High Dry Farm, Sultan, Washington….Certified Organic
As Spring has transitioned to Summer, I am wrapping up sales of tomato starts. I delivered 300 plants, in gallon containers, to local stores, and almost all of these have sold. Another 120 went into my garden. A couple dozen more are being moved into 5 gallon containers, for growth in the greenhouse. The root balls of the remainder will be composted to create potting soil for next year.
Finally, 1100 tomato seedlings (115 heirloom varieties) moved into individual 3″ pots. Now I will have just a week or two of rest before i have to start transplanting them into 4″ and/or 5″ pots in preparation for taking them to retail outlets.
One thing always amazes me. The 115 varieties differ so much in their growth habits that I can identify most of the varieties based solely on the appearance of the 4″ tall seedlings.
Hmmm… it looks like I will be busy this weekend. Time to transfer 1000 tomato seedlings into individual 3″ pots.
It is Spring and the gentle March sun warms the daffofils …. oh wait, I forgot, I live in the Pacific Northwest. When I visited my tomato seedlings in the greenhouse this morning, this is what I saw.
My parsley, lettuce, broccoli and Brussels sprout seedlings just grew their first “true” leaves, so I replanted them into their own pots in the greenhouse.
I just placed a new addition in my greenhouse. This 3′ x 4′ bed of sand is warmed to 74 degrees by a buried 250 watt heating cable. My first little tomato seedlings look a little weak and leggy – let’s see what a few days in the new environment do for them.
Today I will begin planting seeds indoors for tomato plant starts. This year I plan to plant the following varieties. Are there any varieties I should add to the list? 
A one-day hiatus in the rainfall allowed me to get 75 Seascape strawberry plants set into the garden. I kept this bed covered with plastic for several weeks, which kept the soil dry enough to be worked.
Equinox defines the two dates each year at which day and night are of equal length. A more useful set of dates for gardeners are the dates at which the day starts and stops being longer than 10 hours, because this is the minimum number of daylight hours required to allow growth of most plants. I call this the veginox. Here in the Seattle area, at latitude 47N37, the spring veginox is February 8 and the winter veginox is November 3.
You may determine the dates for veginox at your location by using this form.
Today the greenhouse is pleasantly warm. Onions, parsley, lettuce, brussel sprouts and broccoli seedlings all look very happy.
[office src=”https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=6F410600A06B3D79&resid=6F410600A06B3D79%2140068&authkey=ALlCbp1EeLfXJj8″ width=”320″ height=”180″]
You must be logged in to post a comment.