Seeding, Sowing, Sighing

I sowed a few seed I saved from my Chocolate Mint coleus a few days ago, so now there are some cute sprouts up. Since they won't come true, it should be interesting to find out what colors I end up with. These are going in the Elephant Ear containers, so growing them inside for a while won't hurt anything. Yeah, I'm pushing it, but I can't help it. Spring is still too damn far away! Interestingly enough, I couldn't even find a mention of chocolate mint at Coleus Finder. I think it's an awesome, bright color. Really catches your eye. I probably should have taken a cutting last fall, but was so busy with everything else that I never thought about it.

I also sowed some Sweet Spanish and White Bunching onion seed. They're from last years sale and labeled 'sell by fall 2006' so I don't know if I'll get good germination, but with starting them this early hopefully I'll know in time enough to grab some cheap ones at the Dollar store to start over. According to my records from last year, I started them March 2nd and got excellent germination, but they could have used a little longer grow time before transplant. I figure about 4 weeks would have been good, so this works out about perfect, even if I have crappy germination on these - I'll have time to start more at least 2 weeks ahead of last year.

I moved the Rodos and Aaleas to plastic cups so they wouldn't be so crowded and onto the plant stand. (Yup, got to put that up last weekend!) This way they'll get more root room and lots more light. I hope I didn't mess with them too early. They look OK so far, but I'm not so sure I was gentle enough with them. Guess time will tell. Oh, and if anyone decides to build the plant stand? - We've decided to change the side pieces (blue in the plans - 14") to 20", as ceiling space doesn't allow for taller. I've found that 14" is just too short once the plants start getting any height on them. I'd really like to make them about 24, but, like I said- unfortunately ceiling height just doesn't allow us to go past 20" each.

I started a few Hungarian Wax chili peppers via paper towel method and got 2 sprouts pretty quick, so I transferred those to soil. They'll be going in the patio container with the spikes eventually.

I even threw some seeds from the crushed hot pepper spice jar I had in my cupboard on some paper towel to see if I can get them to germinate. Who knows? The experiment won't cost me anything but some disappointment if it doesn't work.

Hubby helped me get my wintersowing containers prepped last night. It was my anniversary gift. Trust me - I am ecstatic! We never buy each other anything for holidays because we simply don't have the money, but this was much better than getting something he just plopped some money down for. Geesh, I love that man!

Hmmm, what else can I stick in the dirt today?

Can ya tell I'm jonesin' for spring?