Habaneros

When we were picking up the jalapenos, my husband decided he simply had to grow his own habanero pepper. I have no idea what we'll do with them once they grow but we'll do something :p 

Like the other peppers we got at the same time as this one, it's doing well and should be ready to go outside in 2-3 weeks! 

Jalapenos - 3

You will probably notice a very large different between the plants from last time and this time. The ones I posted last time are still hanging on but because the rest of them got eaten, we picked up a 6-pack from a local greenhouse. They were started sooner then ours :p

So, despite this being the third set of pictures... this is the first of this plant. I look forward to seeing it grow and will do better next year with starting my own from seed! :D

Anaheim Chili

Roughly a week ago... my dog at my jalapeno plants. (I was furious.) We decided starting over wasn't going to be feasible with the short season Colorado has and decided to pick up some Jalapeno plants from the local greenhouse.

Clearly, we walked out with more than just jalapenos because here are some anaheims! 

We've had these peppers for 3-4 days, already got them trasnplanted (wanted to avoid the over watering issue the small containers contributed to in our tomato plants) and so far, they are doing really well. All the peppers came in packs of six... so...... 

We're going to have a LOT of peppers lol 

Artichokes

This season, I decided to embark on a grand adventure. We're going to be growing artichokes! They take forever to grow (150-180 days) and will need a very large container... but we love artichokes since they run $3-4 each at the store... $2 on a bag of seeds and seeing what happened couldn't be much more (you know, if you don't count the cost of the containers and soil required LOL).

Like my little frog? :p 

I germinated them using the baggie method, which proved to be really interesting. Unlike last year, where I only germinated cantaloups, cucumbers, lettuce, etc using this method... artichokes take a long time to germinate. It took them at least 14 days before I saw the seeds do anything and from there, they were very slow growing. I actually had to carefully make up a new paper towel with water and a new bag because the other one grew mold. Yuck. :/ Next year I think I may just get a seed heating pad :p

But, we have three sprouts that survived transplant and are growing well so I'm hopeful and excited!!

We started these things at least a month ago and this is all we've got to show for it so far. Come September, we should have some really taste artichokes though! 

Strawberries - 2

This year, we found a second gardening center/greenhouse and bought strawberry plants from both. The first store we went to only had two sets of 6 and 2 weren't doing so well, so when we saw the plants at the greenhouse, we added some of those as well. 

We'll likely go back to the greenhouse and get some more because those plants are doing MUCH better than the ones from the first store. The 2 that weren't doing well died completely and I'm having a much more difficult time strengthening the ones that did. Todays post shows a plant from the greenhouse rather than the gardening center. :)

This plant is doing really well. It's grown a ton, did well after the transplant and I'm hopeful that it will continue doing so :) Along with all the others one we got with it as well. Like with the tomatoes, we figure we'll transplant all the strawberries outside in about 2 - 3 weeks as well. And then just watch them grow!! 

Tomatoes - 2

I'm really excited about this post because I wasn't sure if I'd ever get to make it. After I got my tomato plants, I watered them and they all just started drooping. I wasn't sure if it was because they were to cold in the window or because of to much watering.

I posted in a local group, got a quick answer (it was way to much water) and some additional advice to help my plants out and now we have this: 

That's at least double, maybe even triple, the size the plants were just 6 days ago when I took pictures last. It blew my mind and is the exact reason I wanted to document my plants growth. I hadn't really thought they'd grown much until I took a look at the pictures I'd done before. :)

You probably noticed that my tomato plant is in a small styrafoam cup. Part of the advice I recieved was to transplant the tomatoes into a larger container and farther up closer to the bottom leaves to get them more stability. Boy did it help a ton! I got the cup idea after watching a pepper transplanting video from The Rusty Garden Blog (that guy clearly knows what he's doing so I thought it a trick worth following).

Going by what he said, I should be able to keep my tomatoes in these containers until it's safe to transplant them outside, which is just another 2-3 weeks away! I can't wait. And I'll of course continue to document growth each week until then.

Onion - 2

I've essentially got the same plans for my onions as I do for my garlic but possibly (if I have enough) for fajita mix too that we'll freeze :D 

As you can see, my onion plants didn't like being inside either. I'm not quite sure if it was to much water, not enough sun or what but a couple of them are a little wilty. Hopefully they are enjoying the sun that's out now!