I have sprouts!!!

Oh my goodness, I'm so excited! Yesterday I had one sprout in an onion square and one sprout in a square we didn't plant (I'm letting it go for a bit as it looks like it could be something that was dropped during the planting, not a weed dropped by a bird or whatever).

Today, I have sprouts in my crookneck squash, pumpkin, onion, chard, cucumber and lettuce squares!!! They look so lovely.

It's so funny, I thought I hadn't kept the seeds very well (I ordered them last year, then life conspired to keep me from growing anything so I finally stored them in the fridge in a Ziploc) but apparently I did better than I thought...or these Heirloom seeds are stronger than I anticipated...because I've got several sprouts in each section of most of the sprouting squares. I just hate to snip them...especially when I really want to grow more of some of these things! Maybe I can find some cheap planters somewhere to put the last bag of soil in. (We overestimated on how much we needed.) Hmmm, more pumpkins, especially, since my little man said he wants to bake a pumpkin pie when he saw a pie at the grocery store. We could carve some and bake some and freeze some.

Sorry about all the smilies guys, I was writing this with my 5y/o sitting next to me (he's supposed to be watching Team Umizoomi) and he insisted that I use more smilies. Of course I had to coach him on what was appropriate where...he would've put them all in, but we had a good conversation about which ones show happiness and excitement, which are sad, angry, etc. He REALLY wants the elephant, so... ...and flowers...

Okay, time to check out the eagles again...

For your son!

Thanks CCgirl75! He liked that.
He's been begging me to use this one: My little man doesn't know what it means, but he likes that one a lot. I suppose he might grow up to be a beer drinker like his daddy instead of a wine drinker like his momma.

Hahahahahah! My little man just said, "Two ice creams" referring to those guys! I wondered why he liked it so much!

Okay, just had to share:

First we have my yellow crookneck and pumpkins:


Then my Swiss chard and the one onion that's popped up so far; they're itty-bitty, but they're there:


Next is my cucumbers:


I'm so proud of these little guys! For some reason the photos got turned sideways, but you can get the idea.

Oh Michelle! I'm so excited for you! What a ray of sunshine!

UnderTheBlackWalnut wrote:Oh Michelle! I'm so excited for you! What a ray of sunshine!

Thanks Walnut, finding those sprouts definitely cheered me up! My 5y/o was pretty stoked about it too, which is great to see. Hopefully my 10y/o will be as happy when he gets home shortly.

I took my 10y/o out when he got home this evening and we found a few more sprouts that are poking their little leaves up! He wasn't *quite* as stoked as the 5y/o, but that's because his carrots haven't sprouted yet. I had to break the news to him that we're a little late to be planting carrots, so they may not do quite as well until the fall planting...but that we'd do what we could for them and they'd probably still taste better than the grocery store carrots!

Aren't they rootbeer floats?

I love the sprouts and all the smileys!!

Woot Woot!

Oh my gosh, my son is going to love looking at this page tomorrow!

Root beer floats? Man, I haven't had one of those in too many years to count! Time to go out for some IBC and vanilla ice cream...or strawberry soda for my 10y/o. He might actually try that!

BTW, the sprouts are exploding! The boys are so excited when they find a new leaf emerging. We're having an unbelievably successful year considering I had to save the seeds in the fridge for a year. I think almost every seed has sprouted in the boxes we planted, which means I'm going to have to clip some. Far better than not getting any sprouts! I even have some nasturtiums sprouting, and I always had trouble with those back in VA.

congrats on your sprouts!!!

my five year old loves the smilies too!

he thinks this one and this one and this one

are too funny!

hugs

rose

Never fear about the seeds. They can last a lot longer than a year. I just keep mine at room temperature (which around here is 78) and haven't noticed in decline in germination rates. Some of them are 3 years old, most are 2.

elliephant wrote:Never fear about the seeds. They can last a lot longer than a year. I just keep mine at room temperature (which around here is 78) and haven't noticed in decline in germination rates. Some of them are 3 years old, most are 2.

Thanks for telling me that. I thought what I'd read said that they needed to be kept cool, like in a bin in the fridge, and not in a humid environment ... My understanding was that they needed some moisture to stay viable, but not too much. At least now I know, and we'll plant accordingly from now on...as well as save the seeds we haven't used since we now know they will stay viable longer than we thought.

I need to start thinking about what our next rotation of crops will be, as some of these things are supposed to complete their cycle in 50 days. It seems like things sprouted quite a bit sooner than expected, and I wonder if, in our hot environment, some things will be at harvest sooner than the projected date given by the source. Thank goodness I got an app for my iPhone to track how things grow! I just need to figure out how to transfer that information to a journal...

Congrats on your sprouts, it really is very exciting isn't it!

As to the smilies, I like these ones!

Exciting it is.

It's been about 2-1/2 weeks since planting most of my garden, and there are lots of things growing now. I have a couple total failures, like stevia, chamomile, and Walla Walla onions (I was pretty sure the onions wouldn't do well anyway). A few squares have some sprouts and some failures, like the red torpedo onions. But for the most part, things look good for our hot environment!

First we have a 4'x4' box with all veggies in it. I planted Red Malabar spinach, cucumbers (don't recall which kind) and Rattlesnake beans in the back with one space to the left of the spinach to plant okra (I haven't acquired seeds yet). Then I planted some Swiss chard, Walla Walla onions (they never sprouted, so now I have 3 empty squares to decide what to plant in), leaf lettuce (one broke off it's stem ), Red Torpedo onions (only 1/8 sprouted), bunching onions (these all came up, so I guess that's my onion source for this year), golden cayenne peppers, nasturtiums, Tendersweet carrots, my younger son's Scarlet Nantes carrots for Carrot Week, and a sweet green pepper:


Then there's my 1'x4' box with our pumpkins. We planted Seminole pumpkins in the left two squares about 10 days ago, and Connecticut Field pumpkins are in the right two squares were started on the 5th in another box and then transplanted later when we built this one:


Here's box 3, with herbs in most the front 3 rows. I tried planting chamomile, two types of cilantro/coriander, onion chives, garlic chives, marjoram, oregano, stevia (failed), and parsley. All the herbs that did come up are really puny. I'm wondering if it's just too hot here to start those outdoors. My older son planted some carrots for carrot week in one corner. Then I have golden crookneck summer squash, Table Queen acorn squash, Grey zucchini, and round zucchini.


Lastly, we have my tomatoes, which I purchased from the garden stores about 2 weeks ago. These things grow fast! I have a cherry tomato (in back with the PVC support), four Roma tomatoes (two in the larger planter, one each in the round pots) and a Heatmaster tomato in the smaller planter in front. The Heatmaster and cherry tomatoes are the only things I'm growing that are not heirlooms.


My Romas in the round pots aren't doing as well as their brethren in the planter...not sure why since they all got the same soil. I didn't plant them quite as deep as the ones in the planter...the directions said to plant 2/3 of the plant under the soil, and I didn't have enough space to do that in the pots since they were so leggy.