#NationalNutritionMonth Savor the Flavor of Heirlooms! #GardenCuizine #gardenchat @Eatright

Celebrate National Nutrition Month by Planting Seeds!

Savor the Flavor of Heirlooms

National Nutrition Month kicks off the gardening season as well as reminds us to exercise and feed our bodies nutritious food all year long. Seeds can be collected and saved each year from heirloom plants. Inexpensive seed packets can be ordered online, or found at your local garden market or Home Depot.

Today, I planted a few flats of annual veggies, herb and flower seeds a week earlier than I usually do (St. Patty's Day) thanks to the warming trend with our NJ weather. As you can see in my list below, there are a lot of heirlooms! 

Heirloom veggies provide fantastic flavor and best of all you can collect the seeds and grow your favorites year after year.

Seeds I started under grow lights 3/14/16: (as they germinate, I will edit and add the number of days to germination)

• Capers (just for the fun of it - a memory from a special Cape Cod visit)
• Cayenne peppers, long slim (17 days)
• Purple Majesty Millet (hopefully the cats don't eat all the seedlings! (7 days; most are not germinating as of 3/31/16... maybe the seeds were too old... will have to look at the date)
• Leslie's French Mini heirloom Tomatoes (8 days)
• Pistou Basil (Cooks Garden) (9 days?)
• Chocolate Nicotiana (6 days)
• Red Rubin Basil
• American Flag heirloom Leeks (never grew leeks before) (8 days)
• large Yellow Heirloom tomatoes (6 days)
• Fish Peppers (decorative Chesapeake Bay heirloom)
• Chocolate Cherry heirloom tomatoes (6 days)
• Critter's Black Pearl ornamental peppers
• Lady in Red Salvia*(1st to germinate 4 days!)
• Hot Thai peppers (for spice jar; dried) (13 days)
• Coral Nymph Salvia*(5 days)
• Chervil
• Amsterdam Seasoning Celery (17 days)
• Italian Parsley (17 days)
• Black Krim Tomatoes (juicy large heirloom from Russia) (9 days)
• Large Italian Basil (Meadowbrook Farm seeds; 5 days)
• Large red cherry tomatoes (5 days)
• Coronado Hyssop* (6 days)
• Goldman's heirloom Tomatoes (pasta sauce; 7 days)
• Hungarian Wax Peppers (Parks; 15 days)

 More Seeds started 3/20/16

• Forest Fire Salvia coccinea* (7 days)
• Tomatillos
• test trial of our own LFT - Last Forever Cherry Tomatoes (no lie, these 1/2-inch red Jersey heirlooms strangely last forever without refrigeration from end of summer harvest into the New Year!! And, maintain juiciness and flavor)
• Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes (9 days)

* Hummingbird favorites

Get Growing!
Happy National Nutrition Month and Happy Gardening!

Related Links
Heirlooms vs Hybrids
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