Seed Starting Has Begun

Today, to the steady drumming of snowmelt off the roof, I started a slew of seeds in the greenhouse, pretty much until I ran out of seedling starter mix (need more finished compost, as usual). I started the ground cherries, tomatillos, basil, some kale, and most of the tomatoes. To my horror, I found an old Sungold seed packet and realized that they're hybrids, and the seed I saved from last year probably won't breed true. Argh! I actually remember discussing this last year, and somehow, I just plain forgot this year. So I went and bought more. At the same time, I'm curious. What will come up if I plant those seeds? Sounds like a fun experiment to me.

So, started today:

• Mountain Magic tomato
• Grandma's Pick tomato
• Amish Paste tomato
• Juliet tomato
• Koralik tomato
• Golden Treasure tomato
• Longkeeper tomato
• ... hey, I forgot the Brandywines!
• Aunt Molly's ground cherry
• De Milpa tomatillo
• Aroma basil - this is from saved seed, and Aroma may be a hybrid, too, so that'll be interesting...
• Sweet Thai basil
• Lemon basil
• Winterbor kale - only had enough soil for about half of these

The tomatoes and tomatillos are on heating mats because they won't germinate if the soil temp. falls below 65 degF. It is considerably less expensive to heat two starter trays to 65 degF than the entire greenhouse. I really should put the basil on mats, too, but I only have two mats. Which makes me wonder if I should buy more... Well, I managed with only two last year. Let's see how this year goes. As it is, I'm going to have to wait for this batch to germinate before I start the two forgotten tomatoes and all the peppers and eggplants.

I ordered the sungolds from Territorial Seed as Johnny's was all sold out. I also bought a bunch more cover crop seed, inspired by this Slate article. I got arugula, mesclun, radicchio, and an interesting variety called New Zealand Spinach, which isn't actually spinach but sort of tastes like it. Maybe I'll have better luck with it than regular spinach, which I've never successfully grown in New England. It's apparently quite high in vitamin C, so if it grows well outside, I may try it in the greenhouse during the winter.

The weather report has improved, thank goodness. Instead of raining all week, it looks like we'll only get rain tomorrow and Wednesday. Unfortunately, the lovely high-40s-low-50s temperature we're enjoying will dip back down to high-30s-low-40s. But if we get some good sun, the garden should be free of snow and dry enough to plant peas and greens on Saturday.