"I'm dreaming of a White Palm Sunday..."

If we look at the larger picture, we're still more than three weeks from our average last frost date in this area, and it's hardly unusual to have a late dusting of snow.  But yesterday, it snowed all day long.  There were some area schools that had a delayed start time today.  Last year at this time, the trees were all in bloom and we were actually planting some things outside.

Our seedlings, however, are doing splendedly.  The tomatoes are especially tall (perhaps even a little leggy), and I took some time yesterday to thin eveything out -- no more than one plant per cell.  It always bothers me, throwing away perfectly good plants, but I know it's for the best.  It bothers me most when some cells have two or three plants, and other cells are empty.  Ugh!  We had that with some of our bell peppers, but we should still have plenty to plant.

Looking ahead, we are going to have to get at least the tomatoes planted in larger pots to allow them more space to grow.  The timing of this is going to be tricky.  I usually do the potting at the same time as we start hardening off outside.  With it still very cold (and snowing) outside, I'm wondering when the hardening off period will be.  There's not enough room under the grow lights in the greenhouse for all the potted plants, so if we have to pot before setting out, we'll have to get a little creative.

"Spring is here, a-suh-pah-ring is here... life is skittles, and life is beer..."

Yesterday was officially the first day of spring.  Overnight, the low was around 12 degrees, with a wind chill near zero!  There is snow in the forecast for Palm Sunday!  Absolutely crazy.  We were putting some seeds for hardy plants in the ground by this time last year.

Nicole took a couple of wonderful shots of our baby seedlings in the greenhouse the other night.  You can see tiny little true leaves forming on the tomatoes.  Exciting!

Unfortunately, we lost a few of our eggplants.  The way our greenhouse is set up, the bottom rack is near a floor register, and it's been so cold, our heat dried out the trays down on that rack much faster than we anticipated.  It's all watered now, and we should still have enough plants to put in the garden, but I'm glad I started some extras.

This weekend will be our last free one for a while.  I know we've got some projects we'd like to finish off, but I also want to make sure we at least get started on planning and building a new trellis for the north side of our new raised beds, and maybe one to replace the old, worn-out, chicken-wire one we have had on the north side of our old legacy garden for the past three years.  That's a pretty ambitious schedule for a "free" weekend.  Wish us luck!

The Greenhouse Effect

Our seedlings are coming along nicely in the greenhouse.  All of our tomatoes are up, along with the rue and thyme.  Our bell peppers (which got a bit of a head start over the rest of the plantings) are looking great, and even some of our eggplants and hot peppers have popped up, although those take a little longer to germinate.

The tomatoes are looking just a little bit leggy, so we're going to turn off the heat mat on that tray.  Otherwise, we are just keeping them well-watered and lit up about 16 hours a day and let them do their thing.  It's snowing again outside today, but it's like a little plant sauna under the plastic dome.  Grow, babies, grow!

Also, yesterday afternoon, we were looking out of the upstairs window at the snow-covered yard, and Nicole spotted some crocus pushing up grassy leaves out by the grill.  Snow or not, spring is on its way!

Think spring!

OK, so yes, it was snowing yesterday, but we still did some planting.   For the start of the 2013 gardening season, we started a number of seeds in our indoor greenhouse.  Actually, I'm cheating a little bit... I planted four varieties of bell peppers last weekend, but then forgot about them and didn't get the greenhouse set up.  Whoops.  Anyway, now, safely in the greenhouse on top of warming pads, we have the following seeds planted and ready to go:

• Bell Peppers (King Arthur, King of the North, Golden California Wonder, Orange)
• Sweet Peppers (Banana, NuMex Conquistador)
• Hot Peppers (Cayenne Purple, Jalmundo, Trinidad Scorpion)
• Eggplant (Pingtung Long)
• Cherry Tomatoes (Sweet Million)
• Plum Tomatoes (Opalka, Polish Linguisa)
• Herbs (Rue, Thyme)

Also, despite my week-long neglect, it appears I didn't hurt our bell peppers too much.  Several have popped up through the surface and are leafing out nicely.

So, I'm excited to get going this year.  We're still enjoying the fruits of our labors from last fall (we had friends over for games and Mexican last night, with refried beans made from our dried pintos!), but it'll be nice to have fresh-from-the-garden produce again.