Seeds started, no April Fool's joke!

seeds started in my mini greenhouse

I hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend! I did - finally got some seeds started a few days ago, and here are the results!

• #1 and #2- cherry tomatoes
• #3 and #4 - tomatoes, bottom one is actually a variety made for pots
• #5 and #6 - zucchini
• #7 and #8 - "white lightning" habanero chili peppers
• #9 and #10 - purple jalapenos
• #11 and #12 - jalapenos

So excited! I had ordered a few kinds of chili pepper seeds last summer from Amazon, but since they came late I decided to hold onto them until this year. Am looking forward to seeing how they do - I have had a fair amount of luck with chili peppers on my balcony in the past few years, so I am excited to try a few different kinds of fresh chilis - the taste of the actually pepper is amazing!

I decided to forgo and cucumbers or squash this season for two reasons:

1. I haven't had any of my squash plants bloom, ever!
2. I think I need bigger pots for squash and cucumber, but I'm not sure that I want to sacrifice the space for a plant that may not produce again!
3. It's too windy on my balcony for vertical gardening, so there is little space for the vines even IF they had bigger pots

zucchini flowers (front in a box)
sold at Campo de Fiori outdoor market, Rome

Nonetheless, I am going to try zucchini again - not giving up on that quite yet! I did get a few to come last year, but were very small (like 3-4 inches long), but I got lots of flowers.

My thought is that if I can tell that the vegetables aren't going to get bigger, I can just eat the flowers! On my trip to Rome with my mom last May, we got to try fried zucchini blooms, a local specialty. I've heard of them served filled with cream cheese, but what we tried were just lightly dusted with flour and deep (or pan?) fried. We even saw where you could buy them with the mini zucchini still attached - at the Campo de Fiori outdoor market in Rome. They look to be about the size that I have produced on my balcony.

A special treat! Here's a recipe from About.com to try, or a stuffed version from food & style. Can't wait!