Seed Starts for the Fall Garden

Last year I got the fall garden off to a late start.  This year, while still a little late, I'm earlier than last year so that is a plus.  The eight different varieties of heirloom tomatoes were all planted by seed on July 27th.  We've taken good care of them and even brought them on vacation with us.  Here are the seedlings enjoying the balcony overlooking the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

And here are some of them a few weeks later.  Since the photo above, I've re-potted them in coffee cups and they've grown by leaps and bounds.  I was going to transplant them into the ground this weekend, but in listening to weather reports, they are predicting > 20 inches of rainfall for our area due to Tropical Storm Harvey.  I don't think it is a good idea to put the tomatoes in the ground yet.

• In checking my vegetable planting guide, I noticed it was time to get my cole crops planted.  I filled some seed pots with seed started mix and planted several different types of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and brussels sprouts.  I'll let them grow out for a bit on the back patio and then transplant them into larger containers before putting them in the ground.

It doesn't take long in these tropical conditions for the seeds in the moistened medium to sprout.

I leave them under the patio as I don't want them to dry out and die in the summer sun.  I have to move them day by day as they get long and leggy reaching for the sun.

Over the next month, we'll really kick things into gear getting the fall garden worked up and in shape. One change is this: we won't be planting a fall crop of potatoes as our spring crop was such a bumper crop, we still have a large inventory of potatoes put away.  We'll be harvesting sweet potatoes in the next month or so, and if the vines are any indication of the success of the crop beneath the soil, we'll have a nice inventory of sweet potatoes as well.  We'll keep posting on the fall garden progress.