I'm starting Chinense peppers today. Annuums will hopefully be next week.

So far just kale, cabbage (3 kinds) and celery. peppers and eggplant March first....

Not starting anything yet. I do have some edible mushrooms growing.

My cold frames are full of lettuce, kale, parsley, bunching onions, etc. so I don't have a need to start cool season stuff.

Alliums will be started soon.

My one time growing mushrooms was a little frantic.

It sure didn't start out that way. They went down to the basement - which I thought was a good location for them. The problem was that I became tired of checking on their growth - down stairs up stairs down stairs up stairs down ... Likely, I skipped a few days and *boom* there they were! I had to harvest and make use of them quickly ... turned out okay. The second harvest hardly warranted frequent checking but we got those also. Real Estate axiom - location, location, location.

Growing sprouts this winter - I was very attentive to location since they need that rinsing. The jars were located above the fridge in the kitchen. That location about to be drafted into service for starting garden plants. February 17th is burned into my brain as a *too early* date for anything - having caused myself some grief starting too soon way back when. About a week to 10 days later and here we go!!!

Steve

wondering about the effects of several days of sunshine on the onion seed planted in the unheated greenhouse - had to do some ventilating ... maybe it will be an early spring

Planted 2 annuums yesterday, Anaheims and Giant Sweet Devil's Horn. My neighbor politely asked if he could pick one Giant Sweet Devil's Horn, and went on to pick at least half of them through the summer. He asked if I could plant them again. So I will hopefully have a few for him to grow.

Off to bad start. I only put some parsley seeds in a sprouting container. Forgot to check daily and it dried out, so I am starting over. Hopefully, this is not an omen for this season.

My schedule says to start celery and spinach today and tomorrow and then lettuce, WOW tomatoes, and eggplants in the next 2 weeks.

Got a few (27 varieties of) things started today... 2022 garden, here we come!

I am focusing on cut flowers this year. I wintersowed several hardy annuals and started some indoor too. I plan on starting a lot of zinnias late March.

Set a cookie box of potting soil to soak and then drip on a greenhouse bench last night. Walked out this morning as the snow fell. Left the box to do some more dripping on the deck.

I came in to sort out the pepper seeds and realized that 2 varieties still haven't arrived! Checked the order and it isn't due until Wednesday!

Dang. This will be a tiny bit later than usual for me to start peppers. Well, at least the onion seedlings have begun to emerge out there in the unheated greenhouse.

I'm curious what cut flowers will be in @gardenchloe 's garden this year.

Steve

Hi Steve,

I am growing various types Cosmos, Zinnias, Celosia, Amanranth, Pincushion Flowers, Dahlias, Delphiniums, and Larkspurs from seeds. I bought some Oriental Lilies and Dahlia tubers. With existing Peonies, Hydrangeas, and Penstemons, im I’m hoping I’ll be making some bouquets to take to work and friends often. =)

Got around to some starts recently.

First up was sweet potatoes. Started with two organic varieties purchased from Natural Grocer. Should be getting slips in a couple weeks. Then I'll tear off the slips and transfer them to individual containers. This year I'll start them in a low tunnel and get a jump on the warm season.

Also got the alliums started. Yellow onions, leeks, two types of bunching onions and shallots.

Will get peppers started soon.

When do you put out your warm tunnel (and associated veggies), gjcore?

It varies but generally about middle of April. Usually at that time hard freezes are over with.

Wanting to wait until I had all the pepper seed ordered, I put those seeds in the soil mix - yesterday. It makes the insurance of later restarting some - if need be - later yet. Hopefully, the seed is viable and the conditions in the containers and kitchen are adequate that there will be a good stand of seedlings before long.

Peppers are a little frustrating for me to start. I don't really want to treat them much differently than anything else and they very nearly require it. Sometimes, a variety will be extra slow and show up days and days after the others in the same container. Not good - but I can generally compensate for it when they are moved to the 4-packs. (Yes, a heating mat would likely improve things but it would also complicate early arrangements on top of the fridge. ;o)

Soon, cool season plants will need to be started for the tunnel. That protective structure springs into place in about 2 weeks and there's no reason to wait for sown seeds to emerge from the 2 garden beds covered; transplants should provide a couple of weeks head-start and ... away we go!

Steve

I've got sprouts! Tomatoes and Sichuan buttons so far. :)

No signs of anything green with the pepper starts but ... onions!

There's some soil mix soaked for the long-season tomatoes. I'll let it drip for about 24 hours before bringing it in to the utility room for sowing some seed.

Steve

Yay, happy little onions!!

Tomatoes just popped up over the last couple of days, no sign yet of the peppers :/

Surprised to see that many of my peppers are jumping right up this year. Hopefully, I won't have problems with more than one variety / container and some crowding the others before they are separated into 4-packs.

