Seedlings

The tomato and pepper seedlings are up--or at least, many of them are up.  Unfortunately, all but two of the Roma Paste tomatoes did not sprout, and one of the two that did is small and seems a bit sickly.  I fear the rest were non-viable, and that's a pity, because there should have been ten Roma Paste in total and I've ended up with only two.  There's not really enough time to replant successfully and have them get large enough fast enough to be effective this year, so I will have to purchase the eight I need from a greenhouse.

Fortunately, the Principe Borghese heirloom came up strong and beautiful, as did three of the Marglobes, and they will fit the four topsy-turvies that I plan to hang from the patio.  So it's only most of the ones that go in the garden that I will have to buy from someone else.

The huz is happy because all but two of the super-hot peppers I planted for him have sprouted; he warmed up the seed pots under a blanket and a light for a day, and the seeds he had saved from peppers we grew last year sprouted.  He has over a dozen of these pepper plants now, and he is the only one who really wants to eat such hot peppers.  But that doesn't matter.  He's happy, and he'll have his peppers, and that's a good thing.

Kicking Off A Year of Flat-Broke Eating

It doesn't seem like several months have gone by since the last post. Where does the time go? The economy being what it is, even food has to be on a strict budget. That got me to thinking that it might be good to share any tips or experiences I come across for the backyard gardener and people who want a greener lifestyle even on a shoestring budget.

It's mid-February, and time to start our seedlings to go into our small backyard vegetable garden this year. I'll start with that.

It isn't that seeds are horribly expensive, but it's better if you can save seed from heirloom plants--that way you aren't laying out even $1.50 for a packet of maybe 20 seeds. This year, I can't really afford that much, so I'm using seeds that I have either saved from last year's garden, that I already had on hand from previous years' purchases, or that were given to me a couple of years ago by the wonderful people at Wintersown.  Without them, I would not now have seed for the tomato plants I will need to help feed my family this year.  It's my goal to grow as much of our food as possible in the limited space we have. It's going to take luck and planning.

I'll post more soon as we go through the process of planning our garden, choosing which foods will give us the most bang for our buck, and taking the seeds through the indoor sprouting process so that they will be ready to go into the garden when the weather warms up.