Still Growing . . .

The hardest part is the waiting.

Everything is growing and doing splendidly. Nearly all of my seeds have sprouted. I am still waiting to see signs of life from the Wonderberries, the Ground Cherry, the Pink Banana, and Thai Red Papaya. One of the surprising growers of the last couple of days was the cucumbers. I decided to plant a couple of the cucumbers in the seed trays (though they are supposed to be planted directly) just to get them started at the same time as the rest of the veggies. They sprouted almost immediately and are already one of the biggest sprouts.

This one is the Horace Boyette Burpless Cucumber:

And this is the Parisian Cucumber sprouting:

The tomatoes are also doing really well. Both the Carbon and Black Cherry varieties are starting to show progress.

One of the best growers from the first greenhouse tray that I seeded were the flowers. The Jewel Peach Melba Nasturtiums have become downright gangly, and the Camellias are also beginning to get so long that I think I will soon be transplanting them to pots.



The seed trays are beginning to look full of vegetation, so I decided to start working on getting my balcony organized so that it will be ready for when I begin transplanting. I cleaned up all the plant debris and detritus that was laying around, and I pruned the existing plants to get them ready for Spring.

My Ichiban Eggplant already thinks it is Spring. It began flowering like crazy a couple of weeks ago and now I have a plant that is covered with tiny purple eggplants. I finally got a trellis for it. Last year I just let it sprawl everywhere, but this year, as space will be at a premium, I decided it needed to start growing more vertically. Hopefully the upward mobility will help it produce more eggplants as well.





And Marcus Aurelius, my polydamus swallowtail caterpillar is still in his cocoon. I am amazed by how closely his chrysalis resembles a green leaf. I have no idea how long he will remain in the cocoon. That is something I should probably research. So far, he's been ensconced for a week.

Soon I will purchase large quantities of potting soil and begin transplanting the cucumbers, flowers, and herbs and direct plant the beans, onions, and radicchio.