Veggie Babies

On March 7th we had our 3rd annual planting party indoors.  We planted many of the seeds given to us by Scott's parents, as a housewarming gift, from Johnny's Seeds.  Pretty much everything was selected for taste, and not especially disease resistance.  The zucchini squash 'Costata Romanesco' is supposed to be half as productive and taste twice as good.  Since we usually have too many zucchinis, we're good with that.  Our strategy with the tomatoes is that we will keep them in the raised beds until they are too diseased to produce anything. They are 'Paisano' and 'San Marzano'.  We also have leeks and shallots from Johnny's Seeds.

We had some leftover 'Jelly Bean' cherry tomatoes from last year, Anaheim peppers and Serrano peppers.

  

The oregano seeds are from Johnny's; the basil is leftover from 2012.  Have you ever seen oregano seeds?  They are so small they look like dust!  They can't be planted and covered with soil.  They must be left on top of the soil to sprout.

All of the babies were put in peat pots (a Jiffy tray from Walmart - $5) and covered with a clear lid.  I'd really recommend investing in a heating mat for germination.  Our peppers, tomatoes and basil sprout in half the time and we get a better germination rate when we use it.  You have to read the directions on the packet because some plants, like parsley and oregano, prefer to be left to germinate at room temperature.

Some of them germinated at the end of the second day, and before we knew it, we had some babies with true leaves.  

True leaves are foliage leaves, unlike the first set of leaves that emerge from the seed.  When the true leaves emerge, it's time to fertilize your tomatoes. The following pictures were taken on March 19th, 12 days after planting.

Here are some nasturtiums.  They really didn't do well in Colorado.  They hated the alkaline soil.  I'm hoping I will have better luck with them here in our SC acidic soils.

And here is a closeup of a baby tomato plant.  It is saying, "Gimmee some nitrogen!"

We started a little late with our warm season crops.  The locals tell us this is the coldest winter they've experienced in years, so we're not too worried about our late start.  It's just starting to warm up.  Yesterday's high was 74 degrees and the night low was 44 degrees.