A weekend of Transplanting and Seasoning

I know, sounds exciting right? Sometimes you just gotta get around to things that aren't necessarily the height of excitement in life- thus the transplanting and seasoning. I'm a terrible seed grower and I had neglected my seedlings for far too long. While my seedling chamber is awesome, it's sometimes easy to forget it's there since it's in the utility room. Because of this "out of sight, out of mind" situation, I let my seedlings get a little "leggy" (no reference to any ZZ Top songs here!). Leggy means that basically I didn't have my seedlings close enough to the light source, so they kept growing up instead of out. This eventually makes it to where the seedling is all stem and few leaves which is ultimately not what we want out of our plants. Easy solution- transplantation! The tomato plants were really the problem and the good thing about tomato plants is that it is encouraged that you cover the stem up to the first set of leaves when planting (or transplanting). New roots will grow out of the part of the stem that has been covered by soil, thus making the seedling less leggy and more fruitful. I also FINALLY got around to planting some herb seeds. I will pay more attention seedlings, I promise!

And now to seasoning. I received an awesome cast iron pan for Christmas that has also been unfortunately neglected in my kitchen. It came pre-seasoned and we used it new out of the box a few times and then it got a little rusty and stuck in cabinet never to be seen again. But since it's spring and I finally feel like taking care of some nagging- er I mean important projects- I seasoned my first cast iron skillet. For those of you that don't know, cast iron must periodically be "seasoned" to keep it's non-stick property and to keep it from rusting. It was very simple. I just spread some bacon grease all over the pan (top and bottom, inside and out) and then stuck in a 300 degree oven for an hour. Voila! Seasoned Skillet. A black, non-stick beauty of a pan. I can't wait to use it and eventually season it again ;).

Since it is finally Spring (the first day was yesterday), things should really start picking up on the growbots blog. Outdoor spring planting should start very soon. Until next time...

-Mrs. Growbot