DATIL PEPPER SEEDS AND A GARDEN PUPDATE

The datil pepper seeds are going fast ... so fast that I have to be sure and set some aside for ME and the upcoming pepper season!
Thank you to all of you who have ordered some REAL heirloom datil seeds. I love hearing how they grew in your area ... my goal is to spread them far and wide.

Yes, I know ... it looks like I've gone "all Hollywood" with my fancy store bought labels, but it's what's inside the packet that's the star.

Twenty precious seeds of history and heat.

I still have plenty, so check out the Datil Pepper Seeds for sale links above and to the right on this page.

I think I will start mine today. Our last frost date is March 15, so the time has come.

In other garden news ...

This is in my deer-proofed garden plot. Long time readers will remember the string of FFA Show Pigs who passed through PFHQ. Well, that's the deer exclusion zone now. I raised the fence to a height that bums out the local ungulates.

This is a mini-romaine type. I started a bunch of these, too many actually, for my school aquaponics project so the leftover seedlings went in to my garden.

Meanwhile, back at school, you can see the healthy root systems of the same type of lettuce growing in a raft system that my science students put together. The design of the system is from Meg Stout, so we didn't reinvent the wheel, but the kids did construct it and it runs like a top.

I will be sad to see these go. My little kumquat tree has enjoyed the mild winter and I have enjoyed it's fruit. I snatch a few off whenever I walk by with the pups after school.
For Christmas, I was gifted with a new satsuma and a new kumquat tree. They are still in pots until the winter passes. That way I can run them in if I need to on a freeze night.

I'll put them in the ground next month so they can get established before next winter.
They are two of the more cold hardy citrus and can usually handle the winters here.

This is a tray of "sweet mesclun mix" that I intended to transplant into the ground. When my schedule got too busy and I missed the opportunity to separate them, I decided to just let them grow in the starting tray.

It worked fine and I have cropped a number of tasty leaves for salads.

I have a short row of snow peas that are growing and blooming like crazy in the deer exclusion zone.
We'll be eating fresh snow peas this week.
(I like to just graze on them in the garden, but I am supposed to bring some inside for stir fry.)

Bear and I picked this big colander full of mixed lettuce, spinach, and mesclun mix recently.
The salad was awesome ... especially since it accompanied a beef sandwich courtesy of Guy, from Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.

(I'll do a separate foodie post on that later)

PUPDATE!

Coquina's sibling Peanut came over for a play date yesterday and they went nonstop for hours. Bear supervised the activities, but he also joined in so the canine trio was completely worn out later in the day.

Coquina has gone from her original 6.8 pounds to 14 pounds and Peanut has hit 17 pounds.
Bear maintains his svelte 100 pound physique effortlessly.