Seedin Ain't Easy - The Remix

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. Whether you celebrate Easter or not, time off from work is when we usually visit family and friends and I hope you all had a great weekend. I had a splendid time visiting my family, having an amazingly delicious dinner and, overall, it was a fantastic weekend. It also helped that Arsenal SMASHED Liverpool on Saturday morning to the tune of 4-1! All four Arsenal goals were picturesque strikes and with four different players getting on the score sheet, Arsenal are getting goals from everyone at the moment. I thought Mesut Ozil was particularly terrific. The German has been ON POINT since he came back from injury and the free kick he scored in this game was tremendous. I feel that he has received a lot of unjustified negative criticism lately. He is a special player and can change an entire game with single touch.

My Man of the Match!

Also this weekend, I decided it was time to plant the tomatoes for my garden. While I had originally planned to grow 26 kinds of tomatoes, my overzealous dogs ate some of my bags of seeds (and yes, as a good dog owner, I realize this is really my fault, as I left the seeds where they could get them). While I was able to salvage pretty much everything, I did lose my packet of Siberian Red Tomatoes and thus they were cut from the growing list this season.

Look at all those seeds!

I started out be refilling my growing tray with peat pods and by reorganizing my pepper sprouts. I knew I was going to need as much room as I could get to get all my tomato seeds planted. 

Pepper Sprouts!

My reorganized pepper sprouts!

After sorting out my pepper sprouts, I poured water over the fresh peat pods and waited for them to puff up. Once they puffed, I sorted my tomato seeds into the sauce tomatoes and eating tomatoes. I have several kinds of sauce tomato this year and I feel it will help me make a tremendous sauce! I planted the sauce tomatoes first, and once they were seeded I started into the eating tomatoes. Except for the major sauce tomatoes, I planted 3 peat pods of every kind of tomato and planted 3 seeds in every pod. For the sauce tomatoes, I planted 6 peat pods of each.

Seeded Tomatoes!

That's A LOT of tomatoes!

After I seeded all my pods with what I needed for my garden, I had a few rows of pods left over. I seeded them with some eggplants and a few varieties of tomatoes I wanted an extra plant of. Once all the pods were seeded, I covered all the seeds with dirt and covered them to make a greenhouse.

All the seeds are covered!

In order to stay organized I made a chart to keep track of where I planted each tomato!

That's a big chart!

Extra room!

While I still have my peppers growing and coming along nicely. In fact, other than 3 peat pods, all of the seedings have come up! I am hoping that my tomatoes will sprout shortly. I know it's going to mean I have a lot of plants around the house, but planting season is just around the corner and I can't wait to get these beauties in the ground! 

A Frolic Through the Hamilton Farmer's Market

Yesterday I had a little adventure at the Hamilton Food Market. I don't usually get a chance to visit as their hours are a little erratic and a lot of the time they close too early for me to get out to do shopping. However my girlfriend won tickets to the Toronto Food and Drink Show this weekend from The Farm Network, one of the vendors at the market, so we headed down to collect our prize.

While I was hoping to do a bit more browsing once we arrived, a lot of the vendors were closed. We found The Farm Network stall with ease and I have to say that I was more than impressed with their service and selection. They have some amazing and unique products created by small independent artisans and they focus on providing Canadian products. Tyler and his wife were amazingly welcoming and gracious and provided tons of samples. Their daughter was a delightful ball of energy. After spending close to an hour chatting and sampling we left with a sweet haul of goods!

Now that looks awesome!

I ended up taking home a jar of pistachio butter, strawberry maple jam and maple herb salad dressing. I also scored some local Hamilton products buying the Cooksville Dill Hot Sauce and the Cooksville Steak Sauce. While I tried some of them at the store, I popped open all my new purchases to try them again. They all taste amazing and I can't wait to try them all when I cook. (I might have made a PB and J sandwich as soon as I got home with my new butter and jam and it was out of this world!)

LOOK AT THOSE SPROUTS!

In terms of my garden, there are more new developments. Quite a few more seeds have sprouted and so far I have grown at least one pepper from every variety I have planted. Even the Vesuvius and Full Moon Thai Chilis are growing! I also did a little bit more transplanting as some of the sprouts have grown too big for their peat pod. I transplanted 7 seedlings into a seedling grower I am experimenting with. While I am keeping most of my seedlings inside the greenhouse, I am putting 7 seeds into an open air seedling grower. 

My new seed grower!

PLANTED! 

I noticed right away when I planted my new peppers that they instantly wilted and drooped. I have popped them under the lights and watered them so I am hopeful they will perk right up like the last batch of peppers I transplanted. Until next time pepper peeps!

All's Quiet on The Pepper Front!

I woke up this morning and, I can't lie, there wasn't too much to report. There were no new sprouts and the plants stayed pretty much the same size. All is quiet on the pepper front.

Hello world! Nothing new in the greenhouse! With Love. The McPepperson Family!

I figured that today might be a slow day for growing, especially as it was raining all day and not too much sun was peeking out from around the clouds. Thus, when I got home and found the peppers pretty much in the same state as I had left them at 6:30 am, I wasn't too shocked or surprised. 

Same old, Same old!

I am still debating as to when to crack open the greenhouse and let more air in during the day. I think that I am going to wait at least a few more days and hope for more of my seeds to sprout before I crack it open during the day time. 

If anything, I am more worried about the amount of sunlight getting through to my plants throughout the day. It makes me feel I should be investing in some lights to help promote growth. Unfortunately the hydroponics store I was going to stop at in Burlington closed at 6:00 pm today. I guess I will have to wait until the weekend. 

Now, take a look at some of these closeup pepper selfies! 

OOOOOH!!!

AHHHHHHH!!!

The HEIGHT of Pepper Fashion!

What did you say to me???

Alright folks, it's happening. It's a grow off! Old School Rules!

Till tomorrow, may the peppers be with you!