Tomatoes are up

The tomatoes seedlings have sprouted.  It was only four days ago that they were planted so they are a little ahead of schedule.  There were only a couple up and only of the Northern lights.

Update:  So I figured that this didn’t require another post the day after, it’s now the 28^th and all of the tomatoes are up, literally every seed I planted.   I am very pleased and in about 6-8 weeks they will be headed outside.

Tomatoes

Today I started all of my tomatoes.  I originally picked out 6 varieties that I wanted to plant this year but then with Mandy’s greenhouse having seeds available this year I decided to go with 8 different varieties.  They were planted in 2 planting flats.  Each flat is divided into 3 equally sized areas lengthways.  What I ended up doing was planting 4 varieties with around 15 seeds each ( Northern Lights, Black Prince, Black Ethiopian, Polish Linguisa) and the other 4 with just around 7 seeds each (Black Cherry, Isis Candy, Alpine and Kansas Depression).

They are in the same room in the peppers and planted in the same miracle grow potting soil.  I am looking to have them ready to go in to the garden anytime once May starts.  I'm away the first week of May but think anting them at the end of April is still a little risky depending on the weather so around the 3^rd week of May is the target, along with the peppers.

Seedlings/Sprouts

So it has been 10 days since my peppers were planted and of the 141 seeds approximately 110 have germinated!  I am surprised at my germination rates after last year but am very pleased by them.  The king of the north has had almost 90%, while the Hungarian banana has only had 20% germination.   I am looking to remove the plastic covers in the next couple days as their growth increases.  A couple of them are a little leggy; I think I have the lights too high right now (4 inches) but am going to be moving them lower (1-2 inches).

In the outdoor garden news with the 20 degree weather we have been having since last week, a number of ants have started to come up.  The chives, garlic, rhubarb have all started to come up.  I also have some parsnip plants I missed picking in December that are growing as well as kale I missed.

There is a critter that dug through my garlic and rhubarb patch and all around my garden.  There is literally a 30x2 area that is all tunnels.   There were a couple spots where there is a hole instead of a garlic plant but it looks like they only got  a couple.  And there was a tunnel that went straight to a rhubarb crown and they ate the entire outer layer of it.  I'm not sure what to do about it but going to defiantly miss Smokey this summer.  He would have been a big help eliminating those critters.

Germination

The peppers I planted have started to germinate.  A couple days after they were planted I may have gently dug a couple up to see if they had started, and the couple I found had.  This morning I could see 4 stalks and when I came home there were 2 seedlings with open leaves and I was able to see 15 starting to poke through.  First germination in 6 days is excellent.

Peppers Started!

The gardening season has begun!

Today I planted all of my peppers. This year I have 8 different varieties all of them sweet peppers.  I planted Alma Paprika(18), King of the North(29), Jimmy Nardallo(21), Sweet Chocolate(18), Purple Beauty(18), Medusa(15), Sweet Hungarian Banana(18) and Golden Cal Wonder(4).     I ended up planting 141 seeds; the amount planted of each is in brackets above.   I planted roughly 3X more than I need because last year I had over half my seeds not germinate.

They are germinating in the basement room under a 4 foot shop light with cool white bulbs.  The room is around 70-80F it’s only heated by a couple light bulbs and then whenever the furnace comes on.  I am also turning on a heater a couple times a day to give them a little extra heat. Last year I didn’t have the extra heat and the basement was more around 60-70F and that could have been a contributing factor.

They were all planted in individual cells in regular potting soil. The calls are also covered with a hard plastic shell to retain moisture and help keep the temperature up. They soil is pretty moist and I think in a few cells it is a little too wet but we will see.  Overall I am pretty hopefully for them and excited to see when they start to come up!