right now the sunny windowsill is being used as a seed starting greenhouse. this is one time where my procrastination is actually a good thing. if i was any more productive, i would simply run out of space.
also, it looks like my second round of peppers, as of now, can be classified as a success. although, i'm not sure exactly what it was that made the difference. at first i thought it was using the heating pad for the first two weeks. but then i found a few of the first round pepper seeds, that i stopped watering and put down in the cold basement, had germinated. what the hell?!? maybe i gave up on them to quickly. i can tell you, however, that the second round is doing pretty well and i will probably continue to use the heating pad method in the future. here is what i did different. first off, i was more patient with them. i also started them in little individual newspaper pots, which they seem to really like. i kept them on a heating pad for a good two weeks and kept watering them everyday till i saw their little heads start to poke out of the soil, which took about 9 days. (except for the fish peppers. it's been 20 days and i'm just now seeing one seed poking it's head out.) once they started to get leaves, i moved them over to the sunny window to soak up the sun. so now the second round of peppers are just as big as the surviving peppers from the first round.
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| lookin good!!!! |
now that the peppers seem to be on their way, i can focus all my worries back on the tomatoes. they just don't seem to be growing much. maybe it's because i see them everyday, but i just remember last year they seemed to grow at a much faster rate. previously, i think a gave them a small side dressing of worm poop a couple of times. these seeds were sown about a 1 1/2 months ago and haven't received any kind of nourishment, other than what is in the compost. i do have some left over mycorhizzal granules from mushroom mountain that i brought with me from greenville that i decided to try. i gave half the tomato plants a taste test of them to see what happens. after a few days if those plants still look ok, i'll give some to the rest of the tomato plants. hopefully this will help kick start a little growing phase, because i'm just so worried that the tomatoes will still be so small when it's time to plant them outside. but, then again, i don't plan on putting them in the ground here till late april, just to be on the safe side. cause literally, just last week i was wearing sandals to work, and this morning there was about 3-4 inches of snow in the backyard. so that still gives them 4 more weeks to grow.
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| this little guy looks pretty good. |
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| this little guy needs to grow. grow, tomato, grow!!! |
now, even though the majority of the windowsill space has gone to seed starting, i do have one pot that i dedicated to strictly growing and harvesting something edible completely indoors. this is my arugula shoots. man oh man, these little seeds germinated quickly and are going to town. i sowed the seeds on the 16th and the picture below was taken on the 24th. that's just 8 days!!! look how big they are already!!!! not to mention, they not even hanging out in the sunniest of sunny windows. this window is an east facing window that is partially blocked by a tree and the house next door. it's also home to some left over tomato starts. so once all the tomatoes and other starts are outside, this window is going to be used to grow various microgreens for some good eating. i'm also going to sow a pot of arugula, with just a few seeds to the pot, to see if i can get some full size heads on the east windowsill.
now go grow something!!!!!
p.s. garden note to self: argula germinated in just a few days. peppers did well on heating pad and germinated around day 9 and most had seed leaves as of day 17. at 1 1/2 months gave the tomatoes a little bit of mycorhizzal granules.
