[2026-02-24] Small update

Today I'm gonna share a small update with you.
I'm mostly satisfied with all my seedlings so far. The peppers are growing faster than expected, all the brassica are either sprouting or already growing, basil sprouted and my new order of seeds arrived! The only plant I'm not really satisfied with is the spinach. I know that the germination rate of them are quite low so I already used multiple seeds per plant hole but still only one plant germinated.

^Peppers

^Brassica

Potatoes

Besides seeds I also ordered lots of different varieties of potatoes for planting. 5 varieties in total.
I currently let them sprout in a cool and bright place.

Chayote

An experiment I really look forward is cultivating a chayote. It's quite unknown to the western world. It's part of the cucurbit family and originally from south america but people grow it all over the world, especially in south east asia and as well as in parts of africa.

My partner's parents gave me a couple. I saved one and sprouted it in a cup of water similar like you sprout an avocado pit. Except you dip the underside of the whole fruit in water, not only the pit.
A couple of days ago I transplanted it into a pot. It grows like crazy and there's at least one new leaf per day! Not sure how I'll handle it since I need to keep it inside until mid of May when there is no more possibility of frost.

^{Potted chayote}

[2026-02-07] So it begins

The gardening season has started, I've sown the first seeds!
The season slowly starts and with that I started raising seedlings inside to get a head start. In late January I began planting my pepper and chilli seeds as well as some onions.

Capsicum & Nightshades

For my peppers I chose Lady Lou as the variety. I've cultivated them last season and was super happy with the taste. However the growth wasn't the best and the fruits developed only very late in the season. So we'll see how they'll grow this year. Maybe last year was just too rainy...
I still have some ordering backlog where I chose an additional variety called Palila. I plan on filling them with cottage cheese and pickling them.

As for my chilies I planted some spare seeds from the Prairie Fire but they did not sprout yet. These are small Thai chillies and super hot with around 70,000 - 80,000 Scoville. The taste is very sweet and a bit earthy thus perfect for sprinkling in some currys.
I also dried them. This took some hotness out of them while preserving some of the flavor. I still have some I occaisonally use for adding some sweet spicyness to my dishes.

Another capsicum I want to grow are typical italian pepperoncinis. Two of the three planted seeds already sprouted and I'm quite curious how the plants will turn out. Hopefully the yield will be enough for me to pickle them and use e.g. on pizza.

^{Pepper and chillies}

For the first time I'm also trying to grow some aubergines. I've read they need tons of sun for a good yield so let's see if I can find a fitting spot in my super small garden.

^Aubergines

Onions

Another plant family I already started was the onions. In my experience the seedlings take forever to sprout and grow so I'm trying to start earlier this year.
I've sown lots of green onion seeds into one container to transfer them at a later stage into pots or a raised bed.
Normal onions I planted into trays.
The green onions haven't sprouted at all even though I planted them around three weeks ago. Some of the other onions are slowly growing but at a very irregular rate.

^{Irregularly sprouting onions}