Sprouts on My Windowsill

I have a LOT of things I want to grow this year, bags and bags of seeds. I came to the conclusion that only way I will get them all planted is with an early start, so that is what I did. I acquired a few little flourescent lights to extend the daylight at both ends and started planting at the end of January.

The first things I planted were canna lilies and tomatoes. You can read about growing cannas from seed in a previous post entitled "Early Spring Seeding". 


These are some of the canna seedlings. Looking good and getting big!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also planted peppers, a few red brussel sprout seeds (only three sprouted) and ground cherries a few days later. These are the peppers and red brussel sprouts now.

These are the ground cherries. I think I will put all of these into individual pots soon. I found a large number of 4" pots in the cold frame when I opened it this morning. I must have quickly stuck them in there last fall. I will be planting more ground cherries this year, probably many rows of them. I want enough to can for pies all winter and a large batch of wine. I grew a small amount last year but didn't eat many of them. I used them mostly for seed.


These are the other brassicas I have growing. They will all go directly into the garden as soon as it is workable, hopefully by mid April. I intend to grow a lot of broccoli and cabbage and use a combination of BT and BE on the cabbage worms.

I have two containers this size of broccoli, also shown are cabbage, bok choi, and red cabbage. As you can see, brassicas all look alike as seedlings so it is important to label everything.

These are my sweet potato slips.

They were grown from these sweet potatoes that I started rooting in water in December. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My edoes are doing well. You can read about growing edoes in a previous post "Edoes and Elephant Ears".

 

 

 

 

 


 

These are my chichiquelites (Garden Huckleberry). I have read that they are close in taste to a blueberry, a bit more sour, but I can always add more sugar to pies. I am hoping to get a lot of berries for wine and pie making all year. I may have to concentrate on collecting enough seed this year and grow many rows of them next year.


The large globe onions are doing well. They will go into the garden with the brassicas as soon as it is workable. They need a drink which I will take care of right away.

 

 

 

 

I also have chives and garlic chives growing. These will go out with the onions into the herb row. 

 

 

 

 I have a couple of just sprouted cilantro seedlings in the pot from the grocery store. I planted some seeds in with the growing cilantro. The plant did not survive but the seedlings are coming up. I did not realize they had sprouted so quickly and had them covered in heavy plastic out of the sunlight, so they are leggy and will need more light than they have been getting. 

 

 

 

 

These are primula seedlings outside in the flowerbed, only yesterday freed from snow cover. They are so hardy! 

 

 

 

 

This is another one in the garden, amidst the green sweet williams. This one has buds on it already! When I saw this, I put the group I had growing indoors, outside on the porch to start hardening off.

I was adventurous this spring and planted four bird of paradise seeds. One sprouted and is growing. It's about 6" tall now. 

I have both white and lilac daturas growing in here. There is also one tiny 'Black Magic' heuchera seedling about 1/4" high. 

 

 

 

 

Among the seedlings I also have some of last year's dahlias, cannas and callas. 

This is a dwarf white canna that I grew from seed last year. It bloomed the first year from seed! I grew it indoors all winter on the windowsill. It was looking a bit tattered when the new spring growth started. Now it looks pretty good.

I have a lot more flower seeds yet to plant. I am trying to plant something every day in an effort to get everything planted. I don't know if I will make it or not. The ground is thawing and the snow cover is dissappearing!

Braiding Onions

I grew onions this year! Lots of big beautiful onions for the first time! It is not, however, the first time I have planted onions, just the first time they actually grew into onions. Those are my onions in the picture above! Next year I am planting a lot more. I didn't grow enough to last us a year because I wasn't sure they would grow well this time and I didn't want to waste the space.

Since I had the onions and the cold cellar with hooks in the ceiling, I learned to braid them. I love the look of hanging onions and garlic. I'd like to hang them in the kitchen, but they wouldn't keep long in that warmth. After they are cured and dried well, they have to be kept cold. The cellar might work. This year will be the test.

It took me awhile to get the hang of braiding onions. It's not something one can just sit down and do. I read a lot of websites that had pictures and instructions, but I still couldn't get it to work. Then one day it just hit me, I had an Aha! moment. They are braided from the bottom up, not the top down! From that point on I had it. No one told me that! All those sights I looked at never said to start at the bottom of the braid and go up! 

After that it went fast. I'm used to putting a French braid in my hair and this works the same way, going in the opposite direction. It has to be quite a bit tighter, however, to hold. I had to repeat it a few times to get it tight enough to hold the onions in place. If I braided my hair that tight, I'd have a headache! This one on the left is too loose and came apart.

The top pic is a final tight braid but could be even tighter. I think that part takes some practice. I have to leave the tops longer next year too. I trimmed them back a bit and I shouldn't have.

I have learned a new skill! I will have to go back and read this post before starting next year. I will have forgotten the key elements by that time, I'm sure. Next year I will do better and have a lot more onions to braid, as well!