Saving arugula seeds

I don't plan on sowing any more arugula until the fall, and since I'm only going one variety, the basic one, and don't have to worry about cross-pollination, I plan to save seeds from it. It sounds pretty easy:

Gardenerd: Saving Arugula Seeds

Arugula

I somehow missed this funny story about President (then Senator) Obama and arugula from 2007:

Obama talks arugula -- again -- in Iowa

I am so excited about my own arugula. I gave Isaac an arugula sprout this afternoon, and he wanted more. It shouldn't be more than a week or two when we can start eating it. It looks like I planted arugula first on March 10. So it hasn't even been a month since I planted it. I'm very impatient.

The pink beauty and saxa 2 radishes appearto grow a lot faster than my sparkler ones. I would have thought the sparklers would be ready by now. Well, I'm planning on a fresh salad for Easter, so I'll be harvesting some lettuce from my earth box and hopefully radishes from the garden too.

Tuesday night is looking really cold. I hope the newspaper that I plan to cover my tomatoes with works. The forecast is currently showing a low of 33 F.

We got a good rain today, so I'm off the hook watering for a few days at least.

It's funny that I'm doing everything so early this year when last year it was all so late.

The weekend ends

Today, I planted the rest of the cockscomb that looked alive. I won't have as much of it as I wanted, but I'll just hope that some of it comes up. I saw seedlings trying to grow in that bed. I think I will have many cosmos and zinnia "volunteers." Which is just fine. I also planted some alyssum seedlings with my son. They should be very pretty.

I need to dig out the edge of that front garden, put paper down as a weed barrier, and then cover that with a few inches of mulch. I don't know when I'll get to that. The tulips look like they are coming in strong! I imagine that they'll bloom in early May.

I had my husband try an arugula sprout that I thinned earlier today. He was actually impressed, which pleased me. (He's not easily impressed.) They do taste quite wonderful.

I'm hoping that in a week we'll have some lettuce and radishes for salads. It may be two weeks though.

My tomato plants outside have a nice color and seem to be settling in. The ones I'm keeping indoors do not look quite so happy. I put the rest of them in peat pots and am getting them ready to live outside too. Tues and Wed now are both expected to be cold nights. So Thursday or later they will go out. I'll keep the peppers and eggplants another couple of weeks.

Plants I want to try next year

I'm already thinking ahead to what I'll try next. I'm forcing myself not to buy any more seeds until I make my order for cool-season flowers and vegetables (if I need/want any more) this fall.

I want to try (that I haven't tried yet or have seeds for)

• Peanuts
• Huckleberry
• Alpine strawberries
• Pole beans
• Black-eyed peas
• Snap peas
• Spinach
• Onions from seed
• Baby Carrots
• Pattypan squash
• Mustard greens
• Okra
• Purple tomatoes
• Ornamental corn
• Claytonia
• Garlic
  

flowers and more

OK, let me say, it was a poor idea to use garden soil in my peat pots instead of potting soil. My cockscomb became very unhappy in the wet conditions, and then I let it dry out too much, and it got all wilted. Several of my seedlings died from drowning, and others died from drought. But some have prevailed. I planted several out in the garden and plan to plant more tomorrow. I hope that they will be okay on these cold nights Tues. and now Wed. But I feel like they're safer out there than they were in the poor conditions I was subjecting them to. Okay, only potting soil in containers. Yes, only potting soil in containers. (My blueberry bush is growing happily in garden soil in a container.)

I think I also prefer to use a special "moisture max" potting soil for my containers rather than the organic one I've been getting. I'm no purist.

My echinacea is still growing in my seed starter, and it looks very happy in there. I will be transferring it to peat pots soon, because I need to start getting it used to the outside world, and I need the space under the lights. Most of it can go. I will have 18 seedlings in all, which should fill up the area I have designated for it nicely. I was looking at pictures of it (coneflower white swan) on google images, and I think it will be such a lovely planting and perfect for that difficult spot next to the pavement. I hope it will smell nice as we walk by it on our way in out of the cars. My first perinnial flower to commit to...

Four of my chive seedlings are ready to go to their pot, so I will get them fixed up tomorrow. I'm ready to put St. John's Wort out there too. It is still very small.

I like the way all my clay pots look from the street. The herbs should be very striking when they bloom. The speariment looks crazy healthy. I'm glad it is so happy. The peppermint is coming in nicely too. It had a more difficult start than its cousin. It was put out in the heat of the summer and not watered enough. But it seems to have recovered from my initial neglect.

When we moved here, I wasn't so interested in flowers--only vegetables. I didn't know that most of my vegetables would be producing flowers! And my herbs. And I learned about how flowers would attract bees to my vegetables. I love the flowers that basically grow themselves, and those are the only ones I'm much interested in.

I tried some garden planning software tonight, a 45 day free trial. It was interesting, but I honestly prefer to make loose plans and then improvise.

How many plants?

Well, this is a helpful link! I don't know how accurate it is, but it is a good starting point, when trying to figure out how many vegetables to plant.

How Much to Plant Per Person in the Vegetable Garden

Found Another:

What to Grow for a Family of 4

They totally contradict each other!

Planting Schedule

The website Heirloom seeds has a really helpful planting schedule based on last frost date for spring and first frost date for fall.

Spring Planting Schedule
Fall Planting Schedule
Flower Planting Schedule