2009 Garden Seedling Pictures: April 22nd

A lot of things have changed since my last garden update. The most upsetting was that my Southport White Globe Onions I attempted to start from seed did not work out. They all just seemed to fall over and die. :( I may try again with them, directly sowing the seeds in their final/only home. I'll have to wait a week or so until I do my next Home Depot run though. My Mucho Nacho Jalapeno seeds arrived last week! I also have some Cayenne pepper seeds I want to plant too. This will all be done towards the end of the month, when I get paid again. I have also trimmed down the amount of plants I have, since i'm limited to my apartment porch for planting them. I gave several away to friends & co-workers that I know will take good care of them.

I decided on 3 store bought plants this year (not including my Dwarf Lime Tree that may or may not arrive in the next few years...Spring Hill Nursery will not be ordered from again by me). I bought a bunch (set) of Texas Sweet onions to make me feel a bit better about loosing all of my Southport seedlings. They seem to be doing quite well and also growing at a nice rate. I had to toss about a 1/3rd of them and clean-up/trim the ones I planted. I also bought some strawberries (vine type). I have a 4 ft tall trellis for them to climb on. I don't like to buy plants from any store/nursery that already have buds, flowers, fruit, etc., so it took me a while to pick those out. Most of the strawberry plants had nasty looking mini-fruits or plant damage. Good news!!!...I found one runner this morning when checking out this plant, so I may have strawberries soon! I also bought a Yellow Bell Pepper plant just cuz I love bell peppers. =) They were all purchased at Home Depot this past Friday, April 17th.

Anyways, here are some pictures of all my garden plant types (a few of each) as of yesterday. As always, comments, suggestions, questions, etc. are welcome. -Steve



Store bought Strawberries:





Store bought Texas Sweet Onions:







Store bought Yellow Bell Peppers:





California Wonder Bell Peppers:







My "Monster Cherry Tomatoes":









Mammoth Dill Weed:





Bush Strawberries:

These took their stated 4 weeks to sprout...makes me wonder if it's going to take them a year to grow an inch tall, at this rate...lol.




Early Girl Hybrid Tomatoes:









Indian Princess Nasturtiums:

I didn't get a picture of the best set of these, in my hanging basket, but will try to soon.






Garlic Chives:

These continue to self-seed babies!


Awww....ain't they cute! =)




Jalapeno Early Organic Peppers:







San Marzano Organic Tomatoes:







Serrano Peppers:

2009 Garden Seedling Pictures: April 8th

I finally got a hold of a digital camera and was able to take some updated seedling pictures. =) First is a picture of most of my setup (minus some plants that are already outside & a few other various seedlings). Then, I have pictures of my two favorite's so far this year, my "Monster Cherry Tomatoes" & my Garlic Chives. Lastly, I have pictures of the rest of my seedlings (only one or two of each type, even though, with most, I have between 5-20). I apologize for the pictures that are somewhat blurry. I'm working on getting a new digital camera. As always, comments, suggestions & questions are welcome.



This is my whole setup. I know you can't really see much from this picture, but it's about 80% of my seedlings. It gives you an idea of about how many total plants I have.




Here are the pictures of what I dubbed my "Monster Cherry Tomatoes." They are only 4 weeks and 1 day old in this picture (from seed) & the biggest Cherry Tomato plants i've ever seen at this age...








Next are my Garlic Chives. They are only 4 weeks old & almost ready to be harvested the first time! Like previously stated, they were started from last year's root clusters. The last two pictures are my self-seeded babies I was gifted with this year...


Baby Garlic Chive #1 is to the left & in front of them stem you see in the middle of this picture...


Baby Garlic Chive #2 is about an inch to the left of the right-most stem you see in this picture...




San Marzano Tomatoes...






Early Girl Hybrid Tomatoes...






California Wonder Bell Peppers...




Serrano Peppers...




Jalapeno Early Organic Peppers...




