It's April and even though the weather is not really gardening friendly right now, I'm already getting the fomos about not having all the seedlings that I want for this year. So let's make an inventory of the (still) indoor garden!
Checking in on the older plants
I usually try to keep my chilis for more than a year, because they take a long time to grow and waste a lot of their potential if they don't get a long and sunny summer. Unfortunatley some of them do not survive winter inside the house, but I can present an interesting looking Aji Charapita that is now in it's third year and already full of flowers again, when we still experience -5°C outside!
Another important specimen is the Fatalii plant, because none of the remaining seeds germinated and this is the last plant in my inventory that might gift me some new seeds. I would really like to keep this one even though it's ridiculously spicy, but the taste is also very nice!
Aji Charapita, De Bico and NuMex Suave chilis from 2020 and 2021.
Rocoto seedling and the first tomato ready to harvest.
Fatalii chili, an African habanero type with interesting flavor. Seems very hard to germinate, though.
There is also some action outdoors already. Last year I planted some Tanacetum cinerariifolium, a flower known for producing pyrethrins, which are used as the main ingredient in many commercial insecticides. The plants did barely grow last year and I've already given up on them, but even though hardly anything is growing right now, they seem to have exploded over the winter. I'm not sure if I can actually make use of their insecticidal properties, but it might be an interesting project for this year.
Known as Dalmatian chrysanthemum, the flowers contain pyrethrins that are highly toxic for all insects.
While we are at it, let's have a quick peek into the coldframe. The poor thing is pretty beat up already and most likely another major project for this summer. Right now I only have a few little trees inside and some lettuce.
On the left side: a few beech and hornbeam trees, bay laurel seedlings, cherry laurel and a Japanese laurel. On the right: a little peach tree and some asian lettuce that was sown in late summer plus my favorite lettuce called 'Wonder of Voorburg' in trays, sown a few weeks ago.
New seeds for 2022
Like every year I can't help myself but do some seed-shopping and hunting for new varieties to try out. The past few years my main focus was on chilis, but I figured I still have plenty of hot sauce and even more chilis waiting in the fridge to be processed, so I decided to slow down the pace and only go for one new chili.
I do like spicy food but it doesn't have to be scorching hot and I generally prefer taste over scoville. For the past two years I've been growing the NuMex Suave Orange chili that has zero scoville units but a nice habanero taste. Last year I also got an Aji Habanero from my brother that turned out to be almost 0 heat units and has been growing extremely fast and produced plenty of fruits. This year I'm giving the Habanada by Michael Mazourek a try in search of a habanero that offers a little bit of variety to the NuMex.
Also a main ingredient for spicy food and sauces: The Tomatillo.
As the cheap guy that I am, I bought some tomatillo seeds from ebay a few years ago which have been growing into all kinds of random varieties. Last year most of them didn't grow very well, so I decided to put the Cisineros in the cart.
New seeds for 2022.
Another failure in past years were the eggplants. Even though we used F1 hybrids, they didn't seem to grow very well in our garden. Hydroponic worked quite alright, but I got fed up and discarded the seeds to replace them with something new: The Jewel Jet. Apparently this variety takes just a few weeks from seed to harvest and the plant has a nice pot-size. The fruit seems to be pretty small, which can be quite convinient, but we have to wait how they turn out.
Last but not least I went for some tomato seeds. Last year we had a tiny micro tomato that sparked my interest, so I've been growing the seeds to see if they keep their attributes. My idea was to have a tomato that stays small enough to be planted at the window even during winter. The first ones did grow very fast but were taken out by the rainy weather. The second batch was growing during the winter and didn't turn out to be tiny at all, as you've already seen in the picture above. Not sure if that is due to the lack of sun, but for obvious reasons I can't use those for breeding, so I also bought some Micro Tom seeds.
Two years ago we were gifted a really nice tomato from our neighbours, which was yellow with purple stripes and tasted quite fabulous. Unfortunately I don't know it's name but my shop of choice had a few that looked like it and I went for the Belle Coeur.
Micro Tom tomatos are perfect for tiny pots. This balcony pot is way oversized. In the background you can see a whole bunch of mystery tomatos that were gifted to us.
Some of my seedlings for this year. The tomatillos always grow etiolated, maybe they should be put under the growlight next time. On the right side some marigolds - they are supposed to stop nematodes.
How is the growlight experiment going?
In my last garden post I talked about my diy growlight experiment, where I'm testing certain LED colors and their impact on plant growth.
Right now the plants appear to be relatively even in size. The main difference are the early side shoots that the plant with the additional blue light produces alongside slightly shorter internodes. This goes in line with the theory that blue light causes the plant to express a more compact, horizontal growth instead of a vertical one.
Leftside plant with additional blue light is growing side shoots from nodes already.
Turmeric experiment
I'd like to grow me some tasty turmeric, but apparently I can't get the hang of it. The plants grow nice and fine with big healthy leaves, just the harvest has been pretty dissapointing so far. I kept some of my plants inside to see if they produce more rhizomes in their second year and after they refused to bud I tried growing new plants, expecting the old ones to have rotten away in their pots.
As I'm not a turmeric expert at all, I even decided to keep some of them in the fridge for a week to help break their dormancy, but after weeks and weeks of waiting all of the rhizomes are just shrivelling and none of them start growing. Maybe they got treated with hormones or some sort of growth inhibitor, so the stores can keep them in the shelfes for longer...
Fortunately my old plants show some signs of life and hopefully make it into another season.
Cuttings and Air Layerings
Hornbeam air layering with new buds all over it.
Recently I've gotten into the art of cloning plants and achieved partial success already.
My first hornbeam air layering didn't survive beeing transplanted into the soil, but the second one is looking healthy and showing it's first spring buds.
I also took a shot at the corkscrew hazel and the recently potted plant is indeed growing after a short dormancy in the cold garage.
Obviously it's hard to tell if these plants actually survive as they are in a vulnerable state until the roots fully develop. But I'm still a little proud of my achievements.
First successfull corkscrew hazel air layering and a fresh cutting in the back.
I'm also trying to root some cuttings from our larch and some corkscrew hazels in different soils. They are still in the conservatory right now, but I have set up my hydroponic box with automated watering outside and might put them in there, soon. If they are successfull, I might turn them into bonsai.
Various cuttings that will go into my hydroponic setup once outdoor temperatures permit.
Also a candidate for the hydroponic system: a rocoto chili. Although they can take colder temperatures, this one will have to wait at least another month before it moves outside.
Thanks for checking my little garden update and a big thumbs up to the amazing hive garden community with the amazing #gardenjournal and curation efforts. Especially for keeping the project alive after Simplymike needed a break!
As spring is on it's way, there might be more interesting garden projects to write about in the near future. If splinterlands content doesn't consume all my hive time, I hope to do regular garden updates again. It's so much fun to go back on your old posts and remind yourself of the shenanigans that went down in the past years!