Saturday, March 20, 2010

Welcome Spring!

It's the equinox, and I celebrated by spending most of the day in the nursery with the babies. In fact, I started a whole bunch more babies! The peppers were on schedule to start today, but according to my chart tomatoes aren't due until April 2nd. But I figured a)everybody's doing it and b)I was up there anyway with potting mix all over me and c)it disturbed my sense of symmetry to have 5 trays instead of six. So I went for it. I hope they will appreciate the extra couple weeks to get started. I also hope they will not punish me with legginess. It's my worst fear.
Anyhow, starting heirloom tomato seeds feels like very important work. When you have an envelope of 10 tiny seeds, you have to be extra careful and make sure any extras go back in the envelope instead of all over the floor, like the kohlrabhi did. I am a little concerned that anything else I may start out of this potting mix will have a dose of kohlrabhi in with it. The seeds spilled out the bottom of the envelope onto the floor and into the potting mix bag. Murphy's Law style.
Aside from that little mishap, the day was delightful. I listened to Rhapsody's "Big Hair" radio while I planted, and I hope the babies appreciated the Motley Crue and Accept as much as I did.
After everybody was planted, I spent another half hour with the radio making a seed starting spreadsheet. Oh, excel. I used to know how to use all of it's features but now I pretty much just use it to make charts. But oh, the charts! Love it.

This photo captures not even HALF of the spreadsheet. I have thus far planted 56 varieties of vegetables. This is insanity for two people, but I plan to use a lot of the produce at the restaurant. So not sooooooo crazy. And, I am keeping in mind the reality that not everything will succeed. So having a few backup varieties is not a bad idea. Still. I feel a little nuts.
Here's how it's looking so far:


Everybody gets rotated between the grow lights and the sunny window. The early sprouters got first dibs on the spring sunshine today!

Tune in to the next post to meet them!

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