Grow little basil and tomatoes grow!

The basil seedlings were started the earliest 3/8 and it looks pretty much the same as the earlier photos. Maybe a little bit bigger, but no real growth. I replanted the pepper and tomotoes on 3/24. The seedlings are now coming out but unlike the zucchinis they aren't growing as fast. But I guess it has only been 2 weeks so I need to be patient. It has been really cold in Baltimore, and I'm worried my seedlings are too cold. I have a CFL light on it, but no heating pad. I'm going to just wait to see what happens.I'm patiently and anxiously waiting for the true leaves to come out. Let's hope it comes soon.

Super sweet 100

Homestead tomato

Pepper plant...do you see the seedling on the top left...?

 

 

It is a little heart! so cute:)

Transplanting zucchinis

We had a really warm day today, it was absolutely beautiful (though I was in the office all day). I wanted show how my tomato seedlings were doing, but the zucchinis are taking off and I felt I needed to tend to them first (my mom did all the work). The roots on these seedlings were amazing! They look like they are doing really well.Hopefully they will continue to be happy.

See the roots?

They ripped through the paper pot!

In their new home.

Starting seeds, take 2

I started the zucchinis on 3/19. They are doing quite well...and as of today (4/3) I am starting to see the "true" leaves coming out. I should really start thinking about transferring them to a bigger pot.

Looks like a green Donald Duck

You can see it peaking through

zucchinis gone wild!

Compared to all the other seedlings, these guys are really strong looking. I feel bad thinning any of them out...however, survival of the fittest. I must choose the strongest in each pot. Maybe I will wait a couple of days.

Seedlings and the first mistake(s)

   I got some seeds to start seedlings indoors. I went with the pictures on the little packages, but probably should have done some research to see which ones would be good for the weather in this region. The seeds I got were: (Ferry~Morse) peas, homestead tomato, (Burpee) genovese basil, sweet basil, sweet chinese giant peppers, supersweet 100 hybrid and zucchini.
     The first set of seeds were started on March 8th. I made little newpaper pots, got some seed starting soil. First lessen learned, you should mix water into the soil before adding to the pot because the seeds soil is real fluffy and repels water. Anyhow, I started the basil (Genovese), peppers and hybrid 100s. It was placed in a windowsill...and 10 days later this is what I saw:

Pepper seedlings

Basil..so cute

Basil, zoomed out

The basil looked OK, but the peppers look....alfalfa-y and all wrong. I did a little google search and it seems that I didn't have enough light. So I decided to scratch the peppers and start over again. Oh, and the tomatoes never came out - maybe too cold?

The beginning

Last fall, I went to an upick farm to get tomatoes to make sauce. It was pretty late in the season but we were able to harvest almost 30lbs of roma tomatoes. The taste of these tomatoes was nothing like the ones you get at the store – so sweet and fresh.  My friend and I spent the whole afternoon making tomato sauce. It was definitely well worth the effort!

This experience has led me to my decision to start a vegetable garden on my porch. There is a lot of information out there on urban vegetable gardening – in containers.  I plan to grow tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, peas , and basil. I am a complete novice so my plan is ambitious, but I like to aim high! The goal this year is to do whatever I can to make this project successful so that I will continue my garden in the years to come.