slouching towards spinsterhood: garden edition

The great seed-starting experiment has had mixed results. It seems that plastic works better than peat pots (some have rings of mold where the water soaked into the sides rather into the starter), and I should have marked what they were with sharpie rather than crayola, and I wish I had an acre for the five kinds of squash that I want to cook with this summer.

This year I'm also hoping to get super geeky and attempt my own blends of herbal tea, though this probably won't happen. I love the smell of rosemary and lavender though.

Here's some of what I'm hoping works out.

Scarlet runner beans for the porch. I don't wear them often, but I love bright colors in nature like no other, in part because it breaks through the grey and sepia of Clevelandia's urban landscape.

I don't know where I'll put these blue pumpkins that I'm seed-starting because they take up space like no other. But the color is so cool and they'd make amazing jackolanterns.

Nasturtiums were the first flowers I tried to grow as a kid and actually succeeded. Phyte Club pointed me towards nasturtium pesto, which sounds delicious.

A lot of people don't like okra which is how I ended up with these seeds, but I like it in Indian food and the flowers have that whole hibiscus look that I like.

Japanese eggplants are long and skinny and way less seedy.

Sweet peppers are crazy expensive at the store and the hot ones are good for everything.

assorted sunflowers for the front yard...

California poppies are lovely. Notice, Randal, I didn't say "cute" this time.