Tomatoes and Peppers, OH MY!

On March 14, 2015 we planted a total of 50 pepper Plants! Holy Cow! We have jalapenos, carnival bell, long sweet, pepperoncini, Anaheim, and regular bell. There are a hot ones and mild ones. We love peppers at this house, especially in salsa and spaghetti sauce.

We also planted 48 tomato plants! We have Beefsteak and Super Sauce tomato varieties. The Super Sauce are Roma tomatoes that are supposed to grow up to 1-2 POUNDS a piece! We will have to wait and see about that.
The plants are taking over the house!

Picture of Baby Chickens

Ok, so that was totally dumb, that the picture wouldn't post with the previous post. Maybe this will give you a small idea of our small fluff balls.

Chicks

These are our new chicks.




We got them March 11, 2015. There were originally 4 Buff Orpingtons, 4 Red Rocks, and 4 Silver-Laced  Wyndottes. We had to replace a few from death and we finally decided on just having 11. Last year we culled our entire flock because they were old and were no longer laying eggs. They are obviously much larger now and we have moved them outside to the big coop. I have a corner of it fenced off for a couple more weeks and then they will have free run of the coop. Once it is warm, and they have all their feathers they will be able to go back and forth to the outside coop and run. That will be great!

We can't wait to have fresh eggs again in a couple more months. Yummy!!!

Make Your Own (MYO) Seed "tape" for Square Food Gardening

Because of the vast area we will have to cover in our garden we are making our own seed "tape". We found paper towels that are 11x6 inches and tore two sheets together to make an 11x12 inch bed for the seeds. You don't have to spend a lot of money on the paper towels. The idea is for them to break up after you "plant" them in your space.
The glue we used was 1 TBSP cornstarch to 1 Cup of water. Add a few drops of food coloring to help you see where you have put the "glue". Heat on stove until thickened. Allow to cool and then put into a squirt bottle of some kind that will will allow you to place small drops onto the paper towel in the specified amounts, such as 9, 16, 4..... depending on what you are planting. There are many different kinds of glue you can look up and then choose what kind you want to use. We decided this one would work best for us. As this year is kind of a trial and error year, we will see if this works best.
We have done our spinach, radish, carrot, and onion seeds this way.

Here you can see Brian adding the drops of glue to the paper towel. 

 

Adding the carrot seeds to the glue.

Once your seeds are placed put another paper towel over the top to form a sandwich.

Place all of your "sandwiches" in a plastic bag and then in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Be sure to label everything you are doing, from seed starting, to seed tapes, to storage, and everything in the middle. These tapes are planted at the recommended depths for each seed.

Our first seedlings!

If you look really close you can see the first Broccoli seedlings poking their heads up!

It is always exciting to see new plants poking their heads up out of the ground. The more that show up the more exciting it is. Can't wait to see how other things grow.