Gardening

Last year I took a gardening class with a friend. We started it at either the end of February or the beginning of March. The first week we went to class, they handed out packets of heirloom tomato seeds that they had harvested from their own plants. I had never seen tomatoes grown from a seed. We had only ever bought tomato plants from the store. We were also told that we should have planted our tomato seeds the week before. So, we went home and planted our seeds that week. They grew into beautiful plants. I got an upside down tomato planter and, when it was time to put them outside, I tried to plant them in the planter. I ended up shredding a lot off of the plants trying to fit them in the holes. But the plants that did survive, produced well. We planted a few others out in the garden and they froze the next night. One rallied, but we never took great care of it. So, I learned that I could grow tomatoes from seed, but that I should do other things different. I ended up harvesting seeds late last year and I never packaged them. They sat on my dresser all winter on top of a paper towel.

Fast forward to this year. I figured that, since I had seeds at the time they said to plant them, I would plant them in mid-February. And since I wasn't sure how well my seeds were going to sprout, I should plant a lot of seeds to make sure I got the 8 plants that we wanted. So, I think I ended up planting 20 peat pots in my little greenhouse. Out of 20 seeds, I ended up having 22 plants grow. Apparently my method of harvesting seeds isn't all bad.

Here are my tomato plants when I transplanted them from the peat pots into 4 inch pots.And all transplanted and put back on the puppy table. This table is a table that my grandma had in her house. She always kept her African violets on it and they grew amazingly. I have never had a green thumb, but ever since I got this table, any thing I put on it will grow. I've had a few plants outgrow the table and as soon as I take them off of the table, they start to wilt and die. So, almost everything that I grow in my house goes on the table.A close up of the newly transplanted tomato plants. You can see the puzzle under the glass. My grandma LOVED doing puzzles. She always had one going. In my early teenage years, I used to go basically live at her house during the summer. We would spend a good part of each day working on whatever puzzle she was doing at the time. Usually, when she finished a puzzle, she would break it down. The puzzle on this table is of a bunch of different dachshunds (one of her other loves). It was so hard to put together!! There were so many colors of brown that were close, but not quite and the background was all the same color. When she finished the dachshund puzzle, she couldn't take it apart. It had been too hard, so she put it on this table and put glass over it. It's been there ever since. I love seeing it on there. And that's why it's called the puppy table.I did lose one tomato plant, but here are the other 21 plants all transplanted and growing happily.These next pictures are from today. My tomato plants are out of control!! I'm not supposed to plant them until Saturday at the earliest. Even that makes me nervous, though because it froze again last night. But, my plants all have flowers on them and they are wilting because they need bigger roots and more room for the roots to grow. So, the plan is to transplant them outside this weekend. I've also started some pepper plants. I just transplanted them last week. I also realized that I could put my plants in the upside down tomato planter while they were relatively small and then turn it upside down when I put it outside. That way, I'm not trying to put full grown tomato plants through a little hole and stripping them all off.

Here is my upside down tomato planter with huge plants growing through the holes.And another shot. All of the plants are growing towards the window, but I have no way to turn it. I'm hoping that they'll do okay once they get outside.And my greenhouse shelves. The bottom smaller plants and the ones off to the left on the second shelf are my peppers. Everything else you can see are tomatoes.Here are more tomatoes and more peppers on the top shelf. See what lengths I'll go to to keep all of my plants on the puppy table?

I'm excited to get my plants out in the yard and get my living room back. I feel like I'm living in a greenhouse. I'm just hoping that the weather cooperates and I didn't go through this last 3 months for nothing.