Despite all the years I’ve been around successful gardeners, I still learned something new to me this gardening season.  Sweet peppers need extra time to grow so early April is too late to start growing my seed indoors.  I’ve been saving seeds for over a year so I wish I would have looked into it sooner and started them earlier.  It’s okay though, I’ve found several local sources for sweet peppers and I’ll still have a variety of the plants in my garden.  And even though I’m the only one who will eat them, I’m going to grow a couple jalapeños this year. Pickled, I enjoy eating them filled with tuna salad but they’re also tasty as jalapeño poppers baked in the oven, chopped in mango salsa or as a delicious addition to omelettes, wraps and taco burritos.  Green sweet bell peppers have me reaching for my epipen due to my allergy but jalapeños don’t bother me, isn’t that strange?

My sister knows I’m itching to get outside and start digging up my containers, refreshing soil where I can and rotating my crops from one fruit or vegetable to the next.  I still haven’t sent in my seed order but only because I’ve ordered live plants and I’m tempted to go pick up my order in person.  But my sister has also been watching me mend from a fall which required I go out of my stark raving mind, on bed rest.  She bought me a child cucumber and tomato plant kit.  I set them aside but kept looking at them, thumbed through the seed catalogs and looked at the seed kits some more.  Then, last Saturday after a particularly challenging afternoon, I opened up the tomato kit.  Cherry tomatoes that,  according to the picture on the outside of the box, will mature into clusters of fruits that will hang like grapes.  Bring it on!

I prepared the soil using 3/4 cups of water, as directed.  Then I added twice that amount of water, mixed up the soil medium and added more water.  Finally it resembled the consistency I’d expect to confidently plant seeds into.  I used a disposable fork to prepare the soil and pack it in the growing tray.  After I opened the package of tomato seeds, I finished reading the instructions on the inside of the box.  It advised to start the seeds well in advance as they will take up to a month to germinate.  I nearly dropped the soil onto my carpeted floor - a month!  That can’t be right.  Reading the sentence four times in a row didn’t change any of the words.  I shrugged and decided to proceed anyway.  Peeling back the packet, there were six tomato seeds.  I placed each seed in its own little bed and covered them with soil.  The beautiful planted garden was ready to be placed in the warmest room in my house … the bathroom.  But first I had a cucumber kit to open and plant.  I repeated the steps I had carried out preparing to plant the tomatoes then opened the packet.  Five seeds found a spot on the moist soil and then I covered them all with more growing medium and used the tines of the fork to tamp everything down.  The seeds were tucked in a cozy bed of warm soil and I placed a marker in both kits so I’d know which was tomatoes and which were cucumbers.

I had some left over soil and an empty plastic container with a lid so I decided to plant a few seeds I’ve been collecting.  I had some grape and apple seeds, a seed from a canteloupe and one black seed from a seedless watermelon.  I planted each of them in the container and placed the lid overtop.  They were now in their own little greenhouse, ready to grow if the conditions were ideal to do so.  I thought back to those tomatoes needing up to a month to germinate and considered placing them inside a ziplock bag but I chose not to.  Instead I placed my three gardens in the bathroom next to the fish aquarium.

On Sunday, there was dry soil but nothing poking up from beneath the soil.  I watered the tomatoes and cucumbers but left the fruit seeds alone.  I could see condensation inside the container, and that’s what I wanted to see.  Monday, I returned to give the plant kits another dribble of water.  I like the soil to be moist but not wet.  I moved the fruit container closer to the window where the early morning sun might inspire germination.  The cucumber had one leaf but I didn’t see anything with my tomatoes.  It’s going to be a long month I concluded as I looked at the still soil.

Tuesday I came to water the plant kits and things had improved dramatically.  Four tomatoes peaked up at me and four cucumbers each pushed two leaves above the ground.  So much for a month to germinate!  I’m looking forward to seeing these plants flourish and grow.  I’m hoping to have them out in my greenhouse by the end of next week, then I’ll harden them and transplant them once the soil in the containers is warm enough.  I have enough pepper seeds I am still going to plant a few, directly sewing them into containers.  And I’m looking forward to planting sweet peas, which I’ve not grown in over a decade, and dill.  For whatever reasons I never have been successful growing dill and I buy it from the farmers market each year for dill pickles, beat rolls and borscht.  Maybe this year will be “my” year! All I can say is, from my containers to yours, let the gardening officially begin for the 2022 season!  Updates to follow.  

Take care and have a great week, everyone.