Seed Situation
O.K. not trouble, necessarily, but issues. Like seeds I’m starting. Some are doing well. I’ll have plenty of tomatoes, for example. Also basil, cilantro, and ground cherries. However, two that I care about a lot, eggplant and peppers, have hardly sprouted. From two plantings that should have given me ten of each, I have four eggplant, one Anaheim and three sweet pepper seedlings. Yikes! There’s still time, but I’m not pleased. What did I do wrong?
I planted sweet peppers from last year’s seeds (which shouldn’t be a problem), but I purchased the mildly hot Anaheim pepper seeds new because we discovered last year how much we love pickled peppers and they’re perfect for that. I plan to grow a lot to pickle for us and for gifts. And the eggplant? Living in Jerusalem I learned to absolutely love eggplant. I ate it all the time: fried, roasted, in baba ghanoush. I struggled last year with eggplant seeds, ending up with three plants and no fruit. This year, I plan to virtually dedicate Jones to Eggplant Excellence and a corner of Smith to Pepper Production, but this is not a good start for two types of seed I’d invested with such early-Spring hope.
Satisfied Mouse
This isn’t my problem, but it hit me as if it were. Two weeks ago, while visiting our middle child and his wife who live four hours north where their spring is a bit behind ours. I thought they’d appreciate a planter with eight, cute lettuce seedlings from my living room nursery. A planter of growing veggies is a gift you can enjoy for a long time or at least as long as the crop is producing. For them it was one week after I gave the gift because all the plants were eaten clean down to the soil by (they are guessing) a marauding mouse.
The sad thing about this one is the finality of it all. Not much recourse here nor slight tweaking, a little more light, a little less water, to make it right. The only answer is to start over again. I know they have seeds, easy enough to plant. Still, how sad! Instead of fresh lettuce in 35 days, they have to wait 52 or so (if they replant right away).
Late March Snow?
Are you kidding me? A little bit of snow fell last Saturday night and wintry mix the last day of March. After all my crowing about how clever I was to plant so early, and how mostly mild the weather had been, my early efforts might get frozen out? The afternoon before the predicted snow, I covered Jones with plastic and broccoli plants in The Lorelei with buckets and boxes. I don’t think I needed to. Some snow fell but none of the plants exposed to it, spinach, red lettuce, and two sacrificial, experimental broccolis were any the worse for the wear. I suspect the wintry mix, though not conducive for vigorous, fast growth, will also not be enough to do my babies in.
The point is, with an activity like gardening where you’re cultivating living things out in in this unpredictable, uncontrollable world of ours, you’re bound to have some challenges. Maybe that’s why it drives me so crazy. And why I love it so much.
