If someone walked into my kitchen after lunch today they would have found me crouched over seeding trays, an open bag of seed-starting mix spilling out onto a tarp covering half the floor, and tomato packets everywhere. The unreliable (or reliably cold) weather had me move my tomato propagation inside... and into my bedroom. Yes, for the next week or so I will be sleeping next to flats of Stupice, Early Girl, Dagma's Perfection, and Red Brandywine until the first cotyledons appear. The optimum soil temperature for tomato seeds to germinate is at least 50 degrees, and preferably higher. With ambient nighttime temperatures still in the high thirties, it seemed a safer bet to start them in a heated room. After germination, I will transfer the seedlings (currently in flats of 72 cells) to a mini-cloche inside my greenhouse. Eventually they will be "potted up" into 4-inch pots - but that is a long ways away. Right now I am happy enough to have the seeds starting on their journey.
In the greenhouse the first trays of kale, chard, broccoli, and cabbage were laid out a few days ago. Lettuce is soon to follow. I am thankful for the donation of a rubber heat mat from my friend Myla which will encourage and speed up seed germination. Since it only fits two trays at a time, I am rotating seeding flats from covered plastic (a mini-cloche, or the "greenhouse within a greenhouse" idea which just adds an extra few degrees of insulation) to the heat mat and back again.
The spinach I sowed in the greenhouse beds is coming up, and the sight of something growing that is not a grass or weed is quite a welcome one. I need at least one bed outside to dry out enough to transplant some storage onion starts that have been patiently waiting to go in the ground. Hopefully the sun forecasted for Thursday and Friday will hold true. Even just a day or two without rain would be enough. I'll try not to hold my breath.
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