Seed day..

Got my seeds from Amishland Heirloom Seeds this morning. The seeds look good, She was unfortunately, out of one of the seed packs i really wanted, it was a mini melon that is very early since it needs much less growing time.  Since i lost most all my melon plants in the frost on Monday, i was looking forward to this little melon.  BUT- its not like it is her problem, she is a small operation and it is early May. I was happy she had enough seeds for me at all this year. Snooze, i lose....  but i will remember to order from her next year!  I hope to add her to my recommended shopping list too.

I also managed to replant many of my seeds, there were a number of them that i had no replacement seeds for and there are now even more that i am totally out of.
I am mostly upset about the Roma tomatoes...  i really wanted lots of paste tomatoes this summer. We use those more than the juicier types and i hoped to learn how to can this year and spaghetti sauce was high on my list. Hubby loves tomato products.

But i separated out the 'hopefully not dead' and i have about 1/4 left... the Roma tomatoes are among those but i completely lost my Garden Peach and Black from Tula tomatoes.  The Romas might pull through.  I have one Black from Tula that i kept, the seed had just sprouted and it almost looks fine.  But i don't know if it will get anywhere cause late seedlings are often very weak and don't do a whole lot after  finally sprouting.  But i kept some just in case they pull through,  even then i expect weak plants. This will be a hard setback to recover from.

I really wish i'd brought them in, but the forecast tripped me up... still i should have simply taken the precaution.

I was pretty surprised to see that the Slim Jim eggplant and the New Ace peppers were fine. At least from where i can see. The seedlings must be small enough to have withstood the frost. The ZsaZsa peppers are still no-shows.  Even the second batch i planted 6 days ago (and have kept inside) are showing absolutely nothing.  I have never had unexplained bad germination from Pinetree before...  i wonder if this is a batch problem or if it is too early to tell.  Obviously they are not a good wintersowing variety since they were the only seeds that did not do anything..
Everything else i planted was... if it wasn't such a weird spring the seedlings probably would have stayed smaller and taken that hard frost better.
I got an email from Farmer's Almanac yesterday and they had an article on how the last 3 days historically carry frosts...  If they had sent it Sunday, i might have taken it as historical advice.

This is stuff i need to remember for next year! lol

But in all i guess it is ok.  I fortunately had some seeds left, and there is a good nursery nearby, though i really wanted to do this completely on my own this year... I almost made it!
I will have to edit my Ridiculously Long Seed List...maybe  it won't be so ridiculous after all.

Scary thing is that i may go hog wild next winter and buy another huge bunch of seeds to replace all the empty packets i produced this year!  It almost makes me look forward to January.


Oh, i did plant a few Salsify seeds to fill up space in the resown flats and i took the Marigold flat and resowed in the cells where nothing had sprouted. So i am out of those Marigold seeds.

I have to go through my herb flats and resow some more no-shows and my Basil that got frosted.

I consoled myself by ordering some books at Amazon.
I found some pretty decent used prices...
"The Pruning Book"  i got for $6.84 shipped
"Seed to Seed"  for $11.94 shipped

I also bought "Root Cellaring" on Kindle for PC -which i thought was awesome since i use my netbook for reading PDF books, and now i can read Kindle books without buying a Kindle.  "Root Cellaring" cost $9.99, no paying for shipping.  Amazon had a few other books for a few dollars that i grabbed andthere were a couple good freebies.  So i have plenty to read- as if i didn't before. :0)

I checked Henry Field's website for my Fig tree since i have heard nothing...  shipping date is now set for May 19-26..... *sigh*
My Venous Orange isn't looking so hot.  The curled leaves dropped a couple days ago. It simply looks yellower than the others, so i don't know if it will slowly die or not. But the other two do look fine.

I didn't get the Parsnips planted yet,  with the replanting i had to do, i ran out of time.
So i think that is it for today.

Things to do...

So, today i need to take a close look at what got frosted the other night and assess what might pull through and eliminate what most certainly won't.  Then i need to restart seeds of what i still have left.

Where i was trying to use up some very old seed (8+ years), i might not have enough left.... once i figure out what i do have, i will have to re-plot my planting plan.  I may end up with some empty spaces...

I also have to get the parsnips planted, before i do that i need to get the spade fork in there and try and loosen the soil deeper than where it was tilled. It just needs a few more inches.

I ran out of hoop pipes, i should have plenty for sockets, but i need 14 more of the 1/2".

Good thing is that it is all reusable next year.

I need hubby to help me spread the Remay over the hoops, hopefully this weekend so i can get the broccoli, pak choi, onion and other hardy stuff set in and get my radishes protected before they sprout and attract bugs.

I also need to tag my tulips, daffs and other perennials so when my mom helps me dig out the flower beds this fall i will have some idea of what is what so it can be put together again nicely.  I'm giving her all my Iris.  They are just too big for my front gardens. Their fans are too large and they are too tall and the slugs love them because they are in shade for a good part of the morning.  There are three colors going on, but the colors are scattered. 
When we bought the house, my first project was to pull everything out of these gardens and get rid of all the weeds. I put back all the good stuff and planted a few of my own things.  But the iris colors are all random in there.  But i think my mom would like to have them all grouped by color, so i will try to tag those as well.
I have not gotten to the decorative plant tag project yet. For that i will actually have to get my husband to watch the little one for a whole day and do my daily chores for me. 

I also need to separate out some of the seed flats. I keep calling them 6packs but they are actually 9 cells. But anyway, i have some things in the flats that either didn't come up or have not come up or were frost bitten. I need to cut out the cell packs that have plants in them and put them all in new flats so i am not wasting space.  Also i can replant in the empty ones.

I have way more things to do than i have time to do it in, but isn't that the way of things :0)