Asian Veggies - Right now, In the South Window:

Top to bottom: Broccoli Raab, Kailaan, Chifu Choy, and Mei Qing Choy.

The greenhouse will be comfortable for them by the time they require separating. Then, the temporary hoop house should be in place when they are ready to be transplanted to a garden bed. By that time, there will be more of these started in the greenhouse and a sprinkling of seed around in the hoop house beds.

!! (Am I gettin ahead of myself ?? ! ;o)

Steve

Hooray!

I'm up to 71 sprouts, according to my spreadsheet (not yet updated for today's arrivals). My peppers are doing okay this year... some better than others, and the sweets slower than the hots (or nonexistent, in the case of California Wonder Bell).

One of my lil tomatoes came up with three cotyledons this year — never seen that before!

I should get a picture for you guys...

Three cotyledons maybe that's good luck like a four leaf clover!

Lots of my alliums have come up and today the first pepper broke the surface. Next up is eggplants followed by tomatoes, tomatillos and various flowers that provide nectar to the beneficial insects.

Not sure if I'm going to start any more cool season things as I have lots of volunteer lettuce, orach, parsley, radish. mustard and probably soon enough half a dozen other things that I've let go to seed. Though I will be direct seeding some peas sometime soon.

Good morning

I have some pre-germinated tomato seeds I can't use in case someone would like them. I have already planted 3 germinated seeds in each pot for each of these varieties, so these will go to waste if not claimed.

I have extras for these varieties:

Big Rainbow (pic below)

Cesu Agrais (small, early container plant I got free seeds from J&L and trying out)

Crnkovic

Woods Fmous Brimmer

Amish Paste

Black from Tula

Sungold

Cherokee Purple

Kellogg's Breakfast

San Marzano Redorta (like San Marzano, but large fruits)

"possibly" Beefsteak

Hey Jerry, 

I'll take some of your seeds. Can I get the Kellogg Breakfast,  Amish paste and the San Marzano Redorta? I can't make a pick up so GardenChloe will get them for me. BTW, the Kellogg Breakfast I got from you last year was my best performer.  I bought some new varieties this year if you are interested, my seeds should be here this week. 

DeziLo

Hi Dezi

These are little plants at this point , but you can lightly bury the whole plant. I'm going to send Beefstak too - a must grow.

Tell GC that I'll be here all day.

Jerry

I have some nice pepper seedlings -- and, I have more that haven't even broken the surface of the soil mix. They are somewhat of a frustrating species. The slowness of germination is one thing but the variability of the varieties adds to this.

Most of my plants are started "communally." That is, several varieties in a common container. If one variety grows A LOT while another takes a long time to start, there can be crowding as they compete for sunlight. Transplanting out into 4-packs is also awkward if the seedlings develop their secondary leaves and need transplanting at different times.

Friends want us to grow some pepper plants for them. Late to get us their saved seed, they were started later than all the other peppers. Fortunately, they want quite a few plants - so they occupy one container by themselves. They are starting to emerge this morning. Meanwhile, I have varieties that were sown 10 days earlier that haven't started showing up!

Steve

also impatiently waiting for the eggplant and additional tomatoes

Hi folks,

I found this chart regarding seed germination temps/duration. I especially like the second page with days to germination at various temps based upon their experiments.

Jerry

Germination Temperature

I was working this morning on trying to get better temperatures. My germination/grow area is in the basement and at this time of year the furnace doesn't run as much so the basement stays cool. Overnight it drops to 58 F and during the day it might get up to 66. Not the ideal temperature for warm season veges. I have two heat mats and they are always full. I'll keep the germination/humidity cover over the tray as much as possible and remove the individual containers at germination. The containers that don't make it on the heat mats I'll place as close as possible to the grow lights. The lights put off enough heat to at least warm the top part of the seed starter mix.

3/4s of the peppers have germinated, eggplants have started coming up and got most of the tomatoes started today.

Hi gjcore,

I decide to get a little more serious about germinations temps thsi year and it has worked great.

I pre-germinate all my seeds in baggies or small sealed containers (the little 2.5" round by 1" tall boxes for fishing flies). It is much easier to control temps og baggies/small containers than it is if you seed in pots. The tiny seeds (celery, lettuce, parsely,etc) go in the containers for easy access. The containers have 4 layers of moist paper towel on the bottom.

I like to pre-germinate for these reasons:

1. Get immediate feedback on seed viabiity

2. Don't waste space. the germination process takes very little spaceand you end up with zero failed pots taking up space under the lights.

