March 1: Put seed from ancho pepper and sunset pepper to sprout under wet napkins on top of the fridge. When they sprout, will move them under a strong light.
Moved pepper seeds to bathroom.
Today: plant tomatillo seeds. Don't let them dry out.
Plant strawberry seeds. Be sure to put them under a strong light as soon as they appear. The bathroom light is not strong enough.
Plant tomatoes and lettuce soon.

Planted a napa cabbage end in the pot by the couch today. It had been sitting in a cup with water and grew small green leaves. The leeks beside it are leaning over, long and pale green. Need more light. The carrot tops are growing green and the tallest is a few inches. Only growing dark purple and red carrots to get the seed from them for next year.

March 2: Went to FiF and got so many things to plant for the garden: Shishito peppers. Beets, orange, white, and black outside. mountain radish. Arugula garden in a box. Dill which we try to root from cutting.

March 3: Planted 2nd batch of strawberry and tomatillo. Planting tomato today, 10 seeds each:
1 - Grape Tigrella red from sp. 19 oct '18
2 - Heirloom yellow grape tomato Aug '18
3 - Small heirloom red multicolor Aug '18
4 - Small Yellow July '18
5 - Yellow Small sp. June '18
6 - Small multicolor heirloom Aug '18
7 - Indigo Rose sp.
8 - Atomic
9 - MM
Transplanted blue plant to bigger pot.
In the bird of paradise, all the honeynut seedlings are dead. At least we know the seeds germinate well.
We have an Arugula mini garden in a box, and 7 radishes. We may not need to worry about getting seeds to grow greens if these radish make nice edible leaves for us and if the arugula garden comes back. It's in rough shape, it totally overgrew and there's a lot of dead material in it and white fungus.
Put all the radishes in water to sprout new roots. When they do, we will cut them in half and plant both halves. Put the dill to root, and two lettuce heads are growing on the windowsill.

March 4: Not much left to plant. Planting Shishito peppers very soon, and basil. Putting the beets in dirt, one of them is growing a bit of white mold. If none of the poblanos come up, will have to plant more; same goes for strawberry. Maybe soon will be time to plant squash. Honeynut - 85 days. If planted now, they would be ready to harvest at June 4. The problem is we want to put it outside while it's flowering. That would be during May, which might be too cold to leave the plant outside.
Not entirely sure if planting the squash now would be good or bad, though we are planning to do a 2nd wave of squash anyway so if it doesn't work out we'll still be planting more.
Going to do a test germination of Futsu.

March 5: #5 has sprouted.

March 6: Saw youtube vid for sprouting peppers. It said to put the seed in wet towel wrapped several times in a crock pot on warm setting. Next morning they had sprouted. We are going to try to raise the heat by putting peppers on top of stove.

Soon going to start Shishito sprouts and Habanero, and mesclun mix.
Thinking of putting beets and radishes in dirt instead of water.

March 7: All the tomatoes have sprouted. Moved them to the window and under light. Tomatillo wants to sprout, the stem is showing but it's not up so put it by the window as well.
Got several more beets and what looks like a piece of horseradish. Also got 1 spring radish.
The golden beets have little brown hairs at the bottom, we think they are growing though one still has mold. Going to wash it with bleach.
Need to prepare pots: carrots, beets, radish, shishito, basil.
Put the remaining strawberry seeds in the freezer, to come out in 3-4 weeks and be planted for a 3rd batch. The 2nd batch should sprout on March 13.

March 8: Sprouts are up in #7 and #8. They look like strawberry sprouts that must have been planted on Feb 1.

March 9: Second day of the tomatillos being up and they look good. All the tomatoes look good and we have about 5 strawberry sprouts from the 1st batch. We will need maybe 10 plants, or 4-5 plants per pot, so will wait to see if 2nd batch of strawberry comes up. Tomatoes look good, have 6-12 sprouts in each pot.
Planted beets and radish from Jagger's into a pot. Think we will put it outside on the porch during daytime and bring it in at night.
Planted mesclun mix and escarole into arugula box and set by the kitchen window.
Going to plant basil next, and carrots in sandy loam soil. Got to transplant leek soon. Planting shishitos and peppers, doing an experiment with styrofoam egg carton by the window in the sun.

March 10: Sunset pepper seeds have sprouted. No sign of sprouting in the Anchos though. There's about half germination rate so far, with about 10 being sprouted. 2 or 3 of them have big roots sticking to the wet napkin. One was over 1cm long. Saw a speck of green like a leaf popping out of one. Put them all in a blue pot in the bathroom. Accidentally planted basil seeds in there, good thing they are companions. Also planted another small pot of basil.
Put poblano seeds to sprout over the oven.
Last night we put the pepper seeds on the oven burner with the oven on and it seemed to be why they were sprouted today. Will try this again to make poblanos germinate.

