Branching Out's Seeds and Sprouts

[heirloomgal]

I am going to follow your indoor bean journey with great curiosity!

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

I'm going to sell my two amaryllis plants at my late spring garage sale. Its just not worth the trouble! I got one stalk of two red blooms and they last less than a week. Bah humbug.

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

I planted a mixed pack of mesclun greens over a year ago, and a few plants from the mixture persisted long after the lettuce was finished. Pretty sure this is a radicchio. I am not a fan of the taste of it, however the colour patterns on the leaves are really lovely-- especially in the middle of winter when most of the garden is either bare or brown.

That is beautiful! Did you taste it? I don't like the taste of radicchio either. And apparently neither do bugs . I had a row of it planted last year and while the bugs were devouring other greens/brassica, these expansion didn't have a single bug bite.

 

[Branching Out]

I did taste the radicchio-- it was worse than collards! Lol. But you are correct about the bug resistant quality of it; no insect damage at all.

And Rhodie Ranch, that's too bad that your amaryllis was a bit of a dud. Was it a new bulb, or one that you had kept from the year before? With new bulbs sometimes new stalks shoot up later, even after a few months. They buds form months and months before the bulb blooms, and then they just sit dormant until they are good and ready to sprout.

 

[Branching Out]

Generally speaking we try to consume our home-canned jams within a year or two but every now and then a few jars are over-looked, only to resurface once several years have passed. I hate throwing away food, but I don't want to become sick from eating really old home canning either; sometimes the jars sit in the pantry even longer, while I try to convince myself to toss them out. Here is a perfect example: this Plum Rum Raisin dessert sauce is 7 years old!

 

[Branching Out]

Last year I tried to grow yarrow, which is supposed to be one of the easiest flowers to grow. I however had poor germination results, likely from starting them too late in spring. So this year I bought fresh seed (Summer Berries from Wild Garden Seeds) and started them on February 4th, with multiple seeds per block. Of course EVERY seed germinated. Yesterday I bumped a bunch of them up to small 6-cells, and I have another 60 or so to go. At least they are winter hardy, so I can start hardening them off to go outdoors. I hope the snow stops soon though, or I will run out of trays and shelf space. Lol.

 

[flowerbug]

I'm going to sell my two amaryllis plants at my late spring garage sale. Its just not worth the trouble! I got one stalk of two red blooms and they last less than a week. Bah humbug.

they are easy plants, i don't mind too much if they all don't flower each year.

i just started watering mine (haven't watered them since last Octoberish or so).

i have five large bulbs in one pot so usually some of those will flower and then i have two isolates that may or may not flower.

i managed to give one away last weekend so the goal is still to give away one more to free up the table space. i'll take it to the garden club meetings until someone adopts it.

 

[Branching Out]

Had to start making small paper pots this morning, to accommodate my bumper crop of yarrow seedlings. In an effort to use as little soil as possible I created small pots using the pages of a small phone book, and an empty spice jar to roll them on. I still have a bit of sourdough starter in the fridge that I dab on the bottom and the sides to 'glue' the open seams in place, for easier handling. Once it dries, sourdough starter is like concrete. Later I will make another batch of paper pots for the dwarf shelling peas; those are seeds that I saved last year.

 

[ducks4you]

Generally speaking we try to consume our home-canned jams within a year or two but every now and then a few jars are over-looked, only to resurface once several years have passed. I hate throwing away food, but I don't want to become sick from eating really old home canning either; sometimes the jars sit in the pantry even longer, while I try to convince myself to toss them out. Here is a perfect example: this Plum Rum Raisin dessert sauce is 7 years old!

I have a "staycation" coming up, 10 days of DD's and DH on their cruise. I have been boxing up all of my jars with produce that is old and I don't wanna eat stuff in them.
MY PLAN is to dig a deep garden hole and empty the contents (except for the 3 jars of mistake BBQ pork), then soak the jars for a couple of days outside in one of my muck buckets with Dawn and a splash of bleach, then wash them a store for future canning.
Today I get a staycation practice bc DD's AND DH and other atty are having dinner to discuss their cruise. I didn't wanna go out to eat with them bc I have nothing to offer, so I will get a few extra hours on one of today's projects.

 

[Branching Out]

Today I made a photo 'inventory' of what kinds of seedlings are filling the shelves under my grow lights. Thankfully most of them, apart from the tomatoes and peppers, are on their way out the garden within the next couple of weeks. That will free up shelf space for more peppers and other slow but heat loving starts. There is quite a mix of plants, including rudbeckia, scabiosa, godetia, salpiglossis, lisianthus, 90 yarrow, lettuce, kale, flax, chard, spinach, collards, and a good-sized tray of Fun Jen. The Fun Jen I sowed in 3/4" mini-blocks that had held lettuce seeds that never sprouted. It may not always work to reuse blocks in this fashion, but for these fast growing mustard greens it seemed worth trying.

From my limited experience it would appear that Tokyo Bekana and Fun Jen are almost identical in taste, form, and speed of growth. Tokyo Bekana is open-pollinated and Fun Jen is a hybrid from Taiwan, so I will focus on letting some of the Tokyo Bekana go to seed for future planting.