3. Much less thinning needed - a real pain for lettuce and the like.

4. Greatly reduced chance of fungal infections. I never use a humidity dome - the seeds only need excess moisture to get started (radical only) and that happens in the baggie. I had one big run-in with damping off years ago and don't plan to repeat that.

I use this cheap heating pad:

This was $15 last year

Even at the low setting,it is too hot for direct contact with seeds - it runs about 98 degrees (I wonder why). To get over this, I elevate a 10x10 scrap piece of 1/4" plywood about 1.5" above the mat, allowing some venitlation. I also put the mat on my timer we use for setting lights when out of town. It can be set at 15 minute intervals.. If I go 2 off, then 1 on 24/7, I get about 80 degrees in the baggies. If I go 1 on, 1 off, I get about 86 degrees. As you can see from the chart, these are good temps for lots of varieties.

Here is the timer:

Timer with 15-minute increments

Here are some sample germination times so far this year:

Arugula 1 day

Celery 7 days

Spinach 4 days

Eggpalnt 4 days

Tomatoes 4 days

Pansies 4-7 days (2 varieties)

Lettuce 2-3 days

Jerry

There are several more of these little guys today. Late putting seed into the mix and the seed was surprisingly slow to germinate. Pansies.

Second sowing of tomatoes beginning to emerge.

May set up hoop house, tomorrow. These cloudy skies need time to clear!

Steve

I wonder why I only received an email notice of Jerry 's post yesterday afternoon.

And, here it says 7 days ago and I even posted a silly picture since then!

Well anyway ... there are flower seeds in the soil mix now. A few varieties (statice & gomphrena) have shown up and are in the South Window. Only some of the eggplant have emerged. Some very old Super Chili seed isn't up but more/newer seed is in the ground. And, the newly purchased Giant Marconi peppers had zero germination So Far!

Maybe I should be using Jerry's technique of pre-sprouting ...

Steve

Hi Steve,

I am growing three sweet peppers:

Jimmy Nardello

Giant Marconi

Melrose

I am just the opposite - the Giant Marconis started germinating first and are the ony ones potted so far. i baggied the seeds 3/22 and potted 6 Marconis 3/27. Still waiting on the others. I did see one or 2 Jimmy's starting to show.

Giant Marconis are for stuffing at our house.

Set out about 20 spinach starts yesterday. I have had very spotty luck with spinach and lettuce. I am going to try something I experienced by mistake years ago. When I had my first (4.5'x12') bed only, I planted lettuce under/between the tomato plants and we had lettuce for a long time. I am trying that this year with lettuce and spinach.

@Jerry said, "I pre-germinate all my seeds ..."

Jerry, do you have any trouble moving the sprouts? Tweezers or anything used ...?

I'm concerned that my digitS might not be up to that job - damaging seedlings!

Steve

Hi Steve,

Yes, I use tweezers. I try to pick up the seed casing only and not touch the radical. In baggies, store the baggy with the paper towel on top of the seeds so that whne the seeds germinate, they will try to grow down to the plastic and not get embedded in the paper towel. if that happens, you can just cut out a piece of paper towel and bury the whole thing. Even micro plants can be buried if you forget to check your seeds for a day or two.

These tweezers are my favorite style for grabbing seeds;

Some sources:

Wally

Snake

I have been putting 2-4 germinated seeds per pot, but I have had 100% conversion so far this year, so I will be just planting one germinated seed per pot going forward with the exception of when I plant directly to my big 3.5x3.5x5" pots - then I will put 2 seeds to be sure not to waste space.

I start tiny seeds in containers for better seed extraction access. You must check twice a day to avoid growth into the paper towel. Here is a container with Tendercrisp Celery seeds I did not use and have not yet cleaned out.

Finally here are my WOW tomatoes that were baggied exactly 3 weeks ago today. These plants were taller yesterday - I added about 3/4" of starting medium today. Eventually, the pots will be full.

Tomatoes will be started today. They get too tall if they’re planted much earlier. I’ve never pre-sprouted anything but beans and the extra tomato and pepper transplants are good for trading.

Tomatoz1, we are on the same age. I am starting tomatoes today that can be put out at the normal time. They will serve as backups in case something happens to the WOW tomatoes and to give away,

I have started these backupsgiveaways too early in the past and the big plants are a pain to care for.

Wow those toms look great, Jerry! <--- (see what I did there? Tom & Jerry? Muahaha.)

And yeah, ziploc bags and heated seed mats are a game changer for sure. I had some calendula flowers and tulsi basil pop up in less than 48 hours -- and those were four-year old seeds! Planted the calendula yesterday and will do the tulsi today.

I've started a few pots of what I call "perpetual" marigolds on the front porch that have re-seeded (with a little help) for over a decade now, and are sloooowly coming up, but that's okay because they're warm-weather plants and will grow like crazy come June.

