No Habanero for you!

I was recently contacted by my seed distributor that there were complaints that the Orange Habanero seeds were duds. I looked in the germination chamber and sure enough -- they were! Drat! This means there will most likely NOT be any Habanero Plants for the sale. At least we'll still have Serrano Chili, Cayenne Pepper and Jalapenos.














On another note, the corn kernels I planted last week (exactly last week on Tuesday morning) have emerged! 3 corn seedlings -- and I am waiting for the 4th one to break through. Gosh, I hope he makes it to join his brothers. (Corn plants are boys to me for some reason.)

Our first vegetable in 2009: White tip sparkler radish!

Maybe this is getting a little out of hand?

Actually, I've got it all under control. Almost all of these plants (tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, oh my!) are being grown for a Preschool Fundraiser (date to be determined -- sometime mid-May?) I think that's about perfect timing for our area of San Francisco without having to fret too much about the occasional chilly day/evening. Unfortunately, a lot of the big name stores are already putting out these plants for sale and the temps are NOT quite there yet in most parts of NorCal, at least not for warm weather crops like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. If you're waiting to buy plants to transplant (in NorCal), wait a little longer. There won't be any shortage of transplants to buy at the nurseries.

Status: Sunday, April 5 (21 days later...)

The first seeds went into the ground on March 14. Today, about 3 weeks later, there is visible progress. A point I want to make is that those "DTM" numbers on the seed package, which usually indicates days to mature fruit (or days to harvest) are typically wrong -- I think what they mean is days to maturity from the point the seedlings are above ground or from the point the seedling is tranplanted outdoors. Unfortunately, that first 2-3 weeks waiting for the seedling to emerge does not count!

Albino Pepper Seedling - an abomination?

This is an albino "California Wonder" Bell Pepper seedling that I have been nurturing since March 18. I learned today that it is an abomination that will not survive as it lacks the ability to produce chlorophyll (why most plants/leaves are green.)

And here are its 3 other siblings already outgrowing it. Poor guy; he is doomed.

Something nibbled on my peas!

This morning I came upon a frightening scene -- nibbled leaf bits off of every (7) snow pea plants and one completely decapitated! Aha .. so apparently I had forgotten to enable the scarecrow last night. Drat, foiled by my thoughtlessness. I won't forget again!

Vermicompost Harvest ..

Tonight I harvested some vermicompost (worm compost) from the worm bin. It was time and a couple of people from work were interested in getting some worms. I harvested a good 1 gallon of fine compost -- fished out most of the worms and put them into shoeboxes for my coworkers. Ultimately, I added 1 part vermiculite and 1 part soil to 1 part vermicompost make a nice, friable potting mix. Final result was about 3 gallons of highly fertile potting mix that I will use on my seedlings in the coffee cups.

Pair of American Robins in the garden this AM..

I was a bit surprised to find 2 American Robins foraging around the mulch this morning. Robins are known for being almost fearless of humans and I guess that also means fearless of big scary predator balloons. They are too small to trigger the Scarecrow. I shooshed them off and went to verify their diet (hope its not seedlings...)

Phew, luckily, just as I thought, their diet consists mainly of berries (didn't know this) and bugs (knew this).

http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/Behavior/Spring2007/Frohman/Page02.html

Robins, you are welcome to return to our garden.