Mother Earth News just made finding seeds easier

You know how it is when you try to Google the name of a fabulous heirloom tomato or rare perennial you want so you can find the seeds or plants, only to find out there's some band, anime character, or race horse -- or all three -- with that name? Only after much sifting through the search results can you find the plant you're interested in, and even then most of the pages are information about the plant, not seed sources. Frustration!

Mother Earth News sent me a note to tell me of a solution to that problem. Check out their Google-powered Seed and Plant Finder. They've worked some coding magic into the Google search box to make it turn up seed sources. Give it a try and see what you come up with.

Free plants, but act fast!

Between finals week (at least I'm giving, not taking finals), and the DH's heart troubles (but a second try at the heart "reboot" worked!) I've been too busy to blog for a little while. So I'll make up for it with a report of $20 worth free plants available if you pay shipping and handling. But the offer is only good through March 26, so jump on this quick.

Go to Spring Hill Nursery and check out their offerings. When you order, $20 will be deducted automatically. That's a deal that's hard to beat.

I ordered a dwarf Meyer lemon kit that comes with a tree, a pot, and soil. I've not tried growing lemons before, which need winter protection here, so this will be fun. For only $7.95 shipping, what the heck? I'll try something new.

The Pea Experiment, Part 2

Back in January I reported on an experiment with planting peas. Y'see, my grandmother always planted peas on or about Washington's birthday, late in February. The newspaper, however, said they could be planted in January. So in January, a month before I usually plant peas, I planted some, after having soaked them and gotten them to germinate.

Then we were hit with frrreeeeezzzing weather. If anything might set back peas, it would be the weather we had.

Last week I continued the experiment, planting some more soaked and sprouted pea seeds about the same time grandma would have.

This week I spotted a couple of tiny sprouts where I planted the first peas, sprouts that I think might possibly be peas.

More later. I'm going to plant some later this month, and see if mucking about in the winter mud to plant peas is really necessary.