Happy Spring Day!

.. or more like summer day because it was 80 degrees here. Yes, first day of spring was balmy 78 and today is 80. And we've been told that hard frost coming Monday and Tuesday night. Oy. But for now I can enjoy my forthysia that decided to bloom over a month early. It really lovely in person and makes my yardwork so much more enjoyable. So while I'm shoveling that huge pile of dirt I get to enjoy pretty colors. And today I checked on my seedlings - tomatoes and peppers to see if they need to be transplanted into larger containers. And suddenly realized that I'm your local village idiot. Oh the seedlings are doing just fine. But can you spot a problem with the picture? I'll give you a hint - it's not the missing plants. I have another tray with 46 others that will be mostly in containers or given away that have the same problem. Maybe I should just toss it all and start all over. :(

13 comments:

  1. Maybe the good weather's gone to my head. Maybe I should wait to read a few comments before weighing in, but I honestly cannot figure out what's wrong with that picture! What am I missing?

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    1. Jody - this previous post might help you recognize the problem :(
      http://simplegardenmadeeasy.blogspot.com/2012/03/alot-more-seeds-planted.html

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  2. I don't see anything wrong, except there are no markers to tell the variety. Is that it? Or is it that they are leggy? That's no problem at all, I like them that way. Just go buy yourself a couple of packages of big red cups at Walmart (they were $2.99 for 50 sixteen ounce cups last week)and some potting mix, and pot them up....take off those first leaves and bury the stems all the way up to the bottom leaves. Give them a drink (some half strength liquid fish or seaweed fertilizer is good) and put them back under the lights. Try to keep the lights about 2" above the tops of the plants. I do the same thing with leggy peppers, cabbage and broccoli.

    Oh, if you do that, cut the mesh off of those in the top photo before potting them.

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    1. ding ding ding! we have a winner! I have over 25 varieties planted and not a single label. I kept a list of what I planted but I forgot to label them afterwards and now they've been turned and moved and I have no clue which is which :(

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    2. p.s. leggy is fine as i always replant them about 3 weeks after seeding.:)

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    3. So what? Every day you'll have a surprise! I had my labels fade one year, so I didn't have any idea what most of them were. They were still good. You can always separate the potato leaf varieties from the others, which would narrow it down a bit. Once they begin bearing fruit you'll be able to identify many of them. The only problem I can see would be whether they are a small determinate or a huge indeterminate, so you'd have to plant each one with the expectation of it growing huge.

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    4. I guess I'll just have to settle that I'll have a rainbow of heirlooms and hope that they taste good. Only two I know for sure - green and red zebra because you can't really miss them. And they are all indeterminate. I will have some potato-leaf so I hope to separate them that way, but I really hoped to put together name and taste and come up with a narow plan for next year. Oh well. Lesson learned.

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  3. You are going yo have a lot of fun this summer trying to figure out which is which! If you decide to start over, you still have plenty of time. I have not even started mine yet- for two reasons. With such a small garden they go in May 15 no matter how warm the spring is. I don't like to have them under the lights for more than 4 weeks.

    Personally, I would go for the mystery every time I went out to harvest them.

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    1. I will replant only 2 varieties because I really want to know what they are (they had mixed reviews) but I guess the rest I'll keep for guessing game.

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  4. I'm like Ed. I like my tomato plants about 4 weeks old. It is totally against what most people do. I've had others try it and hate it, but it works for me.

    I would think the hard part would be which ones to plant (unless you are planting them all). I always grow too many so I have backups if needed. Though if each row is a variety then you are all set.

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    1. Daphne - I have very hard time tossing out seedlings so they'll be all planted. About 40 of them will be in the large garden, another 5 in original garden and the rest will be containers on patio.

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  5. I'm glad I waited to comment because I couldn't figure out your problem. But oh I see what a surprise your summer will be.

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    1. :) surprise is definite because I will have to use their descriptions/pictures to compare to see what i got :)

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