You know how they say “time to make the donuts?” Well, this is just like that except that it’s time for us to make new plants, instead! Yep, our efforts to get on a good schedule with our seedlings began this past weekend. We got all four trays planted and incubated without issue.
As we said a few posts ago, this year we’re going to endeavor to not “cook” our poor seedlings; rather, we’re only keeping them shielding by a sheet of mylar on the front of the shelving unit until the seeds start to germinate. (The mylar on the back of the unit will stay as it helps aid in reflecting the light.) Once the seedlings start to grow, we’ll remove the front sheet and simply keep them warm, when needed, using one of our portable heaters.
In terms of what’s actually in the trays, here are our seed maps for the year:
In the first two trays are only tomatoes. Larger varieties are in Tray 1…
…while we placed smaller varieties, such as cherry and grape tomatoes, in Tray 2. Any dated notations in each tray refer to saved seeds and the years in which we saved them.
Tray 3 is all about peppers. We’ve got four rows of hot peppers (A, B, C, and D), followed by all sweet peppers. The exception is the Jalapenos in Row L. We haven’t had very good luck with them in the past; figured that perhaps placing them on an end row might make a difference? (Eh, we don’t have a scientific basis for this, but it can’t hurt, anyway.)
And then in Tray 4, we planted a couple more rows of pepper seeds, and then filled up the rest of the rows with this year’s experiment: starting flowers indoors!
While we’ll be planting flower seeds directly come May, we wanted to see if we could give any a head start with indoor planting. You might not believe it (we sure didn’t!), but here, just a few days after planting the seeds, some of the Ornamental greens and Nema-Gone marigold seedlings are already coming up! It’s rather amazing!
We’ll be keeping a close eye on things here in the first couple weeks. Then, once more seedlings starts to emerge in earnest, we’ll be doing even more babysitting to ensure that they grow strong and hardy. Seed starting is always a lot of work and worry, but hopefully it’ll all pay off in 6-8 weeks time.
Garden State-ments 
What a variety of seeds. Good luck keeping them all straight! Now all we have to get is some continual warm weather not this up and down stuff. Brrrrr!
Agreed! We’re not looking forward to the deep freeze this weekend. But at least we know our seedlings will be nice and warm!
Starting snapdragons indoors to give them a head start is a good move. Marigolds are pretty quick direct seeded outside, but I always start some indoors because I can’t wait for them to bloom and brighten up the potager…same with nasturtiums. Best of luck this season!
Thanks, and good luck to you as well with your flowers! We’re new to snapdragons, so it good to know that we might be doing right by them. We’ve been growing marigolds for a couple years now, and yes, they are super easy to grow — and they seem to do well just about anywhere!
I know you always grow a variety of tomatoes, but I’m still excited to see your colorful harvest this year.
Finger crossed that we do better with the tomatoes this year. No tomato seedlings have popped up yet, but it’s still quite early. Hopefully good things are yet to come!