Didn't need to water sprouts yesterday, but watered them today. Next to plant: green onion cut-offs, carrot tops, leek, beets + 2 radish, shishito, habanero.
Have a few small pots. Running out of dirt. All the dirt outside is frozen. Brought in an old tomato pot yesterday and it's still frozen.
Plans for Big, shallow pot: Radish and beets with leek in the middle planted deep.

March 11: Planted the beets and radishes and the leek in a pot. Made shallow pot for red carrot tops and another one for green onion ends.
Planning to plant in long container (3'): basil and one tomato plant.
The big pot with the dead tomato in it is unfrozen now but it's garden dirt.
Planning to leave both pots of beets and radish and leek outside from today on, and bring in at night, as the low is only -3 for this week.

Planning to plant Giant Allium soon. Got to start peppers soon too, shishito and habanero.

March 12: Fertilize plants.

March 13: Fertilized the tomato and tomatillo sprouts. Tomatoes are growing second set of leaves and stems are showing red now. Mesclun mix in the arugula box is sprouting today. Repotted the sunset peppers (and basil) in peat pots to put under the stronger light. Peppers are just beginning to show green and wanting to start.
Planning to plant a small kohlrabi from the grocery store, and seeds from what looks like a yellow cayenne pepper. We tasted it and it's hot.

So far we have: Tomato, tomatillo, strawberry sprouts. Sunset peppers, basil. Beets, radish, leek, green onion, mesclun lettuce mix, 2 heads of lettuce growing, and several red and purple carrot tops.
Shishito and poblano are on the stove trying to sprout.
Outside on the porch are the beets, leek, radish and a pot of green onion bulbs form the store.
There is one last Honeynut seedling left in the Bird of Paradise pot.

March 14: We estimate that we have 30-40 tomato seedlings.

March 15: A strawberry leaf has popped up outside in the hanging basket. The basket is only half full of dirt and has a big chunk of ice in it still and the leaf is the largest we've grown yet, at maybe one or two cm wide. Almost all the ice is gone from the garden, though it now looks like a mess.
Going to have to start more pepper seeds as the ones we have fell down and got moldy. Might have to buy pepper seedlings later, especially poblano and jalapeno.
Tomato seedlings have second set of leaves and they're big.

Planning to start squash seeds soon as it says to start 6 weeks before last frost and last week of April is looking to be high of 14, low of 3, so aiming for a safe date of May 1 to put squash outside. Will be hardening them off during April.

Tomorrow going to plant more tomatoes:
8. Cherokee purple | 9. Ukraine sword | 10. Tigrella | 11. Orange | 12. Big White Pink Stripe | 13. Green zebra B | 14. Yellow tomato pink inside | 15. (Indigo Rose) Black and red | 16. (Black Oxheart)5 stripe chocolate | 17. Green zebra A

17 varieties of tomato in total.

March 16: Planning to grow peppers in 1 and 2 gallon pots, and tomatoes in the biggest pots we can. Tomatillo - either dirt or pot.
Strawberry- hanging baskets, with lettuce. Lettuce and basil in with tomatoes.
Squash goes in the ground and stems covered with good dirt.

Planted all the tomatoes. 2 seeds to each pot, 4 pots of each variety. Used 2 styrofoam egg cartons and 4 plastic cellpacks.
Put a fresh tray of poblano seeds on the stove in wet napkin between styrofoam trays.

March 19: Transplanted all the tomato seedling (1st batch) to their own pots. Put 2 of each in bigger 1 gal blue pots for us to keep. 7 Indigo Rose didn't live. Next to transplant are the tomatillo seedlings. There's about 4 bell pepper sprouts coming up. Put poblanos in a baggy with wet towel in it on the stove last night.

March 21: Put the kohlrabi in a glass of water and it got firmer and leaves perked up. Two tomatoes are starting to come up: Orange and Yellow with Pink Inside. Putting tomatoes (first batch) outside each day to get sun and taking them in at night. Forgot to bring one in last night in a cellpack and it's okay.
Got to split up tomatillo seedings tomorrow, there's at least 8 in a peat pot and they're about 4" tall now.

March 22: Repotted all the Tomatillos into a cellpack of 12 and a single 4 inch pot. Got seeds yesterday: morning glory, lettuce, spring onion.

March 24: Thinking one day we would like to do a soil test on the yard.
Going to donate some tomato seeds or seedlings to a local food bank farm.
2nd batch tomatoes not coming up well. Thinking of planting more. Might wait a few days though in case they come up late. Killed a few by accident because the leaves were stuck in the seed and couldn't open.
Tomatillos and 1st batch tomatoes transplanted extremely well. Haven't lost one plant, and they didn't wilt at all. Amazing. Put them in fresh air outside for a few days now. It snowed on them a little just the other day and yesterday ranged from -1 to -3.

