Seedling Table Update

The seedling table is taking its sweet time this year, partially due to the colder temperatures, which have made the back room where the seedlings are quite a bit cooler than last spring. I inadvertently made the problem worse by putting a fan in there to toughen up the seedlings, a mistake I’ve since rectified. I’ll put it back once the temperatures rise into the 50’s during the day on a consistent basis, because I do want to toughen the plants up for our windy upstairs porch.

marigold seedlings

As far as the seedlings’ progress, the peppers are finally starting to pop. We have 7-8 California wonders, a handful of jalapenos, and two Anaheim chilies. Each day more peppers are coming up, so it won’t be long until they are all up now.

starting to look like something...

The eggplants are doing great. I think every single Black Beauty seed germinated, so we’ll have some extra plants to give away. If you’ve never grown them, they are incredible if you love eggplants. Last summer I ended up with one plant from a mix package (which I’ll never use again for reasons I explain in this blog post. It ended up in a 6.5 gallon container crowded with two other plants, one round white and one long. Even from this small, crowded plant we ended up with several large, delicious, eggplants the size of a loaf of bread. This year I plan on treating them better, giving them more space, and hopefully reaping a larger harvest.

Black beauty from last summer

Tomatoes are all up and doing well, with the exception of the purple tomatillos and the sundried tomato variety (Principe Borghese). Germination rates for these have been extremely low. I did re-seed the pots, so we’ll see if they come along in the next few weeks. We do have two plants of each, but that’s about a 30% success rate. It could be the cold, though. Time will tell.

Petunias are in the foreground, in front of forget me nots

Finally, I’m excited to say that we have petunias! Last year I planted an entire seed packet of petunias and got one tiny little plant that promptly died. This time around they look great, so I’m hoping they continue to develop well. I love petunias, but buying them from the nursery can be expensive (especially for the unusual colors). This is a mixed color pack, which was the only type of petunia seed they had at the nursery. I also got some Chinese forget me nots, which look similar to other forget me nots, but bloom continuously all summer rather than just in the spring. Those seem to be doing well, as do the marigolds and zinnias.

Zinnias

 Until next time, happy gardening!