This Just In: Exciting News From My Kitchen's Sprout Center

So, I've determined that if you really want to feel like a gardening superstar, the only thing you need to do is get a cucumber seed wet and set it on a paper towel. That's it.

I started germinating my seeds on Friday. That was (one two three four five) six days ago. This is what the cucumbers are doing today.

*sneef*
They grow so fast.

Left: cucumbers.
Right: tomatoes.

Holy crap, cucumbers!! And not too shabby, tomatoes.

Here's how badly the cukes wanted to grow. I accidentally planted a sprouting cuke seed upside-down. I didn't correct it because I thought, meh, the seed will grow fine if it's upside-down. It will make itself rightside-up. Well, it didn't, but it was so set on growing, that it was growing its roots up and burying its leaves in the dirt. I noticed and corrected the problem. In the picture above, that one determined cuke sprout is the second from the top. Yep, the biggest one. So even ri-tard cucumbers can grow like crazy if you let them.

In germination news, my butterfly flower seeds sprouted! Well, some of them.

Butterfly flower.

I'm hoping to get a couple nice plants from my seeds. Then, I can keep one on the balcony here and give one to my mother-in-law, since she has an actual plot of land (and probably more butterflies).

In amazing and surprising germination news, two of my nasturtium seeds sprouted!

Nasturtium

Last year, my nasturtium seeds tapped out way early. They wanted nothing to do with sprouting. I think I happened to grab all of the depressed emo nasturtium seeds to plant, and they all suicided on me.

But they stoled the Preciousssss.

(On a completely unrelated note, Gollum/Smeagol is probably the best villain/misunderstood deformed Hobbit in all of English literature.)

Well THIS year, I got at least two (hopefully more) that are willing to at least entertain the idea of sprouting. The sprouts are small, but they're there! I put them in my peat plugs, so fingers crossed that they put forth the effort to push out of the dirt.

In even more exciting germination news, my jalapenos sprouted! Four of them, four peat plugs. The jalapenos did great last year, so I'm optimistic about this year.

All I have left are the habaneros that haven't sprouted. I'm hoping for more nasturtium, but not really expecting it. I think I've got a couple of weeks to wait for the habaneros, and who knows if the nasturtium will even sprout more. They've probably sensed the searing warmth of my hope and are getting ready to do themselves in as I type this. NOOO NASTURTIUM! YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!