The official start to my 2011 gardening season was January 21. That was the day that I cleaned off (most of) my garage planting table and located the 50 cell plug flats that I use for pretty much all of my seed starting. With some fresh MetroMix 360 in hand, it was time to plant!
I keep lots of records - in notebooks, in Excel spreadsheets, and in my head. One thing I did a few weeks ago was to look back on last year - when did I start seeds, transplant and then plant out - and how well (or not well) it went. My plan this year is to try to do everything from a little to a lot earlier - thinking that if I can get my tomatoes planted by April 1 (instead of last year's May 21!), a much better yield of fruit should be achievable....I can beat the heat, and even perhaps the onset of disease. We shall see...
But I am getting ahead of myself. It is too soon to start tomatoes. My modest planting on January 21 was cool blooming flowers, just to see how they will do. So I seeded three types of Pansies (St. Tropez mix, Stokes Giant Exhibition mix, and Panola mix), one type of Snapdragons (Ribbon mix), one type of Sweet Pea (Explorer mix) and Oleander seeds that I collected from dried pods while on vacation at Ocracoke last fall.
As I type this on January 30, germination went very well for the Pansies and Snapdragons....the Sweet Peas are coming along, and it is too soon to see signs of life from the Oleander.
There is more growing in front of the window, on heat mats, in my office - but I'll tell you about that in a future blog entry.
I keep lots of records - in notebooks, in Excel spreadsheets, and in my head. One thing I did a few weeks ago was to look back on last year - when did I start seeds, transplant and then plant out - and how well (or not well) it went. My plan this year is to try to do everything from a little to a lot earlier - thinking that if I can get my tomatoes planted by April 1 (instead of last year's May 21!), a much better yield of fruit should be achievable....I can beat the heat, and even perhaps the onset of disease. We shall see...
But I am getting ahead of myself. It is too soon to start tomatoes. My modest planting on January 21 was cool blooming flowers, just to see how they will do. So I seeded three types of Pansies (St. Tropez mix, Stokes Giant Exhibition mix, and Panola mix), one type of Snapdragons (Ribbon mix), one type of Sweet Pea (Explorer mix) and Oleander seeds that I collected from dried pods while on vacation at Ocracoke last fall.
As I type this on January 30, germination went very well for the Pansies and Snapdragons....the Sweet Peas are coming along, and it is too soon to see signs of life from the Oleander.
There is more growing in front of the window, on heat mats, in my office - but I'll tell you about that in a future blog entry.
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