Counted tomato seed varieties and we have 1 less than we thought, so that's 16 varieties. Going to plant more tomato seed soon.
3rd batch of tomatoes to plant: 1. Indigo Rose | 2. Green Zebra (OG) | 3. Black Oxheart | 4. Yellow, Pink Inside | 5. Green Zebra | 6. Big White Pink Stripe | 7. Orange | 8. Tigrella | 9. Cherokee Purple
2nd batch: #11, 12, 16, 17 have sprouts coming up. Nothing in Cherokee purple, Ukraine sword and Tigerella.
Planning to put the coleus cuttings which grew roots over winter into a hanging basket.

March 25: We are starting our own mini-compost heap. Collecting onion skins, banana and carrot peels, used tea, egg shells in a 1 liter bucket and just put out a full one a few days ago. Haven't got the heap area cleared out yet so may just add the compost to bottom of pots. Started the bucket at least a month ago but have no idea how much its broken down. About 1 month ago we noticed it the bucket wasn't as full as it used to be, so we figure it is breaking down some material already.

Got more from Jagger's: one small and one large daikon radish, bolla pepper, kumato tomatoes. Getting more seedlings ready to donate to Jagger's farm.

Planted the 2nd batch tomato seeds that didn't make it in the egg cartons. Planted a cellpack half lettuce, half escarole. Prepared basil seeds and cellpacks to plant tomorrow.
Put a new batch of poblano seeds on the stove to sprout.

March 26: 1 single poblano seed has sprouted. We think it's from a fresh pepper - never dried. It had been sitting on the stove for quite a while, possibly 1 week - 1 month or longer. Might have been the one started on March 16. There's 3 different layers of peppers in that tray, all started at different times.
Planted basil seeds in a cellpack and covered it with plastic wrap and put it on the stove.

Planning to start sweet potato next, and jalapeno and cayenne seeds.
Collected Kumato seeds today, plan on planting some soon. Filled in the missing seeds in the 2nd tomato batch in the cell packs, so there's no more unused spaces now.

March 27: Planted Kumato 4x, Tigerella 4x, Grape Tigrella 12x, Ukraine Sword 4x. Now out of Grape Tigrella and Ukraine sword.
Put to sprout on stove: Yellow Cayenne, Shishito, Jalapeno.
Got two more poblano seeds to sprout, and put them in dirt.
Grape Tigrella is most requested tomato, next is Ukraine Sword. We are short on both seeds.

Put potatoes into water and sweet potato ends.
Some of our tomato plants didn't make it, mostly yellow ones though. Here's what we have as far as live, salable plants:
Small yellow x13
Yellow Grape x5
Small Multicolour x3
Small Multicolour x10
Tigrella Grape x5

Tomatillo x17

Still sprouting: Black Oxheart 4x, Orange 4x, Tigerella 8x, Ukraine Sword 8x

Should plant more Tigerella, Kumato, Green Zebra. Maybe Oxheart and Multicolours.

March 28: Two more poblano seeds sprouted. Now we have 5 in total. No signs of life in the ones we planted already.
Going to start more tomatoes, singles in cell packs and about 10 of each variety in peat pots. We will need containers to put peat pots in now - the only limit to how much we can plant now.


1st: Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple, Orange, BWPS, Indigo Rose, Oxheart, Kumato, Tigrella
2nds: small yellow tomato, heirloom yellow grape,
Maybe: small multicolor heirloom, red small multicolor heirloom

Planted Kumato 3x, Tigrella 3x, Cherokee Purple 3x, Green Zebra 3x.

March 29: A single Yellow Cayenne seed has sprouted.
We have 8 sunset pepper plants now. One of them is growing more than two leaves now.
The poblanos that sprouted must be the ones from the 16th, and used from a fresh pepper.

Check on pepper sprouts at 8 pm. The Yellow Cayenne has at least 6 sprouts or more now. The Jalapeno has 1. Going to put in dirt tomorrow.

March 30: All the Yellow Cayenne have sprouted. 3 or 4 of the Jalapenos sprouted. Nothing in Shishito and Poblano today.

March 31: The 2nd batch of tomatoes in the cell packs started sprouting. So far it has 1 new one in Orange and in Black Oxheart.
So far took out 2 dead tomato plants from when we hardened them off outside. The plants have been inside for 2 days now and it started snowing today so they'll be inside until it warms up tomorrow. 1 dead plant looks like a Small Yellow, though the tag is faded.

2 new sprouts in the tomatoes in egg cartons: 1 Tigrella and 1 Ukraine sword. There is already 1 Ukraine sword palnt, which is huge and 1 tigrella plant which is smaller.

Poblanos should be up by April 5th.

We have a huge Daikon radish that's 12" long, left it out int he sun because the tip was rotting and now it's growing little leaves.