Wintersowing

I began the great wintersowing project last week and managed to get a tiny bit more done today.
I am planting a mix of new seeds from this year, seeds from 2008 and some older seeds from as far back as 2002 and  even 2000!

This is what i have planted so far:

3-3-10
Tomato- Pruden's Purple (2008)
Tomato- Yellow Pear (2010)
Tomatillos- Purple (2002)
Cauliflower- Graffiti (2010)
Broccoli- Gypsy (2010)
Tomato- Polfast (2008)

Everything  but the Tomatillos were from Pinetree Garden Seeds. They are, in my opinion, the best seed place by far. They sell seed packs in home gardener size and the prices average about $1.20 a packet. They still have some seeds that are only .99 a pack.
The Tomatillos were from Johnny's and they are also a good source for seed, but i suffer from sticker shock every time i open their catalog. I love them, but i can't afford them anymore.
I once did a side-by-side wish list with Johnny's prices vs. Pinetree and Pinetree beat Johnny's by almost half. I think there were only two seed items that Johnny's had that Pinetree didn't (but i found similar items that were very much alike)... my list was about 60 items long. I have been a loyal customer of Pinetree ever since.

So those seeds are planted and covered in plastic baggies, sitting outside under the overhang by the back door. I have one of those little 4-shelf greenhouses that have the zippered plastic cover.  I need another one if i can find them. I bought mine for $50 a few years ago, they are now around $60 or more. I may get a larger size instead of another small one.

Ok, so back to the stuff i have planted -
 i think it was Sunday i planted some Buttercrunch lettuce. A seed packet i got at the grocery store (Liberty Garden) last year and planned to plant but never did.

Today i got a tray ready of 50 #7 peat pellets, but so far i have not gotten anything in that, but i did plant a small flat of Siberian Tomatoes from a pack of seeds i bought from Totally Tomatoes in 2002. I went tomato crazy that year, it was the year that i was going to try growing in planters on the balcony of the apartment we lived in at that time.  I bought about 20 different tomato seeds and was able to use maybe 3 or 4 seeds from each of perhaps 5 varieties.  I just couldn't decide what to limit myself to, so i went crazy and i have grown at least one variety from that order almost every year since, but this is the first try of the Siberian.
The experiment worked out so-so, the slats on the balcony were too narrow for much sun to get through to the plants and i had started planting a bit too late because i had to save up for everything.  Then they were hard to water because my husband kept throwing out my milk jug that i was using....  its hard to water plants in a 20 gallon Rubbermaid tote with a 12oz drinking glass.


The only other thing i planted today was Caraway seed, straight out of the Spice Islands bottle :)
I was doing some quick research on companion planting and there was something that said caraway attracts some winged critter that is good, i can't remember off the top of my head, but i will figure it out or read it again.  Hopefully they will sprout and grow.


I printed out a few pages on companion planting to read later and i am thinking about looking into some of the planting by the moon stuff. First i need to make sure that isn't some old wives' tale sort of hooey. It could be scientifically sound, but unstudied - companion planting is sound but it is being studied a bit, but even that has been invaded by new agers a little bit.  But the planting by the moon is old stuff and i did read up on it once when i was much younger and reading through the Farmer's Almanac, now the Farmer's Almanac, though it has many good points and is informative, does have a tendency to dish a lot of hooey.  Its entertainment after all.

Ok, that's it for now...