First Time Winter Sowing #6 : There's still time!

I love beets! I grew up eating a lot of veggies, and liked them. I still do. I didn't realize until I grew up that not many people eat fresh beets or parsnips or rutabaga.

Karen

Can you make stew without rutabagas?

I have never eaten a beet or a parsnip and I don't even know what a rutabaga is. Ack! How bad is that!

Turrible, Lissa, just turrible.

tee hee

Parsnips are what they had before they discovered carrots, I understand. Parsnips are very sweet whereas many other root vegetables notably turnips tend to be more on the bitter side.

I confess to little familiarity with rutabagas tho I do think I cooked them in a big soup one time.... just to make it complete, LOL! Around here they sell celeriac too as a root winter veggie, I have so far avoided that one also. ;-)

You're not alone Lissa. Most people don't eat them. Count them among my oddities, I guess. And I love liver, too.

There's only one thing I don't eat: mayo. And I don't do milk. Other than that, everything else on the planet is fair game.

Karen

LOL! Ooopsie, stayin outa HER way! hahaha

Parsnips are one of the world's great veggies! A little difficult to get started, but once they are up, they are no-care plants. Gramma always candied them along with yams for Thanksgiving. I like them just steamed, lightly mashed with butter, salt & pepper.

Like Kathy, I'm not sure you can make a stew without rutabagas. Mother never called it stew if there were no rutabagas. Personally, I wouldn't make a stew without celeriac, either. Lots of uses for this wonderful veg, which is one I do not seem to be able to grow no matter what I try!

Like Karen, I grew up with all of these (and others) and did not discover until I went off to university that others did not. That was when I also discovered that some people can cook liver so that it IS inedible, giving another really good food a bad rep. Ms Marta left for Brussels and Rome last Friday, and the first thing I did on the way home from the airport was stop at the butcher to pick up liver for my dinner!

Both the choiggia and Burpess Golden beets mentioned by Kyla are wonderful! But I am still a fan of the old standbys : Black Egyptian and Detroit Reds. Grown in the garden and eaten young, THESE are nothing like the grocery store beets, either!

plantRN ; How long have your peppers been in the tray? How old are the seeds? Pepper seeds also tend to rot instead of germinate if the potting soil is too wet; just barely moist is good. Some peppers take forever (like 3-4 weeks) to germinate!

My input on some questions above;

Soggy containers: make sure you have enough drainage holes and that those holes are large enough to actually let the water out.

Jim: In my zone, I have 100% success w/s zinnia. I've had luck with peppers, the italian sweet, but not at 100%. I am going to try sowing some indoors and some out this year for comparison. Tomatoes are a hit in my zone. I wouldn't sow them any other way. I've had success with Cucumbers and Zucchini as well. My containers are left alone on a stone patio in full sun. Once I've sown them, I don't touch them. They remain covered [vented cover] as well, until the weather warrants them to be uncovered.

Anita: So you w/s your tomatoes as well? Didn't think to try this, but I may do it yet.

I've had 3 or 4 varieties of WSown tomatoes come up already and am looking forward to movint them to their new home in the bed. Should I wait until last expected frost for that or would they be ok as soon as they get their true leaves?

tom's and peppers

Wow - I didn't realize that I might could WS tomatoes..... or peppers... that opens up a WHOLE new venue! ^_^ and Anita..... how soon do you WS your zinnias? I have lots of zinnia seeds that I have acquired thru seeds swaps and the pig piggy seedswap and I hope to have lots of beautiful blooms this summer. I have not WS them yet because I was afraid it was too early .... or that I might lose them all.

Where do you all usually purchase your veggie seeds? I have never purchased a tomato or pepper seed in my life.... usually purchase small plants instead............

Thanks!
Genna

i ordered my seeds online.....i did germinate them outside, but i brought them in the house a few days earlier this week when we had that cold weather....they back out now

I got my tom seeds in swaps and think I planted them all! Genna, you could post on the seed trading thread and see if anyone wants to trade with you.

gen, I always direct sow my zinnias and they have plenty of time even up here in the far north, so they'd have way more time to grow where you are. This year I plan to start some indoors under lights so I can hopefully have a longer zinnia season.

The only place I've bought tomato seeds is tomatogrowers.com. They have a nice variety.
http://tomatogrowers.com/

Karen

(waving back to nannypb!! Small world--I'm an East Tennessean born and raised--moved to GA 10 years ago and I'm ready to get back to TN!!) :)

Thanks for the info on the tomato seeds and the zinnias..... I am SO looking forward to having enough flowers to be able to pick some and enjoy them in the house and on my desk at work!!! I hope the zinnias supply part of those for me!

I was reading a thread somewhere the other day about "Which" tomatos were the best varieties to raise for taste, texture, growth etc.... NOW where was that ????? I can't find it when I need it of course...............anyone else remember that thread??

Thanks!
Genna

Might this be the one? http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/370312/

Here is a spreadsheet that I have been working on. http://www.lakehousecreations.com/year_to_year_comparison.htm . It might be helpful to you. I use it when testing on the best sowing date for the various seeds I w/s.

Anita, you never cease to amaze me with your organized style. I'd like to set you loose in my house for a day. I'll bet you could do wonders!

