Wednesday, January 20, 2010
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I received my seeds from Totally Tomatoes. They also sent two free seeds -- Red Alert Tomato and NuMex Sunrise Pepper.
Posted by Yvette at 1/20/2010 08:36:00 PM
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Thursday, January 14, 2010
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Some of my seeds arrived today! I now have Sorcerer Pumpkin and Sugar Baby Watermelon!
Posted by Yvette at 1/14/2010 10:50:00 PM
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Saturday, January 09, 2010
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I ordered some new seeds today. I decided on:
I also got the following from TomatoFest. (I only wanted Black Krim and Rose Quartz, but ordered more than I needed because they have a $15 minimum.)
- Black Krim (purple-black heirloom beefsteak, 75 days)
- Rose Quartz (open-pollinated productive cherry tomato from Japan, 75 days)
- German Giant (2 lb. deep pink heirloom, 85 days)
- Sprite (one of the best grape tomatoes, 60 days)
- Illini Star (yields lots of 6-8 oz. round, deep-red tomatoes with excellent sweet flavor and strong disease and split resistance, 72 days)
Posted by Yvette at 1/09/2010 07:07:00 PM
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Wednesday, January 06, 2010
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I've been reading (or re-reading) some gardening books to get ready for the upcoming gardening season. (We're expecting 2-6" of snow here tomorrow so I'll be in planning mode for quite a while still.)
I'm not finished with it yet, but I've been reading How to Grow World Record Tomatoes: A Guinness Champion Reveals His All-Organic Secrets by Charles H. Wilber. He has some interesting (and completely organic) methods, but it's geared towards growing huge (record winning) tomatoes and doesn't seem practical for my space. Still, interesting to read about how he does it and how his methods came about. He has some insanely tall tomato plants in his garden (20+ feet high).
I also pulled Great Garden Companions: A Companion-Planting System for a Beautiful, Chemical-Free Vegetable Garden off my shelf to read through it again. I really like Sally Jean Cunningham's methods of interplanting and using companion plants to help control pests. She creates garden "families" for each bed that include plants of one family along with their best companions. She also plants a lot of flowers in her vegetable garden beds.
Both of these books contain good information about composting and improving your soil. I think I am going to have to do a lot of amending to the soil before I plant this year!
Posted by Yvette at 1/06/2010 11:32:00 PM
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Saturday, January 02, 2010
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Might need to add some Italian peppers for frying. Possibly one of these:
Posted by Yvette at 1/02/2010 01:34:00 PM
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Friday, January 01, 2010
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Seeds I'm considering buying this year:
If I want to order Rose Quartz from TomatoFest and need a $15 minimum order, I would consider:
- German Giant (2 lb. deep pink heirloom, 85 days)
- Long Tom (heirloom that produces very long -- up to 9" -- meaty, red paste tomatoes with very few seeds, 85 days)
- Sprite (one of the best grape tomatoes, 60 days)
- Illini Star (yields lots of 6-8 oz. round, deep-red tomatoes with excellent sweet flavor and strong disease and split resistance, 72 days)
Labels: seeds
Posted by Yvette at 1/01/2010 07:28:00 PM
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I added some icons to the site today to show which seeds are organic, heirloom or hybrid. I'm never sure of all the heirloom varieties because people have different definitions of what "heirloom" means, but I tried to only mark varieties that I am sure of. You will see these icons throughout the site.
= Certified Organic
= Heirloom
= Hybrid
Posted by Yvette at 1/01/2010 06:18:00 PM
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Tuesday, December 29, 2009
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I am going through all my seeds and seeing which have been used up, which are too old (didn't germinate last year) and which ones I want to grow this year. I'm updating the Web site as I do this so I'll be able to see what I have. I've gotten a ton of seed catalogs already so I'm going through these to see what I might want to add this year. I already know that I want to get some new Sweet Banana peppers. But I have a LOT of tomatoes and peppers so I don't want to add too much.Labels: inventory, seeds
Posted by Yvette at 12/29/2009 02:29:00 PM
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Tuesday, April 10, 2007
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The mystery Indian peppers are FINALLY sprouting. I planted them on March 23. That's 18 days! My Scotch Bonnet, Jamaican and Bhut Jolokia seeds all took 17 days for all of the seeds to sprout. But these mystery peppers are just starting to sprout at 18 days -- only 2 of the 10 I planted. Those others all showed signs of life after the first week.
Posted by Yvette at 4/10/2007 09:25:00 PM
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Thursday, March 22, 2007
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I'm trying to identify this hot pepper. Jason received these two dried peppers from a coworker who said they were very hot chile peppers from India. The dried pods are dark red, about 3 1/2" long each. I am going to plant some of the seeds tomorrow. Hopefully, they grow well because I'm supposed to pay the coworker back with some peppers!
Posted by Yvette at 3/22/2007 10:09:00 PM
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