Monday, March 29, 2010

True Leaves

I received my two new food preservation books in the mail this morning, and I've been excitedly flipping through them to see what's in store for this summer. I'm realizing that I really need to start finding some jars! If anyone knows someone who has some canning jars they'd like to sell or give away, please, send them my way! I have some quart jars that were my grandmother's, but I need more pint and half-pint sizes, for sure.

I'm also going to look for a food dehydrator at garage sales, and I'm hoping I'm able to find one within the next two months or so. Again, if anyone knows of a food dehydrator seeking a new owner, let me know! I'm certain there are plenty out there that are taking up space in someone's cupboard...

Before I left for the weekend to visit my parents, I transplanted the lettuce, broccoli, and chard seedlings to larger containers. I also planted tomato and pepper seeds and several kinds of herb seeds—oregano, thyme, marjoram, and basil. I decided the best solution to my lack of a light timer would be to leave the lights on from Friday until we returned on Sunday. Not ideal, but much better than relying on the little natural sunlight available from that window. Unfortunately, the only south-facing window in our house doesn't work for a plant shelf set-up.

I came home to baby lettuces with their first true leaves, and one of the broccoli plants with a tiny true leaf starting. So cute! The chard's looking good, too. I also came home with a light timer from my parents, so now I don't have to worry about the light when we're not around to turn it off.

Baby Lettuce

Baby broccoli

Baby chard

This morning, I noticed one of the parsley seeds sprouting. It's been 11 days, which is definitely a shorter length of time than they took last year to sprout—soaking the seeds really made a difference.

Parsley sprout

Assuming the weather cooperates, we are going to work on the garden boxes tomorrow to get them ready for the first outdoor spring plantings, which happens this week! Spinach and peas, along with another indoor planting of lettuce.

No comments:

Post a Comment