Garden 2020!

Because the back deck garden did so well, in my opinion, we are going to try again this year but are starting plants ourselves.

A couple of weeks ago I went out to find seeds for this year's garden. I found some Brandywine heirloom tomato seeds. I remember Brandywine tomatoes as being so luscious and flavorful that I had to buy them.  There were several other heirloom tomato plants I wanted to grow but Dear One asked me how many tomatoes we were going to eat.  Good question!  With the raw tomato allergy, it does not make sense to raise lots of them.  Or does it?!  I can dry them. I can turn them into sauce and can them.  OR I can dice them and can our own diced tomatoes.  How good is that?!!  So, I started tomatoes.

On 27 January I planted eight or ten Jiffy peat pellets with 2 seeds in each one after re-hydrating them with water.  On the 31st those little babies pricked through the soil!  I was so thrilled to see them. 

We got a clamp-on shop lamp and put a sunshine lightbulb into it.  After watching a few gardening videos on YouTube by the Rusted Garden, Dear One ordered a different lightbulb for our plants.  Apparently the seedlings need to have specific lights 2 inches away from them as they start growing...so in fact, we were late in putting in the light. Because of this on 4 February I started a few more seeds growing.  These kids came through the soil on the 7th of February!  These little guys have  had their lights at 2 inches above them from the moment they came through the soil. I am going to note the difference in growing.

Here are the seedlings with two seeds per peat pellet in the clear plastic Rubbermaid tote and the lamp clamped on.

Plant wisdom is that you start two seeds in each pellet then, when they are up and growing, you pinch out one of them.  This is very HARD TO DO!!!  Cutting off the life of one dear little plant seems so wrong. But I did it. I did apologize to the plants as I was doing it and thanked them for their service to my soul in coming up and growing so well.

Gary at the Rusted Garden also gives the advice that the tomatoes will do better if you take them out into the sunshine any day the temperature is above 50 degrees.  This will apparently kill any potential mold or other nasties in the "soil" plus will start hardening off the plants from about day one! 

Our little pals have been out several days.  They went out last Friday when we were having big wind.  I went out after 45 minutes and those poor little creatures were lying on their sides, just like trees at the head of a canyon in Utah!!!  I brought them inside and told them they had had enough sun for the day.  Now they are really happy again, and standing straight up.