Jumping the Gun

As I look at the calendar and then survey my seedlings it becomes readily apparent that I started up the first seedlings way to early. I don't really regret starting them early as I've already learned a lot from this first bunch. The clearest problem with starting a seedling flat with all sorts of different seeds from Cucumbers and Squash to Tomatoes and Basil is keeping the lights a couple inches above the seedlings. With things growing at such different speeds mixed flats invariably are too high above or too close to the various seedlings. Still the tomato seedlings are doing very well.


As early spring pushes on my desire to expand the types of tomatoes I'm going to grow this year has grown exponentially. I've ordered some more seeds, and have been given some seeds. The full list of varieties is as follows.

Black Cherry
Black Crimson
Carmello
Cherokee Purple
Italian Tree
Lollipop
Mexico
Tommy Toe
Brandywine
Bloody Butcher - (I couldn't resist the name)
Sweet Baby Girl
Druzba
Aunt Gerties Gold
Yellow Brandywine

With the expansion of so many different types it means I'm going to have to limit the number of each type to 2-4 or expand the garden more. Since we haven't finished the originally planned garden yet, its hard to think of expanding on the original plan. I guess that means I'm going to have to find homes for some of my seedlings.

Still we've been busy and the pea bed is fully excavated and is nearly ready for the peas to go into it. We just need to start on the next section so we can use the topsoil from it to fully fill in the pea bed. I filled up most of it this afternoon with 2cu ft bags of compost+soil from Home Depot. With the local places not delivering loam yet its the only options if we want to get our peas in on time. Those bags are heavy for me to move myself, but I managed.

We found plenty of large rocks as we dug out the pea bed. I'm very confident that by the time the garden is done we're going the have enough for a small castle.