In the garden, in front of my house, I grow only two plants in significant quantities: cherry tomatoes and jalapeños. I grow the cherry tomatoes so they face the street and encourage passersby to help themselves when the fruit is ready. I like to have a wall of grape-like sweet tomatoes facing out.
I grow jalapeños because we consume massive quantities in my household and it’s more fun to eat them when they’re fresh and homegrown.
This year I decided to sprout them both from seeds, get an early start, so when the weather warms up I can put some mature young plants in the ground. So I started an indoor nursery. So far so good!
The picture above shows my seedlings surrounded by marigolds. It turned unseasonably chilly here the last few days and I wanted to protect the marigolds from the cold before I put them in the ground. As you can see they’re all doing well together.
Of course when summer finally hits there will be plenty of cherry tomatoes and jalapeño bushes in the garden stores that got their start in sunnier climates. They will be hard to resist. But it’s been a lot of fun to grow my own in preparation for the gardening season.
How will you spend some time this week with a hobby?
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
