Home and Garden Friday - Planting Time - Snow or Not!

Yeah...

Almost 12 inches of snow on the old homestead this past weekend. I spent last Saturday watching the snow fall and attempting to keep up with the birds feeding at the feeders and on the ground. 

But a bit of snow hasn't dampened my need to garden. 

Of course, I am gardening vicariously through Savvy, who is in warm Arizona. This is her first year with her own garden and she is loving it. I am so proud of her taking up the gardening mantle.

Anyway...

I set some ginger and turmeric in trays to pre-sprout on January 26. They have had a bit of heat under them and seem to be quite happy. Hopping I get a few sprouts in the next week or so. That way I an use them as an example at a library gardening program. 

Lavender 'Ellegance Purple' has been cold stratifying in the fridge since January 11. They are supposed to stay in there 3-4 weeks. When I checked on them, they have actually started sprouting and growing. 

I love lavender, however, lavender doesn't always love me. So I am giving this one more try. It is my hope I will be more successful this year. Plus this is a compact lavender and I have a 'plan' in mind on where to plant them as an edging to a bed. 

I am using a couple of trays meant for meal prepping. Toothpicks and tweezers helped to get the tiny seedlings from the  paper towels into the tray. Right now I have about 15-18 'spouts'. The remainder of the seeds which hadn't actually sprouted yet I placed at one end of the tray. Hopefully, they will grow on. 

Then I sprinkled on a tiny bit of potting mix to cover the seeds. A dome went on over the tray and onto the heat mat and under the lights. 

While I had some stuff out, I decided it was time to get peppers started since they take longer to germinate. This year I am concentrating on paprika and pimento peppers. I also threw into the mix 5 artichoke seeds. I want the artichokes mainly for structure in the garden and allowing at least a couple of them to go to seed. I'll be honest, I've never eaten artichoke whole before. 

Once I took the picture below, I did cover the seeds with a bit of potting mix. 

I did do some intensive planting. The seeds for the peppers came from Eden Brothers who gave a germination rate of 90% for them. Any extra I have will go to some plant sales and swaps upcoming. 

Alpine Strawberries were also removed from their stratification in the freezer and sowed in a tray. I would love to have a bunch of strawberry plants intermingled throughout the garden. These Alpine strawberries are supposed to be smaller, but bear all season. Luckily, I live in the land of 'You-Pick-Em' strawberry farms, so getting enough at one time to freeze or turn into jam for later use is easy and fairly reasonably priced. 

This year I think I will try dehydrating some and then making strawberry powder. I recently made some lemon powder. I could stand there, sniffing the jar, for ages. The aroma is fantastic. 

I need to set up a seeding station on the kitchen table. Foxy and I don't use the table (bad us) for dining, so it will be put to use to hold trays of seedlings and lights. Hopefully, I will get that set up in the next week, especially since my current seedling station is on top of my washing machine!

So off to pull seeds for the next round of sowing.