Karen

Don't be fooled. I might be organized with information, but my house is a completely different story ;)

Thanks for the thread, but that is not the particular one I was searching for ...this listed everyone's favorite tomatoes - not just the heirloom ones. Thanks for the try.

Genna

WS tomatoes? zinnia's? as in my area where we still have many freezes to go thru? or do you guys mean sow those inside during the winter? or like 8 weeks before last frost?

obviously i have not done my homework. yet.

parsnips. rutabagas. celeric. i've led such a sheltered life, lol. Ive heard of those, but never eaten them nor tried to grow them.

...if i'd move back to Atlanta where there's Harry's Farmers Market.
i even miss the smell of that place.

LOL I have never heard of anything except the rutabagas ...and don't have a CLUE what it is, what it looks like, or tastes like! If it wasn't peas, beans or corn, we didn't raise it.... ^_^ Well, maybe a few more things - like onions, radishes, beets occasionally, turnip greens and tomatoes - but not much else....

I often wish my Mother had been more open to different veggies - I was grown before I knew what broccoli and califlower were...... and then there are hundreds of things I still don't know what they are!!

Genna

gen, you are not alone. It seems most folks grow up thinking canned corn, peas and green beans are the only vegetable in the world. It is sad, because most children love all vegetables until they start school and the other kids tell them veggies are yucky.

I grew up with parsnips, rutabagas, turnips, kohlrabis, but even though we were within driving distance of Walla Walla, I never ate fresh asparagus until I was an adult. I still consider canned and fresh asparagus to be 2 different vegetables, and love them both. I never even remember seeing an artichoke until my 1st wife prepared one for dinner one day! THAT was a learning experience!

On the other hand, by the time I reached 2nd or 3rd grade I learned that most other kids did NOT eat green peeper sandwiches -- and even thought them worthy of ridicule. Well, now, well past the age of ridicule, they are one of my favorite summer snacks. But now, of course, with peppers fresh from the garden on a morning-baked, sweet-buttered baguette, maybe garnished with a few leaves of Rocket (Arugula) also fresh from the garden. Mmmm! Eat your hearts out grade-school bullies!

I had to wonder about the "green peeper" sandwiches at first, LOL. We call the first spring frogs that appear spring peepers, and I imagine they're green...

Oh yeah, fresh asparagus and artichokes. Love 'em both! The asparagus make for good snacking when raw.

Karen

I thought that too about the "peeper" sandwiches. LOL!

Hilarious! I just figured it was a typo - no imagination, I guess.

Hey, guys! I checked my jugs tonight and I now have Aster `Ocean Star' , Larkspur `Giant Imperial' and Rudbeckia `Irish Eyes' which have germinated. Yee-hah! That makes 11 of the 40 jugs I WS'd that have germinated. I can't tell you how happy this makes me.

Angie

YAY! Go, Sproutlets! Rah Rah Rah!!!!!! Woo Hoo!

me too with more, both the verbascum and the rose campion sprouted -- from seeds I gathered down the road last fall. And my lettuces sprouted, oh soon! Soon! LOL!

TYPO! TYPO! TYPO!
Have to eat those fresh little Spring frogs with a garlic-and-butter sauce!

LOL .... so, Jim, you were originally from Washington State? or is there another Walla Walla? How long you been in France?

Genna

Born & bred in Spokane. University in Seattle. 25 years living & working abroad from Papua New Guinea to China to Thailand to Tajikistan to Azerbaijan to Kosovo/Macedonia to Switzerland & France. Ms Marta works for the UN, most of those years for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Also, today I am pleased to announce the emergence of about 50 baby "Lewisia cotyledon", my first outdoors, so "real" WS success!

I haven't heard any spring peepers yet, but I'll keep your recipe in mind, LOL. I love those first warm days of late winter/early spring when I start hearing them...confirmation that spring is on the way!

spring peepers were loud and strong the last couple of days when temps were around 70. Today temp is around 40 and they are quiet again. Poor little things thought it was time to finally wake up.

Wow - that sounds like quite an adventure...... and a great way to see the world..... and just think of all the plants you got to know along the way! I have this dream of traveling to Europe one day...... not sure it will ever materalize! Maybe I need to swap occupations! (of course, the fact that I can NOT speak any foreign languages would definitely not help!!!)

Genna

Genna,
I have a very good friend, a worker for Mercy Corps (which, by the way, is one of the few US NGOs working overseas that earned my respect for their honesty, dedication and ability to deliver what they signed on for. If you or anyone you know ever want to send money to help the impoverished or afflicted overseas, you'll be hard pressed to do better than to give it to these folks), who has spent almost as many years working abroad as I & Ms Marta have, and she has not learned a single word of any language except English. One day, I followed her through a street market in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. We knew that a shipment of outdated Tyson "frozen/re-frozen/refrozen" chicken had arrived in the city and should be in the markets. She walked along those stalls with complete aplomb, going "Pluck Pluck Pluck Pluck America!" and flapping her elbows with her thumbs in her armpits; and we got boxes of Tyson Frozen Chicken Parts at the end of the day!

Her position : "I'm American. I didn't come here to go native. I want to remember who I am."

It works. She gets a lot of respect wherever she goes. She never forgets who she is. But she always misses the stories.