Also, I've planted some fancy arugula, mache, orach and red kale in some milk jug "mini greenhouses", but they probably won't come up for a while yet. I'm starting to think I could've started them on the heat mat, as well...

--L

Hi Laura,

I see that you posted about California Poppies. I am growing California Poppies for the first time this year. I got some seeds from The Flower Bin and decided to pre-test them a couple of weeks ago. In baggies, no heat, they germinated in 24-48 hours. I would be starting seeds for real today, but i am heading out of town so it will wati until sunday>

Is anyone else growing weary of moving plants in and out most days? A couple of days ago, the long-term forecast was looking like it would be safe to plant out this weekend, but now i see temps near 40 late next week. That cold become 30s easily.

I think, starting tomorrow, I will leave them out 24/7 until the cool-down in about a week.

I'm only moving cool-season veggies around right now, Jerry.

It froze twice this week and I feel a little uncertain about the survival of onion transplants that went out in the distant garden between frosts. The WS says that the hills surrounding this valley will be covered with fresh snow by tomorrow morning.

Soooo, I put the plants in the carport, garage or back in the hoophouse.

Steve

When I harden off generally once I move seedlings outside that's where they stay. I do have what I call a hardening off box which is a small cold frame that sites near the deck on concrete. It's not big enough for all the seedlings but does make hardening off easier.

Those overnight 40s next week might be an issue if it changes to even cooler. Most warm season veges should be fine as long as it doesn't drop to 35ish. The only thing I would give protection to or bring in would be basil with the current forecast.

Yeah, my pampered basil stays inside until like mid-summer. ;)

I don't like going in and out a lot, either. That's why I start my sensitive temp stuff so late compared to some folks. Like my tomatoes were started on April 20th are only 3-4 inches tall, and my peppers (not counting the ones I overwintered in the house) are barely sprouts. I'll put them all out when there's a full week of nights in the 50s, which typically happens around the first or second week in June.

These days I just choose very short season cultivars and call it good.

--L

@laura I admire your self control. Personally I am unable to wait and I always start things too soon, spend April/May moving everything in and out, stick stuff in the ground under protection, and say a prayer to the Frost Gods! Today I am working in our mountain garden which is big but, at 7000 feet not very hospitable. Did the altitude stop me from putting the chilis in the ground? Heck no:

Time will tell. there they will live, ignored until we come back Memorial Day weekend...

Returning to the subject of fresh greens, I was pleased to find a collard that had overwintered and was putting out new leaves! out it came (to make room for the peppers) and voila, stir fry baby collards! Yum...

Yum. That's cool about the collards! What variety was it, and where was it overwintering? I'm always on the search for the hardiest most bullet-proof greens, and haven't had one overwinter yet, despite mulching, etc. I've tried using frost cloth, and a cold frame of sorts, but eventually they hard freeze or else get some sort of grayish purple aphids that om-nom-nom on them.*

Also, what peppers? I've always had lower yields on mine if I put them out early, but that could just be the cultivars I tend to grow.

*edit -- Now that I think about it, it could just be the location on the garden beds, which are on the north side of our home. Bad for overwintering, but not so terrible for keeping summer greens a tad cooler.

The collards are ”Georgia Southern” and i picked up the packet at the local nursery last year. the packet says it is an heirloom. I grow a combination of Pueblo and Anaheim chiles which gives about the right amount of heat for my family chili pot (we are kinda wimpy). Plus some biquinhos for pickling, and jalapeno and thai for cooking. I dry some of the Thai and grind them up for recipes...

Oh and the collard was in full sun. one of the curled Scotch kales came through the winter there as well, and I didn’t do a thing to help them!

Laura, those aphids are cabbage aphids. Not easy to get rid of I've heard because most predators don't like eating them evidently they're a bad tasting bug. When they start getting a foothold the leaves curl around protecting them. grrrr. Constant checking for them and spraying them off helps as well as soapy sprays sometimes. Sometimes I just give up and pull the plants.

gjcore -- Yeah, those aphids are the WORST. Thanks for the I.D.! Between those and flea beetles, any brassica is a challenge to grow in my garden, even with row cover.

As an experiment, I started some dwarf sunflowers ("Elves Blend") in toilet paper tubes under grow lights, and they have transplanted to a big pot without any trouble. I had a bit of fungus or mold growing on the soil (from the cardboard?) even though I watered from the bottom, but a few dustings of cinnamon kept it at bay. Now they're just hanging in there until I can put them out on Friday when it finally warms up here again.

After last week, I don't dare plant out any zinnias or nasturtiums or sunflowers directly in the ground until June. Silly, fickle weather. Hmmmph.

--L