Harvesting seeds from the grocery store
16.6 years ago indoor seed starting, seed saving
There is more than one way to harvest seeds sure can grow your own but there is also another option. Use seeds someone else grew by buying them at a grocery store or farmers market.
Have you ever have bought potatoes, sweet potatoes or yams and noticed sprouts coming out of them, dig a hole and plant them in the ground and in a few weeks you may have your own potato plant. Not a fan of those, why not try garlic, ginger, onions, peanuts, avocados, dried beans, apples, tomatoes, peppers, or anything else you can imagine.
This year I am going to attempt potatoes and garlic, how about yourself?
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, outdoor plants, pepper plants, tomato plants, vegetables
Oh the carnage…
16.7 years ago indoor seed starting, tomato
I am sorry to inform you that we have had a death in the garden. By entering this world a just a little sprout started from a packet of seeds just a couple of months ago. They spent most of their life being nurtured in the comfortable surroundings of the PC grow box our poor tomoto plants did not survive the harshness freakish winter storm we which occurred weeks after our supposed last frost date. On the positive side all of our cold season crops (garlic, onions, cilantro, lettuce, peas) as well as the corn and butterfly garden flowers have endured and enjoyed cozying up with the snow and are doing just fine.
Tags: butterfly garden, cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, growbox, outdoor plants, tomato plants, vegetables
Average last frost dates are only right half of the time
16.7 years ago indoor growbox, indoor seed starting, spring, tomato
Our last frost date in my area should have been March 24th but given the frosty mornings this past week and the fact we had snow coming down most of today it looks like this year our last frost date will fall on the other side of the bell curve. Unfortunately, I was optimistic with some of the great weather we were having earlier and planted my tomato seeds for a much earlier move outside. The poor tomatoes are still growing in my PC grow box but starting to not look so good. As you can see from the picture below my tomato plants are in some dire need of some non-artificial light. I am afraid I might end up buying my tomato plants at my local nursery (yet again) this year. Vegetable gardening is definitely one of those hobbies which it does not pay to be a too optimistic.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, growbox, outdoor plants, tomato plants, vegetables
Planting our butterfly garden
16.8 years ago butterfly garden, indoor seed starting
Yesterday with the weather almost getting to 60 seemed like a good day to try sow some of our vegetable seeds outside for our butterfly garden. I tried to make things organized by grouping the Black-eyed Susan, purple coneflowers, zinnias, and nasturtiums, but my daughter decided to distribute the seeds a little more random. I am sure the butterflies won’t mind and guess it should look a little closer to how nature would do it.
I have learned from my years of gardening I normally am too optimistic about when seeds can be planted outside so as a backup plan we also planted some of the same seeds indoors which are currently trying to push their way closer to the PC grow box.
Read Other Butterfly Garden Posts
Tags: butterfly garden, cheap, garden seeds, growbox, outdoor plants, vegetables
Growing potatoes with kids
16.8 years ago indoor seed starting, kids
I was checking out our pantry I noticed some of our potatoes were starting to sprout. I took this as a great opportunity to have a little activity with the my daughters. We started by taking a look at the sprouts and had a little discussion about how potatoes grow underground and this one potato will grow into many more potatoes. We then cut an egg carton in half and set the sprouting potatoes by the window to sprout (chitting) a little more and printed out some activity pages from the Washington State Potato Commission.
After a few days of basking in the sun we planted our potatoes in our garden and hopefully in a couple weeks we will see some plants coming out of the ground.
Tags: outdoor plants
Make your own homemade newspaper pots
16.8 years ago cheap, indoor seed starting
As you probably know we shouldn’t be using peat pots due to environmental concerns, buying terra cotta pots is too expensive, what is a cheap gardener to do? Make your own homeade pots out of newspaper of course. Muddy Clogs describes how to exactly do this on her blog. My only complaint is that I didn’t think of it first.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds
