Tomatoes and Brassicas All Potted Up

Since the ground has been too soggy to do any planting, I spent the weekend re-potting the tomatoes and a few tiny eggplant seedlings into individual containers. Hopefully the garden will dry out by the end of the week and I can get some planting done by Thursday and Friday. I've been saving eggshells and coffee grounds all winter, so there should be enough for each tomato, pepper, and eggplant to get a nice sprinkling in their planting hole.

I found this grocery store sweet potato sprouting in the kitchen, so it's spending time outside suspended in water. Once some roots form, the starts will get planted in a couple big pots in front of the porch. My sister in-law said she did this last year and got 20 pounds of sweet potatoes from a single planter.

There's a couple Crimson Sweet watermelon plants a friend gave me hiding behind the sweet potato.

I've been re-using these styrofoam cups for years. The plant labels are made from yogurt container lids, rubbing alcohol should take the permanent marker right off so I'll be able to re-use them too.

The broccoli and Brussels sprouts got re-potted last week. I still have no idea when's the best time to plant Brussels sprouts. My friend keeps telling me they need to be started in June or July to ripen in November, but they're just so slow growing. And the winter light is so weak, I can't imagine them growing much once fall hits. But I'll go ahead start a few in early summer just incase.

That's eggplant and peppers in the back-right, I had to re-seed a few varieties which are still sprouting.

Today, I started some Italian basil, Siam Queen basil, cinnamon basil, kohlrabi, Simpson lettuce, Chinese leek, mizuna, tatsoi, mibuna, pak choy, choy sum, gailaan, and Korean melon. I usually plant basil in the pepper patch, peppers are just so well behaved they don't seem to over-power other plants.

My husband has been giving me a hard time about the number of tomatoes and broccoli I started. He's right, but a lot of the seeds were ancient and I wanted to make sure there were at least 2 of each variety. But unless I want on a garden made up entirely of tomatoes and broccoli, a lot of them will have to be re-homed.

Tomorrow my partner is installing a dishwasher. In the 17 years we've been married we've never had a dishwasher, except for a small on-the-counter one which lasted just over a year. I'm so excited!

I wanted to mention. This year has been the year of the clover. Clover is carpeting the ground and blossoming everywhere with their pretty pink or white pompom flowers. The last time this happened I had an epic gardening year, tomatoes and peppers abounded and eggplant plants grew 5 feet tall. I am very hopeful.