Tomatoes are in!

Spent yesterday morning planting the next batch of seeds. Six varieties of tomatoes (including my first attempt at saved seeds thanks to my mother in law) with the majority of them being Roma's for sauce. Also got some more lettuce going and cauliflower.

Although we are not big users of herbs, I keep trying them. We have a small clump of chives near the back door, though we didn't use them at all last year. I planted oregano, basil and coriander to create a small herb garden with. I didn't grow any last year, it would be nice to get some decent growth this year to add to our tomato sauce.

For the non-edible portion of our landscape, I started some left over forget me nots, black eyed susans, purple cone flowers, and alyssum. In addition I started some flowers to include in the veggie garden to help attract pollinators (marigolds and nasturtiums, also saved seed).

I was tempted to try the plant peas on St. Patrick's day saying, but I'm glad I didn't as we got an inch of snow today and the rest of this week looks cool and wet. Better to wait and ensure the seed doesn't rot in the ground. If the long range forcast looks good come this weekend, I may plant some just to try.

The first seeds are in! - Update

After two weeks the green and jalapeno peppers are not doing well. One 6 pack of green peppers has mostly germinated, but that is it. None of the other 18 are showing any signs of growth. Although I may have jumped the gun a little, I went ahead and bought some replacement seeds and planted them this past Wednesday.

For the bell pepper I chose "Big Dipper", and for Jalapeno, "Gigante" both from Burpee. Although I did get some bell's from my existing seeds to sprout, I chose to plant a full 12 cells of each. If I end up with extra they could always be given away.

I knew the lettuce seed I was attempting to use was old and unlikely to germinate, and I was right. I have a total of 3 plants started. I threw in some additional seed as a hope against hope measure.

Two of the onion varieties are growing well, the third is struggling. I think I have been keeping them too moist which the Australian Brown and Ailsa Craig handled fine, the Noordhollandse Bloedrode has not. There are lots of malformed sprouts that won't make it and overall a lower level of germination than the other two varieties. I may add a follow on planting to boost the overall success rate.

I am also considering direct planting some onion seed to see how that does in my southern New England climate.

The broccoli came up very well and are growing rapidly. Perhaps too rapidly. I was fearful when I planted them that it was too early. Their rapid progress is proving that out...

The first seeds are in!

Planted my first seeds of the season on Saturday, February 26. I had planned all along to get the onions started early, but decided to give my peppers an earlier start than usual on some hopefully good advice from the manager at Comstock, Ferre & Co. To round out my plantings, I threw some assorted lettuce seed that had been given to me (and which is several years old at this point) into a spare planter and added a 6 pack of broccoli.

I'm not honestly sure if it was time to start the broccoli, but even if it is too early, I find the idea of using a cold frame intriguing, and this might be a way to force me to try it. My only trepidation is knowing that I'm not so good at remembering to check the weather each day to ensure I open and close it as necessary to avoid freezing or baking the plants.

For this year I have started 12 cells each of green bell, jalapeno and Corno di Toro Giallo. the bell and pepper seeds are now 3 years old. To compensate for the likely low germination rate, I planted 4 in each cell. Since the Corno di Toro Giallo's are new this year, I only planted one in each.

Since I am trying 3 different varieties of onions (Ailsa Craig, Australian Brown, Noordhollandse Bloedrode), and each variety is listed as containing at least 300 seeds, I roughly split each packet into thirds and planted 1/3 of each. The onions are all planted in the bottoms of one gallon milk jugs, cut off at the bottom of the handle. I then drilled eight, 1/8" holes in the bottom for drainage.

I have struggled in the past to get good germination from my peppers. To help things along I have set up the top rack of my light stand as a mini hot house with cardboard forming the walls and roof to hold in the heat produced by the florescent lamp. To this I have added a poor man's grow mat.

This consists of two 2x4's to set the planting trays on and a string of 100 Christmas lights spread out under the tray in the gap in between the 2 x 4's. With the two lights going 24/7, the inside of the "hot house" stays in the 70-71 deg F range.

Seedlings are up!

In just over a week's time about 70% of my seedlings are up. Almost all the tomatoes, onions, broccoli and basil have sprouted. The peppers, both green and jalapeno varieties are lagging. But that is to be expected. What is unknown is if the green peppers will come up at all.

I had a bunch of seeds given to me that dated as old as 2002. So I planted several of them in each cell, we'll see how many actually come up. A year or two isn't a big deal, but 7 is asking a lot. I probably should have done a germination test in some wet paper towel, but I didn't think of it in time.

If they aren't up by next weekend I'll throw in some of the seeds from last year that I had left over.

I had also started some lettuce that is beginning to pop up. Lettuce and I have a long and tortured relationship. I had one awesome crop 3 years ago, I've tried every year since, sometimes both spring and fall to repeat that success. I might have succeeded last year but I seeded the window planter too heavily and never thinned them so they crowded each other out and died off.

I'm not exactly doing myself any favors this year. I threw the seeds into a window planter full of garden dirt from last year. Needless to say I have about as many weeds coming up as lettuce. But, I didn't want to waste a lot of effort on something that will probably fail once again.