Seed Starting Success

The tomatoes are off and running!  This picture was taken 2 days ago.  The seedlings have their first set of real leaves and are ready to be thinned and more dirt added to their cups.  The cool thing about tomatoes is that they will develop roots along their stems, so if you add dirt to the seedlings while they're growing, you'll end up with transplants with stronger and more developed root systems.  When you plant them out, you can plant them deeper than you normally would (so that only the leaves are showing above ground) for an even better chance for growing more roots and doing better in the garden. 

On Thursday, I watered the seedlings with a shot of seaweed and fish emulsion, diluted in a lot of water of course, and this is what the seedlings looked like this morning.

Yikes!  They grew like crazy in just a matter of days!  On the agenda today is thinning the seedlings and adding more soil to the cups.  I will actually pot up the seedlings I thin out, so I'll have double the number of most varieties.  Some of these are already over the top of their cups and it's almost time to adjust the lights up so they don't touch the bulbs.  I will continue to fertilize them with the seaweed & fish emulsion mixture weekly.  I also need to sow my peppers and a few herbs.

I received my order of onion sets from Dixondale Farms this past Wednesday!  I ordered a short-day sampler (1015Y, Texas Early White, and Red Creole) and a bunch of Texas Legend onions.  Those also need to get planted today.  This year, I ordered their organic fertilizer and plan to use that to see if it helps my onion harvest.  I've had less than stellar results with onions the past 3 years and I'm determined to have success this year.  I absolutely LOVE onions and would plant that exclusively if my husband didn't think we needed other veggies and such in the garden. 

Potato Update and Onions

The potatoes are flourishing in their new settings. I check them occasionally to make sure they're not getting soggy or rotting. So far, so good!

Red Norland

Kennebecs and Purple Vikings

Banana Fingerlings

My "walrus" banana fingerling

But, apparently, the best place for potatoes to start budding out is in the basket where I keep the potatoes from the grocery store!



Another new veggie in the garden this year is onions. We tried, very unsuccessfully last year to grow them. We planted them wayyyyyyyy too late and they gave up the ghost before we really even got started. Here are the onions waiting to go out. I have 2 bunches of red burgundy and 3 bunches of 1015Ys, "the" sweet Texas onion. Their packed in some dirt and I water them about every other day. Didn't want to leave them without water as they'd die. Still a few weeks away from planting time, so I gotta keep them babies alive!



In other news, the seeds are sorted and my catalog of what we're growing is made. I'm still looking for a few things, like a different okra variety and possibly another variety of pole beans. Other than that, I think we're set! To see my spreadsheet, you can visit it on Google docs. Stephanie's Spring 2010 Plant List Once you get there, just click on the blue links at the bottom to go to either herbs, flowers, or veggies.