Planting Seeds

Hi everyone. 

It's garden time over at Rain's Art Date this week with a theme of Planting Seeds. Since I enjoy gardening, I thought today I would share just a few of my spring gardening projects.

I am always on the lookout for a mild pepper plant for my garden that actually gives me a good harvest of peppers. I seem to have great luck with jalapenos, but most years, only so-so luck with bell peppers. Last year I saw some Japanese shishito pepper plants at my local garden center. They said they were sweet peppers, and I'm up for experimenting, so I picked up a 6 pack (of seedlings) and gave them a try.

This is not my photo, but gives you a good view of how these peppers look in case they are new to you, as they were to me last year. They look a lot like jalapenos, don't they?

I had a great crop of these Japanese peppers last year. In fact, I had so many I left 8 of them to dry on my kitchen windowsill all winter. You can see in this next photo ( I took last year),  that the peppers turned yellow and then after that (as you can just see in the right hand side of the photo), they turned red. 

Eventually they dried out and hardened.

This spring I picked up one of those stay-moist little seed starter containers. Most of the time I sow seeds directly into soil, but I was experimenting and if these grew, I wanted to get a head start to becoming some good sized plants for the veggie garden. (Living in the northeast I started these inside in March, but they can't be plant in my garden-for fear of a late frost-until late May.)

I just planted these white seed growth containers  in my garden cold frame earlier this week. I'll have to see how they do.

I did start some colder weather plants in my cold frame. I did lettuce, kale and spinach. I can't wait to have some fresh greens, and I'm happy to see that I have a lot of seedlings just  popping out of the ground. 

My cold frame is not very big, so  now that I put my pepper seeding in it also, there isn't any room for any more seedlings.  When I mentioned to my husband I should get a second cold frame, he rolled his eyes at me in a way that said he thought I was nuts. I didn't buy one this year, but there are still other years if I really get into starting plants. And I know I could start some in milk/water containers, but I have enough other projects right now I am poking away at.

I have one more plant coming up in my veggie garden. 

Years ago I planted some asparagus seeds. Those seeds grew, and every year I get a few stalks to eat. Last year the greenhouse near me was having it's early July closing down sale, which is buy one plant and get one free. They had a couple of asparagus plants, so I picked them up and planted them near my one plant. Both of those plants are shooting up stalks. I'm still waiting to see what my older from seed plant grows this year.

And speaking of seeds, can you see all the bird seed hulls on the ground? In the winter the bird feeders are next to my veggie garden, but I move them further away in the ncie weather so that the chipmunks don't eat away at my garden plants. Or at least I hope moving the feeders helps with that problem. And you can tell I haven't yet cleaned out the ground in my veggie garden. Smile.

That's all for me today. I hope May is treating you well.