Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Gardening In February

I'm not sure if I mentioned it last season, but growing peppers in Montana is nigh on impossible. I did some research at the end of last season to find out what I could do to improve my chances, and that's when I read that peppers need the night time temperature to stay above 70 degrees. So, I've decided to buy a greenhouse that I can heat and grow peppers in. I'm also going to try growing eggplant, and my pole beans in there - since the deer ate all the pole beans last year!!

One of the other tips was to start them early. Like "Are you insane, why did you start your seedlings already??" early. So...I did. This weekend we headed over to Planet Natural and picked up some soil and a tray with a lid.

Happy Frog Potting Soil

I planted my pepper seeds on Saturday. Between my seeds and the seeds Lisa sent over last summer I had about 30+ varieties to choose from. Since I am terrible at decisions, I decided to try as many as I possibly could. Lisa had told me that a friend of hers used ice cube trays with holes drilled in the bottom to start seeds, and since I had three ice cube trays from the previous tenants of the duplex (I hate to throw things away!) I decided I would try that method out! Each tray has two rows of 7 cavities - room for 14 plants in each. Since I always fear that I will kill off half my plants I put each variety of seed into two cavities, so I will (hopefully) end up with 14 plants, and 7 varieties in each tray. With three trays, that comes out to 21 varieties, and 42 plants! I told Matt if I am successful, we may have to have a booth at the farmer's market just so I can sell all my extra plants :)

21 Varieties of pepper seeds

This is where I show what a terrible gardener I am though - even though I know the seeds won't sprout for ten to thirty days, I still check them multiple times a day! I keep hoping I will see something popping out early :)

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