(Warning: Even more terrible, terrible pictures taken with my worthless phone camera!)
I actually thought today was supposed to start off cloudy and cold, but that the sun would come out and warm things up. It never did.
So instead of trying to do anything outside this afternoon when I got off work, I just took Mo around the yard then came back in and potted up some of the little tomato seedlings that I had started earlier.
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| Cherokee Purple seedlings. |
I potted up 10 Cherokee Purple tomato seedlings (started from seeds I saved last summer) into individual pots, then divided the other seven between two pots (those are my "spares" in case something happens to any of the 10). I don't plan on putting all 10 of those into my garden, but I went ahead and potted them up thinking I might give them to my daughters. Oldest daughter has grown lots of things in her tiny backyard before, and now youngest daughter is getting interested in growing some things too. She and her boyfriend don't own their own place yet, but I told her she can grow things like tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in containers, so I think that's what she's going to try to do. Cool!
And speaking of seedlings...boy do I have a bunch to get potted up!
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| Seedlings, ready to be separated into their individual pots. |
I would SWEAR that I only put nine seeds in each pot, but in looking at the San Marzano pot, it looks like I put three times that many in there! Maybe I was thinking about the last time I tried growing San Marzano tomatoes. A bunch of them turned out to be deformed - they only had one central leaf that came out from the cotyledons, instead of the normal two. Those were never going to grow into anything so it would have been good to have some extras. But goodness....
There are also Arkansas Traveler and Rutgers tomatoes to be potted up, along with the Jimmy Nardelo sweet peppers, the Poblano peppers, Jalapeno peppers, Cayenne peppers, and Banana peppers. I hope I don't run out of pots!
The broccoli, cabbage and kale were separated out into six-packs earlier, and they're looking pretty good now. They'll be ready to go out into the garden in a couple of weeks I think.
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| Green Calabrese broccoli. |
I'm also very pleased with the Early Frosty peas. I don't know why I made the toilet paper thing so hard last year. I've used it now for the Fava beans, the Snow Peas, and now the Early Frosty green peas, and I'm loving them! The Early Frosty peas have germinated very well and are now about 1" to 1 1/2" high. I'll probably put them out into the garden sometime in the next few days. I've decided they'll go on the north side of the trellis where the cucumbers were last year, but I will be sure to put some chicken wire around them this time to protect them from the rabbits! I'm going to put the cucumbers on that same trellis, but they'll go on the south side, and this year, I'm going to pinch out the side shoots so they don't just overrun the entire row. Last year they were so thick and un-pinched that I couldn't even find the cucumbers to harvest them!
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| Early Frosty Peas, two per toilet paper tube. These are almost ready to go out into the garden. |
And finally, an update on the Early Texas Grano onions. They are up to around 4" high now, and appear to be pretty strong and healthy in spite of the cloudy days we've had off and on here lately. I'm not quite sure when they'll need to go out into the garden, but I'm thinking maybe week after next?
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| Early Texas Grano onions (short day variety) |
I think I probably had about 80% germination on the onions, and since I tried to only put one seed per module, that left a few blank spots in the tray. I actually put some leek seeds in those the other day and a few of the leeks have started to come up. I expect the leeks that overwintered in the garden will go to seed this spring, and I'm ok with that. It will be fun and interesting to save some seeds from them.
All in all, the seed starting hasn't been a total flop like I was afraid it might be. Not sure why I thought that...maybe I just lost my confidence after last year. But since I've started separating things out into individual pots, it's time to get the last two new grow (shop) lights set up somewhere so they'll have a place to live for the next month or so. It's exciting to think that we're almost through February, which means spring is not very far away (at least not by the calendar).
The weather forecast models show warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico moving back over the southeastern United States, so when the next two cold fronts come through, again we'll have a risk of severe weather. It's still too far out to know for sure what kind of severe weather, and how bad it might be, but hopefully nothing too serious. I don't want it to come a hailstorm and take out my Fava beans and peas!
I guess "uncertainty" is really the name of the game when it comes to gardening/farming, isn't it....