As I write this post tonight it is once again snowing. Yes, April 15th and still snowing! We just finished enjoying a weekend with temperatures near 80 degrees. Hopefully this will be the last snow, but who knows. You may recall in my last post on April 7, 2014, I posted a few pictures of the last snow storm on March 30th, during which we received 8 inches.
First of all, the sweet Spanish onions that I planted on March 8th, 2014, are doing quite well. I described in detail how I planted them on my post of that same date (http://dansgardening.blogspot.com/2014/03/its-time-to-start-some-vegetables.html).
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| Sweet Yellow Spanish Onions |
The tomatoes that I planted on March 25th, 2014 (http://dansgardening.blogspot.com/2014/03/its-tomato-starting-time.html) are also coming along quite well. I reported in an earlier post that the seeds didn't germinate very well, but since then more of them have sprouted. In the meantime I also planted more seeds, so in the end I should have more than enough seedlings.
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| Tomato Seedlings - Planted 3/25/14 |
As you may notice, some of the tomato seedlings are developing their second set of leaves. At this stage, I normally transplant the seedlings into individual peat pots filled with potting soil, I will detail this procedure in future posts.
The transplant stage is a very important step in developing strong and healthy tomato plants. It allows each plant to have adequate space and nutrients to develop strong root systems. During this stage I will also place them outside in my greenhouse as much as possible to help "harden them", which means to acclimate them to more realistic weather conditions compared to indoors. If tomato plants are kept indoors, most likely they will become too tall and "spindly" compared to those allowed to be outside as much as possible.
Finally, an update on winter sowing. You may recall that in my post on February 4, 2014, I described the winter sowing process (http://dansgardening.blogspot.com/2014/02/winter-sowing.html), which basically involves planting seeds in plastic containers and placing them outside during the winter. In the spring as temperatures warm, the seedlings will emerge.
Below are the results I am getting from two different types of lettuce seeds that I planted using this technique:
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| Romaine Lettuce - Planted 2/4/14 |
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| Red Serpent Lettuce - Planted 2/22/14 |
These two containers are yielding good results. At this point they should be treated as normal seedlings, that is they obviously can't be left outside at sub-freezing temperatures once the seeds sprout. This process is amazing and it always surprises me that it really works! Considering the photo below shows when the containers were buried in the snow in February:
Until next time.
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