Last, but certainly not least is one of the three seedling cups of Indian Princess Nasturtiums my daughter Emily planted. =)

2009 Garden Seedling Pictures: March 24th

I only have 2 plant pictures from this day. They are my 2 favorite sets of plants though! =) I will hopefully, within the next few days, have a post up on here with current seedling pictures of every plant I have growing so far. Stay tuned. As always, comments, suggestion & questions are welcome.



Cherry Tomatoes:



These are my absolute favorite plants so far this year. I started my Cherry Tomatoes in a Jiffy peat pellet tray on March 10th. They sprouted about a week later. Then, one day after they sprouted (maybe even a bit less), they were 3 inches long & hitting the dome of the peat pellet tray! So, I removed them from the tray and transplanted to 16 oz plastic cups (with holes in bottom), making sure to definitely remove the netting from the pellets. I buried them up so only about 1 inch of the plant was above soil. I then gave them 5-10 sprays of a diluted (1/4 stregth) MG Tomato Food (I call this my transplant medicine...lol) which I use for all my veggie transplants. I also gave them some regular water. After another week they had grown 1-2 inches more (picture above shows them at 2 weeks of age). Currently, at still a tad less than a month of age, they are monsters! They're a towering 6-8 inches tall with tons of leaves, 3-4 inches wide, stems of about 1/2 cm & roots all over the sides of the cups. =) Can you tell i'm very proud of them? I'll get pictures up as soon as I can.



Garlic Chives:

Left side...


Right side (look closely on the far right at the bottom by the last chive cluster and you can see one of the two self-seeded babies they gave me this year)...


Whole pot...


Like previously stated, this is my second favorite plant this year so far because of not being aware they would spawn new life from last year's root clusters (and grow so quickly!). At only 2 weeks of growth, you can see how nice they are progressing.

2009 Garden Seedling Pictures: March 17th

I don't have too many pictures of my seedlings yet this year (some I have no pictures of...i'm working on a solution for this =) ), but I am able to track the progress of a few, for now. I'll start with pictures taken on March 17th (All pictures taken & posted on this web site, unless otherwise stated, were done by Stephanie Boutin Photography...see link at top right of my main page) . As always, comments, suggestions & questions are welcome.

Update on Dwarf Lemmon Tree: Expected to arrive sometime between the 13th & the 27th of this month. Yay!



Early Girl Hybrid Tomatoes:



It's been a bit of slow-going for my Early Girl's. They are still growing fine, but are only about twice this size now. I wonder if peat pellets might be better than peat pots for these next year. They were recently transplanted (about a week and a half ago) to 16 oz plastic cups (with holes in the bottom). They have taken their time re-rooting (getting ussed to their new homes) and are now taking off again. Hopefully, these and my San Marzano's will start catching up to my monstrous Cherry tomato seedlings soon! =)



Garlic Chives:



I'm very proud of my garlic chives this year. I started them last Spring. After great results with them last year, I wanted to do them again this year. I didn't know if they functioned like a bulb or not or if i'd have to go buy more seed and start them again. Meaning, would I just be able to toss some water or fertilizer or a combination of both on them and they'd start growing again? Well, after being outside on my porch through the whole Winter, supposedly dead as can be, little stubs showing where there was life last year, I decided to do a test to see if last years's bulbs/root clusters would spawn new life. On March 10th, I took my watering pitcher, filled it up with warm water and poured the whole pitcher all over the pot, making sure to get the middle area where the old roots are quite soaked. The soil must have been wicked dry, as there was no water draining out of the bottom. Anyways, a few days later, I had beautiful green garlic chives sprouting out from the little dead stubs of last year! =) Now, they are growing like mad. Several leaves are over 5-6 inches long. They require little care (just some water when the soil gets dry and maybe a few sprays of diluted fertilizer every few weeks). They are quite able to stand the cold well (survived fine through 3 frosts already!). If I didn't think they could do so, I obviously would bring them inside. Anyways, above is the baby picture of them at the age of 1 week.



