I plan to start my tornado and pepper seeds this Weekend since the temp staying at upper 50’s and 60’s the next few weeks.
Tony
Start your tornado seeds?
I’m buying a few plants this year. I would have them well starting by now if I were planting seeds. I wound have started Tomato 2-3 weeks ago. I like to start Eggplant and pepper very early (January) and get them really big before they go out.
Last year, I followed the predicted advice on timing from the Farmers Almanac and felt behind all year. This year I got my jerry rigged potting shed working good enough for a hard freeze and got everything started much earlier. The greens and brassica have been in the yard for the last week, and I am planning on hardening off my tomatoes over the next week. I will probably start a couple trays of backups both for succession planting and for protection against a bad freeze later. We’re still mathematically a month out from our last frost date.
I started some peppers the other day, they take longer for me to get going. Tomatoes in a week or two.
I started peppers and tomatoes 2 weeks ago. In April they will be transplanted into containers and moved to my unheated greenhouse but won’t go into the ground until mid-May or even later.
By starting early I eventually double my pepper crop and add a month to my tomato harvest.
Started my tomatoes and peppers on Superbowl Sunday. Typically I wait until tax day to plant them out. Started all my annual bedding plants too. Peas and onions are in the garden already.
I started onions, and I usually start peppers and tomatoes earlier too, but I have other projects going on this year. So crop will be late this year. I’ll resume normal times next year. I bought more lights now too, but I don’t plan to put them up till next winter.
Sometimes starting early is a plus, sometimes it is not. Last year we had some early diseases and my later starting plants performed better. The year before the early ones did great! I usually have a 2nd round of tomatoes and peppers for spots I find I can fill. Or varieties I need to try right now. Every year I always grow veggies or varieties I never grown before. Always exploring, Fun!
I planted sweetcorn two weeks ago and it started coming up during a string of 22-30F nights. It’s now 3 inches tall and dark green. That’s all due to our warm sunny days.
That’s going so well that I planted melons yesterday under/near black weed barrier. It’s going to cool off next week so I may need to help that along with some clear poly by day and insulation at night. I tend to go overboard on these things.
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Tony, it sounds like a good time to start seeds.
I planted peppers in January to get the plants big. It was probably too early. I grow them under CFLs and they are in a south window. I have a sunroom which is their next location. Then there there is room for tomatoes and eggplants.
Outside, I planted cool soil tolerant and frost tolerant plant seeds, radishes, scallions, turnips, kohlrabi, fava beans, and mesclun. Soil temp is 60 in the lower ground, 62F in low raised bed, and 65 in higher raised bed. The higher raised beds have concrete block sides, capped with paving stones. I think they warm up faster. Garlic overwintered and is growing nicely.
Perennial vegetables are growing nicely. Chinese chives and multiplier onions for scallions. We already had Chinese pancake with the scallions and dumplins filled with the chives.
The real warm weather ones are no where close to being planted. That’s May for me. Corn, okra.
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Tony,
We worked the garlic and potatoes in about a week ago. Onions, mustard, and turnips should be in already. The indoor seed is typically just tomatoes and peppers for us.
Onions just started to emerge. Cat decided to fertilize them so they got a week setback. I let a local greenhouse start my tomatoes and peppers because I like to transplant small plants in late May.
Tomatoes only, so far. Everything else of mine will be plants I buy or seeds that go right into the ground. Waiting for my potatoes to arrive!
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Started vegetable seeds in late January/early February here (North Texas, 8a). I’m growing 10 tomato plants, 16 peppers, 7 eggplants, and 2 tomatillos. I let a few dry out and fail to sprout, so I am soaking some seeds tonight to pot up (very late for our area, we’ll see how they handle the outside). The last two weeks I’ve also been planting onion starts.
Peppers, I could start now, but I don’t start Tomatoes until the beginning of April, and I plant them out at about six weeks. Any earlier, and I run out of indoor space waiting for May 24, the traditional start of warm-weather gardening in Toronto.
My favourite thing to start is definitely the herbs. I just love how things like Basil and Thyme already smell like mature herbs as soon as they break ground. Touch the little Basil and Thyme cotyledons, and your fingers smell like Basil and Thyme! Which reminds me, Parsley is usually slow to germinate for me. Time to start some now!
I started sweet peppers in the beginning of February, because they grow slowly and do not take that much space as tomatoes. Some of my tomatoes were started in the middle of February as well. I have an interesting experiment this year. I bought soil warming cables and I am going to make a small low tunnel where I will sow the rest of tomatoes right in the ground, as well as all the other veggies. The early spring makes this project easier.
Tony, I always have a couple of plants for each variety of tomatoes as a backup. I always give them away later in the spring. I can give some to you if you want them.
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OK. I will pick them up when I stop over your house to drop off the extra Scions in 3 weeks or so. Thanks.
Tony
Bleedingdirt, it is probably too hot on your bay window, and tomatoes grow too fast. To save them, I would try to replant them in bigger pots with stems in the soil up to cotyledon leaves. Also I think your weather should be warm enough for them to be outside. If it is so, you can harden them off and grow outside.
I grow some hybrids like African blue basil and it is really a shrub so you can grow it all year, for numerous years. It flowers but never produces seeds. It does not decline or die from flower production. Mine is about a year old now. Stronger than normal basil, so you use less. By far my favorite basil. Fun to grow others though too.I save seeds from my other basils. I’m probably not growing any this year, or will start them late. I overwinter Mexican oregano, Mexican bush oregano, thyme, rosemary and basil. i can’t wait to get them outside though! They need more light by this time of year.