Saturday, January 30, 2010

Today

It's snowing out. A lot. Especially since I moved to the south and it's not supposed to cold. This is through the window of my front door. Not to mention it is still coming down and is supposed to for the rest of the day.


But that's OK because I can just stay home. I have been thinking about my garden. A lot. Like WAY too much. Like I have the engineering paper out and I am laying out my plots. With exactly where each plant is gonna be.

I've figured out a bit more with my garden. I did a bit more research and now I've decided to get my seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. No one had any negative comments about them online. They are focused on midAtlantic region but I figure I'm close enough and they have lots of info on how to grow them.

But I need to narrow my list. I've already done some narrowing, I swear.

I already have bell pepper seeds (saved from bell peppers I got at the farmer's market last summer)
I think I want some hot peppers so I am thinking
Anaheim Chile's or
Jalapeno Peppers.
I think I want one other pepper so I am deciding between these:
Tequila Sunrise
Jimmy Nardello's Italian Pepper
Doe Hill Golden Bell Pepper


Next up, flowers. I am told you need to have some flowers to help attract honey bees to pollinate your stuff. I decided on sunflowers.
Mammoth Russian Sunflowers - these would be like 9 ft tall and a single flower but big seeds for me to eat
Hopi Dye Sunflowers? - these would probably look a little less out of place because at least they aren't as tall and there would be a bunch of flowers.



Next, tomatoes. I definitely have space for 8 tomato plants. I may have more because I think I can grow them mixed with the melons. Plus I still have a couple square feet that I haven't filled. I was thinking I wanted 2 plants of each type although that's still up in the air. I already have seeds for cherry tomatoes and some random seeds I saved last year. I am planning on getting Wonderberry and Cossack Pineapple Ground Cherries. I am undecided between these:
Sugar Cherry Tomato
Green Grape Tomato
Lollipop Tomato
Mini Orange Tomato
Matt's Wild Cherry
Dr Carolyn Tomato
Do I need some big tomatoes? I always like the little ones better so that's all I've chosen so far but now I am having second thoughts.

So many choices!

2 comments:

Gene said...

Hi! Just discovered your blog via ... yeah! 'grapefruit pith' ;-) Your site does come up on the first page.

Anyway, I'm planting tomatoes as well this Spring. I decided on 3 types: cherry tomatoes, Roma (for my pizza sauce), and one for salad & burgers.

I see you have a lot planned for your garden. I did some research on vegetable/herb gardening this fall since I'm converting my flower garden to a mixed one - flower/veggies. One thing that I wouldn't have thought of is the water needs. Someone wrote about the importance of grouping your plants according to their water needs. That made sense. I trust you have thought about that.

I have also eliminated any plant that I cannot store one way or another. I remember one Summer, I had planted a small bed of celery. Most of it ended up in the garbage because I could not figure what to do with 20 or so celery plants. That was a lesson learned. So this time around, I'm being careful about what and how much I plant.

As well, as much as possible I've tried to buy organic seeds. They are a bit more expensive but worth the expense I think.

Good luck with your gardening! It IS a great, not to say healthy, hobby.

Anonymous said...

This post got me so excited about spring! Despite snow last Friday today is getting up to almost 60 here in GA. Can't wait. I find the hardest part about gardening isn't the work it's picking what to plant. Those bell peppers sounded like a good choice and the lollipop tomatoes(maybe it's just then name!)looked good. Can't wait to see what you choose!