It starts with some seeds, and love

On this first blog it will be mainly pictures and comments of what we have done since square one..YES all the way back to February. I know now that February is a little to early to seed.. however this is a whole new learning process for me.. and SO much fun! Let's get started shall we...

February 2013:

These are seeds I saved and let dry from a store bought red pepper. I took a wet paper towel and lined some seeds in the paper towel and placed that inside of a Ziploc baggie with the date started written on it. After about 6-10 days the seeds all had roots on them. Confession. I did try the pin, egg carton seed starter, with no success.. The egg carton got to wet, probably due to my heavy hand of watering. Now, with the red pepper plants I did end up with 72 started plants, 60 I seeded first on a paper towel, and 12 that I stuck in the soil pod to seed on their own.

This is a picture of all the soil pods filled and ready to go...

This was about 10 days after they were planted in the pods.. Now out of all 72, I kept out the 7 best, from those 7 I do believe that 5 made it nice and strong, they are waiting to dip their roots in to the fresh soil, this weekend 5/25/13!




Here is where the red pepper plants are today 5/21/13...

I am not sure if the little two will make it so I am not counting them in the final 5...

I have to pause for a moment to say I have the best husband ever! He saw me struggling to get these plants in windows where I could, so he built me shelves..

Perfect place right over the sink for the herbs to go! (Notice the snow outside the window?!?!)

I will say out of my big herb box, I planted Basil, Oregano, Parsley and Thyme... The Basil and the Parsley are the things to grow... I will take what I can get!

Both the Basil and Parsley were planted mid February. They grew.. then some died, then grew some more.. I have since been able to prune the basil once and the parsley twice, here is where they are at on 5/21/13...

Also, started in February was some Cilantro and Chive... God love my cat, he fits his name to a "t".. Captain Snowball Johnson.. Well, being curious like cats are, dumped over the chive pot 3 separate times.. I told me self "NO way will anything grew in there" but I trusted and gave it a few weeks...

Got to love the great photography with the phone camera...

Chive 3/2013

And yet another great photo!!


Cilantro 3/2013







Now, both of these plants have been pruned about 3 times now, Cilantro and Chive 5/21/2013..

Cilantro

                                                                        Chive









I can't say I have done anything special with these. I watered them every Tuesday and sprayed them with Epsom salt and water every Wednesday. Once a week I did use some Miracle grow, but stopped after 3 application  The plants started to look as if they were being chemically burned. I did eventually stop the Epsom salt and water apps weekly as well. The leaves on the plants started to get a film of salt on them. However the Epsom water was to keep bugs off, and I will say it did work. We got what seemed like an infestation of tiny little Nat type bugs. the Epsom water did keep them down on the plants them selves! Follow this LINK...

Ok on to the next blog page, the tilling and other shenanigans!

<3 T