Gardening from Seeds

My dear readers will note that I've been MIA from the blog for almost three months, so it was winter and now the magnolias are in bloom.

 It was a self-imposed sabbatical, partly to get my head around my latest novel revision, partly to deal with a number of family-related events, and mostly, because I have the proverbial bun in the oven and unlike my previous pregnancy 10 years ago (we can discuss my sanity related to this procreation decision at a later time), the first trimester just kicked my behind. At this point, I'm at 16 weeks and only now started to lose that morning sickness, which really just lasted all day. I've been unable to consume chocolate, pineapple, green or black tea, overly tangy food, overly sweet food in moderate qualities, or basically anything that wasn't bland as the driven snow, nor could I so much as stand the smell of coffee. This, obviously put a damper on my recipe options.

Now, I'm starting to regain my ability to eat more food and I'm not allowed to exercise for at last the next three weeks. Doctor's orders.

This, however, does not mean I haven't been busy. The first big project of spring has been our decision to start the garden entirely from seed this year. While I'm not allowed to rake, shovel, or touch soil without gloves, I can still plant seeds and watch plants grow. With the help of the 10 year old, I got those seeds that need to be planted indoors ahead of time into a little seed-starter greenhouse contraption we bought on clearance at the end of last year, including Bloody Butcher tomatoes, Abe Lincoln tomatoes, Purple Cherokee tomatoes, Big Red tomatoes, purple tomatillo, Shooting Stars eggplant, Black Beauty eggplant, Romanesco broccoli, swiss chard, blue kale, mixed bell peppers, lavender, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

Once they started to sprout, which happened in days, the lid came off and now they spent the sunny, warm days outdoors and the chillier nights and days in the indoor porch. So far, only a few seeds haven't sprouted yet.

I also cleared out a section of the herb/leafy garden to plant the cold weather varietals: spinach, Grand Rapids Tipburn Resistant lettuce, and radicchio.

The rest of the seeds--beets, carrots, parsnips, daikon radish, zucchini, butternut squash, chamomile, parsley, basil, lemon balm, oregano, red lettuce, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, okra, two varieties of burpless cucumbers, and some bizarre looking summer squash called Early White Bush Scallop--have to wait until closer to memorial weekend, when all risk of frost should be behind us. And not all quite all of the plants will come from seeds this year. The parsley (a biannual), thyme, and oregano are still killing it in the herb garden and the rhubarb, asparagus, and strawberry patch has returned nicely. There's even a flower on the strawberry vines.

We're really going to try to kick it into high gear with the garden this year. I have my canning pot and I'm ready to give it a go. And having purchased all the seeds buy one, get one, there was no monetary reason to hold back. Now, all I have to do is wait for summer.