What's Growing On?

Have gotten quite a bit of "you really get carried away" comments regarding last week's listing of the tomato varieties growing in the basement. Eh, I can handle it. I don't have the pepper list with me, but recently I've also started a tray of foxgloves/digitalis (6 varieties, some seeds as old as 2004 but it looks like they're all coming up), dahlia, calendula, delphinium, Bells of Ireland, catmint (not catnip - that's been going longer), monarda, prairie sunflower, and a variety of other annuals and perennials I've never heard of or grown before.

March 16th I started 20 eggplant seeds (5 varieties), and they still aren't up. I know eggplants are real finicky, but I thought I'd see better results than this! Glad I planted so many - will see how they do this week.

March 18th I started the following lettuce seeds (NOT all the varieties I have - just the ones I felt like going with first, a mix of greens and reds, different leaf shapes and textures, etc). Some of these seeds are new purchases this year, and some go back as far as 2003 (might explain the lack of sprouting in some rows!):

• Royal Red
• Prizehead
• Green Ice
• New Red Fire
• Yugoslavian Red (I'm real excited about this beautiful new variety)
  
• Bughatti
• Salad Bowl
• Simpson Elit
• Grand Rapids
• Dark Lollo Rossa
• Sierra

And I just finished planting the following "cold crop" (or cole crops, technically) plants today:

• Romanesco broccoli (or cauliflower, depending on which catalog you're looking at)
• Belstar broccoli
• Packman broccoli
• Falstaff brussels sprouts (BEAUTIFUL looking - can't wait!)
  
• Diablo brussels sprouts
• Trafagar brussels sprouts
• Jade Cross brussels sprouts
• Purple pac choi
• Brisk Green pac choi
• White pac choi
• Joi Choi pac choi
• Toi Choi pac choi

I haven't had a chance to do spring plantings of most of these in years. I tried out at the rental plot a couple times, but never had much luck due to late starts, hot weather, deer eating the tops out, etc.

As I type this I just saw two ducks (mallards?) crash into the marsh across the street (honestly, "crash" is the only way I know how to describe a duck landing), and chased our newest backyard visitor, a red-brownish gray squirrel, from the birdfeeder twice this morning.

I know we had a couple inches of snow Friday night, and we're due for more showers and snow this week, but it's kinda feeling like spring is on it's way!