Second year seeds - some good some not.

Behind on blogging again. I think about doing it but with work and home and my new goal of not spending hours on the computer, it's easy to not post anything. I should blog at lunch at work. I'll see if this site is blocked. else I could write it in an email and then copy it over to the blog via phone...

Anyway, It's spring. Kinda. We have snow and even a power outage. Actually that happened right after my last post.  I kept saying "This winter emergency survival test has been brought to you by the Energy Company - PS You failed. Please be more prepared for next year."

I don't do as well with cold once it's been warm. My body wanted the 70F temperature back on the 30s with ice, snow, and wind!  Luckily our power wasn't out for very long because the ice made it hard for us to set up the generator, and we didn't even have batteries for one of our lanterns! We did have a lot of candles though - because I buy them every time they are on sale. I told my husband this is validation of my sale-buys!

I did get my tulips, garlic, and asparagus covered with straw right before it went cold and icy. I don't know if it helped, but they looked good when I uncovered them once it turned warm again. My rhubarb is doing well too but I didn't do anything for that. I gave it some compost a few weeks back... Good thing it's hardy!

Indoors seeds are not quite as predictable this year as they were last.. Some seeds I kept over from last year are doing great. Others are just not popping up.

On the top picture, the last large cell row is supposed to be tomatillos. as you can see I only have one. And on the bottom picture the last row on the right is supposed to be green bell peppers, and again there's one tiny one there...

All the other bell and hot peppers popped - Just not those.  Both these seeds were left over from what I bought in 2014. Maybe that's too long of storage time for how I store...

But the bright note is the all artichokes. That's the top picture left side, second from the bottom (above the lack of tomatillos). These (from burpee) are supposed to produce in the first year - last year the heirloom ones did not appreciate my zone and produced nothing! Honestly,  I am not sure I want to thin them out, I think I'm going to try to transfer them all carefully to bigger pots next month and keep as many as possible. 

The root systems that are going into the water cloth mat under these cells are massive. When I go to transfer some of these plants I'll have to be extra careful. But I'm excited. Should be going into the ground the 3rd of 4th week of april (so soon!). :)