Winter Savory Sprout!

Last night I looked at my little yogurt cups of soil on my kitchen table, where they capture the morning sun, and I noticed a tiny little sprout! The epazote hasn't sprouted yet, but I saw one little winter savory sprout, and looking closer this morning, there's another one. It filled me will joy. Is that silly? Maybe, but I'm so happy to see those tiny little sprouts. I tried to take a picture but they don't show up at all against the soil. I watered them with diluted tea this morning in the hopes of staving off dampening off.

Yesterday I planted peas, miner's lettuce, mizuna, tatsoi, and ho mi z mustard greens. I planted six different kinds of peas:

• Golden Sweet are yellow-podded and the pods are edible, with gorgeous pink and purple flowers
• Mammoth Melting Sugar Snow peas grow extra tall and have edible pods
• Blauwschokkers are blue-podded shelling peas, although my husband loves the young pods, and I have both regular-sized and dwarf seeds
• Little Marvel are shelling peas that I've grown before
• Wando are shelling peas that I've grown before

I'm so excited about the garden this year! I'm going to try to stay focused on the beauty of it instead of the work that it takes, because the work is absolutely worth it. I have far more seeds than I'll be able to plant, but I've been trading some of them and I've gotten so many flower seeds in my trades. My husband and I have an agreement that I won't spend money on flowers, other than an occasional, "They were on sale so cheap!", purchase, so it's wonderful to know that I'll have gorgeous flowers this year thanks to the generous online community at the Square Foot Gardening site.

Planting the First Seeds of the Year

Today I planted the first seeds of the year, epazote and winter savory. Winter savory was a bit hard to find but I tracked it down at Garden Medicinals, which it turns out is affiliated with Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. Both herbs are touted as good companions to bean dishes and supposedly help to reduce the 'gas' factor. This year I'm going to start a few seeds inside and I'm excited about getting some aquarium lights from my brother to help with that endeavor.

I've placed seed orders with Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Johnny's Seed Company and plan to order the last of them tomorrow, including a couple of grafted tomato plants from Territorial Seed, which will be fun to try. I'm excited about the garden this year and have had a bit of 'garden fever' for the last couple of weeks. I think the seed catalogs are the cause of that! Baker Creek's catalog is so beautiful. My husband and I spent a couple of hours browsing its pages and deciding what to grow this year.

We also joined a local CSA that's brand new this year at Liberty Mills Farm. They had a great corn maze for Halloween and we went on full moon night, which was so much fun! I'm really happy about supporting a local farm and it will allow us to grow more exotic fare since we'll get our staples from them. I'm extra excited about them having strawberries that aren't grown with the traditional cocktails of chemicals!

I'll post a list of what we're planning to grow this year, as well as more information about the expansion we have planned. Hopefully this year will include chickens as well!