First Seedlings Are Up!

Leek and Onion Seedlings 1 Week After Planting

Woooooh, what a difference in our seed-starting over last year after only one week. We decided to heat the room they are in to 70°F, instead of leaving it at about 60°F as we did last year. Onions and leeks were up in 3 days and a fair number of tomatoes are up after 5 or 6 days. No signs of chiles yet, but it looks like one or two eggplants will be up in the next day or 2. Also, all 3 types of celery are showing signs of rooting, and we expect to see some green in the next few days. What a difference 10° makes. Not to mention not watering them with salt water, *hem, hem* as we did last year when we used water from our deep well. Peppers and tomatoes in particular did not care for that. Celery and asparagus, which originally came from Mediterranean marshes handled it better. But, still.

We are already dealing with the fact that we put 2 seeds in each cell because, hey! What if one of them doesn't germinate? Of course both of them do and then one of them has to be culled. Mr. Ferdzy in particular has a hard time with this concept. So, they are going to be separated and re-potted and cause great crowding in the seed starting shelf, not to mention later in the garden. Maybe we can have a plant sale later in the spring, assuming no catastrophies between now and then. Apart from everything getting lank and weedy because they weren't expected to come up for another week at least and so have been planted too early.

I should also mention that posting is likely to be somewhat light around here for the next few weeks, for a variety of reasons. First, I really need to go on a diet (to lose some weight, which means less food being cooked and eaten) and also I need to go on a diet (to try and heal up some digestive problems, which means fewer - way fewer - types of foods being cooked and eaten). Combine this with the fact that I have posted over 600 recipes since this blog began and it's getting harder to not repeat myself, and also with the fact that March and April are the hardest months for eating Ontario-grown food, aaaannnnd that I have committed myself to trying to get the basement guest room painted this week, well, I think it's pretty clear that something has to give and that the something is blogging. I'll try and get one or two things up per week, but we'll see. Back, I hope, soon.