Tomatoes Have Sprouted and are Growing!

So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. - 1 Corinthians 3:7

On Saturday, January 7th I planted tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.  I try as best as I can to start my seeds early and get a jump on the pests like stink bug that wreak havoc on my tomatoes each year. Most of the nine varieties of tomatoes that I planted have leaped up out of the soil starting mix and have a long spindly stalk with two leaves.  They aren't the first true leaves, though.  Those will be coming pretty soon.

As far as germination is concerned, we achieved 99% germination on 8 of the nine varieties.  My Valencia 749 Yellow tomatoes' germination rate was 0%.  These were seeds that I saved from the 2012 crop.  They were beautiful yellow tomatoes, but the seeds are old now and I'll likely just plant the rest of them this fall to see if ANY will come up.

I planted two seeds in each seed pot, so far most varieties I have 8 seedlings.  They look healthy so far. Once they sprout I move the flats under a grow light - it is nothing fancy.  It is a 4 foot shop light with two fluorescent bulbs in it.

I have the tomato plants growing under the grow light on top of the cabinets in the utility room.  I find that because hot air rises, it is a nice warm spot during the winter that is also out of the way.  Parenthetically, it is not crucial right now that the tomatoes are in a warm spot being that it is late January and it was in the upper 70's yesterday.

My peppers and eggplant have not sprouted yet with an exception of the giant jalapenos on the far right.  I'm not worried about it, though, as peppers and eggplants sprout a bit later than tomatoes.  Once these sprout, I'll move them under the light with the tomato seedlings.  Obviously seeds that haven't sprouted yet don't require sunlight.

We will nurture the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant until they are ready to transplant into the garden. One other thing to look forward to is that we're a little less than a month away from purchasing seed potatoes and getting them planted in the garden.