sugar snap pea and champion radish progress y pimientos de padrón!

Two weeks ago, I planted Sugar Snap Pea seeds from Seeds of Change.  They´ve since germinated and are doing well, in spite of the cold spell we´ve been having.

Sugar Snap Pea slideshow:



You can definitely tell that they´re related to the Snow Peas. 

My champion radishes are almost ready for harvest.  I thinned the row to 1" plant spacing two weeks ago.

Their leaves have really gotten big. I'd probably have started picking them already, but with the colder and cloudier weather we've had lately, I decided to give them a few extra days.

Champion radish:

Indoors, the pimientos de padrón flowers have been successfully pollinated!

Pimiento de padrón slideshow:



Just as with the tomatoes, the flowers first shriveled up, some falling off completely, before the peppers appeared. Of the six mature pimiento de padrón plants I have, two have flowers and peppers, and the rest have buds of varying size.  I think that the combined peppers of two plants should be more than sufficient for a pimiento de padrón tapa, so this harvest spacing should work out nicely. 

I´m really surprised how many buds each plant puts out ( > 10 ).  So far, they definitely seem more prolific than the average tomato plant, although I don´t know yet how many distinct harvests to expect over their lifetime. 

Indoor/outdoor update

So the Sugar Pod Snow Peas that I planted outside have long since germinated.  They are three weeks old today.  Here´s a slideshow of their progress so far:



They have an elaborate leaf structure that I really like.

The Bloomsdale spinach is finally starting to do something.  I planted a row and a half of it, and I don´t know if the full row failed to germinate or was just eaten by slugs, but the half row is all I have now.  They´ve just put out their primary leaves:



Indoors, the Maglia Rosa cherry tomatoes are finally bearing fruit.  The tomatoes are oblong, making them resemble Romas.

It´ll be interesting to see if their taste differs substantially, as well. 

More exciting greenhouse news: the pimientos de padrón have budded and bloomed!



I´ve been pollinating them just like the tomatoes.  I can´t wait for the peppers!  If they follow the same timeline as the tomatoes, then it´ll probably be another month at least before the fruit appears and starts to ripen, but at least I can pick them while they´re still green.

radishes germinated, eggplant transplanted, tomatoes and herbs in the sun

The Champion radishes first poked up above ground on Friday, right in their three-to-six day window.



I really like their little heart-shaped leaves.  Now they have 21-24 days until they can be harvested, and I´m supposed to plant a new crop of them every two weeks to have a constant supply.

Last Thursday was an absolutely gorgeous spring day, and so I decided to transplant the rest of the eggplant outside.  They will probably stay in these containers until they are planted in the garden.



My current totals are: 16 black, 17 snowy white, and 10 italian white.  Suffice to say, I think we´re going to have a ton of eggplant this year.

Since we´ve had a few warm sunny days in a row now, I´ve started bringing some of the staked tomato plants and herbs outside during the day.

Tomato plants along a south-facing wall:

Bucket of herbs:

These plants have been in the sun room living off whatever direct sun that comes through the south-facing windows.  I think this is probably sufficient on sunny days, but when it´s consistently cloudy, they really start to droop.  They´ve taken to the outside conditions pretty well for the most part.   Only one tomato plant has shown any signs of photo-bleaching:

So this Fox cherry is going to stay inside for today and recover.

I also planted a Crimson Sprinter tomato plant in the ground outside.

This plant has been nothing but unlucky.  During the second tomato transplant, I accidentally placed it too close to a space heater and it wilted.  I didn´t want to give up on it, but it quickly fell behind in growth compared to the other tomato plants, and then it wasn´t getting as much light in the greenhouse since it was so much shorter.  So it´s been living outside the greenhouse in the sunroom.  I went ahead and planted it in the ground even though it´s still really early because it´s short enough that I can easily cover it on cool nights.  True to form, this plant had been in the ground all of five minutes, when the wind blew really hard and snapped off the tallest stem.  I´m still not giving up on it, though.  I want to see if I can get it to produce a tomato after all it´s been through.