Garden Updates

As the weather is starting to cool, I've been thinking of how to protect my plants for the winter and/or what to do with the plants I don't want to overwinter. First, some updates.

So the original basil growing in cups that I thought was basil is not actually basil. It's actually a tomato plant! I have no idea how I ended up with a tomato plant. I'd never intentionally planted tomato seeds, but we have composted some tomatoes that went bad or composted portions of the fruit we did not consume. There may have been a few seeds in there which didn't sterilize or die over time. Otherwise, I have no idea how I came to grow a tomato plant.

Unfortunately, tomato likes hot temperatures and we are winding down for the hot season. I don't know how much growth this tomato will get before I need some serious blanketing for winter, but we will see. If anyone has any advice, I am open!

As for actual basil, I actually tried again for the 3rd or 4th (I lost count...) time to grow them from seed. I had purchased seeds in the spring to grow my own basil, but about a month ago, my sweet neighbor gave me a ton of basil she'd cut from her garden. She purposely left the flowers on top so if I wanted to save the seeds to attempt to grow myself, I could. 

Yup, she was right. I saved the seeds. Basil seeds are really tricky to get out of the flower. Each flower has about 20 seeds in it. However, these 20 seeds are grouped in pods of about 3-4. And each of the pods has to be opened for the dried seeds to fall out. I tried simply shaking the seed pods in a glass jar fully expecting the little seeds to pop out and separate from the flower. No such luck. I used my fingers and separated the flower pod and removed all the seeds by hand.

Before separating the seeds.

After separating the seeds.

I'm sure actual seed farmers have a much more efficient technique for how they remove basil seeds. Unfortunately, I don't. 

We'll call this my 4th attempt. For my 4th attempt at growing basil from seed, I took two styrofoam cups and grew one with my neighbor's seeds and one with the seeds I purchased. Within 4 days, I saw seedlings sprout from the seeds I purchased. The following day, I saw one seedling sprout from the seeds from my neighbor's plant. 

Basil! Actual...basil...

Now this time I know for sure these are basil seedlings...they are the only seed I put in. AND the stems are not furry. I do plan on continuing to grow my basil indoors through the winter because these plants are too small to make it outside and basil is not frost hardy. However, I've noticed after the initial sprouting, I have a hard time getting true leaves to grow.

From reading online, I've seen others say plants will take some time after sprouting to focus on growing roots so it looks like the growth is stagnant from the top. I've also read basil needs moist soil but doesn't like to be overwatered. 🤔 That's a tricky balance...

Lastly, an update on my peppers. I harvested some! Dixie cup is for size comparison. 

Harvest #1 These I ate.

Harvest #2. Pepper on the left started going bad so I had to remove it.
The two on the right went to my dad. 

They're definitely on the smaller side, but my first harvest was a forced harvest. One of them actually became too heavy and broke off the plant so I had to harvest it or trash it. The second one, I decided to remove because I had noticed it was not growing, but the same plant had two more peppers coming in. Rather than have this tiny pepper continue to take nutrients from the other two, I decided to cut it off early and allow the other two peppers to continue growing - they have grown in size every day when I check so I think I made the right call in this decision. 

They don't taste the same as store-bought bell peppers, but they're pretty tasty. Quite satisfying getting to eat something I grew myself. 😊