It’s a JUNGLE out there I tell you!  You should see my greenhouse, ahem, I mean, my living room right now, ok, hang on while I get the camera out…..

Ok, they may seem little to you, but I for one am devastated that my dang chives are refusing to sprout!  On February 7th,  I planted 5 kinds of peppers, 2 kinds of toms, parsley, cilantro and the chives.  Now over a month later, I re-planted more chive seeds on March 22nd…I know it is only the 29th today, but MAN, these suckers better come up soon.  I am being totally impatient here I’ll have you know…. hmph…I may have to go out and buy a chive plant next month.

*Update ~ OK….REALLY bummed now! The second set did not

Pinching your sweetie’s backsi… oops, I mean.. Pinching BACK your plants!  Here in the Greenhouse I call my Living Room, we need to pay a little more attention to our sprouts than we have been.  Now that they are growing with gusto, it’s time to make them even healthier and stronger.  How to do this you ask?  By pinching back new growth (I know, it sounds counter-intuitive, just trust me), to stimulate the plant to grow MORE leaves and to become fuller, you have to ‘pinch’ off (or use scissors) new growth to get MORE new growth…I hope you follow

No, not the beefy kind! “Stakes” is what is on the menu today.  Today is the day I gently…and I mean G-E-N-T-L-Y tie up my tomato plants to wooden stakes so they don’t get top heavy from the weight of all their new leaves and topple over.  It is a ‘delicate’ task and there is no rushing this or you end up with uprooted/torn foilage and stems and then you have to start ALL over again with the seed germination!

I like to use wooden kebab skewers that are around 12″ to 14″ in length and have a nice sharp

“Can you eat these Sprouts?”  I could just imagine this coming from an inquisitive 6 year old (if I had one around, I don’t though thankfully) pointing a menacing, chubby little finger at the delicate stems of my toms and peppers…. Heck no! I would reply, these sprouts are not for turning into a stir fry for dinner, they are the sprouts of yummy goodness that is to come this summer!

I now have an abundance of little green shoots that are almost 4″ high in various little pots crammed onto the ledge in my living room window (think high-density,

Here we are 10 days after planting and I have lots of little green sprouts peeking out of the soil!  There is just something so magical about watching Mother Nature unfurl her little stems and see teensy-tiny leaves open to the waiting sunshine.  The tomatoes were the first to appear, followed by the tomatillos, then the cilantro.  I also have Iceland Poppy seeds breaking the surface and my Parsley isn’t too far behind either.

My peppers have not sprouted yet, they are very fickle plants that require a longer germination time and are VERY particular about the air/soil

Let me tell you a secret about being a Realtor® (you may actually already know this)…it is a highly stressful job!  We, as Realtors®, work long hours having to juggle family and work commitments…we pass our husband/wife in the mornings and they say ‘who are you????’ after we have been out half the night trying to close a deal.  So we need creative outlets at times to de-stress ourselves, to save us from the housing chaos that I call our profession….so how do I ‘de-stress’ myself?

Gardening of course!!

Who doesn’t love to garden?! Oh I know there are probably