2011 Vegetable Seeds

Well I haven't posted on the blog in an exactly a year plus a day. So I guess I should update it. I started my tomato seeds on March 6th. They are growing well. They were repotted on the 18th and buried deeper in larger pots. I am growing Black Krim (doing the best), Sioux, Super Marzano Paste, Sweet Snack Cherry as well as Virginia Sweet which came free with my order from Tomato Growers Supply. I tried a new system this year. I bought the Burpee Ultimate Growing System. While the idea is solid the execution leaves a bit to be desired. The system is "self watering"; however the materials they use are cheap, flimsy plastic. Mine had hole in it when I bought it, apparently, but I didn't realize it until I had planted my seeds and added water. This of course made returning the damn thing a bit tricky. On the upside the coconut coir works much better than expected, as a matter of fact I purchased a block of the stuff at Home Depot that makes 8 quarts of planting medium. It holds moisture very well. While I was disappointed with the quality of materials used in the system, I wouldn't go so far as to not recommend it, but it only gets 2.5 out of 5 stars. For $20 the materials could have been much better.

Started Tomato and some flower seeds

I started 4 varieties of tomato plant on March 13. I went with the peat pots this year as opposed to the newspaper pots because I got sick of transplanting them to larger pots last year. I started Pineapple, Box Car Willy, Sugar Snack, and Victoria Hybrid. They've germinated and are about an inch tall on average, but have not yet gotten their first true set of leaves.

Today I started a bunch of Marigolds and Johhny Jump Ups. I did use the newspaper pots for the Johhny Jump Ups, but the same peat pots I used for Tomatos for the Marigolds. I saved the seed from the Marigolds last year and have no idea what variety they were, but we were impressed by the size of the blooms.