Jalapeno Early Organic Peppers:



My Jalapeno's are being another somewhat slow-grower. I believe this is also due to the peat pots they were started in. They are all now transplanted to my 16 oz plastic cups. They re-rooted for a few days and have taken off again. In fact, I brought one with me to work last week so i'd have a plant to look at when i'm itching to get home to my gardening. =) They currently range from 2-4 inches tall with 2-6/7 leaves.



San Marzano Organic Tomatoes:



Yet another peat pot victim, these plants seem to be smaller than they should at this point in their life. Same story, once transplanted to 16 oz plastic cups, they re-rooted and have started taking off again. In fact, they surpassed my Early Girl's in size and are starting to slowly creep up on the Cherry tomatoes.

2009 Garden Preview & Intorduction

Yay! It's gardening season again! =) I hope to have a wonderful container garden again on my porch this year. I am going to try my best to learn from the mistakes I made & things I experienced last year that I could not overcome. My main worry, of course, is the return of the devil, I mean spider mites. I have expanded a little bit this year (only a little cuz I have a tiny porch to work with). I'm planting 2 dwarf fruits, a few flowers, some onions, a few organic vegetables & a better selection/higher quality pepper.

This year, I decided to try a few different methods of seed starting to see which one I like the best for my future gardens. The first few seeds I started were in Jiffy peat pots (small ones) with Miracle Gro Organic Choice Potting Mix. This method worked out well and left me with about an 85-90% germination rate. The only slight issue being that the peat pots soak up a lot of water, so these seeds required a bit more water than the same setup would in a plastic cup or whatever. I am mostly happy with this method. I also decided to try one of the Jiffy peat pellet trays (25 count). This was my favorite method of all. Not just because I got a bit better germination rate than with the peat pots, but also because all of the plants growing in these pellets seemed to germinate a little bit faster & have had a bit of a head start on the peat pot ones so far. They also required a bit of extra water as they dry out pretty quickly once removed from the greenhouse after the seeds sprout. With both methods, seedlings were moved to a sunny windowsill a day or two after their first set of leaves (cotyledons) opened up. I will end up with some extremely beautiful tomato plants this year, for sure!

I also have a little 6 pot (plastic) Veggie Tales cactus greenhouse, a few Jiffy peat pots with flowers in them (both for my daughter) & an experiment pot with Mammoth Dill Weed in it. My last plant to arrive, which will be the only one store bought & only one not started from seed this year will be my Dwarf Lemmon Tree. :) I'm sure I will show it on here in future posts. Below is a list of what I have planted so far & when I started the seeds for them. I am profoundly amazed and full of excitement regarding one plant this year so far. My Cherry Tomatoes were started on March 10th, as you'll see below, and are currently (at 22 days of age) about 5 inches tall, 3 or so inches wide and filling up the 16 oz cups very quickly. What's so amazing is that they were started a week after my other tomatoes (in peat pellet greenhouse) and my other tomatoes are about a third of their size! As always, feel free to contact me through Blogspot or GardenWeb. I am quite often on both.

- Steve



2009 Garden List:

***(5) means 5 pots or pellets with 3-4 seeds a piece.

Plants started in Jiffy peat pots on March 3rd:
California Wonder Organic Bell Peppers (5)
Early Girl Hybrid Tomatoes (5)
Jalapeno Early Organic Peppers (5)
San Marzano Organic Tomatoes (5)

Plants started in Jiffy peat pellet greenhouse on March 10th:
Cherry Tomatoes (5)
Serrano Peppers (5)
Southport White Globe Onions (5)
More Jalapeno Early Organic Peppers (10)

I also started back up my Garlic Chives on March 10th (from last years root clusters) by simply pouring warm water over them. I didn't even add anymore soil. As of today, April 1st, they are monsters already, some over 6 inches tall!

Plants started in Jiffy peat pots on March 17th:
Indian Princess Nasturtiums (3)

Plants started on March 24th:
Dwarf Strawberries (1 decorative container with about 7-8 seeds)
Veggie Tales Cactus Kit (6 little pots with 3-4 cactus seeds a piece in a mini-greenhouse)