The season has now officially begun

sprouted zucchini plant, a few days old

I would just like to announce that the edible balcony garden season has now begun!!!

The winner of the germination challenge is: zucchini! It sprouted within days!

A close second goes to: the tomatoes! One of each kind has showed itself.

And a few days later, the jalapeno plants decided to come up, much sooner than I'd expected. Germination on the other chili plants was described to be 10-14 days, so they're a whole week ahead of the game.

As soon as it starts to warm up (not really a start in sight, and it is still below freezing at night here, ugh, when is winter gonna be over?!), I will start some seeds outdoors, such as radishes,  (red) onion bulbs, and lettuce.

Will also get a few new herb plants to fill the holes in my one planter - sorry, not growing herbs from "scratch" this year, it just takes too long and the warm season here is pretty short! Luckily it looks like several of my herbs have survived yet another winter, such as my already-regrowing chives, rosemary, parsley (!), thyme, sage, and oregano. Great! Don't know if my lemon balm made it through the wintery past few weeks, but if not, I would like to replace it and get some basil and some mint. I have a hard plastic separator that I use to keep the mint roots from taking over the whole pot - basically just a piece of plastic that separates the soil.

Hope it starts warming up soon!