to start

I started some of my seeds this weekend, hopefully they do better this year than last. Last year I spent hours in the green house planting tomatoes, peas, and some other things. It was my first time so I wanted everything to be perfect. When I was finished I spent a few minutes gazing at all my hard work covering the tables in my greenhouse, so positive that I was going to have such a great garden. A couple days later when I went in to water I found that something had raped all my little pots!! Rodents had dug in every single pot and eaten the seed. Frustrated, Grumpy and I bought plants and put them in the ground and declared war on all field mice and voles (and slugs..different story). Losses were heavy on both sides.

New year, new plan. I bought my seeds from a local company named Territorial Seed, grown local and collected local. I only bought heirlooms so that I can collect my own seeds for next years planting. I have to admit that I was shocked when I learned that plants make their own seeds. I had never heard of seed saving, never connected that pumpkin seeds looked like what you scraped out of them, tomato seeds looked like what you saw inside of a tomato :) I guess I thought that seed fairies just created them for companies if I thought about it at all. New plan...I planted my seeds in the little peat pots for easier transplanting when it warms up. Then I found some rubbermade containers on clearance at a local store. Now I have rodent proof mini greenhouses for the greenhouse. So far I have my Oregon star tomatoes, still need my cherries and a sauce tomato. I planted my pie pumpkins, and jalapenos. Tomorrow I need to finish the tomatoes, the rest will go directly in the ground when it warms. Grumpy bought an assortment of hot pepper plants last year and planted them in the raised bed. Half was for his pepper plants and half for my strawberries. Within a week most of his plants were eaten to the ground. Slugs. He scattered slug killer. The rest of his plants were eaten. He replanted and and scattered the white ash from the fireplace around his plants. Inexpensive, worked better than chemicals, and gave us a great crop for canning. My strawberries were never bothered (karma). This year I want to try a jalapeno relish and Dd 2 wants to can spicy pickles so I need a bumper crop. You know what they say, 'man plans..God laughs'.