last year as companion plants and they did well.  I'm hoping to germinate a few seeds.  Research has shown that dill doesn't transplant well, so I don't know if I will be successful with transplanting it in the garden if the seeds do germinate. 

The thing that I tried and was successful in producing last year was sunflowers.  I'm going to try to germinate my seeds inside this year.  I love sunflowers in the garden, and hoping to share the experience with my grandchildren.   How's your seed germination going? 

Starting Seedlings

Well, I've started my first flat of tomato and pepper seedlings.  Wish me luck.  I decided to use the peat pots, and save the plastic for potting soil and transplants.  I love how the peat pots absorb the water.  This flat has heirloom tomatoes and sweet peppers.  They were in the process of absorbing the water when this picture was taken.  I have 12 tomato and 6 mini and grand sweet peppers mix so far.  I was leery about starting sweet peppers, especially after the monsters I grow last year with plants from my hardware store.  I decided to do 6.  If I can grow the quality and size from my seedlings that I did with the store brought plants, I know I'm on my way to being a true gardener, lol.  If not, I'll be ecstatic that I successfully germinated the seed.  I ran out of time, so I'll be starting my cayenne peppers this week-end.  I'm planting 6 cayenne, 5 jalapeno and 5 banana.  I probably should have started the cayenne's first since they seem to have the longest germination period.  Oh well live and learn. 

As you can see, I like it hot.  I'll freeze some, use some in salsa, and dry the others for pepper flakes.  I loved pulling out fresh peppers for chili and spaghetti over the winter, so I'm looking forward to replenishing my stock this summer.

I purchased a few packages of cukes, but not sure I'll try starting those from seeds or not.  From what I've read, they're difficult to transplant.  Do you start cukes inside or direct sow?  I want lots of cukes for homemade pickles this year.  I decided to purchase a few heat mats for germination.  I was going to use the rope method, but got a good deal on the heat mats at my local hardware store with free shipping.  I love them.  I found the perfect place to place my flats, in my laundry room.  I have two 4 foot shelves over my washer and dryer that were empty, so I thought it would be the perfect place for germination and grow lights once germination takes place.  They're out of the way, and I won't drive myself crazy because of the clutter through out my house.  I told you about my OCD  problem, right.  I can't stand for things to be out place.  I inherited that trait from my father.  Once the seedlings get large enough, I'll transplant and move them in front of a window in my guest room until it's time to harden them off. 

Here's my flat on the heat meat in the laundry room.  I used craft sticks from the dollar store to mark the plants, 100 for $1.00.  I purchased the peat pots from Big Lots, 20 for $2.00 and the water trays held geraniums from the nursery last year.  I didn't have a dome for the trays, so I used cling wrap and rubber bands to cover the posts.  Got this idea fron Martha Stewart, and it seems to be working great. 

I'm wondering if should poke a small hole in a few of the cling wrap covers, it looks like condensation is building on a few in the front?  It's only been 5  days, but I was hoping something would emerge.  I like immediate gratification.  It seems that patience is a must for a gardener. 

It's cloudy here today.  I may head out to the garden and take down the fencing and posts if it doesn't rain.  I'm suppose to till next week or the week after.   If I get the garden tilled within that time frame, I may plant garlic.  That will be a first.  I want to try that garlic pesto that everyone is raving about.   If the weather doesn't hold up, I'll head out tomorrow.  I need to take three 33 gallon bags of shredded paper down to the compost site and store them.  I have about 10 bags of leaves that are already waiting to be used.  Grass mowing starts next week, so I'll have plenty to add to the bins.  Especially after I weed the shrubbery beds. I visited Mark's Veggie Plot blog yesterday, and he had a beautiful pile of compost.  I'm looking forward to seeing what's happened with my compost pile over the last year.  I may have to remove the top and use what's on the bottom as he did.  I checked it a few weeks ago, and it hasn't completely broken down.

Well, I'm off to get the cayenne peppers started and see what else I can get into today.  Happy Gardening!