These are easy, but be careful with the hot varieties. The capsicum in the pepper that makes them hot can make your life miserable if you get it on your face and can even make the tips of your fingers burn. So, when handling hot peppers and the seeds WEAR GLOVES and wash your hands …
Harvesting an Avocado Pit
When the avocado fruit has turned black and is ready to eat you can remove the seed. Take a knife and half the fruit from stem end to bottom twisting gently to separate the halves from each other and the seed. Use a sturdy smooth blade kitchen knife to whack into the side of the …
Storing Seeds
Every gardener has a different way of storing seeds. Some like plastic baggies others like paper envelopes. Personally, I like the paper envelopes since they don’t retain as much moisture and keep the possibility of mold to a minimum. Look on gardenhere.org for patterns for large and small seeds envelopes or find ways to make …
Lull in the sowing process
There has been a bit of a lull in the sowing process lately. I’ve been trying to fly under the “husband radar”. All my tools and seeds got put in a cabinet out of sight. Hmmm. Could this be a case of “out of sight, out of mind”. The wintersowing experiment is still underway though …
Yay for snow!
What? You may be asking, but when you have winter sown seeds precipitation, especially snow is a welcome occurrence. Just because I set the little greenhouses outside doesn’t mean I don’t have to keep them from dehydrating. The snow is very welcome because not only does it act as a source of water but it …
Breaking free of cabin fever!
February 12, 2008 is the date I will remember as the start of my winter sowing experiment. I’ve spent most of my “free” time – time in front of the TV or sick time – making mini greenhouses for a winter sowing project. It was fully intended to begin in mid-December, but sickness and other …
January Heat Wave in Zone 5a
 1/10/2008 The new year is here and things are strange. Strange, you ask? Here in zone 5a in early January we typically have a few inches of snow on the ground, chilling winds and salt trucks around every corner. Save the storm we got right at the beginning of the year we haven’t had …
Harvesting lettuce in December?
 11/29/2007 Here it is the last week of November and still little sign of snow. That is very odd for this time of year in this area. The Italian parsley that I have growing in a container outside is still very green and so are the left over lettuces and chards in the back …
Spring Hill has me yearning for spring already
 11/9/2007 The Spring Hill catalog really is enjoyable to look at (I just realized it’s an old, old one from Spring 2005). I have not as yet had the privilege or the money to buy from them, but the lifetime guarantee on their plants really is tempting. Their ideas for garden layouts are very …
The first fall snow and still in the garden :-)
 11/6/2007 Incredibly, it snowed today. It was just a light dusting, but just enough to remind you that winter is just around the corner. It has been so unseasonably warm in NW Ohio that I’ve waffled so much, maybe too much about getting my pots inside and mulching my flowerbeds. It’s just cold enough …