Garden Update 02-01-08

2007 Supersweet Tomatoes (Click on picture for larger image)

For the first day of February, I decided to start my tomato seeds and pepper seeds. I still have to get my ladybug and red/gold currant tomatoes started tonight though. I didn’t have enough time this morning before work to start them.

The list of tomatoes and peppers I started are as follows:

• Brandywine (x4)
• Brown Berry (x2)
• Fireball (x2)
• Gardeners Delight (x4)
• Marglobe (x4)
• Patio (x4)
• Roma (x4)
• Supersweet (x6)
• Black Cherry (x2)
• Jelly Bean (x4)

For Peppers, I started:

• Hungarian Yellow Wax (x5)
• Kung Pao Peppers (x6)
• Long Thin Cayenne (x4)

I started some bell peppers and jalapenos last week to give them a jump start.

I started them a week early because of the date mainly due to my compulsive gardening tracking. It’s easy to calculate days to harvest when you start the first day of a month. Starting them a week early doesn’t hurt them a bit. I typically start them in February and slowly set them outside by the middle of March (the last frost date in my region) and a week won’t hurt any. I hope! I can’t believe it’s that time of year to start tomatoes! I was giddy this morning when I woke up and started preparing to plant seeds. I can see the abundance of cherry tomatoes and grilled peppers already! As Rachel Ray would say, “Yumm-o!”

This year, I want to start saving seeds from my heirloom tomatoes and peppers. I have a book called, “Seed Saving and Sowing” by Carole Turner which describes exactly when to harvest different vegetables. For example, she says to collect seeds from eggplants after they ripe on the plant and the same is true with peppers. I can’t wait to start applying her principles to my own gardening.

I still have my eggplants to start tonight when I get home from work. I plan on growing two varieties of eggplant. The first is my favorite heirloom called Black Beauty. The other is a white eggplant called Cloud 9. I grew these white jewels 2 years ago and saved some of the seeds. I hope they germinate well.

Cloud 9 Eggplants (2006) (Click on picture for larger image)

I might start some of my herb seeds today too. I have quite a few herbs I want to try from seed which include thyme (broadleaf), oregano, rosemary, and chives. I hope I can get a lot of chives this year. I want to grow them in a pot and keep the pot growing all year long. Here’s hoping. My favorite herb, basil, will have to wait until the middle of February because it grows so fast that by the time it’s ready to move outside, there’ll still be frost temperatures.