To The Surbiton Manor Born

  The weekend before last saw the year's tomato plants seeded and put in the greenhouse.  Last weekend they germinated. Greenhouse #1 is now full. This is O.K., as it will be a few weeks before we need to plant anything else. We may be a little ahead with the tomatoes and peppers, but it allows for misfires, and will hopefully result in some good sized plants to put outside come Memorial Day weekend.  We planted Pure Pollination beefsteak tomatoes, Eden Brothers "Delicious" tomatoes (20 each), and 6 each of yellow pear tomatoes & something called a "Floridade" tomato, which Pure Pollination apparently substituted for their usually reliable cherry tomatoes. I'm a little nervous about that one, as it relies on hot, humid temperatures. We get that, but not for terribly long. We drastically cut back on the yellow tomatoes. Those things grow like weeds. While I won't say we got sick of eating them last summer...we sort of did get sick of eating them last

  Depicted above: A banana pepper that failed to germinate One of the best things about starting the process of planting seeds for next summer early, is that it allows time to try again. The banana pepper seeds that we saved from last year's crop completely failed to sprout. I put four in every container destined for banana peppers, 20 in total, and we got 0. Nuthin '. A big egg. I'm not quite sure what we did wrong.  The good news is that we have some Pure Pollinator banana pepper seeds - same variety - and I was able to start those last night.  A couple of the habanero peppers also failed to germinate. Unfortunately, we'd used up the seeds. So I planted some jalapenos to replace them. There's time!

  The first germination of the 2022 garden - YOLO Wonder Peppers Groundhog Day. Half way to spring. The first peppers of 2022 have germinated. Signs of lif e.  It is also the day I trade in my trusty 2015 Hyundai Sonata Eco for a new, 2022 plug-in hybrid Kia Niro. 105 eMPG. 26 miles of all-electric range.  I won't lie - I'm going to miss that Hyundai. It's been totally reliable. But the Kia is a more practical hatchback. That will help to collect garden supplies. And it should, other than road trips, almost eliminate burning any gasoline for transportation. Around town, I should be able to use just the EV mode.