Babies!

It's January in Southern California, and do you know what that means?  It means: BABIES!  Well, little sproutlings, to be exact.  My little veggie nursery is doing well.  Only eleven days after planting, I have several tomatoes and a few squashes popping up.  I'm still awaiting the peppers, but I'm not worried.  Neither the seeds I pulled from the last pepper we had, nor the brand new seeds from Mike the Gardener (www.averagepersongardening.com/) have sprouted yet.  I'm thinking any day now...

I'm especially excited about these little guys!  There are two reasons:  #1 - These are the best tomatoes in the world.  Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter!!!!  They are huge, and fleshy, a really nice pink color (not red) and sooooooo yummy.  #2 - These little sproutlings are from seeds that I fermented and saved from last year.  2nd generation!  I count that as a small success.  I may have lost that mama plant to blight and pests last summer, but she lives on...  maybe it's a big success, especially if all ten little sproutlings become full grown plants. 

I also have some other tomatoes that I'm growing from seed.  They are "Delicious" variety, and came in my Mike the Gardener package a couple of months ago.  I've never heard of them, but I'm giving them a try. 

This is what they look like.   It's a new variety for me, but they are germinating at about 75% right now, and I'm hopeful that I'll have some success with those as well. 

I also have some yellow heirloom tomato seeds that I saved from last year.  I'm going to plant them in my next batch, once I get these babies moved into pots.  The large yellows were delicious mixed in with the Mortgage Lifters, and drizzled with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

I'm drooling just thinking about it. 


 This is my collection of seeds so far.  Some I am really excited about, like the Kohlrabi, the tomatoes, squash, sunflowers, Kale and onions...  some not so much, like the brussel sprouts.  I don't really want to eat them, so I'm not too excited about growing them.  There are some flowers in there too...  and I'm thinking about planting a bed in the yard dedicated just to flowers.  I have a lot of work, and a lot of planning to do still.  Thank goodness I still have about eight weeks until planting  starts. 

Yes, I said it.  EIGHT WEEKS.  That puts us at the end of March.  For anyone outside of Southern California and Florida, you're probably thinking that's nuts, but I assure you, it's not.  By August, we're frying here, and it's extremely difficult to keep the garden going.  So we have to push earlier into spring, when our temps are consistently in the 70's. 

It will be here before we know it!  I need to get The Guy started on those new garden boxes!!!
More to come.
Green Thumb Out.  :)