Spring Garden Update – Sprouting Seedlings

Well, this is an exciting week to give an update on the garden! The garden is full of sprouting seedlings! Aren’t those tiny seedlings amazing?? The last ones holding out are the green onions, but I’m hopeful they will be up any day now. I must admit, I check on those boxes every day (and sometimes twice) to  see what else has popped its head above ground. It’s really quite exciting! The little sprouts just push their way up through the dirt – moving every obstacle out of the way. Up up to the light!

I also started some tomato and eggplant seeds indoors a few weeks ago. Both those, and peppers, are supposed to be planted as transplants in March, and not as seeds. I didn’t buy any pepper seeds this year, so I cheated and bought two starter plants at the nursery. But the tomatoes and eggplant I’m starting from seed. The tomatoes took off right away. In just a couple of days we had sprouting seedlings. But the eggplant is another story. 3 weeks later I still have no sprouts.

(Since the time of writing this post, I have learned that both eggplant and pepper/chile seeds need a heating pad or other way to warm them to sprout efficiently. You can use this for tomatoes as well, although they are not as dependent on it. For this reason I typically start all three of these in the same container, so I can set it on a heating pad, set to low, until they sprout.)

For starting these indoor seeds, I got some Jiffy seed starter trays, dropped the seeds into those, and put them, damp, into their little “greenhouse” with the lid closed. Once the tomatoes sprouted, I propped open the lid, then took it off, and moved them under a grow light. I’ve read that for tomato seedlings it is important to have the right amount of light. The light should sit just 2-3 inches above the little plants to encourage strong, straight growth. So we invested in a small countertop grow light that fits on the kitchen counter. (Good thing I cleared the counter clutter with those kitchen wall baskets last month!)

I can’t wait to get all these sprouting seedlings transplanted into the garden in another month or so!