Yesterday I planted our very first peppers! Now they’re on shelves next to the wood stove as they germinate in only a few days at 75-85 degrees, but up to two weeks at 60 degrees. Big difference!
The day before I planted petunias. This year I planted a patriotic red, white, and blue mix. I think it’ll be pretty in hanging baskets on either side of our front porch flag. And this being an election year…
We aren’t going to grow as many different peppers this year but we’ll grow more of each rare and/or unusual, pepper so we can save seeds. Because peppers can be cross-pollinated by insects, we’ll have to put a mesh net over hoops, over all the plants we plan on saving seeds from. Because peppers pretty much self-pollinate, they can produce peppers themselves, without the help of pollinators. They will go inside our big hoop house along with our friend Rick Riley’s sweet potatoes and some rare beans.
I’ve written down the varieties we want to try this year as we can’t keep them straight any other way. (I even have a notebook designated just for various crops.) Boy, will we be planting a lot! (Anyone want a working vacation? Come plant seeds.)
We’ve got our newer Subaru into the shop and got the bad news today that not only were the back wheel bearings shot, but also the front ball joints, etc. Looks like a $1,000 bill. Oh my, vehicles love to keep you broke and crazy! — Jackie
Fran,
The reason I don’t like questions in the comments section is that sometimes I miss one and people get their feelings hurt. If you’re not a subscriber, you can “sneak” a question here and I’ll try to answer. The reason we only take questions from subscribers is that when we started this blog I was getting twenty or thirty questions every day and just couldn’t handle that many and still homestead!
Fran: Jackie is not online every day, and she gets about a thousand questions to sort through. Sniping will not get your question answered any faster.
I guess you only reply to subscribers.
Cathy,
I used a regular heating pad for several years when we lived down at Sturgeon Lake, MN, as I started our plants on our sunporch which was a bit cool. I put a cookie sheet upside-down over my pad and then placed two flats on top of it. It worked great. (Good idea to not have any heat-producing things on when you aren’t around. I know folks who had their house burned down because they left the dryer running while they went to town…)
I am really chomping at the bit to plant some peppers! Probably two more weeks for us. We don’t have a woodstove, or heat in our kitchen addition where I start seeds, so I use a regular drugstore heating pad on low, it works great! thought I’d mention that for anyone considering one of the fancy seed starting mats. They are nice but so expensive. I shut ours off at night and when no one is home, peppers still do great.
That’s a steep bill at the garage. I just went through that, first the front brakes, then the battery then the starter motor all in the same month! But we choose to have our vehicles right, with our lifestyle? I have a question, but I guess I need to send it in rather than ask it here about the seedlings?
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