Some of the last-started tomatoes. This was a first-time experiment with starting toms in 200-cell plug trays, also, starting as close to last frost date as seemed reasonable. You can get a lot going in a little space, but they won’t fit in there for long. (Gotta admit, this photo’s a bit of a placeholder in my post-a-day plan. With the sudden fantastic weather, and my first full-time all-around helper in the garden just arrived—energetic, enthusiastic, no microfarming experience—I was totally immersed in fieldwork and FORGOT TO SNAP a slice of today’s main action. Tomorrow’s another day!)
tomato
Seedlings aplenty
It’s getting crowded on the grow racks and under the four-light fixture tucked away behind (busier than one month ago). Going now, there’s tomato, pepper, eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, bok choi, chives, parsley, plus more to be started in the next couple of days. Right now, around 2,500 seedlings in all. The plug trays on the top shelves are 200-cell. In a couple of weeks they’ll have to be potted up to larger quarters, and depending on what size I go to, will take up 5x to 10x more space. There are also a few 128s, and even in 72s, the earliest plantings need to be moved up. Already, the light is stretched. The shoplight fixtures are really only good for two trays apiece. I’d gambled on a much warmer April so I could use the unheated greenhouse. Now, I’ll have to spot heat with the propane construction heater, which is a bit of a pain since it has no thermostat—night work. To keep everything reasonably stocky, not stretched or stunted, there’s a lot of juggling coming up! It’s great!!
Juliet’s a fine tomato!
The first tray of tomatoes is coming along nicely: Juliet (the fine saladette hybrid in the pic) and Striped German (a beautiful, big, bi-color heirloom), as unlike each other as can be, both in my top five all-around tomato picks of the last couple of years. I started this set early as a risk crop: if the weather looks at all promising, I’ll get them in the field in early May with row cover, and maybe gain a week or two on the “safe” last frost date (May 18). Hundreds of the earliest seedlings are at that stage where they have a few leaves now and are about to really shoot up! (On the lettuce-and-mouse front, no action with the traps I set out last night, and no more lettuce casualties: maybe the heady new smell of PEANUT BUTTER startled them off…for a while, at least.)
Fuller share
By mid-August, the CSA shares are nearing their peak. Here we have eggplant, carrots (including a new purple addition, Purple Haze), onions, beets, potatoes, yellow beans, summer squash, tomatoes, rosemary, plus salad mix out of sight. Still waiting on melons, winter squash, main season broccoli, fall cauliflower. And there’s more! :)
To the greenhouse
Tomato, eggplant and pepper seedlings heading out from the Milkhouse (seedling room) to the unheated hoophouse for some real sunlight and a taste of the harsher field conditions, before transplant time in a couple of weeks. The small riding mower does double duty, mowing the paths and ferrying around seedlings, tools, harvests.
Hundreds of seedlings
Some of over a thousand little tomatoes, eggplant and peppers living it up, warm, well-watered and basking under the fluorescent light, in the comfort of the seedling room. Fluorescents as a plant light source don’t hold a candle to the Sun, but in the cold of early Spring, they do the trick.